D&D 2024

Backward compatibility can hold you back.

Console companies did studies, and this is one of those features everyone says they want, but only some people actually use. For 5E, I get the appeal; you are saving customers money and not forcing them to toss out books.

My issue is the statement of backward compatibility in 5E, and I feel even down to saying the 2014 books will be usable. At this point, the classes and options in One D&D better be far better than any of the older counterparts, and I have even seen people saying the "Tasha's Ranger" is better than the one they put out in the latest playtest packet.

You are forcing your customers to play a game of "find the best option" and possibly making the new books worthless since the power gaming builds of old will not be invalidated. You want to avoid a situation where you get new players - playing out of the 2024 books - and a veteran showing up with his legacy books and blowing them all away in terms of power.

The new players will ask, "What is the point of the new stuff?"

AI Art by @nightcafestudio

This is why games like Civilization version up after a slate of expansions. The company learns, evolves its ideas, and presents a familiar but new framework. The old strategies and exploits are gone. Just because a cheat existed in Civ V doesn't mean it will work in Civ VI. In One D&D's case, playing with broken legacy content is valid.

So the new books need to be even more potent than anything that came before, or they will be discarded as "noob options."

They should have just made a 6E and done a hard reset. It should be a new game. If Wizards doesn't want to do that, then they should just stick to reprints of nostalgia editions. Every game company knows this, from Nintendo to Sony Playstation. You create a sequel that improves on the original.

Advanced 5E, Low Fantasy Gaming, Shadowdark, and Tales of the Valiant are fine. They are new baseline game experiences. I am on board with all four of these games. They are entry points. Exciting things are coming for them. The first two are older but still great and compatible experiences.

Anything "5E" ports in, but this isn't the default option.

In One D&D, Wizards is asking groups to silently ban previous books, but that is already done in a way since there are so many horribly broken character builds people deny at their tables. This is the only way to play the game "clean room," and many will do just that.

But all the previous issues still need to be addressed, like too-much Darkvision and plenty of other problems that will force players to go to other games. I want the 5E-likes to do well since there are more 5E players in the pool. Fracturing will happen, but keeping players in a similar ruleset - no matter what - will keep the community and 3rd parties more robust. So even if you play "clean room One D&D," the problems are still there, baked in because of backward compatibility.

A redesign that breaks compatibility in just the critical problem areas is needed.

Which is what many of these newer 5E games are doing. They keep the spirit and play of 5E and fix the broken pieces. They establish new foundations.

Going to a "silent 6E" and hoping your fixes compare favorably to previous options - without being overly-complex power-gaming versions - is not a great strategy.