D&D (2024) Wizards of the Coast Backtracks on D&D Beyond and 2014 Content

Wizards of the Coast posted an overnight update stating that they are not going forward with previously released plans to require those wishing to use some 2014 content on D&D Beyond to use the Homebrew function to manually enter it. Instead, all the content including spells and magic items will be included. From the update:

D&D (2024) - How D&D Beyond Will Handle Access To 2014 Rules

D&D Beyond has announced how the transition to the new 2024 edition will work on the platform, and how legacy access to the 2014 version of D&D will be implemented. You will still be able to access the 2014 Basic Rules and core rulebooks. You will still be able to make characters using the 2014...

www.enworld.org

Last week we released a Changelog detailing how players would experience the 2024 Core Rulebooks on D&D Beyond. We heard your feedback loud and clear and thank you for speaking up.

Our excitement around the 2024 Core Rulebooks led us to view these planned updates as welcome improvements and free upgrades to existing content. We misjudged the impact of this change, and we agree that you should be free to choose your own way to play. Taking your feedback to heart, here’s what we’re going to do:

Players who only have access to the 2014 Player’s Handbook will maintain their character options, spells, and magical items in their character sheets. Players with access to the 2024 and 2014 digital Player’s Handbooks can select from both sources when creating new characters. Players will not need to rely on Homebrew to use their 2014 player options, including spells and magic items, as recommended in previous changelogs.

Please Note:

Players will continue to have access to their free, shared, and purchased items on D&D Beyond, with the ability to use previously acquired player options when creating characters and using character sheets.

We are not changing players’ current character sheets, except for relabeling and renaming. Examples include Races to Species, Inspiration to Heroic Inspiration, and Cast Spell to Magic.

We’re dedicated to making D&D Beyond the ultimate digital toolset for Dungeons & Dragons, continuously enhancing the platform to ensure you can create, customize, and play your game just as you envision it. From your first one-shot to multi-year campaigns and everything in between, we're grateful to be on this journey with you.

- The D&D Studio

 

[Gammadoodler]

Thankfully this isn't my 5th grade math class where I need to "show my work".

A person either agrees with my conclusion and gives me the check mark regardless of how I reached it... or they don't agree with my conclusion and thus the process doesn't matter how I came to it anyway cause they aren't accepting the results. If someone believes that the OGL debacle caused a substantive impact on the D&D:HAT box office, they weren't going to "be convinced" by what I said no matter how "correct" my starting numbers were.

I'd like to think I had that kind of power to change minds, but I don't, LOL. I just made the statements I made cause I felt like it, not that it was going to set off a lightbulb over someone else's head,

Sure. There's no grade or anything here.

The annoyance you are receiving is that you made an argument founded in what would (generously) be described as carelessness. And apparently see no reason to do better.

It is a wild thing to see a claim that the quality (hell..the veracity) of an argument doesn't matter as long as people agree with the conclusion.

Is that how good faith discussion works for you?

 

[Daztur]

Had a great series of random arena battles with my friends for a while using 4e, where we would pull a mini from my collection at random and make a 4e character based on it to fight it out. Most fun I ever had with the 4e ruleset by far.

Had great fun with 4e playing a kaiju game. My PC was a Tremors worm (shardmind fighter reflavored) and I used a gummy worm as a mini. Loved munching on tanks. 4e just wasn't very good for attrition based exploration, i.e. dungeons.

 

[Greg K]

Any chance we will still be able to get 2014 digital core books on D&D Beyond, Foundry, etc.?

 

[mamba]

Any chance we will still be able to get 2014 digital core books on D&D Beyond, Foundry, etc.?

DDB said so a few days ago, Foundry never had them and official support will start with 2024 so I doubt it, other VTTs no idea, otoh if DDB keeps offering them I don’t see why others would not do so

 

[SteveC]

DDB said so a few days ago, Foundry never had them and official support will start with 2024 so I doubt it, other VTTs no idea, otoh if DDB keeps offering them I don’t see why others would not do so

Just to clarify: Foundry currently supports the SRD from the 5E edition, and has Tasha's as an option for purchase. So you have some of the rules available with them but not the full PHB.

 

[Greg K]

Just to clarify: Foundry currently supports the SRD from the 5E edition

Not having Foundry (or any VTT), that might be my source of confusion regarding Foundry, prior to WOTC's recent statements) stating that users will be able to choose between 2014 and 2020 and my thinking they sold 5e 2014 digital core books.

 

[Oofta]

It only failed because WotC's--or, rather, Hasbro's--expectations were sky-goddamn-high. It had to earn income loosely equivalent to Magic: the Gathering. That was never going to happen regardless of conditions. Then it got dealt possibly the single worst hand it could ever have gotten without considering the boneheaded mistakes (GSL) or unwise but hardly unusual development choices (releasing about 6-12 months before it really should have): one of the worst economic recessions ever (albeit not an actual economic depression), a murder-suicide on the critical digital tools team, the collapse of one of the nation's largest book sellers.


They were "repulsive" because many 3.X fans were absolutely unwilling to accept anything but the horrible broken, buggy mess they had, because they loved it and didn't want to part with any piece of it. It took 4e's lifespan--and Pathfinder carrying the torch for them--for them to finally start admitting, okay, yeah, this is really buggy and broken and needs fixing.

But because the edition warriors won, we're still stuck with the HORRIBLE, TERRIBLE design of 3e, almost 25 years later.


With all due respect, given the...interesting beliefs about game design I see on this forum and elsewhere? I don't think the general public has the first idea what makes a good game, and the people who designed 5e displayed that in living color with numerous issues.

They gave us something that the old hands loved--and which was full of bugs and bad writing. A design that is SUPER appealing but crashes and burns on the regular is worse than a design that is unappealing but works extremely well. That doesn't mean 4e doesn't have mistakes--it does! I've even eagerly discussed them when relevant!--but the vast, VAST, VAST majority of what people complained about had diddly-squat to do with what 4e actually was.

The fact that even to this day, you get people celebrating "new" things in 5e that...were actually developed in 4e? And that the multiple things 5e butchered from 4e consistently produce some of the most bitter complaints (like "whack-a-mole" healing)? Yeah, kinda shows that a crap-awful design that feels nice will still run into some pretty damn serious trouble.

It'll just make $$$ for the company before folks figure that out. Classic problem, shows up all the time with video games. Reputable series produces a new game that sells like hotcakes, but the game itself is actually crap. Company still pockets millions and promises to do better. This lasts for one new game, maybe two, and the cycle repeats.


Which is and has always been a load of bull. This COMPLETELY ignores anything except the specific stores ICv2 talks to....including the extremely important D&D Insider, which was a huge money-maker. I don't recall the exact numbers, but folks were able to determine a minimum number of paid subscriptions back during 4e's day, because there was a forum group which every forum-registered user would be automatically added to if they were subscribed, and automatically removed from if they weren't.

It had tens of thousands of people in it. IIRC, the numbers peaked somewhere in the low 100k, 110k range. Even if you assume that only earned them $10/month per person, that's $12 million a year being completely ignored by ICv2.

Add to this the fact that WotC effectively stopped publishing 4e in 2011. Of course PF1e is going to outsell something that made all of TWO books in 2012!

And this is exactly why it's so frustrating to discuss 4e and its legitimate flaws (both in game design and in business management)--people are SO committed to the myth that 4e was a horrible abject failure, that it could not possibly have achieved ANY financial success, that they'll straight-up invent stuff that isn't there, ignore stuff that is, or use outrightly biased data to support the story they're committed to.

4e did not sell as well as WotC (or, rather, Hasbro) wanted--because what they wanted could not happen even if players had LOVED it. It was, certainly, divisive--though much of the signalling WotC got early on they DID in fact listen to! (As an example, the "Golden Wyvern Adept" problem, and how players didn't so much want to have their cake and eat it too, so much as wanting to never have a cake in the first place and yet also eat it.)

I can only speak to my experience and the experience of my gaming groups, which was quite extensive at the time (probably close to 100).

It simply wasn't a game that 95% or more of the people from that sample either didn't like the game after looking at it they or burned out on it. There was demand for game days initially that dropped off after about a year. Initially we had a dozen tables at game days (two separate stores, so twice a month on weekends). For a while we had as many or more players in LFR than we did for LG.

But by the end it was maybe 2 tables once a month and our epic level group. Some people didn't make the transition from 3.5 to 4 but the majority did or at least tried it for a few sessions.

There was no grand conspiracy, the internet did not destroy it, the game in my experience running game days and helping with conventions was that it simply didn't have staying power.

 

[Daztur]

They were "repulsive" because many 3.X fans were absolutely unwilling to accept anything but the horrible broken, buggy mess they had, because they loved it and didn't want to part with any piece of it. It took 4e's lifespan--and Pathfinder carrying the torch for them--for them to finally start admitting, okay, yeah, this is really buggy and broken and needs fixing.

This is the real crux. In 2008 most fans didn't want large changes to 3.5e, they wanted a 3.75e game that would look something vaguely like Star Wars Saga Edition or PF1e. I didn't want that myself at the time (or now) but it was VERY clearly what the median D&D player wanted at the time. 4e didn't give people what they wanted and the result was predictable.

5.5e, despite me not liking it much, recognizes that the median D&D player doesn't want radical changes to the game so they're putting out a conservative edition.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Sure. There's no grade or anything here.

The annoyance you are receiving is that you made an argument founded in what would (generously) be described as carelessness. And apparently see no reason to do better.

It is a wild thing to see a claim that the quality (hell..the veracity) of an argument doesn't matter as long as people agree with the conclusion.

Is that how good faith discussion works for you?

If you are annoyed because I haven't use enough "correct" examples for you and that my "process is garbage" (as you said quite pointedly up above), you are free to be. But I am unconcerned with trying to make you happy with how I post. So take my posts for what they are or do not, it's up to you.

 

[Gammadoodler]

If you are annoyed because I haven't use enough "correct" examples for you and that my "process is garbage" (as you said quite pointedly up above), you are free to be. But I am unconcerned with trying to make you happy with how I post. So take my posts for what they are or do not, it's up to you.

Thanks. I appreciate your validation.

I shall continue to do as I have been then, noting when a good point is made based on evidence.

And, as in this case, when a bald assertion is made based on a falsehood.