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.

 

[Charlaquin]

yes and no to you both... it was a VERY different concept that while great in theory needed more work.
the sad part is a great idea with bad execution can get a 40% approval and dropped

I mean, we barely saw any of it, it only went up to 5th level. And for those 5 levels, I thought it was pretty solid. Not perfect, but a great first draft.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

3e specifically wrecked the character I was using at the time of the drop: a rogue alchemist who used a bastard sword.

we had a ranger/sorcerer useing haste that said he would walk if we updated before the end of the campagin

 

[Stefano Rinaldelli]

Why, though? There are so many issues.
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? And what am I to do when the pervy problem player gets his hands on this?

Don't try to find logic into ideology.

 

[Oofta]

Rob Donoghue had a thread a while back on Twitter where he pointed out that one of the reasons combat works fairly well in D&D and non-combat tasks generally don't is that combat uses a large number of rolls, where you have a fair bit of control over the circumstances of each roll, and with each individual roll being fairly low-stakes in relation to the eventual outcome. This creates a situation where you both have excitement over individual rolls, and (in most cases) a fair bit of certainty that the PCs will come out on top. Overall, PCs will likely have win percentages of 95% or more, even if any individual attack roll might only have a 60% chance to hit.

But skill checks tend to be more binary: you make one roll, and if you fail that's it. You need to find another approach. If you can't pick the lock, you can either break down the door, cast a knock spell, or find someone who has the key. And in that situation, a 60% chance of success is pretty unsatisfactory. Some games use something akin to skill challenges for important skill checks (multiple rolls, sometimes for different skills, and where a single failure doesn't wreck the whole effort), but D&D tried that in 4e and as we know everything that came from 4e is unholy and must be purged.

I liked the concept of skill challenges, at least for some things, but as implemented at the tables I played at they didn't work very well. I still use a variation of the skill challenge concept now and then but it's less static and more dynamic than what 4E implemented.

Whether D&D 5E works for things outside of combat is a personal preference. It works fine for me and I have no desire whatsoever to resolving everything with dice rolls.

 

[mamba]

As I've said before, it depends on how one defines the terms. Some feel "backwards-compatible" means you shouldn't have to change anything in order to make use of anything--that any changes, even tiny superficial ones, are too much. I don't hold that position, but I'm sympathetic to it. Another says that the only way it's not backwards-compatible is if it is completely impossible to make use of old material. I'm...pretty skeptical about that position.

Not sure anyone goes as far as the 'almost impossible'. It essentially is never impossible to use old material, you can certainly use settings, adventure ideas, etc.

Obviously, most positions are going to be somewhere between those extremes. But I definitely get the impression that people have been drifting in a fairly permissive direction on what they consider to be "backwards compatibility." E.g., by the standard I've seen posited, every version of D&D except 4e definitely is "backwards compatible," and 4e is only just shy thereof.

Nah, I think they basically are around a change no bigger than 1e to 2e or 3.0 to 3.5, and from the looks of it this one won't be any bigger either

 

[mamba]

I'm just so sick of 5e.

Play something else then instead of trying to make D&D something else

 

[Oofta]

I'm just so sick of 5e. And the idea of the future of the TTRPG hobby being 5.1 for the foreseeable future already has my eyes glazing over.
And yes, I can choose not to buy it, and I probably won't. It doesn't keep me from wishing that things could have gone differently.

There are plenty of options out there, why do you feel that you need to come to a forum dedicated to the game just to yuck on other people's yum? I'm still enjoying 5E, odds are I'll buy into the 2024 release as well because so far it looks like they're fixing things I don't like.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Not sure anyone goes as far as the 'almost impossible'. It essentially is never impossible to use old material, you can certainly use settings, adventure ideas, etc.

Nah, I think they basically are around a change no bigger than 1e to 2e or 3.0 to 3.5, and from the looks of it this one won't be any bigger either

Okay, but people have been explicitly pushing back against that very specific claim. Because that's literally what I've said. Several times, in this thread and others, that "One D&D" is currently shaping up to be a "revised edition" 3.5-style change.

Should they push forward with any more experimental changes, like the (already not-happening-as-written) changes to critical hits, then it may become more than a "5.5e" shift. But it certainly seems to be no less than that at present.

Edit: Keep in mind, when 3.5e was published, WotC got roasted online and by word of mouth because 3.5e was considered a massive cash grab, a crappy rugpull that changed just enough to force people to buy new books while still technically qualifying as "compatible." The community bought the books anyway, so we can see that that reaction was something of a tempest in a teapot, but the comparison is important nonetheless. Why it's a perfectly delightful tiny step now when it was an abhorrent leap across a gulf 20 years ago, I'll never know.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Play something else then instead of trying to mase D&D something else

Good luck finding literally anything else. Believe me, I've tried. Very, very hard.

 

[mellored]

Yes. I am running a weekly game of it online. It's almost "there" for what I'd want (certainly closer than 5e).
What I don't like is that I can't find anyone locally to play it, but I can run a game of D&D every day of the week and have to turn away players.

Thats the advantage of being new players friendly, and only making tweaks.