I have been calling the upcoming release “D&D 5.5”, but now I think it would be better to refer to it as “D&D 5.2”. Here’s why. After the release of the Player’s Handbook (Sept 2024), Dungeon Master’s Guide (Nov 2024), and Monster Manual (Feb 2025) Wizards of the Coast will release an updated versi
…one could handily retcon post-tasha fifth edition as 5.1, since it started rolling out many of system revisions under development…
SRD 5.1 was released 8 years ago though, long before TCE. And since Tasha’s rules are all considered optional, that book didn’t really revise the rules, just expand on them.
…yeah, it’s a retronym, but if the marketing campaign ends up branding the new edition 5.2, whither 5.1?..
I’m not sure it’s an exact match, but SRD 5.1 was published around the same time as the PH accrued the “This printing includes corrections to the first printing” message in the front matter.
They both contain the corrections from the previously-published errata.
So if you will, if your PH has that message, and it probably does, you’ve probably been playing 5.1 for a while now.
…the SRD 5.1 corrected several oversights from the first-draft SRD 5.0 released four months earlier, but didn’t in any way reflect changes to the actual published game, which remained substantially unchanged until tasha’s cauldron of everything was published five years later, effectively revising several key classes, races, and other core design mechanics, setting the stage for other forthcoming proto-sixth edition revisions including spell-like abilities and deprecated alignment…
…calling the new SRD 5.2 is purely a marketing decision, as it will be an entirely new document rather than a revision to SRD 5.0/5.1…if any point in fifth edition’s ten-year history merits version update, it’s the revised game design WotC have been publishing since 2021…
Are you quoting something with those ellipses?
If “5.2” were a marketing decision, then it would probably be getting used in their marketing materials. But there you see stuff like “One D&D.”
Incrementing the second number here is in line with general “geek numbering system” convention. It doesn’t seem to me like marketing barged into the production room and insisted on a more “marketable” version number — not that that has never happened, but marketing would most likely have wanted “5.5” not the inscrutable “5.2.”