Revised core rulebooks for Dungeons & Dragons could be released in mid-2024, but the continued aim to create a never-ending edition of the game shows Wizards of the Coast has grown out of touch with DnD’s fans, and the tabletop RPG hobby at large. This year saw the company burn bridges with many consumers over its attempt to create a more draconian OGL that would severely impact third-party gaming products. Though this was eventually walked back, the breach of trust is difficult for many to forget. Investor-targeted statements about DnD being “under-monetized” raised further red flags, but the ongoing push for a perpetual edition remains the biggest misstep.
Concurrent with 2023’s poor optics from WOTC, a playtest has been underway for the revision known as One D&D, a placeholder title for the updated core rules. One D&D makes clerics more unique with archetypes distinguishing a holy warrior from a Final Fantasy style White Mage, and weapon-based fighting styles could make various fighter builds stand out more. While these changes have been met with varying degrees of enthusiasm, the continual ambiguity surrounding the new rules remains a sore spot, along with what it spells for the future of the game. The revision promises to be backward compatible with existing 5e DnD adventures, but a true definition remains elusive.
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D&D Editions Have Changed Roughly Every Decade Up To Now
The 3.0 DnD rule set was revised to 3.5 DnD roughly three years after its launch. The 3.5 rules initially claimed to be backward compatible with 3.0 modules in the same way that One D&D promises compatibility with 5e adventures. As a practical matter, the changes to 3.5 were sweeping enough that it was not worth the effort to deal with the many rule inconsistencies, and most 3.5 groups used 3.5 content exclusively. Later, the 4e DnD rules received a mid-edition revision with D&D Essentials, which had fewer changes than the 3.0 to 3.5 shift, largely revising the balance of monsters and providing simpler alternative base classes for new players.
Playtest information does not portray the upcoming revision as a simplified version of 5e, since One D&D improves Expert Classes with the Expertise skill mechanic in some playtest iterations, and other changes that seem to shift complexity rather than eliminate it. The revision and its accompanying playtest framed the project as addressing player complaints about the existing rules, but the more obvious rationale is that it allows WOTC to sell a new batch of core rulebooks. This is not unheard of, and with 5e DnD hitting its 10-year anniversary, a new edition fits in with the timeline of prior changes to the game’s rules.
The bigger conceptual problem is the goal of eliminating editions from Dungeons & Dragons. Such a notion seems borne of investor-facing decision-making rather than consulting anyone experienced in the tabletop RPG hobby firsthand. Treating DnD like a video game or a computer operating system fails to recognize the social nature of the hobby. While video games and software can update via patches, and users adjust to those changes, the rules of a tabletop game like DnD need to be clearly understood by the Dungeon Master and players involved. A DM cannot simply announce they are running a DnD campaign, without clarifying what rule system is in play.
Unlike 4e D&D Essentials, One D&D Seems Incompatible With 5e
Players preparing their characters might choose the changed version of One D&D feats, or feats from the existing 5e Player’s Handbook, unless the DM specifies one or the other. Certain build concepts may not exist in One D&D, such as ranged fighters that rely on the current Sharpshooter feat to generate damage to keep their builds competitive with spellcasters and melee characters. Any experienced tabletop RPG aficionado sees these ambiguities as a clear warning against a perpetual edition. From a purely business-oriented perspective, a never-ending edition lets the company sell older adventures along with new rulebooks, but for most gaming groups, this makes DnD next to unplayable.
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Wizards of the Coast’s proposed solution is the widespread adoption of digital toolsets so players and DMs who use character building software and campaign tools can be kept up to date with the latest version of the DnD rules. The OGL leak caused D&D Beyond cancelations, as fans ended their subscriptions in protest, and not every player depends on character creation software. Many groups still play entirely with physical books, paper, and dice. Even among those who do use D&D Beyond to aid in character generation, most players still prefer to have a personal grasp of the rules of the game. With an ever-changing edition, such an understanding is elusive.
The pattern of trying to distance DnD from any labeling of “editions” is not a new one, but it has never successfully stuck with the actual consumer market. Regardless of WOTC’s aims to simply call a new edition of the game Dungeons & Dragons, the fans will distinguish it by edition number. The ambiguous marketing of the upcoming revision is not helpful. If it is largely backward compatible with current 5e DnD adventures, accepting that it is a DnD 5.5 edition is easy for gaming groups to wrap their heads around. Perhaps WOTC avoids such labels as it could later release, in essence, edition 5.75 DnD, and so on.
A Never-Ending D&D Edition Dooms The Game To Stagnation
Striving to make One D&D the game’s final edition is a fundamentally misguided goal. It presumes that the basic structure of the 5e rules is the ideal incarnation of Dungeons & Dragons’ central gameplay concepts, and that only refinement is needed from there on. This is a mistaken perception, as there are serious flaws in the core design of 5e DnD, such as a Bounded Accuracy paradigm that was shattered upon the release of Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything. It also treats tabletop RPG players like computer users updating an operating system, or video game fans downloading a patch.
Some modern DnD fans may be content to fully adopt digital toolsets, blindly following the most current iteration of the system as it is rolled out, but many DnD fans, players and DMs alike, require less ambiguity and more consistency from the rules. Adjusting mid-campaign to rule changes is impractical and can only lead to confusion. The 4e DnD Essentials line maintained superior backward compatibility because it did not remove existing options, it only added new, simpler ones alongside the original Player’s Handbook builds. One D&D clearly intends to replace the original 5e Player’s Handbook content, which is another matter altogether.
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Recent years have seen 5e DnD adaptations of classic settings like Planescape and Spelljammer that have not been officially revisited since 2e Advanced DnD. The Deck of Many Things provides options that introduce randomness to characters and campaigns in fresh ways. There is still clearly more to be done with 5e DnD, and a 5.5 revision could certainly extend the edition’s relevance. For tabletop RPG fans to embrace such a revision, it needs to be clearly labeled as what it is: DnD 5.5. More concerning for Dungeons & Dragons as a whole, a never-ending edition robs the beloved game of the chance to meaningfully grow and evolve.
