D&D (2024) One D&D Cleric & Revised Species Playtest Includes Goliath

"In this new Unearthed Arcana for the One D&D rules system, we explore material designed for the next version of the Player’s Handbook. This playtest document presents the rules on the Cleric class, it's Life Domain subclass, as well as revised Species rules for the Ardling, the Dragonborn, and the Goliath. You will also find a current glossary of new or revised meanings for game terms."

Claim Unearthed Arcana now! - D&D Beyond

www.dndbeyond.com

WotC's Jeremey Crawford discusses the playtest document in the video below.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I dislike 5e Ravenloft because it officially ended pre-5e Ravenloft, and I liked that story. It's clearly an emotional reaction for me.

Look, I'm allowed to like metaplots, and wish the game I grew up with and loved still had them. I would feel no different is there was no more new Star Wars, or Star Trek, or Marvel comics. That's what the metaplots of D&D were to me, and until quite recently, even if they weren't really being continued, I could still imagine they were. Now, they explicitly aren't.

WotC decided that what I enjoyed most about D&D wasn't worth continuing, and when I complained, most of what I hear is that what I like is, "bad for the game" and shouldn't have ever been there in the first place, and I should just get over it. And apparently being angry about that is unreasonable.

Why should I feel bad about wanting things in the game that I like? I'm not the one taking things away.

You are allowed to like metaplots in stories. There are some serious ones out there including the Arrowverse, the Star Wars EU and Star Wars Disney continuity, the MCU, the Marvel and DC continuities, numerous video game series from Super Smash Bros and Kingdom Hearts onwards (and no that first one wasn't a joke).

The point is that RPG source books are there to facilitate RPG play. And in the specific case of sourcebooks for RPGs having a metaplot actively harms the play at the table, thus damaging the primary purpose of the book. When you add metaplot to a setting you are taking away the usability and ownership any DM who uses it for its stated primary purpose has. And this is what you want - to make the RPG settings worse for anyone using them for RPGs

And you yourself admit that the Ravenloft metaplot wasn't being continued other than in your imagination. To quote you "Its all just stuff, that you can use or not. Why would its ignorable existence be an issue for anyone?" Why can't you take the approach you advocate here to the new Ravenloft? Why must it be everyone else ignoring stuff they don't like even when that stuff they don't like actively takes away GM ownership of the games they are playing?

 

[Cadence]

The point is that RPG source books are there to facilitate RPG play. And in the specific case of sourcebooks for RPGs having a metaplot actively harms the play at the table, thus damaging the primary purpose of the book. When you add metaplot to a setting you are taking away the usability and ownership any DM who uses it for its stated primary purpose has.

Were the published Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms created from metaplot from the beginning? Was Dragonlance created to go along with an unfolding metaplot? If so, then is metaplot part of their purposes? Was the Known World published with all the metaplot rolling out with it (like GH and FR had in Dragon Magazine and later on in books), or did it not have that?

 

[Maxperson]

This exactly.

Maybe you can tell me where you get your right to have input regarding their IP and what agency you lose when they change their IP without consulting you first.

 

[Parmandur]

The statement on D&D Beyond promises backward compatibility to adventures and to Suplements, but it's the PHB that is being playtested for changes. Specifically, changes to characters. (race, class, subclass, and to play rules for PCs.). It has been rightly pointed out here that the promise of backward compatibility was only to the adventures and supplements but given what's being tested, shouldn't characters and races be backward compatible with what we have?

The Races already are backwards and forwards compatible, 100%. The only mechanical change is the Tasha's arrangements, which do not have any impact on Race balance whatsoever (an ASI bonus is an ASI bonus).

 

[Micah Sweet]

You are allowed to like metaplots in stories. There are some serious ones out there including the Arrowverse, the Star Wars EU and Star Wars Disney continuity, the MCU, the Marvel and DC continuities, numerous video game series from Super Smash Bros and Kingdom Hearts onwards (and no that first one wasn't a joke).

The point is that RPG source books are there to facilitate RPG play. And in the specific case of sourcebooks for RPGs having a metaplot actively harms the play at the table, thus damaging the primary purpose of the book. When you add metaplot to a setting you are taking away the usability and ownership any DM who uses it for its stated primary purpose has. And this is what you want - to make the RPG settings worse for anyone using them for RPGs

And you yourself admit that the Ravenloft metaplot wasn't being continued other than in your imagination. To quote you "Its all just stuff, that you can use or not. Why would its ignorable existence be an issue for anyone?" Why can't you take the approach you advocate here to the new Ravenloft? Why must it be everyone else ignoring stuff they don't like even when that stuff they don't like actively takes away GM ownership of the games they are playing?

It's hard to ignore stuff you don't like if people are constantly talking about how great it is on the site you use to engage with your hobby.

Honestly, I was just hoping for a little sympathy here. How would you like it if something that brought you great joy was unceremoniously ended, and your peers in the community loudly declared how much better things are without the things that you liked? I refuse to believe that that's a weird attitude to have.

Edit: also, I love all the metaplots you list here (except the video game ones, because I'm not familiar with them).

 

[Cadence]

It's hard to ignore stuff you don't like if people are constantly talking about how great it is on the site you use to engage with your hobby.

I think I can easily handle hearing "how great" it is. It's "how much better" that gets grating. (Wow Tasha's pizzeria's pineapple pizza is great, vs. wow Tasha's pizzeria's pineapple pizza dunks all over that pepperoni garbage you've always gotten from Xanathar's pizzeria!!!)

 

[Pedantic]

Honestly, I was just hoping for a little sympathy here. How would you like it if something that brought you great joy was unceremoniously ended, and your peers in the community loudly declared how much better things are without the things that you liked? I refuse to believe that that's a weird attitude to have.

Setting aside metaplot as a specific flashpoint, isn't that the exact emotional arc of every edition change of D&D, at least since 3e, with it's broad online presence? Sweeping changes break parts of the thing you love, new people show up thrilled that it's broken, you explain that it's broken, they tell you you're wrong, and someone swoops in to explain it's better that there's two different things now at least, right?

Those last people are of course wrong, because from an individual perspective it was superior before, when there was no alternative to the thing you liked and all those new people didn't know they liked it better broken yet. They're probably also right, because the divergence of taste and preference is always bigger than expected. Unfortunately, the weird marketplace created by this one dominant game and associated branding means we can't actually split the pie of ongoing attention and design effort and content creation.

Either you get over it like most people and keep quietly loving the thing or go find a different thing...or you become a weird internet partisan like most of us on here with our pet design preferences.

 

[shadowoflameth]

The Races already are backwards and forwards compatible, 100%. The only mechanical change is the Tasha's arrangements, which do not have any impact on Race balance whatsoever (an ASI bonus is an ASI bonus).

The proposed changes to Goliath and Dragonborn aren't. Changing the breath weapon mechanic doesn't hurt, but making them suddenly be able to fly does. On the Goliath, Stone's Endurance is already there, so is powerful build, but not the other options, and making Goliath's that suddenly change sizes changes who they are. I would recommend making the other giant lineage options feats that a Goliath can take, and perhaps even making large size an option but going back and forth between sizes when a prior Goliath character couldn't is not just changing the mechanic of an existing ability, it effectively makes them a different race. On the Dragonborn, perhaps make developing wings a feat for Dragonborn or just make winged Dragonborn a sub-race that has them instead of the breath weapon, and include a feat that allows dragonborn to develop both, but suddenly saying that existing characters have wings that they didn't have isn't backward compatible.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Were the published Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms created from metaplot from the beginning? Was Dragonlance created to go along with an unfolding metaplot? If so, then is metaplot part of their purposes? Was the Known World published with all the metaplot rolling out with it (like GH and FR had in Dragon Magazine and later on in books), or did it not have that?

Greyhawk and the Realms, no.

Dragonlance was created deliberately as the first formal adventure path and the setting grew from that. You were supposed to play the War of the Lance with your players either playing the characters of or taking the place of the party.

And the big difference between then and now is that we've been through the 90s. We've seen the impact of metaplot on gameability of settings, both D&D (Faction War anyone? Time of Troubles? Spellplague?) and the oWoD. Creating settings round metaplot back then was understandable because it was unexplored.

Honestly, I was just hoping for a little sympathy here.

I did have sympathy. I thought you were wrong about metaplot in RPG products for reasons I explained. But most of my actual sympathy vanished when you asked "Why would its ignorable existence be an issue for anyone?" Which is why it was after that I brought up the explicit parallel to what you were asking from others and what you don't do with modern Ravenloft; you are asking for people to ignore things they don't like that has a direct impact on the way they play while refusing to do the same to things that don't impact you at the table.

How would you like it if something that brought you great joy was unceremoniously ended, and your peers in the community loudly declared how much better things are without the things that you liked? I refuse to believe that that's a weird attitude to have.

You're talking to a 4e fan Yes it hurts. And I try to share the good parts of 4e when I can.

Edit: also, I love all the metaplots you list here (except the video game ones, because I'm not familiar with them).

I enjoy them too. But I also enjoy stories that are tight and complete. And I dislike metaplot when it makes the actual stories worse (thinking for example of the DCEU, the Dark Universe Cinematic Universe that got no further than the Mummy, and a few other things). Metaplot, as I've explained, in my experience always makes settings worse for play at the table and can lead to it getting far worse.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I

Greyhawk and the Realms, no.

Dragonlance was created deliberately as the first formal adventure path and the setting grew from that. You were supposed to play the War of the Lance with your players either playing the characters of or taking the place of the party.

And the big difference between then and now is that we've been through the 90s. We've seen the impact of metaplot on gameability of settings, both D&D (Faction War anyone? Time of Troubles? Spellplague?) and the oWoD. Creating settings round metaplot back then was understandable because it was unexplored.

I did have sympathy. I thought you were wrong about metaplot in RPG products for reasons I explained. But most of my actual sympathy vanished when you asked "Why would its ignorable existence be an issue for anyone?" Which is why it was after that I brought up the explicit parallel to what you were asking from others and what you don't do with modern Ravenloft; you are asking for people to ignore things they don't like that has a direct impact on the way they play while refusing to do the same to things that don't impact you at the table.

You're talking to a 4e fan Yes it hurts. And I try to share the good parts of 4e when I can.

I enjoy them too. But I also enjoy stories that are tight and complete. And I dislike metaplot when it makes the actual stories worse (thinking for example of the DCEU, the Dark Universe Cinematic Universe that got no further than the Mummy, and a few other things). Metaplot, as I've explained, in my experience always makes settings worse for play at the table and can lead to it getting far worse.

I would feel far better about all this if I didn't have to listen to people constantly tell me that the things I like suck and I was wrong to like them.