Talk:Editions of Dungeons & Dragons

One D&D Compatibility

@Arctic.gnome and Oknazevad: In terms of how to classify One D&D, I agree with Arctic that One D&D should be listed with 5E as compatible. Secondary sources talk about the playtest as backward compatible. Perhaps the final form won't actually be compatible but that would speculation on our parts so we should go with what the sources state. Sariel Xilo (talk) 01:05, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

Respectfully, I don't think backwards compatibility is the sole determining factor to look at when determining whether to list it as a separate edition. AD&D 2nd Ed is highly backwards compatible with 1st Ed, which itself is largely backwards compatible with OD&D (when all expansions to the latter are included). In fact, all TSR editions, including all four versions of Basic D&D, are mostly compatible with each other to a large extent. But they're still considered separate editions, and correctly so. It's in part presentation; 3.5 was explicitly described as a revised version of the 3rd edition, and is presented as such, even though the differences mechanically were on par with the differences between 1st and 2nd Eds. They may go with entirely new presentation of branding/logos/etc, or they may try to make it look as close to the 5e books as they can, calling it 5e revised. We don't know. Which is why I think we need to wait before we rule it as part of 5th Ed. oknazevad (talk) 01:16, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

Just want to flag that during the D&D Creator Summit (April 3), Wizards stated that they were moving away from the working title "One D&D". They (Jeremy Crawford, Chris Perkins, etc) emphasized a lot that it is a revision and not a new edition; 2014 & 2024 classes could be played together in the same game & all adventures would be compatible. The terms they used a bunch were "revising 5e", "2024 Core Rule Revision", 2014 X vs 2024 X (ie. 2014 PHB vs 2024 PHB). I'm sure we'll see articles in the next few days that pull together something more coherent than all the various attendees live tweeting. Sariel Xilo (talk) 06:56, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Right. 5.5, which I more or less expected. That said, no official final name has been released, and "One D&D" was only ever a playtest working title (much as 5e was tested under the "D&D Next" working title) and was never going to be the final product's branding. So I don't think we need to use it as a header here. Could easily just leave it as "revision" and be good with that. oknazevad (talk) 12:47, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

D&D Edition 4 & Pathfinder

One thing not mentioned in the description of Edition 4 is that the changes were so radical, the game became a high-level combat-heavy game, with too many of the favourite classes and races eliminated, and the reaction was that about half the D&D community dropped Wizards' version like a hot rock and switched to Pathfinder, which was based on an improved Ed.3.5. Nomicai (talk) 05:02, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Source? Woodroar (talk) 18:35, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

I don't recall that's an estimate, exaggeration, or underestimate, but has some truth: cbr.com/what-one-dnd-can-learn-from-the-games-least-popular-edition (CBR) and I remember much criticism from then. I played D&D with many people in the 1990s, and some mentioned playing Pathfinder, but not a single one mentioned playing D&D 'fourth edition'. Maybe some more articles can be found like CBR?--dchmelik☀️🦉🐝🐍(talk|contrib) 17:16, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

actual editions

Game companies are poor in contrast to academic/scientific book publishers notating editions. In fact, Holmes Basic was D&D 2e; BX was D&D 3e; BECMI was D&D 4e; Rules Cyclopedia (and Wrath of The Immortals) was D&D 5e, and when AD&D rules dropped 'advanced' so reverted to the original name, continuing numbering from that, it was 6e ('3e') and continued to 7e ('4e') and 8e ('5e').--dchmelik☀️🦉🐝🐍(talk|contrib) 16:52, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

AD&D Editions

No, "3rd Edition" was a continuation of what had been AD&D. It was not a continuation of what had been under the D&D brand. That line of the game had been discontinued. That is why "3rd Edition" is called 3rd and not 6th. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.96.38.41 (talk) 17:13, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

literary editions

'Edition' isn't a proper/capitalized noun. I'm mainly talking about literary, not ruleset editions, but it's not as simple as you say. By time of revised AD&D 2e, they'd combined in regular D&D rules optionally, such as weapon mastery, which--from what I can tell--were core later (2000) D&D. For literary editions, major changes of content (not just rulesets) within exact titles are what matter. For example 'D&D 3.5' Players Handbook & Dungeon Masters Guide were fourth literary editions of those books, and forthcoming are seventh literary editions (despite for 5e ruleset continued from AD&D). Historically, game/book editions were counted in literary way (early D&D such as first BX D&D (1981) book notates its new edition and references all previous) but now that they adopted software-style version numbering, one has to distinguish between literary & ruleset editions. Even if a book isn't printed again, that doesn't mean it's not relevant. Many continue to play with older editions and 'retro-clones', just like not everyone plays chess variants. It also doesn't matter if you copy much/most/all content of one book/website into another that had previous editions: in literary editions (such as library databases) that's a new edition of that title kept on cover/titlebar (regardless of new content, and which some people do, such as was done copying AD&D content into preexisting game name D&D, as a literary edition that already had larger number of previous not(at)ed literary editions)--dchmelik☀️🦉🐝🐍(talk|contrib) 08:06, 4 November 2024 (UTC)