For those who don’t know me, I’m Dan Ayoub. I’m no stranger to D&D, both professionally and personally. I previously worked with Wizards of the Coast on their digital products, and I’ve recently become the Head of the Dungeons & Dragons franchise.
I’ve also been playing D&D since I was twelve years old, when the Basic Set got me hooked. I know firsthand the power D&D has to ignite your imagination and foster friendships—I’ve been playing with the same group as when I started all those years ago.
I’m lucky enough that the game I love has shaped not only my friendships but my entire career. Every morning, I still have to pinch myself because I get to help guide the future of the game I’ve loved since the first roll.
I’m here to open a dialogue with you—the players, Dungeon Masters, live stream watchers, and storytellers. You’ve filled taverns with laughter, launched spells across the multiverse, and rolled death saving throws with anxious hearts.
Dungeons & Dragons belongs to you, and we’re putting it back where it belongs: at your table.
- A System That Belongs to You
- A Stronger SRD, Step by Step
- Run Your D&D Beyond Content on Maps—No Subscription Required
- From the Community, For the Community
A System That Belongs to You
The new Core Rulebooks were shaped by ten years of community play, feedback, and love for fifth edition.
This upgrade doesn’t replace the previous rules; it enhances them. It makes this beloved system more player-friendly, better to create content for, and evolve rather than replace the fifth edition books you already own.
A Stronger SRD, Step by Step
Alongside the content provided in the new Core Rulebooks, we’re updating the System Reference Document (SRD) on a rolling basis.
We’re committing to long-term access and support of this resource through the errata process. This ensures the SRD will remain up to date with the latest standards and mechanics for creators to use in their works.
Run Your D&D Beyond Content on Maps—No Subscription Required
Starting September 16, in time with the release of Heroes of the Borderlands, all D&D Beyond registered users can run games on the Maps virtual tabletop (VTT) —no subscription required.
The core experience will be made available to everyone: If you own a map, module, or adventure on D&D Beyond, you can use it on Maps and invite your friends to play. Period.
Our Master Tier subscription will unlock more customizability for DMs who need it. You’ll be able to upload homebrew maps, custom tokens, and access exciting tools built just for you.
From the Community, For the Community
We’re laying the groundwork for a new initiative that will bring community voices directly into the room. Our goal is to create a rotating advisory group made up of creators, publishers, educators, and fans who can help us shape future tools, policies, and content in a real, ongoing way.
We’re still finalizing the structure and process, but our intention is clear: this isn’t a one-time survey or a PR move. It’s about building lasting collaboration with the people who make D&D what it is.
More details to come, but we are also developing a creator spotlighting program that will highlight third-party creations across our official channels. If you’re making something incredible, the world should see it.
At D&D, we understand that the community is the beating heart of the game we all love, and we want it to thrive so more people can experience adventures with their friends and family.
We’ve stumbled before. We’ve learned from it. And now, we’re committed to clearer communication, more transparency, and consistent support—for players, creators, and publishers.
This Is Just the Beginning
This new direction for Dungeons & Dragons is already underway. We’re here to earn your trust, not ask for it.
We're building a game that honors the past, listens in the present, and opens new doors for the future. Together.
We’re investing long-term in this game, this community, and the stories we collectively tell. That means better digital tools, more open development, and more content built alongside players.
We’ll see you at the table.
—Dan Ayoub, Head of the Dungeons & Dragons Franchise
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Posted Jul 31, 2025Good luck
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Posted Jul 31, 2025Bring back a la carte and give us dnd beyound codes with each physical book copy we buy.
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Posted Jul 31, 2025If u dont vote ur vote doesn't count its that simple. Everyone had the opportunity to participate if they didn't thats just as much a choice as anything else.
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Posted Jul 31, 2025the new rules are still crap, i will never use then in anything, or buy any new content you bring out, EVER. Trust is gone for a long time now and if this wouldnt be the best site for character sheets, i or my group wouldnt use it. So you can say whatever you want, it goes in one ear and out the other.
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Posted Jul 31, 2025I love the context of this. Wonderful!
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Posted Jul 31, 2025Love the passion and the direction!!! Congats on your promotion, Dan!
Can't wait to see where this goes.
Also for a suggestion:
Publish some helpful guidelines to folding 2024 and 2014 characters into the same world and utilizing a pick & pull style for the rules between the two systems as DMs and tables choose.
As a professional DM, I do this already in my games and my players LOVE it.
We use some 2014 base rules & some 2024 base game rules & play with both styles of character. The only thing I do to help balance is I give every character who has healing the new versions of the heals (they are more tactical and fun and create more use for healers mid-combat instead of picking people up off the ground), etc. You can easily fold in allowing people to use new spells in general and have them all as version to choose from. The Feats can also be interchanged and used if they want.
The hybrid just created a really cool, vibrant game with so many different options instead of the original or the new edition solely. I think some people feel like they don't have permission to blend like this and if there were some helpful hints and tips for people which are published, people can get over their fears and assumptions about the new 2024 content - which contains stuff I love and stuff I don't, but so does the original, and the hybrid version has created a TON of fun for my players.
I'm SO excited to hear about this new era and look forward to what you all come up with and hope we can all help shape the new directions!
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Posted Jul 31, 2025This sounds nice but I hope new longer campaigns are made over small bite sized content like Dragon Delves. The Symbaroum setting seems lackluster with just a bit of lore about the setting without any of the classes, magic, or monsters that makes that world grimdark. My players have chomped their way through most of the published adventures already and had to look elsewhere as these bite sized content are not enough. Then the Stranger Things content seems weak and so does the Borderland coming out soon.
I feel as if we went from novels to zines to now a comic strip in content. What is the obsession with numerous books filled with 1 shots and side quests?
Most if not nearly all of the longer campaigns came out years ago.
I am not looking for a levels 1-3 adventures I am looking for real campaigns running through levels 1-15 if not higher.
Another hope is that a new campaign book would have a cohesive story as some of the older ones like Icewind Dale Rime of the Frostmaiden is all over the place. Same with Out of the Abyss.
I know my last hope which has a snowballs chance in hell is that we get a new campaign in a new region beyond the Sword Coast which has been used a lot. How about a campaign set in Cormyr, Sembia, Amn, Calimsham, or Thay
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Posted Jul 31, 2025This is a great idea!
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Posted Jul 31, 2025+1 to this, a good enhancement request. Encounter Builder is super handy and would be an even handier tool if it had 2024 capabilities.
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Posted Jul 31, 2025That was a coding issue (which, as you already stated, they fixed), not a game design issue. There was absolutely nothing in the new rulebooks stopping you from taking a paper character sheet and writing down on it that you were using features from 2014 books.
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Posted Jul 31, 2025That was a coding issue (which, as you already stated, they fixed), not a game design issue. There was absolutely nothing in the new rulebooks stopping you from taking a paper character sheet and writing down on it that you were using features from 2014 books.
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Posted Jul 31, 2025I think a good step towards a more open and useful SRD would be to add Artificer to it, so the third party content that DnD Beyond has come to lean on more and more lately can introduce new Artificer subclasses.
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Posted Jul 31, 2025Wizards promised us in the wake of the OGL Fiasco that you'd make your internal content guidelines publicly available. I happen to know that they were finished in 2023. We have yet to see them.
Publishing them as a means of transparency and a way for the community to hold you accountable would go a long way in building trust.
You also promised braille versions in 2020 (or earlier). Still haven't seen those except the SRD 5.1 conversion that we did for you.
You brought in disability consultants to talk to your staff about authentic disability representation, but then you released the 2024 core books without even mentioning disabilities except for token artwork. (The inclusion in Deck of Many Things was fantastic, but what about the core books?)
This new initiative sounds promising, but what about the promises you've already made and not kept? I want to believe you, but fool me thrice, shame on….
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Posted Jul 31, 2025Snap to grid is a must also.
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Posted Jul 31, 2025Dear Dan,
Welcome to the new role, I hope that it leads to some more positive movement within the D&D space.
Not sure if you have much control over the development of D&D Beyond, but in case you have a say in the direction of the site... some requests for things that I'd love to see you steering the development team towards:
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Posted Jul 31, 2025Just to add to the features wish-list, can we have some control over the books appearing in the Sources menu? When I'm running an Obojima game (which is such a refreshing setting), I have to click through an extra page and a lot of scrolling to get to something I'm using every session, while the Basic Rules, for instance, aren't relevant when I own the core books, or The Book of Many Things, which I rarely need to reference outside of item stat blocks.
Also, I would love to use the Obojima subclasses with 2024 rules, especially for books released after the 2024 rules were released. The implementation of which 3rd party options are compatible with which rule set is patchy. If I have a group where someone wants to play a Belly Brewer Barbarian and someone else wants to be a College of Dance Bard, I have to be using different rules for each character, which seems to pointlessly limit the game's possibilities.
But, to respond to the article: I think it's a sensible idea to make Maps open to everyone. When there are so many (often better) sites for using maps during play which all allow an easy drag-and-drop option, it seems only sensible to allow all site users to access this, so their character sheets and tokens work together.
I'm someone who's played and run D&D games since 1988, so I can happily say that this site is so much better than needing to look up endless, specific tables. I mean, you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who genuinely preferred the old rules for rogues, where moving silently and hiding in shadows were distinct skills, relying on a % score system. The d20 test works better.
Let's hope we can all continue to have nerdy fun for a long time yet.
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Posted Jul 31, 2025If you play Adventurer's League, any content that gets superseded by 2024 content is no longer valid to play.
For example, if you make a Necromancer Wizard, the moment a new book releases with a new version of the Necromancer, your character is no longer legal for organized play. You have to buy a new book to use your existing character.
That's not true at all. The original intent from WotC was to have 2024 completely replace 2014 content on DDB—meaning that even if you owned the 2014 books, they'd be completely unplayable on DDB. That only got reversed due to the massive backlash WotC received.
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Posted Jul 31, 2025I'm not sure I agree with much of what you said, but if you're looking for another online character sheet, try shard tabletop. The layout is actually better IMO
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Posted Jul 31, 2025great to read, but once again, please fix the search engine
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Posted Jul 31, 2025Actions speak louder than words. Time will tell if this is genuine. I think the release and reception of Daggerheart is one of the many reasons for this post and the community has been fed up for a while and many players are just done with wizards of the coast problematic behavior.