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From: Kyonshi <gmkeros@gmail.com>
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Subject: [The Gamer] Dungeons & Dragons' 2024 Rules Won't Get Going Until 2026
Date: Mon, 16 Sep 2024 09:41:02 +0200
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Source: 
https://www.thegamer.com/dungeons-dragons-2024-rules-dnd-2026-book-phb/

Dungeons & Dragons' 2024 Rules Won't Get Going Until 2026

By
Stacey Henley
There are, broadly speaking, two different types of Dungeons & Dragons 
players. Within these two types there are thousands of subdivisions, but 
mainly, there are people who just play the game, and people who follow 
the game on Reddit. The first, casual group, way outnumbers the second, 
and likely has more fun. The second (and you can swap out Reddit for a 
few other social media/forum sites), tends to take it far more 
seriously, and I'm never even that sure how much some of them like the 
game at all.

This is not to pour scorn on the hardcore communities. They are the 
lifeblood of Dungeons & Dragons - Wizards of the Coast just spent over a 
year playtesting every single class and dozens of tweaks, additions, and 
alterations to how they play, and let me tell you, it wasn't Mary with 
the D20 pencil case who loves her goblin pirate Jimminy and asks 'how do 
I see my spell save number again?' who painstakingly tested every inch 
of it. It wasn't Billy with his XP shirt who turns up every three weeks 
and goes with the flow who applied pressure on WotC to reverse the 
bizarre decision to delete 2014 content from its website.

Dungeons & Dragons' New Rules Matter As Much As You Want Them To
The committed D&Ders who know every inch of the game and sometimes seem 
resentful of that fact are crucial to keeping the game alive, to oiling 
its gears with player feedback, and to providing millions of free 
adventures and resources to newbies. But it's odd having a foot in both 
camps. I need to keep up with each news story, and how the fans react to 
it, and as a DM who writes their own adventures with a substantial 
amount of homebrew (or homebrew stolen from others), I'm in these 
communities for business and pleasure. But I still think of myself as a 
casual compared to the veterans, and so goes my reaction to the new 
Player's Handbook.

A whistle-stop tour of how we arrived at the new rules. Dungeons & 
Dragons is as popular as it has ever been, and that is through the Fifth 
Edition of the rules (known as 5e) which launched in 2014. Wizards of 
the Coast wanted to modernise the games with a rule reset, which should 
have been 6e. However, this reset would have included more online 
integration, so it would have been called OneD&D, with the idea that the 
rules could always evolve.

Given that a lot of people still use pen and paper in this age of iPads 
and apps, people didn't much care for OneD&D, so it was changed into 
what we have now, which is 'the 2024 update to the 2014 Player's 
Handbook', which is a bit of a mouthful. The reason for this is while 
it's not an overhaul like 6e would have been, this is a substantial 
refresh, and should be called 5.5e. However, back when 3e was given a 
refresh into 3.5e, this was also highly unpopular, so the .5 numbering 
has been scrapped, even though a) this is 5.5e and b) 3.5e is now a 
highly popular format, more than both 3e and 4e.

All this means the fanfare around the new PHB has been muted. Wizards 
wants people to buy it and use it, so much so that it initially removed 
2014 rules from its digital archive, so it must be held up as a 
significant improvement. On the other hand, it is now keen not to draw 
too much attention to its 5.5e-in-all-but-name ruleset. It feels as 
though casuals, who would benefit from some of the tweaks in the 2024 
edition, which makes classes easier to understand, sands off some evil 
edges, and makes the more complex rules a little more digestible, aren't 
even aware this is happening. Wizards is advertising this as a new book, 
something with fresh artwork and pages that aren't dog-eared, rather 
than emphasising that the actual rules inside have some notable changes.

The hardcore players, who have been aware this has been coming for years 
and (despite not really liking it as an entity, by and large) have 
participated in its design through various Unearthed Arcana playtests, 
know all too well that these rules are different. Mostly, they seem 
content to keep going with whatever adventures they have now and leaving 
the new rules to one side. Some will never pick them up, and others 
probably won't be talked round until some official adventures emerge 
with the new rules attached. But that won't be for a while, as you can 
see below.

All of the announced upcoming D&D books are continuations of the PHB 
2024 rollout:
* Worlds & Realms, an illustrated book of new art work and some short 
stories (October 29)
* Dungeon Master's Guide, updated with 2024 rules (November 12)
* Monster Manual, with stat blocks tweaked for 2024 rules (Feb 18)
* Dragon Anthology, ten one shots for 2024 rules (Summer 2025)
* D&D Starter Set, a basic beginner adventure for 2024 rules (Fall 2025)

Being in both worlds, I am fittingly on the fence here. I don't have 
much against the new rules, either in terms of precise quibbles with 
their wording or their existence in general. But I also don't feel 
excited enough by them to abandon what I'm working on at the moment to 
incorporate it. Aside from taking a little bit of inspiration from the 
art (I still dig the orc cowboys) and maybe changing one or two rulings 
here or there based on 2024's ideas, I'm happy to wait. It seems like 
everyone is. What does that mean for the next year of D&D?