Notes on Dungeons & Dragons 2014 Edition

[Note:] This document is a continual work in progress.

This web page has my notes on the fourtieth anniversary edition of D&D, as first released in 2014 from the Hasbro Games subsidiary, Wizards of the Coast (WotC). It is not intended to be a full record or history of D&D. Other versions of the game are documented in separate web pages.

This is the primary adventure gaming that I do today, mainly from my interest in Critical Role. I also have a special interest in the original D&D from 1974, as well as Gygax's AD&D, and Dragonlance which is where my interest in D&D began. Before the question comes up: I like playing with printed character sheets and still use them even with online accounts, such as DnD Beyond, as the online tools often make mistakes or focus on a particular version or style of play. How a GM wants to keep track of things is up to them and their campaign.

5e marks a return to the OGL 1a after the PR disaster of the GSL and ending of third-party contracts. It includes a gratis downloadable PDF summary of Basic Rules, which is a summary of the handbook sufficient for a player to create a character and play the game, but without all the illustrations and beautiful artwork (though there is still some there). A character conversion guide was also provided as a gratis download if coming from previous editions. With these changes, and a return to the simpler three book collection, this seems to mark a settling down period, as well as a reinvestment in third party and community involvement that had somewhat stalled after the fork of Pathfinder:

Forgotten Realms and Eberron continued to be the primary settings for D&D 5e until voice actor Matt Mercer began broadcasting the games that had been running for over two years in their homes on Geek & Sundry in 2015, as well as posting on YouTube and Twitch. This was Campaign 1 of Critical Role. A campaign setting book followed and three more officially from Wizards of the Coast (WotC):

Not including the above, following is a list of books available for 5e:

About a dozen PDF downloads also are noted during this period that did not have a print book available.

Many online websites exist for keeping track of character sheets, statistics, and even producing game play such as dice rolls. Most notable is Twitch's D&D Beyond (from Curse LLC). Curse LLC was bought by Fandom, Inc. However, in 2022 Hasbro bought it, and it became the internet front for Wizard's of the Coast. This kicked off the One D&D project, and led to the second great schism of D&D (the first being with 4e and GSL) when an OSL 1.1 was discovered by the public in early 2023 that had echoes of the GSL experience.

©2024 David Egan Evans.