Dungeons & Dragons 2024 is now officially D&D 5.5e, still isn’t a new edition

A mere two years after the long-awaited update to the Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition rules dropped, Wizards of the Coast has announced that The D&D Formerly Known As 2024 will henceforth be referred to as D&D 5.5e. It’s a move meant to increase clarity, particularly on D&D Beyond, where digital rules references will now be labelled as 5e or 5.5e, referring to the 2014 and 2024 core books, respectively.

WotC has been keen to point out that nothing is changing except for the D&D Beyond labelling. So much so that it has published an extensive, seventeen-entry FAQ to assure players that no actual content is being altered or deleted, it isn’t a signifier of a larger rebrand, and no Pinkertons will be showing up to take their existing books away. 

There was a time when I would have ripped the piss out of WotC for feeling the need to include seventeen separate questions and answers for a simple website labelling change, but I’ve spent enough time on the internet to understand why it’s covering all of its bases. It even addresses whether or not 5.5e is a new edition, with this wonderfully panicked answer:

No. No. On D&D Beyond, “5.5e” is just a label for the 2024 rules update—not a new edition of Dungeons & Dragons. Similar to the shift from D&D 3.0 to 3.5, it’s a revised version of the same core game meant to clarify and improve rules while staying compatible with existing content. The label helps distinguish between the 2014 and 2024 rules, especially in digital tools, and doesn’t invalidate books, characters, or campaigns. Both versions are supported and playable together.

I love the double “No” at the beginning. It evokes the image of someone on the D&D Beyond team waving their hands about as they explain to an executive that this isn’t a new edition. Equally amusing is the insistence that the 2024 update wasn’t a formal delineation in the first place. I’ve never understood WotC’s resistance to calling a new set of core books a new edition (to be fair, D&D’s edition naming was fucky under TSR, too). I was playing D&D when the 3e-3.5e shift happened and it was a pain in the butt. I’ll take a clearly labelled new edition that is still compatible with the previous one over this wishy-washy halfway measure any day. I understand not wanting to release a new edition just three years after your first one as D&D’s stewards, but after 10 years of 5e, a canonical number 6 would have been fine.

Perhaps there’s a concern that there will be a repeat of when Pathfinder scooped up a bunch of players who were turned off by 4e, but I guess that happens when players are primed to expect new editions of D&D to be, for all intents and purposes, completely different games. That being said, I have to wonder what percentage of current D&D players have played any earlier editions of the game. The audience is very different now compared to when 4e supplanted 3.5e, and if you have spent a large amount of professional and/or personal time trying to convince folks to try other games, you’ll know that a lot of D&D players are purely D&D players. (Which I’d just like to add, while an alien mindset to me, is perfectly fine and good.)

D&D isn’t just a game; it’s a product, a brand, a hobby in and of itself. It’s one I have a lot of affection for, even if the game and I have grown apart. There are video games, movies, action figures, and plushies. This isn’t exclusive to D&D in the RPG space — I mean, there’s a Mutant Chronicles movie with actors you’ve actually heard of, so the bar isn’t that high — but it’s still clearly in a class of its own. The closest comparison I can make is Warhammer 40,000, and if 40k fans are anything to go by, WotC has nothing to worry about.

Games Workshop releases a new edition of 40k every three years. It is, in my obviously correct opinion, far too frequent, especially for a game with armies that cost hundreds of pounds and require huge amounts of time to assemble and paint. While there is technically nothing stopping people from continuing to play the previous edition, GW’s entire ecosystem is set up to make you switch. Want to play a game in your local store? It has to be the latest edition. Want to play in a tournament? Yeah, they’ll be using the latest edition. Want to use the shiny new minis GW has released for your army? Well, you could homebrew some rules, but otherwise, you’ll need to be playing the latest edition. 

The best case scenario is that nothing much changes for the factions you play. You pick up a new rulebook and the new army books when they’re released, and go along your merry way. More likely, however, is that there will be some major changes, and some of those expensive and lovingly painted miniatures will no longer be valid, either having been thrown out of the game entirely, or being equipped with illegal weapon loadouts. It’s an approach to new editions that’s about as hostile to the playerbase as it’s possible to be, but the vast majority of players stick with it because they’re invested in that specific hobby. They’re 40k players, not wargamers in a general sense. What are they going to do, play a game that doesn’t have wearable plushie versions of the weapons?

With all this in mind, I can’t imagine a scenario where the vast majority of active, current D&D players don’t pick up a new edition, especially one that is compatible with their old books. I’d be willing to wager at least three shillings on the number of people put off by new edition branding being significantly smaller than those confused by a 0.5 incremental upgrade, or feeling like it was unnecessary to buy new books. It makes more sense in the long term, too, showing players that a new edition isn’t something to be feared, that it’s still the game they know and love — and avoiding having to do this whole song and dance routine all over again for 7e. Or 5.6e..

I started my bit about One Advanced D&D 5.3.5 2024 II Turbo - Hyper Fighting Edition: The Masquerade because of WotC’s confused and confusing approach to the (not) new edition’s name. Chase believes that it should have stuck with One D&D, and I’m inclined to agree. For years we’ve been getting video game and movie franchise reboots and Year One comic series that, while easy to make fun of, was also a much clearer statement of intent than D&D 2024 or D&D 5.5e. It’s not like 5e was really the fifth edition of the D&D rules, anyway. Between this naming uncertainty, the Sigil disaster, and the high profile departures, D&D the game has felt rudderless at a time when D&D the brand remains as strong as it's ever been. Hopefully a bolder, more cohesive vision for the game will be in place by the time the next set of core books surface, whatever they’re called.