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

[mamba]

They've sworn up and down that you can keep using it. If they had faith in their designs and weren't so convinced people would stop buying their products, the new books would actually replace the old ones, if they really thought they were better.

they can be certain that the new ones are better and be certain that a not insignificant percentage of the player base will not switch regardless.

It has always been up to the players to decide whether they are replacing an old edition with a new one, or stick to the old edition. WotC is simply acknowledging this now and making sure that those staying with the old version are not abandoned.

new book full of new classes that do the same thing with the other PH material, and release it as a new starting point for 5e that you can use as an alternative to the PH.

Something like a "5e Essentials".

other than the name, that is what we get

 

[Micah Sweet]

they can be certain that the new ones are better and be certain that a not insignificant percentage of the player base will not switch regardless.

It has always been up to the players to decide whether they are replacing an old edition with a new one, or stick to the old edition. WotC is simply acknowledging this now and making sure that those staying with the old version are not abandoned.


other than the name, that is what we get

The names make a difference. I know you don't believe this, but not everyone thinks like you.

 

[mamba]

The names make a difference. I know you don't believe this, but not everyone thinks like you.

There are three cases here

1) a group moves to 2024 or starts with it, no name confusion
2) a group stays with 2014, no name confusion
3) a group mixes both 2014 and 2024 due to player preferences. Still no confusion, as they know what they are doing

In conversations it might need a little discipline (include 2014 / 2024, old / new, or whatever). Outside of that, no issues.

The name issue is vastly overrated imo

 

[Clint_L]

Jeremy Crawford said that the revised core will be a "new editions of the books", but not a "new edition of the game". I'm entirely sympathetic because I assume WotC doesn't want to use "edition" because, under their stewardship, they have previously poisoned the word to mean an "entirely new game system". So, yeah, going by that, no, it's not a new edition—this isn't a new system, it'd an revision and iteration of the existing one.

Respectfully, that’s not on WotC, though. TSR created this mess back in the 1970s. They went to court to argue that AD&D was an entirely new game, so they could stop paying royalties to Dave Arneson, losing the case but creating the paradigm that WotC is finally, thankfully trying to get rid of.

As consumers, we should be 100% behind WotC on this. Instead of being expected to replace all our books if we want to keep up, we can just keep doing what we’re doing.

 

[DEFCON 1]

But they're not moving on from the 2014 warlock. They've sworn up and down that you can keep using it. If they had faith in their designs and weren't so convinced people would stop buying their products, the new books would actually replace the old ones, if they really thought they were better. Or they would create a new class with a similar theme to the warlock, put it in a new book full of new classes that do the same thing with the other PH material, and release it as a new starting point for 5e that you can use as an alternative to the PH.

Something like a "5e Essentials".

This has nothing to do with what I was responding about.

 

[Velderan]

The names make a difference. I know you don't believe this, but not everyone thinks like you.

At the risk of making it personal, have you ever considered this may just be a you thing? WotC gets a lot of feedback from their player base to help fuel their decision making process and clearly the overall game is drifting further from your taste. It's entirely possible the general playerbase might not view this the way you do, like they don't seem to view the overall game the way you do.

 

[Micah Sweet]

At the risk of making it personal, have you ever considered this may just be a you thing? WotC gets a lot of feedback from their player base to help fuel their decision making process and clearly the overall game is drifting further from your taste. It's entirely possible the general playerbase might not view this the way you do, like they don't seem to view the overall game the way you do.

It may well be that the general player base feels differently (if they even know about this), but that's not the same as your speculation that it's literally just me. If that were true, no other poster would be voicing similar concerns, and a quick glance at the thread will show you that's not the case. This is just a rhetorical argument to discredit my opinion of the situation by implying that I'm all alone.

 

[Faolyn]

There are three cases here

1) a group moves to 2024 or starts with it, no name confusion
2) a group stays with 2014, no name confusion
3) a group mixes both 2014 and 2024 due to player preferences. Still no confusion, as they know what they are doing

In conversations it might need a little discipline (include 2014 / 2024, old / new, or whatever). Outside of that, no issues.

The name issue is vastly overrated imo

Or

4) Group mixes both '14 and '24 for whatever reason, it turns out the rules aren't actually as compatible as they're supposed to be. We won't know until the books come out.

5) Some players only want to play with one version and not the other, causing friction with other players who want to play with the other one or who want to combine them. As an example, people who don't mind playing '14 because they already have the books but are refusing to have anything to do with any new WotC books.

6) Group plays with one version, except for that one guy who didn't get the message and is using the other version and now is super-confused. And since there's no difference in the name and, lets face it, most people aren't going to care about the dates printed in the book because they don't hyperfocus on the game like we forum-dwellers do, they may not even realize how many differences there are, beyond the book's cover.

7) Group goes through the books and decide which version of any particular thing they're going to use (use '14 warlock but '24 warlock archetype, and one spell uses the '14 version while another spell uses the '24 version), creating, as I said, a confusing Frankenstein version of the game that needs to be referred to each time a new PC is created. When the playtests first came out, my group wasn't interested in getting the new version but we had found a few elements we were going to use, like giving '14 rangers expertise in a skill, while ignoring the rest of the '24 ranger. I have to assume that there are going to be other tables who are like this as well, not even taking entire classes or archetypes but fractions of them.

 

[mamba]

Or

these are all just case 3

As to all of your concerns about how they won’t easily mix, you already addressed that yourself

We won't know until the books come out.

so why not wait with the ‘the sky is falling’ chants until then

 

[Faolyn]

these are all just case 3

Except for all the confusion and not knowing what they're doing, sure.

As to all of your concerns about how they won’t easily mix, you already addressed that yourself

Right, by showing how it can cause more confusion.

And my table is one that has good communication skills, have been friends for a long time, have similar mentalities when it comes to gaming. Think about how it could turn out with groups that aren't very good at communicating, have very different ideals for what makes a good character, or who don't even know each other, such as a group who came together only for a rando game on discord found on r/lfg.

so why not wait with the ‘the sky is falling’ chants until then

Considering WotC's track record with over- and under-powered archetypes and spells, and with half-baked rules, it makes a lot more sense to accept there could be problems right now then just assume everything is going to be perfect.