D&D (2024) What would change for you if Wizards started calling it 6E?

[Mirrorrorrim]

I'm curious. From other Forum-goers' perspectives, what would the fallout be if Wizards were to say with the next packet:

"Because of the feedback from a subsection of the Community, we're going to call this 6th Edition. We won't write that on the cover, but the books will be differentiated at a glance with new art. Now this 6th Edition is still pretty much an updated 5th Edition and is backwards compatible with minimal changes, as we've always said, so you can still use all your 5E books."

1. Would you accept calling it a 6th edition if the changes were close to what have been described and playtested so far?
2. Would this clarify expectations for the better, or confuse expectations more for the worse for you?
3. Would this change your plan to support or not support the product?
4. Would you see Wizards in a better, or worse light?
5. Would you further consider Wizards to be dishonest, disingenuous, weak to pressure, or admitting to lying compared to their original marketing pitch?

 

[fluffybunbunkittens]

I'd call it 5.5 regardless...

 

[UngainlyTitan]

It would not change anything for me.

 

[Retreater]

I could clearly say "Hey, guys, we're gonna stick with 5e" and my group would know what game we were playing.

 

[Charlaquin]

It literally wouldn’t change anything for me. I couldn’t care less what they call it, it is what is, and it will stand on those merits or it won’t. The name doesn’t matter.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I could clearly say "Hey, guys, we're gonna stick with 5e" and my group would know what game we were playing.

I thought you were moving on to something else. That 5e was not working for you. Or was that just the adventures.
If you have found adventures that you prefer I am curious as to what they are?

 

[schneeland]

I don't suppose it would change anything w.r.t. to the contents of the books, so they may well call it D&D Vista and it wouldn't make a difference for me.

 

[Deset Gled]

The biggest change would be that we would be able to stop having threads about if it's a new edition, or what an edition means. I would consider that a positive change.

 

[Mirrorrorrim]

The biggest change would be that we would be able to stop having threads about if it's a new edition, or what an edition means. I would consider that a positive change.

Would that stop, or would the goalposts of the debate just move and different people complain about it being called something different than before?

 

[Pedantic]

It's pretty irrelevant what WotC does, particularly now. Had they said 5.5 early on, we wouldn't have endless forum discussions about motivated reasoning, but probably would have had an interesting surge of pro 5e sentiment and less discussion about how much conversion is too much. I can imagine an interesting essay about the unique features of 5e that will be lost by the background changes or feats or whatever.

Presumably that would be a very different marketing push, focused more on emphasizing how revolutionary unchanged systems like proficiency are and then discussing weak spots that have been discovered by long term community usage.

I doubt 6e will stick. I suspect we'll see interchangeable use of 2024 and 5.5 within a year of launch. If the push to digital monetization fails (and hopefully it does), we can expect a 6e to eventually become a necessity to sell more core books, and I suspect posterity will find it awkward to have one date scattered amongst all the numbers when we discuss past editions so 5.5 and 5.x will likely be normative.