D&D (2024) WotC On One D&D Playtest Survey Results: Nearly Everything Scored 80%+!

In a 40-minute video, WotC's Jeremy Crawford discussed the survey feedback to the 'Character Origins' playtest document. Over 40,000 engaged with the survey, and 39,000 completed it. I've summarised the content of the video below.

High Scorers

• The highest scoring thing with almost 90% was getting a first level feat in your background. This is an example of an experimental thing -- like advantage and disadvantage in the original 5E playtests.
• Almost everything also scored 80%+.

About The Scoring System

• 70% or higher is their passing grade. In the 70s is a thumbs up but tinkering need. 80% means the community wants exactly that and WotC treads carefully not to change it too much.
• In the 60s it's salvageable but it really needs reworking. Below 60% means that there's a good chance they'll drop it, and in the 40s or below it's gone. Nothing was in the 50s or below.

Low Scorers

Only 3 things dipped into the 60s --

• the d20 Test rule in the Rules Glossary (experimental, no surprise)
• the ardling
• the dragonborn

The next UA had a different version of the d20 Test rule, and they expect a very different score when those survey resuts come in.

It was surprising that the dragonborn scored lower than the ardling. The next UA will include new versions of both. The main complaints were:

• the dragonborn's breath weapon, and confusion between the relationship between that dragonborn and the one in Fizban's Treasury of Dragons.
• the ardling was trying to do too much (aasimar-like and beast-person).

The ardling does not replace the aasimar. The next version will have a clearer identity.

Everything else scored in the 70s or 80s.

Some more scores:

• new human 83%
• dwarf, orc, tiefling, elf tied at 80-81%
• gnome, halfling tied at 78%

Future installments of Unearthed Arcana

• The next one will have new ardling and dragonborn, a surprise 'guest', and a new cleric. It will be a shorter document than the previous ones, and the one after that is bigger again. Various class groups.
• Warrior group digs into something teased in a previous UA sidebar -- new weapon options for certain types of characters. Whole new ways to use weapons.
• New rules on managing your character's home base. A new subsystem. Create bases with NPCs connected with them, implementing downtime rules. They're calling it the "Bastion System".
• There will be a total of 48 subclasses in the playtest process.
• New encounter building rules, monster customization options.
• New versions of things which appear in the playtest after feedback.

Other Notes

• Playtests are a version of something with the assumption that if something isn't in the playtest, it's still in the game (eg eldritch blast has not been removed from the game). The mage Unearthed Arcana will feature that.
• Use an object and other actions are still as defined in the current Player's Handbook. The playtest material is stuff that has changed.
• Thief subclass's cunning action does not interact with use an object; this is intentional. Removed because the original version is a 'Mother may I?" mechanic - something that only works if the DM cooperates with you. In general mechanics which require DM permission are unsatisfying. The use an object action might go away, but that decision will be a made via the playtest process.
• The ranger's 1st-level features also relied too heavily on DM buy-in, also wild magic will be addressed.
• If you have a class feature you should be able to use it in the way you expect.
• If something is removed from the game, they will say so.
• Great Weapon Fighting and Sharpshooter were changed because the penalty to the attack roll was not big enough to justify the damage bonus, plus they want warrior classes to be able to rely on their class features (including new weapon options) for main damage output. They don't want any feats to feel mandatory to deal satisfying damage. Feats which are 'must haves' violate their design goals.
• Light Weapon property amped up by removing the bonus action requirement because requiring light weapon users to use their bonus action meant there were a lot of bad combinations with features and spells which require bonus actions. It felt like a tax on light weapon use.
• Class spell lists are still an open question. Focus on getting used to the three big spell lists. Feedback was that it would be nice to still have a class list to summarize what can be picked from the 'master lists'. For the bard that would be useful, for the cleric and wizard not necessary as they can choose from the whole divine or arcane list.

The playtest process will continue for a year.

 

[overgeeked]

I notice you skipped 3.0 and 3.5 in that. They were a ridiculous hotbed of optimization. You could have characters in the teen levels that shouldn't even be on the same planet, much less the same battlefield. Both 4e and 5e have cut down on the possibilities of it a lot.

Yeah, it's one of the reasons I skipped it and won't touch Pathfinder. I have zero interest in that style of play.

The division that they should have made from the beginning is between results from Players vs. GM's, and weigh them equally.

I think you mean proportionally. Equally would be one person, one vote. Proportionally would be giving more weight to DM responses.

Not segregating results this way cannot but help to skew results in favor of Player desires over the GM's that actually run the game.

No matter how many times WotC resets the clock, the weight of player survey responses as they are currently done will always drive the designers in the direction of feeling that they have to add moar powerz! Not less.

I think that's intentional. 5E is very much a player-focused game. Almost every single book, even the modules, includes PC options...because WotC knows there's 10 players to every 1 DM. Their fanbase is the players. Not the DMs. But, they need the DMs to run their games.

 

[Oofta]

I just go with "It is an abstraction of your physical and mental health, as well as your willingness to continue to fight" essentially. In that way a shout of encouragement could be temp HP as 'motivation'.

Well, how many times in a movie is the hero down and about to go down for the count when someone or some thought give him that boost to come back swinging. It's either a word of encouragement, a little kid, some image that seems to miraculously rally. See the second wind tv trope.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Hopefully they drop the addling and fix what’s needed

Why not a survey on the official site and how about what would u like added as an added question. That’s a real survey

D&D Beyond is a an official site.

 

[OB1]

Like I said in an earlier thread:


I maintain that the final draft is already written, and that these "survey results" are more about generating buzz and excitement than actually getting feedback. It's a great marketing strategy. (Much better than the "we fixed your game for you, you're welcome" approach they used back in 2008.)

So meh, I'm not surprised that they announced a high-but-plausible result because that is going to generate the strongest favorable reaction. I think they are figuring out how many people still need convincing....not how many changes still need to be made.

Or maybe I'm just really jaded in my old age.

I feel you, but I'm not quite that jaded. I'd guess that 90-95% of the final draft is written in stone, and that the primary purpose of the playtest is about change management. You tell people about the changes coming, listen to their complaints, then implement what you want anyhow.

For the other 5-10%, I'd guess that's where the A-B testing is coming in, perhaps because they were unsure the best way to move forward on some ideas, or perhaps because there was true concern that some of the bigger changes might have some blowback that any amount of change management wasn't going to convince a significant portion of the base to come on board. I think there will be changes to the crit rules from 2014, for example, but I think they are honestly testing reaction to them to decide on what will be in the final package.

I do believe that the survey results they are reporting are real, but I would also say that they probably had a fairly good idea of what the results would be before testing. Should something come back way out of line with what they expected, I could see them rework some of that 'written in stone' material. In fact, I suspect this is exactly what happened with playtest packet 2, and why we are just now getting a much smaller packet 3 after a delay.

 

[Marandahir]

I was thrown aback by the headline because I couldn't imagine the Expert classes had already scored 80% or higher.

And as I thought, this is only about the Character Origins UA, not the Experts UA.

 

[Clint_L]

I do not understand the need to automatically assume bad intent. All WotC has done has been largely up front while producing a hugely popular iteration of a game that I assume we all love. So...why not assume that they mean what they say and are actively using our feedback to inform their development of OneD&D? Like, what makes that an unreasonable assumption?

It's fine to have doubts. Doubts are healthy. But you also have to be able to ask yourself what if I'm wrong? Maybe WotC isn't some corporate conspiracy to screw over their own fans. Maybe the folks working there actually love the game and value their player base and want to make the best version of the game possible, not just because that would be good business but because it would make them feel good as creators and professionals.

Criticizing their proposals is fine. It's what feedback is for. But criticizing their motives is not cool. None of us is a mind reader. It just seems like a lot of folks have made up their minds and are not even open to any positive interpretations. And that is really weird to me considering that WotC have done a very good job with the game.

 

[Amrûnril]

There actually was a question asking about satisfaction with feats as part of backgrounds overall and not just of specific backgrounds. (Sorry for graining image, but I grabbed it from someone who posted filling it out on YouTube.) I mostly recalled it because I remember being glad I didn't have to just give a flat rating to backgrounds but could tell them I both really liked feats as part of backgrounds, but languages as part of backgrounds was one of the worst things in the entire document.

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The question was definitely there. On the other hand, it could be interpreted in a lot of different ways. Do you approve of the idea of getting a feat at level 1? Do you approve of the assignment of specific feats to specific backgrounds? Do you approve of the option to choose your own feat as part of a custom background? Do you approve of the limited selection of feats available? And then there's the issue of treating answers on a four point scale as binary approval/disapproval. And the issue that this headline-driving question is Number 24, Subpart 5 and still has that degree of ambiguity..

I'm glad the developers are emphasizing their attention to written answers, but their description of approval thresholds would be far too simplistic and definitive even if the surveys were clearly written. If it's not clear whether the players and developers are interpreting the questions the same way, the issue only gets worse.

 

[overgeeked]

I do not understand the need to automatically assume bad intent. All WotC has done has been largely up front while producing a hugely popular iteration of a game that I assume we all love. So...why not assume that they mean what they say and are actively using our feedback to inform their development of OneD&D? Like, what makes that an unreasonable assumption?

A history of dishonesty around edition changes and being a mega-corp whose only goal is profits.

 

[MockingBird]

Yeah, I'm not a fan of non-optional feats. I told them as much in every feat section that had a comment box. I feel like they listened and are trying to give us all the best of both worlds. I can handle the background feat, then just take the ASI feat when available. This makes me feel good about it.

Not a fan of the Ardling, and told them as much. I'm really hoping they just ditch it or save it for a source book. Just make the Assimer (sp?) A core class. I feel like they may be conflicted with the results they have gotten. I'm just not a fan of the animal thing.

Touching on the few comments about changing the game up for new players. 5e has been the easiest game to teach to new players in my experience. Right now I have a game running with my wife and kids. None of them have ever played before and they have picked up on it very quickly. The oldest kid is 15, the youngest is 9. I personally don't feel like they would need to change much to on board new players.

 

[Cruentus]

I've played and run for almost 40 years. I played B/X, BECMI, AD&D, 4E, and now 5E. In that whole time I never had to worry about power gaming or optimization...until 5E. While running 5E, I've had about zero players who didn't obsess over optimization out of a cast of a few hundred.

I have one player in my group since high school (40 years), who still plays, and still optimizes the heck out of everything.

My son who is 13 doesn't care about optimization, and would rather get on with the story and creative descriptions of the action (i.e. the rules get in the way for him). He is a voracious reader, but finds the rules as presented in the PHB to be complicated and convoluted for no reason that he can discern. He did DM for one group, but he decided to run a non-DnD RPG game, which the group is enjoying much more. They are having fun, which is the whole point.

It'll be interesting to see what the OneDnD rules look like in 2024, but I haven't bought anything WOTC this year, and won't likely buy any more. Its not what I'm looking for. OSE scratches all the itches.

It has been fascinating, though, watching how the Next playtest went from its last playtest packet to the final product - didn't really look much the same. So I'll be interested from an academic perspective to see how this one rolls out too.