D&D (2024) Pulse check on 1D&D excitement level

[Dustin Cooper]

tell me how you identify people that do not play D&D yet but will probably pick it up 2 to 5 years from now… also, I am not sure their input is all that valuable. Since they do not know the rules, they cannot really tell you what is an improvement and what is not.

Also, the goal is to bring the 5e players along and not create a rift. So while they have an eye on making things easier to understand, they still clearly target their current customers, and for good reason, and yes, the fact that we have the videos and surveys supports this.

You couldn't specifically pick those people out, but what you could do is focus groups of people who have no experience with D&D. Have them try to make characters or run a small one shot with pre-gens and take note of what speed bumps you see. Then make adjustments to smooth those out and try again with new people. If they were doing something like this, the kind of change I'd expect is for them to drop ability scores and just have ability bonuses. That's something I've seen new players confused about, both in terms of which numbers they're supposed to reference and stopping everything in its tracks to ask why they did all that work for the first set of number when its only point was to make a series of second numbers, then the DM having to explain that it's a weird holdover from the 70s that they keep around for tradition. Every pain point is one where some percentage of potential players, even a very small one, go "naughty word this," and the smoother the fun parts are, the more likely they are to stick around.

This of course could still be combined with the kinds of surveys we're seeing. Like you want to make sure the changes you implement to smooth out onboarding aren't breaking the balance or compatibility or whatever. There's a few things that look like they could be for something like this, such as reducing "mother may I?" stuff or simplifying wild shape, but from the way they talk about it, it's still due to what regular players tell them, and that already selects out people who were turned off by the game's underlying mechanics or who found onboarding not worth it.

 

[Mistwell]

The issue is that full casters generally do well in all three pillars - some do amazing - whereas the non-casters typically do less well outside combat. At best they might do well in one of the other pillars, but that's far from assured, especially given their lack of "fiat" abilities. 1D&D's rules/class changes, so far, make absolutely zero improvement to this. In fact they arguably make the problem worse by making all casters preparation casters, casting from new, even bigger lists, which increases the strength of casters outside combat.

That's really the entire balance issue with 5E - play a full caster and you get to participate in the whole game. Play other classes and you get to participate in some of the game. It didn't have to be that way - it's purely down to the legacy/sacred cow decision to give casters incredibly broad utility in their spell lists.

I find the rogue does well in all three pillars. Paladins and Rangers as well. Which means to me what they really need to do is give more non-combat features to classes like Fighter, Monk, and Barbarian.

 

[Argyle King]

You're probably looking then at either "optional" material from the new DMG, much like the optional stuff in the current DMG, or 3PP material.

The "more complexity" era of DnD is pretty much gone. 5e was a huge success, and they're not going to mess with the magic sauce of simplicity, since they're really looking to hook new players and grow their base. Existing players and existing DM's already know how to add more complexity to the game. The problem has been, in my experience (40+ years playing DnD), that 5e is actually somewhat difficult to hack, due to the differing recharge rates of spells and abilities, and making changes to suit my game ends up with cascading impacts that require me to pretty much rewrite so much, that it ends up not being worth it. I ended up just stopping wrestling with 5e, and chose games that met my level of complexity requirement, and do what I would like them to do in terms of theme, etc. Its been so much better...

With re: to homogeneity, its pretty much been an intentional design decision to give every class the ability to participate in everything all day, every day. Cantrips, save to end spell effects, short durations, HD healing on short rests, all classes able to stay somewhat even on damage capability and armor up (especially with MC'ing). Gone are the days where the wizard casts one spell, then helps carry stuff with the occasional staff/sling/crossbow shot (depending on edition), or where you might be held by a spell for an hour. People don't want those things to interfere with their play experience. But when we played in earlier editions, we knew that those disparities were possible, and we selected our classes knowing the ups and downs of them. I ran a 5e campaign where we had no martials (all casters or MC'd casters), and the party had less than zero problem dealing with everything I threw at them (without being a 'killer DM'), unless I threw 4x CR creatures at them. It was rather eye-opening.

Choosing other games is what I've been doing, so that's not really a change for me. It doesn't exactly sell me on being excited about D&D's future though.

I can somewhat understand simplifying aspects of the game to appeal to a younger audience.
At the same time, I would have two questions about that approach:

1) Is it not the case that the hypothetical younger audience wanting simplicity will eventually get both older and more comfortable with the games?
1a) If no, what do you believe will cause a sudden spike in child-mortality rates among D&D players?
1b) If yes, what are the options available for the hypothetical group to have the structure of the game grow with them?

2) Why does younger necessarily mean (to the design team) less of an ability to understand more things?
-Things like Minecraft remain popular due to enabling the user to explore their imagination in more complex ways. Likewise, the ability to navigate things like Twitter, Instagram, and create content at younger ages appears to illustrate a growing (rather than shrinking) ability to handle a bit more complexity.

I can see how simplifying things may make programming digital tools easier. But I'm not sure that dedication to simplifying is necessarily better in terms of longterm strategy related to growing a new crop of customers.

 

[Krachek]

What I see most encouraging is that we got a real play test, not a lame walk in the park.
I didn’t suspect that they will go as far as, changing spell know and preparation for bard and Ranger, change Wild shape from bottom to top.

They also makes errors, and miss things, that is quite Showing that we have a play test and not a presentation to been approved.

 

[Micah Sweet]

One of my biggest questions about D&D going forward is "what are my options if I want a version of D&D with more 'complexity' instead of less?"

Not WotC, certainly. Level Up would be a good choice. Plenty of other 3PP options too.

 

[Micah Sweet]

tell me how you identify people that do not play D&D yet but will probably pick it up 2 to 5 years from now… also, I am not sure their input is all that valuable. Since they do not know the rules, they cannot really tell you what is an improvement and what is not.

Also, the goal is to bring the 5e players along and not create a rift. So while they have an eye on making things easier to understand, they still clearly target their current customers, and for good reason, and yes, the fact that we have the videos and surveys supports this.

What are they doing to keep current, experienced players and DMs?

 

[mamba]

Choosing other games is what I've been doing, so that's not really a change for me. It doesn't exactly sell me on being excited about D&D's future though.

Sure, but you are simply in its intended target audience then. If you want more complex, there are plenty of options

I can somewhat understand simplifying aspects of the game to appeal to a younger audience.
At the same time, I would have two questions about that approach:

1) Is it not the case that the hypothetical younger audience wanting simplicity will eventually get both older and more comfortable with the games?

yes, assuming they clear the hurdle of learning it / staying with it. Making the entry easier is helping with that.

1b) If yes, what are the options available for the hypothetical group to have the structure of the game grow with them?

who says it has to. I do not want ever more complex games just because I have mastered the current one.

Also, homebrew and 3pp, WotC does not need to go after every single player.

2) Why does younger necessarily mean (to the design team) less of an ability to understand more things?

it doesn’t. You can be 40 and new to the game / return from 2e. It is not about new players being stupid, it is about making it easy to join a game

I can see how simplifying things may make programming digital tools easier. But I'm not sure that dedication to simplifying is necessarily better in terms of longterm strategy related to growing a new crop of customers.

I doubt they worry about digital, simply because they have 20 people they pay to implement the rules, whatever they turn out to be. There is no relevant difference between implementing 5e or 1DD.
Heck, I don’t think there is enough of a difference between all version for WotC to care about this. The effort involved in implementing the differences is dwarved by the effort involved for the things they have in common.

No, this is about what is easy for the customer, not for a handful of employees.

 

[mamba]

What are they doing to keep current, experienced players and DMs?

DMs we still have to see, hopefully more and better ‘tools’ like better / more accurate encounter design.

Ultimately I do not think there is much they can do beyond what they are doing (playtest). Either you like the game and are not tired of it yet, so you keep playing 5e or 1DD, or you are and drop it.

Releasing 1DD is at least a change for those getting tired of 5e (whether for better or worse, or enough of one is a different matter).

You keep playing if you like the game and there is new content, whether homebrew or not.
You stop playing if one of the two is no longer true.

Assuming WotC should run after those players that ‘outgrew’ D&D is a fallacy, they should not and cannot really chase after those without losing the market they have, and given its size that means giving up a large market in pursuit of a small one.
So what WotC does for those is to not strangle 3pps…

 

[Argyle King]

Sure, but you are simply in its intended target audience then. If you want more complex, there are plenty of options


yes, assuming they clear the hurdle of learning it / staying with it. Making the entry easier is helping with that.


who says it has to. I do not want ever more complex games just because I have mastered the current one.

Also, homebrew and 3pp, WotC does not need to go after every single player.


it doesn’t. You can be 40 and new to the game / return from 2e. It is not about new players being stupid, it is about making it easy to join a game


I doubt they worry about digital, simply because they have 20 people they pay to implement the rules, whatever they turn out to be. There is no relevant difference between implementing 5e or 1DD.
Heck, I don’t think there is enough of a difference between all version for WotC to care about this. The effort involved in implementing the differences is dwarved by the effort involved for the things they have in common.

No, this is about what is easy for the customer, not for a handful of employees.

To some extent that makes sense to me.

I think where I'm finding a bit of disconnect is that I don't find "complexity" to necessarily be the same thing as being intuitive, more teachable, or more accessible.

Certainly, there can be and it often is the case that complexity has some relationship with how easy (or difficult) it is to learn something. However, my anecdotal experience with rpgs has also been that D&D is sometimes more difficult to teach/understand than games which are more rules-heavy. So, while I would agree that D&D should be more accessible, I think it remains to be seen whether or not the current approach to how/what to simplify about the game translates into being more accessible (or desirable) to the target audience as a whole.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

But on the other, why are they doing all these playtests and videos that are clearly aimed at people who already have 5e? Why put this much effort into a group that isn't your main target audience? Wouldn't it make more sense to do some kind of focus group testing or something that looks more into the concerns and wants of the people they actually want to buy this?

"Hey, people who don't play RPGs! Let's work on the rules together!"

I'm not sure what the end result would look like, but I wouldn't count on it being a success.

The current 5E players are among the best choices for playtesters.