D&D (2024) We’ll be merging the One D&D and D&D forums shortly

[Chaosmancer]

I find it humorous that you think I hate 5.5e and want it to fail.

It is an improvement. I want it to succeed, because that at least offers the tiniest, minutest glimmer of hope that maybe someday, things I actually like in gaming will get official support in D&D again, rather than being actively mocked by the designers while they're designing the game.

I am glad you support the game. But how well do you think "Play this game so that an actually good game might get made one day" is going to work to convince people to pick up these rules?

It doesn't sound like a pitch that is going to gain a lot of traction to me.

 

[Mirrorrorrim]

I don’t particularly care what we call the new books other than anything other than 5e because 5e is already a thing and they are not what we already have.

5e revised. 6e. 5.5e. 2024e. 5e 2024. 5e 50th anniversary revision. But they will never be just 5e. That designation is reserved for the 2014 edition of the books.

I disagree. The "edition name" doesn't need to change. Any confusion would be short-lived, or perpetuated by those who wish to perpetuate it for their own reasons. I would argue that calling it a different edition could even cause substantial damage to the Community. Calling it another edition will make some people think that it is different and incompatible, and that any content that came before 2024 (including 3rd party content) is for a different edition, and could hurt sales for compatible products.

The only thing that is really needed is for people to be able to differentiate the 3 same-named books from themselves, not the "edition." And that is very easy. In DDB, I expect 2014 content to get the "Legacy" tag. In the physical books, each playgroup will just determine what they want to use. If they choose one or the other, they will have little problem. For those who want to use options from both releases (2 different druids, for instance), they just need to mention which book they are using for that rule, not "edition."

As Monsters of the Multiverse and its companion books prove, just because a new book is released with updated/revised content, causing older content to be tagged as "Legacy" content, it does not make that content a different edition.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I don't know about the majority, but certainly a very vocal few. And its annoying, especially for a small number who seemed compelled to spam the same arguments across every thread discussing the new books. But that seems to have gotten a lot better.

I wan't the books to succeed and like what I've seen so far. Negativity is par for the course, however, in these kinds of online spaces. I don't expect everyone to have the same opinions and tastes that I do, and sometimes good and interesting points are raised by those holding different opinions. For those I don't find interesting, I don't engage. And for the occasional sea lion, I have the ignore feature.

I think you may be overstating the effect that arguments over nomenclature surrounding the new books will have. I don't think arguments over the what people "should" call the new rules that take place on gaming forums, YouTube, and other social media have much of an effect one way or another. I do think that it makes a lot of sense in terms of marketing for WotC to just use D&D in the branding. I went from "Basic D&D" to "Advanced D&D", left gaming and came back with 5e. I missed all the post WotC buyout edition wars and still find how the TTRPG community uses the word "edition" to be strange. Ultimately, I don't much care. I'll check out the new books when they are released and, if I like what I see, I'll buy them, whether WotC or the community uses "edition", "version", just "D&D", or "electric boogaloo".

Who knows. My guess is that there will be short period of people talking the new rules using a variety of terminology and the vast majority of players will soon just be saying D&D with the assumption of playing the newest rules, which will be baked into D&D Beyond and the WotC VTT. There will be diehard adherents to the 2014 rules for a variety of reasons and many of these players will make a point of using edition language to clarify that they prefer the older rules and some of them will be using it as coded language to indicate disfavor with the current rules.

Yeah, I largely agree with you. And I don't think we can escape all the negativity, but that vocal minority has, to me, poisoned the idea of 5.5e where I just can't imagine myself using the term.

 

[payn]

You would be amazed at the level of low information that a lot of people operate under. You have to really care to stay plugged into the constant Internet news feed for a topic. Lots of people don't care that much. They'll vote on election day without watching any of the debates. They'll buy the new video game expansion without doing more than maybe watch a single trailer. They'll wander into their FLGS and buy the new book because the guy in their group who is plugged in showed it off last game session.

We who frequent a forum and devour every preview and press release and playtest are the 1%. Most players are not like us.

Please. Folks act like there is no social media or an entire website devoted to D&D. Again, folks may not be privy to all the details, but its no mystery new products are on the horizon. Hell, everyone knew all about 4E when it launched and that was 16 years ago.

 

[Maxperson]

Objective means according to a standard outside of the subject. The naming history of D&D "editions" follows no rhyme nor reason, it's marketing BS all the way down. Moving away from Editions is less marketing BS and more "objective" than saying the 3E is the third "edition" of anything, because it is not. The fact thst you buy into the 3E abd 3.5 nomenclature is proof thwt WotC wil lbe able to get people to call the books just about anything they want.

Objective means factually true, which my claim is. It is factually true that the only official editions of D&D are 1e, 2e, 3e, 4e and 5e. It's entirely irrelevant if those names were a marketing BS or not. Their reasons for naming the editions the way that they did doesn't matter. It only matters that 1) they named their editions sequentially, and 2) by doing so they completely ignored the industry standard which they are not required to follow.

The industry standard quite simply doesn't matter when trying to figure out how many editions of D&D were made by the company.

 

[Maxperson]

Yes, exactly, that's why WotC is designing their product sound that low information status: hence the hyperfocus on interoperability.

Not if they don't make it easy to understand the difference. If they name it only D&D, or anything other than some version of 5e that isn't just 5e, it will cause confusion as those low information people don't know that it's the same edition. Revised 5e would work to avoid that confusion, as it still has 5e there.

 

[Parmandur]

Not if they don't make it easy to understand the difference. If they name it only D&D, or anything other than some version of 5e that isn't just 5e, it will cause confusion as those low information people don't know that it's the same edition. Revised 5e would work to avoid that confusion, as it still has 5e there.

No, not really. As long as they make it clear that it works with all books currently on the shelf, loudly and clearly marked, no reason gor any confusion. Which they have been doing

 

[Parmandur]

Objective means factually true, which my claim is. It is factually true that the only official editions of D&D are 1e, 2e, 3e, 4e and 5e. It's entirely irrelevant if those names were a marketing BS or not. Their reasons for naming the editions the way that they did doesn't matter. It only matters that 1) they named their editions sequentially, and 2) by doing so they completely ignored the industry standard which they are not required to follow.

The industry standard quite simply doesn't matter when trying to figure out how many editions of D&D were made by the company.

It is a historical fact that first TSR and then WotC butchered normal naming Conventions, absolutely. Hence why they have abandoned the corpse and are just calling the game "Dungeons & Drahons" moving forward.

 

[Maxperson]

It is a historical fact that first TSR and then WotC butchered normal naming Conventions, absolutely. Hence why they have abandoned the corpse and are just calling the game "Dungeons & Drahons" moving forward.

That's a lot of chutzpah calling 46 years of D&D edition names dead. The "normal" naming conventions don't matter. A company can name their product whatever they want without it being "dead." I also very strongly doubt that the reason for the name change was that they and TSR didn't follow the standard naming conventions. Far more likely they have another reason for it. Do you have an article or something where they say that's the reason?

 

[Maxperson]

No, not really. As long as they make it clear that it works with all books currently on the shelf, loudly and clearly marked, no reason gor any confusion. Which they have been doing

What they have been doing is apples to 5.5e's oranges. They haven't had to clarify yet since everything put out relates to 5e and it's current core books. Putting out new core books with a new name strongly implies a new edition. That WILL cause confusion.