Talk:Editions of Dungeons & Dragons

D&D Edition 4 & Pathfinder

One thing not mentioned in the description of Edition 4 is that the changes were so radical, the game became a high-level combat-heavy game, with too many of the favourite classes and races eliminated, and the reaction was that about half the D&D community dropped Wizards' version like a hot rock and switched to Pathfinder, which was based on an improved Ed.3.5. Nomicai (talk) 05:02, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Source? Woodroar (talk) 18:35, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

I don't recall that's an estimate, exaggeration, or underestimate, but has some truth: cbr.com/what-one-dnd-can-learn-from-the-games-least-popular-edition (CBR) and I remember much criticism from then. I played D&D with many people in the 1990s, and some mentioned playing Pathfinder, but not a single one mentioned playing D&D 'fourth edition'. Maybe some more articles can be found like CBR?--dchmelik☀️🦉🐝🐍(talk|contrib) 17:16, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

actual editions

Game companies are poor in contrast to academic/scientific book publishers notating editions. In fact, Holmes Basic was D&D 2e; BX was D&D 3e; BECMI was D&D 4e; Rules Cyclopedia (and Wrath of The Immortals) was D&D 5e, and when AD&D rules dropped 'advanced' so reverted to the original name, continuing numbering from that, it was 6e ('3e') and continued to 7e ('4e') and 8e ('5e').--dchmelik☀️🦉🐝🐍(talk|contrib) 16:52, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

AD&D Editions

No, "3rd Edition" was a continuation of what had been AD&D. It was not a continuation of what had been under the D&D brand. That line of the game had been discontinued. That is why "3rd Edition" is called 3rd and not 6th. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.96.38.41 (talk) 17:13, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

literary editions

'Edition' isn't a proper/capitalized noun. I'm mainly talking about literary, not ruleset editions, but it's not as simple as you say. By time of revised AD&D 2e, they'd combined in regular D&D rules optionally, such as weapon mastery, which--from what I can tell--were core later (2000) D&D. For literary editions, major changes of content (not just rulesets) within exact titles are what matter. For example 'D&D 3.5' Players Handbook & Dungeon Masters Guide were fourth literary editions of those books, and forthcoming are seventh literary editions (despite for 5e ruleset continued from AD&D). Historically, game/book editions were counted in literary way (early D&D such as first BX D&D (1981) book notates its new edition and references all previous) but now that they adopted software-style version numbering, one has to distinguish between literary & ruleset editions. Even if a book isn't printed again, that doesn't mean it's not relevant. Many continue to play with older editions and 'retro-clones', just like not everyone plays chess variants. It also doesn't matter if you copy much/most/all content of one book/website into another that had previous editions: in literary editions (such as library databases) that's a new edition of that title kept on cover/titlebar (regardless of new content, and which some people do, such as was done copying AD&D content into preexisting game name D&D, as a literary edition that already had larger number of previous not(at)ed literary editions)--dchmelik☀️🦉🐝🐍(talk|contrib) 08:06, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

Phrasing in description of first edition

"With a production budget of only $2000 to print a thousand copies, the result has been described as amateurish." implies that results of the whole thing were described that way, when the source talks about art of the first edition specifically "In retrospect, the art of the original Dungeons & Dragons can look amateurish, even crude." ~2026-11640-98 (talk) 12:14, 21 February 2026 (UTC)