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.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Do you really think that they are going through 39000 responses by themselves? That they haven't hired a firm to handle things?

Why would you presume that WotC is doing this 100% in house?

Because their surveys remain incredibly badly designed and they use primitive, simplistic metrics like raw proportion of positive response rate without, for instance, trying to capture the strength of the feeling or get anything even remotely more statistically manageable than binary yes/no.

 

[Weiley31]

It is backwards compatible. You can play a 2014 PHB character with a OneD&D rules. I've done it. It works. They're compatible. The fact that you disagree with their definition of "backwards compatibility" doesn't mean that they're being dishonest. They even said what they mean by "backwards compatible" in one of the playtest documents.

EXACTLY!

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Because their surveys remain incredibly badly designed and they use primitive, simplistic metrics like raw proportion of positive response rate without, for instance, trying to capture the strength of the feeling or get anything even remotely more statistically manageable than binary yes/no.

The survey does have a "how much do you like X" scale. There's three different versions of "Satisfied" versus "Dissatisfied" that you can choose from.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

The survey does have a "how much do you like X" scale. There's three different versions of "Satisfied" versus "Dissatisfied" that you can choose from.

Then they shouldn't just use raw proportions! Standard deviation and central tendency are incredibly important. Distilling that down to "70% positive" is outright deceptive statistics!

 

[FrogReaver]

Then they shouldn't just use raw proportions! Standard deviation and central tendency are incredibly important. Distilling that down to "70% positive" is outright deceptive statistics!

Yep, but it is good marketing to be able to advertise that they have 70% positive responses for inclusion.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Then they shouldn't just use raw proportions! Standard deviation and central tendency are incredibly important. Distilling that down to "70% positive" is outright deceptive statistics!

Seeing the pie charts would be helpful. But I do think that it's useful to know how overall positive the feedback is.

 

[Charlaquin]

I'm not quite sure why 5e still resists playable characters being large size, when being large (by itself) does nothing but make it so that more medium sized creatures can surround you, but it does.

It was different in 3e, for example, when being large came with some automatic mechanical assumptions (and yet, they allowed a few large playable races then!)

At any rate, if an orc becomes large, they'd really gain nothing, so the argument is weird anyway!

Yeah, I don’t get why WotC is so averse to it either.

 

[Majesticles]

I'm not quite sure why 5e still resists playable characters being large size, when being large (by itself) does nothing but make it so that more medium sized creatures can surround you, but it does.

It was different in 3e, for example, when being large came with some automatic mechanical assumptions (and yet, they allowed a few large playable races then!)

At any rate, if an orc becomes large, they'd really gain nothing, so the argument is weird anyway!

Zee Bashew has a great video explaining the problems:
But more to the point, the issues with humans being Small are many:
1) Why do only humans get this trait? do other races not suffer acondroplasia? Will I also get to play a Tiny halfling?
2) Why is achondroplasia the only disorder being mechanically represented? What if I want my character to have gigantism? Or autism? or club foot? or mermaid syndrome? The logical conclusion here is for WotC to crack open Grey's Anatomy and release an entire splatbook statting every single physical deformity, even ones whose sufferers have no business adventuring.
3)Why would you accept that human size is one of our most variable characteristics, and thus build in rules for smaller people ... but neglect the single most salient aspects of that size difference, i.e. strength, stride length, manual dexterity, girth?
4)And ... if we're really going to accept reality enough to argue for separate rules for smaller humans, then why are other ways that humans vary off the table? There's a LOT of variance in humanity, male to female variance alone has hundreds of measurable differences.
5)And, finally a from a different angle, we're taking a broad category that literally treated all humans identically, which is a profoundly inclusive option and choice, and are now subdividing it, creating special category based on size for variability. Do we even want to open that door, given that we already have the most inclusive option on the table?
6) I've heard some people argue humans being able to be Small is actually meant to represent children, which would have it's own problems. For one, the character is basically a child soldier. For another, does this mean orcs are born 5ft tall? Furthermore, there are certain types of people who would do VERY unsavory things if allowed to play children...

 

[JEB]

Yeah, I don’t get why WotC is so averse to it either.

I have the suspicion something broke spectacularly in a playtest involving Large characters, and rather than try to find a way to make it work anyway, they just decided to restrict playable characters to Medium or faux-medium sizes.

 

[Charlaquin]

70% success rate has been claimed as the cutoff from the Next playtest and the failure to meet it after one single attempt is allegedly why the original Warlock and Sorcerer failed to get even a single attempt to fix it.

The PHB Warlock is almost functionally identical to the Next Playtest Warlock. The loss of the Next Playtest Sorcerer is tragic, but the reason given for pulling back on it was that people thought it would be difficult to convert sorcerers from past editions. The idea that the 70% approval threshold played into it is speculation. But I’d also wager the fate of the Next Playtest sorcerer was part of what lead WotC to realize more focused chunks would be a better approach than full vertical slices.