Summary
Ten years after its original release, the 2024 edition of theDungeons & DragonsPlayer’s Handbook is soon to be in everyone’s hands, and it marks a new beginning for fifth edition D&D. But with half a century of the game and a decade of fifth edition, what does the future hold for the biggest tabletop roleplaying game?
I was impressed by the overview that Wizards of the Coast revealed to press during Gen Con. With several new products in the D&D line, including new core rulebooks and upcoming experiences, there were announcements that made me interested in the RPG’s future, a future that looks much brighter than I anticipated.
There are an estimated 64 million D&D fans as of 2024 according to Jess Lanzillo, head of D&D franchise and product. Of course, this doesn’t just include D&D players; this also counts fans of the Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves movie, whichour reviewer Rhiannon Bevan gave a 4.5/5 rating, as well asBaldur’s Gate 3 players. Where are all of these fans coming from, though? This number was bolstered with the fifth edition release in 2014, the rise of actual play podcasts like Critical Role in the 2010s, and the subsequent lockdown of 2020. The Covid lockdown saw online character creator website D&D Beyond’s traffic increase by 300 percent, leading to its acquisition by Wizards.
This is important because the future of D&D needs to encompass all of these fans, whether they’re coming from the tabletop game, the digital age of D&D Beyond, the Honor Among Thieves film, or games like Baldur’s Gate 3. So, how does D&D cater to everyone while keeping what’s special about the game at its core? Wizards has laid out a plan, and it might actually work.
From Disaster To Expansion
After thedisaster of the Open Game License in 2023, several creators moved away from supporting D&D as they once had. But the team at Wizards has backtracked, ensuring that the Systems Reference Document needed to create and distribute your own D&D products now falls under a Creative Commons license.
The Creative Common License allows users to take and adapt, adjust, and remix content as long as credit is given. This will allow D&D creators to print, sell, and design content using fifth edition D&D rules, publishing their creations without fear. Whilethere are still restrictions, this move is a step in the right direction for future D&D creators and the growing community.
Making the core rules openly accessible and pushing the boundaries of D&D are the core tenets moving forward. The Wizards team wants to keep what makes the core game so special in mind while expanding into new areas. Having the core rules openly accessible means that so many people who may have been barred from playing due to monetary restrictions or even just the inability to get their hands on the core rules to play will finally have that chance. This also means more hands creating more diverse stories and worlds with access to the basics, helping to reach their goal of showing even more fans the magic of D&D.
Despite the licensing changes, this expansion still focuses on playing games around the table as you always have. Though the game is expanding into so many media and becoming more significant as a franchise, D&D is not and should never be a strictly digital experience. We will still get physical content for the foreseeable future; it’ll just be supplemented with even more to enhance the experience, allowing people to discover the stories and wonder of D&D in whatever way works for them.
A lot of the ideas, such as inclusive imagery in the PHB and robust changes to core rulebooks along with virtual tabletop options and D&D Beyond, were just ensuring that even though there are new things on the horizon, nothing is being replaced. You’ll still have the same old D&D you’re used to. I feel this sentiment is a bit out of date and isn’t necessarily what D&D needs in the future. All 64 million of those D&D fans are not TTRPG players, and those coming to a table for the first time from some other medium will be thrust into a long-running game that offers no easy way to learn 50 years of history. Sure, there are products that delve into this, but they’re made for people who are already D&D fans.
You don’t introduce someone to a game by handing them a history book of its origins and evolution. Wizards even mentioned that there are some Dungeon Masters out there who don’t know the history of D&D and the iconic locations in the Forgotten Realms, like Waterdeep, Neverwinter, and even Baldur’s Gate (only known by its association with the video game). That’s okay, but it means there are a wider range of players who need to be catered to with every new release.
Still, the 2024 Player’s Handbook is meant to replace the core PHB from 2014, as are the other two core rulebooks coming later, the Dungeon Master’s Guide and Monster Manual. Despite several claims, the 2024 Player’s Handbook isn’t exactly compatible with the 2014 version.
Anything new in the PHB is meant to replace what’s in the old, so having two people playing different versions of the same class at the same table won’t exactly work. Some core tenets have changed regarding character classes and character creation, and even still, other classes are absent in the 2024 PHB, and they’re meant to be used as their previous versions until being revisited at a later date. It’s convoluted and slightly confusing, requiring everyone at the table to transition to a new class system without a clear distinction between how these classes and those from the old Player’s Handbook work side by side. It’s even more work for DMs who may need to make this work at their tables.
Making Things Easier For New Players
Making a tabletop game as big as D&D better is a difficult feat, and it seems a lot of my concerns will eventually be addressed. Wizards mentioned the addition of a brief overview of history for DMs and players unfamiliar with the D&D universe and some of its most important locations.
It has revamped the Player’s Handbook by actually putting how to play the game at the beginning of it and adding a glossary of easily accessible information for your most common questions at the table for quick access during a game. Beautiful, full-page, diverse artwork and tons of examples and improvements make for a much easier reading experience.
One of my favorite changes is having the spells for each class listed in the actual class page instead of at the back of the book. Small changes like these truly do make for a more streamlined experience.
We’ve also learned about the changes to the Dungeon Masters Guide and Monster Manual. The DMG is said to be designed for DMs of all skill levels and will include a full campaign setting for Greyhawk with a full poster map, five short sample adventures that show DMs how to create their own adventures, including how to do minimal prep to flesh out an adventure or how to go into every detail if that’s your DM style. This is where the lore glossary will come in for information on learning about famous places and creatures as well. Tracking sheets will be included for towns, NPC names, items you’ve given out, and the like. The sheets will be made accessible on D&D Beyond later as well.
As for the Monster Manual, there will be random tables included that will help DMs come up with story details for monsters, several new monster additions, and full art on the page for an easy understanding of how these monsters work and a great option to show the players what they’re going to be up against.
All of these books are meant to be able to be used on day one and to integrate with adventures and supplements you already own. We will have to wait and see just how true that is as they release.
Luckily, most of these changes do exactly what Wizards describes. The 2024 Player’s Handbook streamlines a lot of information for new and experienced players. Changes that most players have made at their table already, such as making a healing potion a bonus action or adding crafting options, have finally been addressed here. If you’re familiar with D&D, you’ll feel right at home with the changes made. If you’re brand new to D&D, this new Player’s Handbook and the proposed changes to the other core rulebooks are actually great starting points for beginners. The layout itself is even more streamlined, creating an easy-to-use experience that actually makes sense.
However, there are still a few issues here. The crafting is nowhere near as exciting to integrate as suggested, and though there are tons of changes, there’s still a lot here that feels like it might be a bit unbalanced, for example the ranger class still feels like a leftover even with the changes.
The biggest issue is the fact that these core rulebooks are meant to be one big continuous compendium. This means that information alluded to in the Player’s Handbook may be expanded on in one of the other core rulebooks. The information is almost dependent on dungeon masters owning all three books. It’s a hefty price tag to get everything you need, and though it’s comprehensive, requiring all three books to make one full package feels like a barrier to entry that puts a damper on the positive changes, such as keeping the core rules accessible. Most of this new information will also be in Creative Commons, though, so hopefully, that will alleviate some of these issues.
Project Sigil And Beyond
Project Sigil might look like a video game, but it isnota video game (Wizards was adamant on this point, reiterating it multiple times). Project Sigil introduces a third way to play D&D. You can go the tabletop route, use D&D Beyond and its map system, and soon, you can dip in with Project Sigil.
This program uses Unreal Engine 5 and simulates the tabletop experience with your own minifigures on the map. These minis are not animated and don’t move, as they’re meant to be the minis you’d have at the table while playing.
Project Sigil was briefly shown off during D&D Live at Gen Con, to mixed responses. It was a buggy situation that slowed the pace of the game, but it still offered a cool glimpse of what’s in store for D&D. With more work, it could become a table staple.
You can build and create your own stories in this virtual tabletop and watch as your minis use spells that have animations on screen. You can choose to share one screen with a group, or everyone can come together on their own screen. The entirety of D&D is integrated into Project Sigil, from your character sheet to your dice rolls; it’s meant to be a supplemental virtual tabletop in the vein of Tabletop Simulator.
It seems like more of an extension of what D&D Beyond Maps is trying to do, and it works as a digital tabletop space that looks like a video game but doesn’t function like a video game. You’re still playing D&D and rolling at the table; there’s just a virtual realization of the world your characters inhabit to immerse you in the story.
The Project Sigil team is also trying to get the program on consoles as well. It’ll be interesting to see how that will work at a table.
With so many ways to play and so much in store, it does feel like after a bumpy road, the team at Wizards is trying its best to make a fluid experience by bringing all fans into D&D in what it thinks is the most streamlined manner, allowing everyone the freedom they need to keep the game going while providing assets for each group to play in whatever way they’re most comfortable.
It’s a good start, but there’s always more work to be done. These spaces are slowly becoming more accessible, and these plans for what is still considered fifth edition are making up for the past ten years of using a system that was not as welcoming as it could have been. We won’t know for sure how well it’s worked until all three core rulebooks are released and Project Sigil is out of its current stage. Throughout all of this, though, there is hope for D&D’s future after 50 years of learning what worked in its past.
