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.

 

[Parmandur]

I guess I am not explaining myself well so I wil try again.

If the 5E adventures used the CR and encounter rules in their design, they assume specific values regarding CR and EL by definition. If the 2024 revision of the game changes those CR and EL values then, by definition, the adventures written for 2014 are no long "compatible" with the 2024 rules. If, on the other hand, the adventures weren't designed with the 2014 rules, it proves that those rules were never worthwhile to begin with so revisions of those rules are irrelevant and unnecessary.

Long story short: you can't have it both ways. Either CR and EL is a real, meaningful thing that must be revised along with everything else -- thereby making the earlier adventures incompatible -- or CR and EL was always arbitrary and unreliable, in which case a revision of CR is completely unnecessary and irrelevant and its best dropped entirely.

That is to say that a system that doesn't do what it's design intent is to do, is useless. Either fix it or eliminate it.

Wotc doesn't use the DMG guidelines when building encounters or monsters, never have: they have different in-house tools that use spreadsheets. The book guidelines are simplified for ease of use by DMs at home, and they are always fuzzy suggestions rather than strict Math. So, no, changing the loose guidelines to fit DM needs better has no effect on published Adventures, because the combat math remains the same.

 

[Maxperson]

okay but what about the editions before that?

1e and 2e were written fairly poorly. I suppose it's possible, but I have my doubts that those editions could have taken off in the same way. They would have jumped in popularity with the main stream surge for sure. I'm just doubtful that it would have been as big of a surge.

yes I argue this all the time 2e, 4e, 3e, OD&D would have jumped up with all of the hype... but again the entire thing stood strong as number one for 30ish year even though it changed all the time

Yeah It was number 1, but it was number 1 against other systems with lesser name recognition and without that same spark(at least for me). Early on the other games tried hard to be D&D in a way that wouldn't get them sued, so they had some silly or just subpar terms for all the same things I already had in D&D.

right there with you... but again that boom is really the last 5 years and I think Covid it actually helped the game too, or some mix of all of them.

Oh, yep. Covid helped for sure. A lot of people suddenly had a lot of time on their hands and probably experimented with D&D because of that.

However my guess is what has KEPT D&D #1 since day 1 is becuse it updates and changes.

Maybe. A great many of the non-D&D names that are not number 1 have also had several updates and changes, yet they have never(other than Pathfinder which is also D&D) come close to knocking D&D out of the top spot.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Glad to see that we are doing their job for them...

???

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Now, just to take this particular example and run with it.

In 10 years, I can't remember the last time a rogue bothered with a free item interaction from his subclass. I'm sure it happened. I have no doubt it happened at some point, but, it was so infrequent that removing that would make pretty much zero difference.

So, I have to ask, how often has this come up in your last campaign? Or whenever you've either played (or DM'd a player who had) a rogue character? Would this make even the slightest difference in your game? Because it honestly wouldn't in mine. Until just now, I'd actually completely forgotten that this existed.

I wonder just how often people start talking about how these are "huge" changes but don't actually take the time to drill down to how much of a real impact it would have in their games.

The only really useful move was drawing thrown weapons. But they decided, that you can just draw them when needed in OneDnD. So good riddance.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

That's possible, but shows like Big Bang Theory and Stranger Things, as well as Critical Role helped bring D&D into the main stream. I'd argue that had a bigger impact on D&D swelling the way it did than the edition itself. 3e might have done as well or even better than 5e has if it had been the edition to benefit from those things. I'm not saying that it would have for sure, but rather that we can't attribute the changes that 5e made as the reason.

Highly unlikely.

 

[Oofta]

Actual causal effects are hard to determine. So we can probably not ever be sure.

Looking at a graph of PHB sales vs stranger things and big bang theory d&d episodes on the timeline would probably be quite revealing. I don’t know that we have that though.

People have in the past, there wasn't a huge bump any bigger than what you would expect from general fluctuations.

There are many things that have lead to 5E's success. Pop culture references to live streams have helped. Cultural changes with acceptance of gaming of all types being more popular and people wanting more interpersonal interactions as well. Throw in a decent rules system with a relatively low barrier to entry. Meanwhile WOTC didn't flood the market with products.

What contributed most? No way to know.

 

[Maxperson]

Highly unlikely.

Okay.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Just because your 'definition' doesn't match other people's 'definition' of "backwards compatible"... doesn't mean your 'definition' is actually correct.

I honestly believe that if most tables used 3.0 and 3.5 together the way most did 1e.2e we would call them backwards compatible... its much more how the tables (overall not 1 spesfic one) use it

 

[Horwath]

I honestly believe that if most tables used 3.0 and 3.5 together the way most did 1e.2e we would call them backwards compatible... its much more how the tables (overall not 1 spesfic one) use it

we used 3.0 stuff in 3.5 unless that specific thing was rewritten in 3.5.

same with 3.75, err Pathfinder

 

[OB1]

That's possible, but shows like Big Bang Theory and Stranger Things, as well as Critical Role helped bring D&D into the main stream. I'd argue that had a bigger impact on D&D swelling the way it did than the edition itself. 3e might have done as well or even better than 5e has if it had been the edition to benefit from those things. I'm not saying that it would have for sure, but rather that we can't attribute the changes that 5e made as the reason.

I'm not so sure about that assumption. The home game played by the Critical Role group was Pathfinder and they specifically switched to 5e because they felt it was better suited to live play.