D&D (2024) One D&D origins playtest survey is live
- Thread starter darjr
- Start date
The Myopic Sniper
Hero
It seems while they used the term "race" in the playtest packet, in the survey they just used the generic "character option." They may just be seeing how many people bring that complaint to them independently in the survey. They seemed about ready to drop the term a year and a half or so ago, but backtracked since then.
Parmandur
Book-Friend, he/him
I see no reason to believe that it is based on what they have said or put out there: it is structured like UA has been ever since the build untoward Xanathar's. Just a difference in degree, not process. The content is similar, the survey apparatus is the same.
Parmandur
Book-Friend, he/him
Yes, I did say that as well.
Parmandur
Book-Friend, he/him
I really hope they do.
I suppose it is possible that surveys of future packets will include questions regarding how it interacts with things from earlier packets, but it still seems extremely inefficient. I already have multiple players declining to adjust characters because there is no class information to see how thinsg interact. What do they think people are going to be able to test?
SakanaSensei
Adventurer
I’m going to fill this out after I’ve had my coffee and can get to a proper keyboard, but man oh man do I hope they don’t stay the course with forcing inspiration into the game in an unavoidable way. I know a lot of people never used it because it was easy to forget, but for my part I never used it because it’s just so disconnected from the fiction/feels game-y.
The Myopic Sniper
Hero
While personally I think that the term race as used in D&D is actually probably fine with what D&D ancestries represent, if they are going to end up taking tons of criticism, explaining, defending and possibly changing it in future printings based on feedback, it is far easier to take the heat and change the term now.
Although it could simply be that they don't want an influx of people complaining in playtest surveys about "wokeness gone mad" with them dropping the term "race" and when the 2024 actual publication comes out it will use a term like "Ancestry," "Heritage" or the like. They may have a term they are privately happy with, but don't want to cloud the playtest feedback with too much focus put on that change. The fact that they didn't use "race" in the survey could be indicative of that.
I know some people have theorized that the previous backtrack on the term "race" has to do with its mechanical status in the OGL/SRD, I have no clue personally about that though. I am kind of dubious on that one, WOTC has amazing legal staff at its disposal. I find it hard to believe that the OGL/SRD are written in such a way that would leave them unable to change the term race in the game. That seems to be a popular argument though so maybe there is some validity to it.
The Myopic Sniper
Hero
Additionally, a lot of people didn't use it because it so metagamey and breaks the simulation. It was fine if you were playing a slightly narrativist tinged D&D using the personality and flaw system to grant inspiration. The changes to now having it generate off racial features and die rolls ruins inspiration for narrativist play as well since they will probably be receiving far more inspiration to use and to share (which is now given freely between players with no inside the fiction narration to accompany it).
Inspiration should be an optional rule at best, in the DMG, with no typing it to die rolls, class or racial features. As instituted in 2014 D&D it didn't play well with a lot of established playstyles and in 2024 D&D the new mechanics totally trashed the one playstyle it did work in.
Most of my commentary in the survey was around this issue as well.
GMforPowergamers
Legend
I wonder if that is what they meant when they said things were already popular house rules
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