D&D (2024) Specifying 5e

[Micah Sweet]

All of this is "5e", D&D the Fifth Edition. But when needing to specify versions, which do you prefer?

• 2024 v 2014 (the year the core rules published)
• 5.2 v 5.1 (the official names of the SRDs)
• 5.24 v 5.14 (blending decimal with year)
• 5.5 v 5.0 (using 3e as an analogy)
• 5e24 v 5e14 (5e with year)
• Other

I am wondering if a consensus is emerging. You can choose more than one option if you wish

I am sticking to 5.0/5.5. To me it encapsulates both the degree of difference and the publishing history (including my understanding if the reasons 5.5 was published as it is in the first place).

 

[TiQuinn]

5e and 5.5.

Shorter to type, rolls off the tongue easier, understandable.

 

[Tonguez]

Im tending to type 5e abd 5e24

 

[Lanefan]

Usually "other" - for consistency I use whatever terminology was used by the person I'm replying to.

For the whole lot in aggregate I use 5.x the same as we tend to use 3.x for the aggregate of that.

 

[DEFCON 1]

The short answer is yes. In versioning notation the dot is a delimiter, not a decimal.

But at least in 2003 they had the common courtesy to name the editions themselves, rather than forcing the community to do it. I feel extra spicy about it in 2025 because I pointed out that we would be doing this bit back in 2023 as a result of the nonexistent naming scheme for this edition/revision/smerp. 3.5e was successful communication, even if I didn't like the formatting.

Yeah, but then again... I suspect that from WotC's point of view the communication is fine because they are only ever going to be talking about 5E24, so there's no need to have a way to reference back to 5E14. As far as they are concerned, for anything they talk about, all that matters is the current game... which means just saying '5E' is still perfectly fine and indicates exactly what they are talking about. It's only us silly people on the internet messageboards and discords that have this need to compare and contrast the old to the new and thus are forced to create our own ways to distinguish the two versions with some sort of system. But that's on us. I bet WotC would be perfectly happy if all of us just stopped talking about 5E14 altogether and everything we said was just in reference to the new revised rules. Then we could all be saying '5E' still and everything would be fine.

 

[Corinnguard]

But that's on us. I bet WotC would be perfectly happy if all of us just stopped talking about 5E14 altogether and everything we said was just in reference to the new revised rules. Then we could all be saying '5E' still and everything would be fine

Perfectly happy? No such thing. We might do as they hoped and stopped talking about 5E14 altogether, but that wouldn't stop some of us from comparing and contrasting the newly revised rules with the 5E adjacent material. Some of which is likely to be better than the revised rules.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Perfectly happy? No such thing. We might do as they hoped and stopped talking about 5E14 altogether, but that wouldn't stop some of us from comparing and contrasting the newly revised rules with the 5E adjacent material. Some of which is likely to be better than the revised rules.

Heh, oh, of course. They know and we know we will never stop talking about 5E14 (or any of the previous editions for that matter.) But since they won't... there's less of a need for them to create distinguishing nomenclature for it. They did it with 3.5 because as I said further up... I think they knew they were doing that release for the money and they wanted to give even more reason to make people think buying the new core books was important. New name... possible consideration by some people that it's a new edition... more reason people will take from it to buy the new books.

But I've never gotten any impression that the 5E24 books were being done because of wanting/needing the cash flow. Rather, they did it both in honor of the 50th Anniversary, and because they merely had a number of issues with certain rules and certain proud nails and whatnot that they had been wanting to fix and revise at some point down the road (without trying to jam all of it into errata documents-- which is what they did with 4E much to many players resentment). Which is why they've always said that it's not a new game / new edition or whatever... it's just a revision and thus why they just stuck with their standard nomenclature I suspect. To them, it's the same game just with some fixes and a few added goodies and if people wish to buy the books fine... but if people don't, that also doesn't matter because all subsequent books being released will be able to be bought and used by players of both the old and new core books. So in the long run what people decide to do regarding their choice of 5E doesn't matter.

 

[DEFCON 1]

At the end of the day... these three new "core rulebooks" are nothing more than just three new books on their publishing schedule-- really no different than any other book they could have released in those slots. There's nothing inherently special about the 5E24 PH, DMG or MM that makes it more important that we in the audience buy them over any other adventure path book or setting book or whatever. If we don't buy any of these three books because we don't think we need them and will just stick with our 5E14 core books? Fine! After all... most of us aren't buying most of WotC's releases, so what different does it make to them if we skip out on the 5E24 Monster Manual just like we might have skipped out on buying the Journeys To The Radiant Citadel or Planescape books? Because now that we've past that publishing window, anything further they choose to release for 5E will still be able to be bought and used by all of us regardless of whether we are running 5E14 or 5E24. So switching or not switching does not help nor harm WotC going forward. We're all still their audience. We'll all still make choices on whether to buy a book they release. And we'll all still keep the idea of Dungeons & Dragons gaming alive going forward. And that's all they can ask for.

 

[SlyFlourish]

5e is the overarching open ruleset platform now. A bunch of games are built off of that platform including:

1. Level Up Advanced 5e (or A5E)
2. Tales of the Valiant (ToV)
3. 2014 D&D
4. 2024 D&D

It also has several system reference documents available under various licenses:

1. 5.1 SRD
2. 5.2 SRD
3. A5e SRD
4. Black Flag (or BF)

There are others as well. When I hear or say "5e" now, it's the ruleset I'm thinking about or discussing. Otherwise, if I'm talking about one particular implementation of that ruleset in a game – I use the nomenclature for that game.

That's how I see it, anyway.

More here:

What Is 5e?

The term 5e defines compatibility between the products of hundreds of publishers and the 2014 version of the Dungeons & Dragons tabletop roleplaying game – known as 5th edition D&D. In early 2023, Wiz...

slyflourish.com

 

[Micah Sweet]

Yeah, but then again... I suspect that from WotC's point of view the communication is fine because they are only ever going to be talking about 5E24, so there's no need to have a way to reference back to 5E14. As far as they are concerned, for anything they talk about, all that matters is the current game... which means just saying '5E' is still perfectly fine and indicates exactly what they are talking about. It's only us silly people on the internet messageboards and discords that have this need to compare and contrast the old to the new and thus are forced to create our own ways to distinguish the two versions with some sort of system. But that's on us. I bet WotC would be perfectly happy if all of us just stopped talking about 5E14 altogether and everything we said was just in reference to the new revised rules. Then we could all be saying '5E' still and everything would be fine.

I'm sure they rather we forget everything other than their current ruleset altogether and just call it D&D.