D&D (2024) What would change for you if Wizards started calling it 6E?

[HammerMan]

Why are people upset about differences between the 2014 and 2024 books? Didn't players cross mix stuff from 2E, 1E, and before back in the day??

This is the best example of why I think it’s a new edition in late 80s early 90s I got the 2e PHB and we had to teach ourselves how to play. It was 94ish before I met anyone who had played 1e. However once I did I found many of them that brought over ideas and concepts (the assassin the monk and the half orc) you know what none of them ever did. None of them handed me a 1e PHB and said “just use this” they all had their own house rule/homebrew version of 2e monk.
3e brought back monk and half orc and introduced assassin as a prestige class. However then the thing I started to hear about was 1e rangers had arcane and divine spells.
It was around the 2nd ish year of 3e that I even saw a 1e PHB. And when I read it I understood why no one just ported monk or half orc 1 for 1.
I also had friends I made at con’s who during 3e era still played 1e. Some of them took ideas from 2e and even 3e into 1 e but none just took pages right out of either PHB and handed those out as “use this”

Looking at the playtest I see the same thing. There WILL be people who cross them but over time it will be less and less. By 2026 I have no doubt that talking on here about pact magic will be relocated to “legacy gaming” not “current gaming”

Now some people want to play word games and say that isn’t an editon change but a rose by any other name still smells like a rose.

 

[HammerMan]

I think plenty of folks, including Jeremy Crawford, have explained exactly why it matters: in the history of D&D, the publication of a new "edition" meant that you, the consumer, had a decision to make: whether to stick with the old one or switch to the new, at considerable expense of both time and money. This created a natural jumping off point for many people and splintered the D&D player base, which persists to this day (c.f. this forum). So they want to get rid of that model, and doing so means getting rid of the word "edition."

My honest belief is that this new game PHB will do the same just without the benfit of having the title of a new edition

 

[DEFCON 1]

If people don't move, they don't move. So what? No one is saying (general) you have to switch, no one is saying running a game with the 2014 books is going to be wrong once the 2024E books come out. No one cares what (general) you do with your game.

You know who does care? YOU do.

(General) You're the one who gets their ego bruised when the game "leaves you behind". (General) You are the one who has this fear that you will be unable to find players to play the version of the game you want because everyone else is playing the new version. (General) You are the one who needs the game to fit your style of play as-is... because heaven forbid it be "too much work" to adapt the new game to the style you want to play.

"It's going to be so much work to incorporate the parts of 2014E I love into a new 2024E game!" Yeah? And? So it's going to be a lot of work. But what's your other option? NOT using the stuff from 2014E that you love in a 2024E game because you're too lazy to do it? Or NOT switching to the new books but then constantly whining that you can't find anyone to play with? Any of that kind of stuff? But here's the thing... why should any of us (including Wizards of the Coast) care about these self-inflicted issues you have? You don't feel like you can run the game you want because you can't be bothered to find players for it? Okay. But we don't care. You feel like the almighty gaming community has abandoned you because you have an idiosyncratic belief of what gaming should be and now you're "all alone"? Okay. Too bad for you. Deal with it. You think that your needs trump the needs of everyone else in the gaming community (including the designers of the D&D game) and that the game should be exactly what you want it to be so that you don't have to change? Tough. This game isn't here for (general) you. Not you specifically. It's for potentially everybody. And you either go along with it if being part of the "current community" matters that much to you... or you just BE HAPPY and continue to play the game you want to play and to hell with everybody else.

Do yourself a favor. Leave your ego behind. If you have a way you want to play... then just play it. And convince your friends or go find new friends that will agree with you on how you want to play. There are millions of potential players out there-- get off your duff and go find them if you just absolutely, positively HAVE to play D&D in the exact way you wish to, even if almost everyone else is now playing something different.

 

[codo]

I think it's been explained: right now, the naming can be bit confusing, especially since the books are supposed to be mostly but not entirely similar and you can supposedly use them both at the same time--but how practical will that actually be? You know there's going to be people comparing every single thing in the books, trying to find out which version is "best," and that's going to lead to some Frankenstein characters.

If WotC straight-up said that this was 6e (or 5.5, or 5e Essentials, or anything like that), it would be less confusion because people can easily compartmentalize the books that way, even if 6e and 5e were compatible in the way that 2e and 1e were compatible).

If a group has fun playing overpowered characters, and min-max using both books to create them, let them. Why do you care how they play?
If your group doesn't like it, they don't need to use both. It is all just up to the individual group.

Really it is just a group trust issue. It is only a problem if you group can't agree on which to use. However if your group can't actually come to a consensus, you probably have bigger issues in the first place, because all of the players aren't looking for the same thing out of the game, and just have different playstyles.

Probably the biggest thing I have learned over the years playing rpgs is that trying to use the rules to force a solution to what is ultimate a player or playstyle issue is doomed to failure.

 

[Faolyn]

If a group has fun playing overpowered characters, and min-max using both books to create them, let them. Why do you care how they play?
If your group doesn't like it, they don't need to use both. It is all just up to the individual group.

I didn't say I'd care or that it's bad. People can powergame to their heart's content. But you will get people making characters that are blended from both rule sets, which is going to have weird or bad effects at the table if the table isn't careful enough to say which version is going to be used ahead of time. Especially if there turns out to be elements that are significantly (or at least mechanically) different enough. It's going to be a pain in the butt for a GM to go through both sets of books to determine which version they want or if they're OK with both versions being used at the same time.

It'll be like this:

Only serious.

 

[codo]

I didn't say I'd care or that it's bad. People can powergame to their heart's content. But you will get people making characters that are blended from both rule sets, which is going to have weird or bad effects at the table if the table isn't careful enough to say which version is going to be used ahead of time. Especially if there turns out to be elements that are significantly (or at least mechanically) different enough. It's going to be a pain in the butt for a GM to go through both sets of books to determine which version they want or if they're OK with both versions being used at the same time.

It'll be like this:

View attachment 286719
Only serious.

But if a group wants to play that way why do you care? It fun sometimes to play brokenly overpowered characters, let them.

What exactly is the problem in your Order of the stick comic? If the group prefers the 3.0 fly spell, why not let them use it? The worst thing that can happen is you need to have a 5 minute conversation to clear up any issues. Groups almost always have different house rules. Trying to use the rules to force consistency between groups is a harmful and pointless endeavor

99% of all the concerns I see about potential confusion can easily be solves by the group just talking to each other and deciding what they want. If a group can't even talk to each other and make a decision for the group, you have much bigger problems than the new rules.

 

[Justice and Rule]

But if a group wants to play that way why do you care? It fun sometimes to play brokenly overpowered characters, let them.

What exactly is the problem in your Order of the stick comic? If the group prefers the 3.0 fly spell, why not let them use it? The worst thing that can happen is you need to have a 5 minute conversation to clear up any issues. Groups almost always have different house rules. Trying to use the rules to force consistency between groups is a harmful and pointless endeavor

99% of all the concerns I see about potential confusion can easily be solves by the group just talking to each other and deciding what they want. If a group can't even talk to each other and make a decision for the group, you have much bigger problems than the new rules.

This entire argument works the other way, where if a group wants to do that, they can just ignore the edition change and add it in. The difference is that in an edition change, the group doesn't need to talk about what they want to resolve which kinds of classes they are using: they are just using the 2024 ones. If someone is knowledgeable enough to want to pull back a 2014 version, then they can do this. It's just much, much simpler.

 

[mamba]

I didn't say I'd care or that it's bad. People can powergame to their heart's content. But you will get people making characters that are blended from both rule sets, which is going to have weird or bad effects at the table if the table isn't careful enough to say which version is going to be used ahead of time.

if it isn’t bad and you don’t care, then why even bring it up?

So what if people at different tables decide differently. It’s not like this even needs much discussion (which is not the same as no one having one, we can see this already…). Option 1) everyone uses 2024 spells, option 2) each char uses the spells of their version (2014 vs 2024). No mixing beyond that. That will cover just about everyone, and if some player somewhere wants to try to game the system by picking and choosing the best parts across both versions, no one is under any obligation to let them do so - and even if they do let them, we are back to ‘so what, I don’t care’…

 

[mamba]

This entire argument works the other way, where if a group wants to do that, they can just ignore the edition change and add it in. The difference is that in an edition change, the group doesn't need to talk about what they want to resolve which kinds of classes they are using: they are just using the 2024 ones. If someone is knowledgeable enough to want to pull back a 2014 version, then they can do this. It's just much, much simpler.

that is just as simple with the same edition and a revision. The group decides what their baseline is, done. No different for 2014 vs 2024 than 5e vs 5.5

 

[Faolyn]

But if a group wants to play that way why do you care? It fun sometimes to play brokenly overpowered characters, let them.

What exactly is the problem in your Order of the stick comic? If the group prefers the 3.0 fly spell, why not let them use it? The worst thing that can happen is you need to have a 5 minute conversation to clear up any issues. Groups almost always have different house rules. Trying to use the rules to force consistency between groups is a harmful and pointless endeavor

99% of all the concerns I see about potential confusion can easily be solves by the group just talking to each other and deciding what they want. If a group can't even talk to each other and make a decision for the group, you have much bigger problems than the new rules.

I think you're missing the point. Which is, sure, you can have a conversation--and every group should have conversations about things like this--but nobody is going to be able to go over every single tiny difference, and quite frankly, not every group is going to have that sort of conversation. Not every group is going to realize that that sort of discussion is needed. There's probably going to be groups where people don't even realize they're working from a different book than everyone else at the table. Assuming it is a table, and not a game that you're getting in with strangers online via discord or zoom or whatever where the group hasn't learned how to work with each other and everyone has different expectations.

And it's made worse by the fact that '14 and '24 are, supposedly, the same edition and are, supposedly, able to be used together. If WotC had, as I said, called it 6e or 5.5 or 5e Essentials or given some other clear divide, it would be much easier to state what version you're using.