[The Gamer] Dungeons & Dragons' 2024 Rules Won't Get Going Until 2026

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?