[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). My primary interest is in the Critical Role OGL 1a released books. I also have an interest in Dragonlance, which is where my interest in D&D began, but alas Dragonlance remains under full copyright restriction.
One thing the original Chainmail oriented D&D games used, ala Outdoor Survival, was hex maps for terrain traversal. Squares were used for closer quarters like dungeon crawls. Squares require diagonal movement rules, at least when used with terrain, and only four characters can surround someone with squares, which makes sense for close quarters, but not terrain. Thankfully, 5e and PF2 restored hex (though PF books like Ultimate Campaign explicitly describe hex mapping for terrain).
5e 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 to Pathfinder:
The 2014 fourtieth anniversary edition is often called 5e, due to its being the successor to 4e. However, a version number is not provided, nor is the term 5e used, by Hasbro. Instead, the version number refers to the System Reference Document (SRD) which is 5.0, and in 2016 5.1, for this release. 5.0 marks a return to the OGL 1a after the PR disaster of the GSL and ending of third-party contracts.
Forgotten Realms and Eberron was the primary setting of D&D 4. In 2015, voice actor Matt Mercer converted his two year running Pathfinder (PF) campaign to 5e, and began broadcasting a live play of it on Geek & Sundry, as well as posting on YouTube and Twitch. (Recordings in audio of the PF campaign exist for die hard completists.) This was Campaign 1 of Critical Role, and the group Vox Machina. A campaign setting book, published by Green Ronin, followed.
Campaign 2 followed the Mighty Nein (a play on the German word for no) and a campaign book Explorer's Guide to Wildemount from Wizard's of the Coast (WotC), documented the setting of Wildemount, east of Tal'Dorei in Exandria, twenty years later where Campaign 2 took place. (Campaign 1 had a couple times it took place in Wildemount, such as with Taryon Darrington, or the fate of Draconia.) Darrington Press, established by the Critical Role players, released an updated Tal'Dorei campaign guide with updates from Campaign 2.
Finally, Campaign 3 takes place in yet another part of Exandria, documented in Call of the Netherdeep, also from Wizards of the Coast, and all under the OGL 1a:
One shots following Campaign 3 were run using the new game Daggerheart. Alas,the Darrington Press's Community Gaming License (DPCGL), which governs the Daggerheart (and Candela Obscura) SRD, read much like the GSL and OGL 1.1. I am committed to open gaming, and consider the DPCGL worse than if all rights to copyright and trademark were reserved.
Many online websites exist for keeping track of character sheets, statistics, and even producing game play such as dice rolls. Most notable is D&D Beyond (originally from Curse LLC). Curse LLC was bought by Fandom, Inc. In 2022 Hasbro bought DnD Beyond from Fandom, Inc. 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 when an OGL 1.1 draft was discovered by in early 2023 echoing the GSL experience. Thankfully, this has finally stablized. The SRD 5.1 edition was additionally licensed with the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0) license, making it compatible with the 2024 edition (5.2) license, leaving the OGL 1a intact for 5.1.