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In this meta discussion we collected questions and concerns the community felt ought be addresed with some guidance ahead of the release of the new iteration of D&D. In this chatroom, we had some discussion, and seem to have more or less come to an agreement on some big ideas for how to prepare for the new game. In answers below, I will summarize the proposed guidance we've come up with in response to the community's questions and concerns.

Please indicate approval of a proposal with an upvote, and disapproval with a downvote.

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[01] What should the new tag be, dnd-5e-2024, or something else?

Proposal: The new tag should be .

The new rules are being marketed as 2024 Book Title. Since “2024” seems to be the key distinctive of the new books (and they’re retaining the original titles of Player’s Handbook, Dungeon Master’s Guide, and Monster Manual), the new tag should be . Of course, we can always pivot to a different tag if the broader community changes how they refer to the game. But for now, having "2024" in the new tag name seems to make the most sense, since everyone encountering the game materials will have seen 2024 in association with the game.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Should we mark this as [status-completed], so that it's clear that it's now been implemented? \$\endgroup\$
    – V2Blast
    Commented Sep 9 at 20:10
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[05] Should we encourage updating older questions with additional information of how things are changed in the 2024 version, or that they have not changed? Or should we consider all questions about the 2014 version specific to that and discourage such updates? What are the pro's and con's?

Proposal: No, we should not be updating old answers, or posting new answers, to questions with 2024 material.

While the marketing is all about "backward compatibility", it's pretty clear we are looking at a new edition, a new game. D&D 2024 is a new game built in new design philosophies. So just as I can't answer a World of Darkness question with "Well in 5e it does this", since it's irrelevant to the question, I should not be answering 2014 questions with 2024 material. If you actually have a question about D&D 2024 that has already been asked about 5e 2014, post a new question; it will not be closed as a duplicate.

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These three concerns all revolved around dealing with the existing tag, so they are addressed by the same proposal:

  • [02] Should we keep the dnd-5e tag, or retag it? To what? dnd-5e-2014? (Using mod tools to get all 25,000+ questions done in one fell swoop).
  • [03] If we retag, should we drop the dnd-5e, or should we alias it to a version? Which version? When -- immediately, or in the future when people essentially will mean the 2024 version when they just refer to 5e?
  • [04] Or should dnd-5e become a tag that refers to any of the 5e editions? (2014, 2024, a future one...)?

Proposal: Rename the existing tag to .

The main idea here is that we need users to clarify which rule set they are working with. While the marketing is being pitched as though it's just a revision or an update, we're really dealing with a new game, built on different design philosophy. So we need to be clear about which game a question is asking about. And this isn't a new idea - we are already well equipped to handle disambiguating ambiguous questions through our usual procedures.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ As I noted in chat: CMs won't act on blacklist requests unless the tag in question has been burninated (or in this case, renamed to something else) and then someone else ends up recreating the tag naturally. I'm not sure whether to upvote this proposal, or submit a separate proposal that just excludes that part of the sentence. \$\endgroup\$
    – V2Blast
    Commented Aug 15 at 22:51
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    \$\begingroup\$ @V2Blast That sounds like a procedural issue that should just be corrected in this proposal. Do you mind rewording it appropriately? \$\endgroup\$
    – Thomas Markov
    Commented Aug 15 at 22:56
  • \$\begingroup\$ I've edited it to basically just take out the second half of the sentence (and format the tag names as tag links). \$\endgroup\$
    – V2Blast
    Commented Aug 15 at 23:02
  • \$\begingroup\$ I feel like this change should get made sooner rather than later, especially now that the 2024 PHB is now available to folks (on D&D Beyond for Master Tier subscribers who've bought the book, and in some FLGSes). \$\endgroup\$
    – V2Blast
    Commented Sep 3 at 22:39
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    \$\begingroup\$ @V2Blast I’ll coordinate with our mods this week and get something final written up. \$\endgroup\$
    – Thomas Markov
    Commented Sep 4 at 0:13
  • \$\begingroup\$ The old tag has now been renamed to dnd-5e-2014, yet the dnd-5e tag still exists as a synonym of it. If I understand this proposal correctly, that should not be the case and the unspecific 5e tag should be burminated, right? \$\endgroup\$
    – TreeSpawned
    Commented Sep 8 at 16:46
  • \$\begingroup\$ @TreeSpawned: This proposal did suggest renaming it (without leaving a synonym), yes. "Burninating" isn't really applicable to synonyms, but it's possible for the mods to rename tags with or without leaving the old name as a synonym – it seems like the mods renamed it, but left the old tag name as a synonym. I don't think there's really a need for the synonym (since both tag names contain "dnd-5e" anyway), but it's not a huge issue to leave the old name as a synonym unless it starts causing problems/confusion. \$\endgroup\$
    – V2Blast
    Commented Sep 9 at 20:12
  • \$\begingroup\$ FWIW, the rename doesn't seem to have fully "taken", at least not when it comes to answers. I noticed this recently when I was notified that I now have the bronze dnd-5e-2014 tag badge, even though searching for "[dnd-5e-2104 user:2620]" still says I have no posts with that tag(!). \$\endgroup\$
    – Ilmari Karonen
    Commented Sep 13 at 19:33
  • \$\begingroup\$ Ps. Searching for "[dnd-5e user:2620]" doesn't find anything either due to the synonym. Searching for "[dnd-*] user:2620" does turn up some 5e results, though. \$\endgroup\$
    – Ilmari Karonen
    Commented Sep 13 at 19:36
  • \$\begingroup\$ @IlmariKaronen I think those searches would only turn up questions, which I don’t think you’ve asked any. They seem to work with my user id 62294. \$\endgroup\$
    – Thomas Markov
    Commented Sep 13 at 19:47
  • \$\begingroup\$ @ThomasMarkov: They do normally find answers as well (unless you include "is:q" in the search). Try it with 4e, for example. But for some reason, for the renamed dnd-5e tag they seem to only find questions. Maybe whoever ran the rename query forgot to apply it to answers too. (AIUI, the SE database stores tags separately for answers too, they're just normally kept in sync with the question tags and not shown in the UI.) \$\endgroup\$
    – Ilmari Karonen
    Commented Sep 13 at 19:52
  • \$\begingroup\$ @IlmariKaronen Can confirm that something isn't quite right. Searching '[dnd-5e-2014] is:q' gives 22k results, while searching "[dnd-5e-2014] is:a" gives less than 100. It might make sense to create a new meta post for this problem. \$\endgroup\$
    – TreeSpawned
    Commented Sep 15 at 9:20
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  • [07] How should (new) questions be tagged that aren't about core rule books, but about suplement books that are valid for both version, i.e. Fizban's Treasury? Should everything that came out before the new core books automatically refer to the 2014 version or should the question asker clarify which revision they are using?
  • [08] Is there a higher expectation for specifying sub-edition for rules mechanics questions? That is, "How do rangers work?" absolutely needs a 5e-2014 or 5e-2024 tag. But can a problem-player question get by while just tagged as 5e?
  • [09] What should querents be expected to say about which 5e they are asking about? How should they be informed of this expectation? How do we apply / respond to "don't guess the system" when someone does not indicate which version of 5e they are asking for? (for example, if the querent has not specified, would an answer outlining both possibilities be acceptable, or are all answers on hold until OP has clarified? Would an answer saying, "you don't specify which 5e this question is about, but it doesn't matter because the answer is the same" be acceptable?)
  • [10] Once the new PHB is released people will inevitably be using it together with the old DMG and MM, basically playing a mixed version. How should those questions be tagged? Jeremy Crawford even explicitly said that this approach is possible in this recent interview, though he recommends using the other new books, once they are released.

Proposal: Questions must specify which version of the rules are being used, which is standard procedure for all questions. Users do not need to be informed of this expectation, at least, not uniquely for this situation, because this is already the established expectation for all questions.

I don't think this new release presents a new or unique problem for us. We are already well practiced at handling ambiguity in questions. We already have guidance on the books for handling such ambiguity: What should I do when a question does not specify the game system being used? We need to know what rules to use when answering the question, and if it isn't entirely clear the second a question is posted, that's okay. We already know how to handle that.

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[06] Should there be an additional, special tag for questions that have to do with migration issues between versions, or with mismatch issues of using old splat books or modules with the new version? If so what should it be? Or should we just tag those with the new version tag, the old version tag, and maybe the tag of the splat-book or module in question?

Proposal: already exists, so use that.

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[11] If the D&D Beyond public version of the PHB rules gets updated to the 2024 PHB content without preserving older web pages, what should we do to address the legions of broken links that will arise on 5e-2014 questions and answers?

Proposal: This is above our heads. We do not have the tools to handle this ourselves. If something catastrophic like this happens, we will need to petition SE staff to get involved to help, if there is even anything to be done about it.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ SE devs have a link-replacement tool for this sort of thing; it basically just performs a simple find-and-replace. ...That said, DDB links shouldn't end up breaking in any cases – any links whose URL changes should redirect to the new location of the page. (If any links do break, contact DDB support directly or report the issue in the #ddb-support channel of the Discord.) \$\endgroup\$
    – V2Blast
    Commented Aug 15 at 22:49
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    \$\begingroup\$ Note: D&D Beyond's individual listings for items and spells (and some other stuff) will be updated to the 2024 versions early next month. See the full changelog here. ...So, for D&D 5e (2014) questions, we may need to update some links to spells/items/etc. to point to the compendium version instead, since the text of the answer may not match the text on the linked page. \$\endgroup\$
    – V2Blast
    Commented Aug 22 at 23:30
  • \$\begingroup\$ @V2Blast I read it as saying the character sheets would be updated. I didn’t see a clear statement that links were changing. \$\endgroup\$
    – Thomas Markov
    Commented Aug 23 at 0:27
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    \$\begingroup\$ The links have changed already for the Basic Rules - the base URL is now dndbeyond.com/sources/dnd/basic-rules-2014 \$\endgroup\$
    – Guybrush McKenzie
    Commented Aug 23 at 21:41
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    \$\begingroup\$ On the spells and items, it seems pretty clear the old versions will no longer exist in the rules elements database - users have been advised to create homebrew copies of 2014 spells that have been updated to add to their character sheets, which wouldn’t be necessary if the legacy versions were going to remain in the database as-is. Though on the other hand the ability to copy them suggests that they will, but perhaps they mean copy them from the compendium into the database using the homebrew tools. \$\endgroup\$
    – Guybrush McKenzie
    Commented Aug 23 at 21:44
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    \$\begingroup\$ @GuybrushMcKenzie I hate everything about this. \$\endgroup\$
    – Thomas Markov
    Commented Aug 23 at 22:04
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    \$\begingroup\$ @ThomasMarkov as someone currently using DDB to run a campaign where the players are not interested in updating to the new rules, and who’s linked to them in a lot of answers…oh yeah. I agree. \$\endgroup\$
    – Guybrush McKenzie
    Commented Aug 23 at 22:12
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    \$\begingroup\$ An update: after much criticism of the move, DDB has changed tack and all the old individual elements will remain available. Hopefully this means individual spell links will not be broken. See here: dndbeyond.com/posts/… \$\endgroup\$
    – Guybrush McKenzie
    Commented Aug 26 at 14:35

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