D&D 5E Using "D&D 2024" instead of "5e24"

[SlyFlourish]

I've seen more use of the phrase "5e24" to identify the 2024 revisions to the D&D 5th edition core books. I get it. It's nice and pithy and easy to type.

But I think it's inaccurate. Instead, I propose using "D&D 2024" or something similar for referencing the upcoming D&D core book revisions.

Why does this matter?

There's a huge wealth of awesome 5th edition material already out and coming out in 2024 that isn't coming from Hasbro under the D&D brand. Tales of the Valiant from Kobold Press and C7D20 from Cubicle 7 are two examples, but we already have systems like A5e and certainly we'll see new 5e material from many publishers in the new year.

One major problem I frequently see is people overweighting Hasbro's influence to the overall hobby. No doubt D&D is huge – orders of magnitude bigger than the next most popular systems. But that doesn't matter once someone is in the hobby. At that point, any 5e products from any publisher are just as potentially valuable as any others. When two books are on your table, it doesn't matter how many copies sold for one over the other. Good books are good books.

I've seen many who, being vexed at Hasbro swore off not only D&D but all of 5e. That's not needed. One can play 5e for the rest of one's life without needing any material from any single company.

5e is an open platform now – like Linux. There are many flavors and we can choose, mix, and match our own version of 5e we run at our own table.

I love 5e. It's my favorite TTRPG system. And I'm really glad I can play it without having it's future dictated by the whims of any single company.

But when we say things like "5e24" instead of "D&D 2024" we're giving authority to one company and discouting the incredible work of many others for this wide open hobby.

I don't expect everyone to follow my path on this. But I thought I might try to do my part to help keep 5e strong regardless of what any one company decides to do with their variant of the system.

 

[R_J_K75]

Why does this matter?

To me it doesn't matter, I doubt I'll be investing in this iteration. If it was an actually a new edition I would. But the fact that they aren't giving it an official name that I heard of really confuses things, does it actually have an official name at this point?

 

[Morrus]

'5e24' has slipped right under my radar! I've not come across that term myself.

I agree with the premise that there's a meaningful difference between '5E' and 'D&D' -- the latter is the official branded game from WotC, while the former is the overall game system, including variants and supporting products made by third parties. Generally I use 5E to mean the overall hobby of playing... well, 5E... and D&D to refer to WotC's own 5E products.

I'm not sure how meaningful that difference is to most folks though. I'm a (small) publisher, so my perspective is probably skewed.

 

[Yalım]

My main issue here is that 5e24 (and 5.5e & DnD1) is already pretty long. 4 or 5 characters is about as long as i want to type before I call something by it's real name.

Even if it does Stick It To The Man a bit more, "D&D 2024" is a mouthful, and is  longer than WotC's "D&D One" brand name, so it's not a useful moniker.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

6E works well enough for me. Or 5.5.

 

[jgsugden]

I would prefer either: 5.5 or 6E. That is how it is being approached - as a "we need to buy new books and use the new rules if we want to be current" situation. That is either a half edition change, or a full edition change. Yes, we can reportedly mix old and new ... but we've heard that refrain before and they historically do not sacrifice improvement to preserve true backwards compatability. We'll have to wait for the new books to be released to actually know.

 

[bedir than]

If you want to reduce the influence of WotC, including their branding doesn't help.

5e24 works better than D&D2024/DnD24 because D&D is the branding, not the game

 

[Kurotowa]

5e24 works better than D&D2024/DnD24 because D&D is the branding, not the game

Agreed. I'd only just encountered this phrasing recently myself, but it'll probably stick. When you're talking about the current edition in general you can still say 5e, and when you're specifying between the two versions of the core books you can say 5e14 and 5e24. It's short, it's clear, and it's more accurate than saying 5.5e would be.

 

[Spectral Anomaly]

It doesn't really matter to me how people refer to it, but I fully expect to see something along the lines of "...the 2024 edition of the worlds greatest roleplaying game, and other compatible systems..." on products.

 

[Oofta]

I've been using 2024 edition of D&D, but yes it is additional typing. Maybe after the release I'll change my mind and call it a different edition but D&D 2024 works for me. I don't see it really affecting 3PP much at this point so that's just D&D.