April's D&D Feedback Survey Results

WotC has revealed the results of its latest monthly feedback survey. Last month's survey dealt with game scheduling habits, character races, and Adventurer's League content. Additionally, a new survey has been posted covering problem spells, the DRAGON+ mobile app, and the Waterborne Adventures UA column.

The new survey is here. April's survey results are here, but below is a quick list of the take-home points.

• It turns out that that 1st-6th level games are still the most common a year after D&D 5E's launch.
• The most likely end point of a campaign is 10th-12th level.
• There is a preference for more open, sandboxy adventures.
• Smaller races are seen as weaker options.
• Adventurer's League content is reasonably well received, with specifically designed adventures more popular than Tyranny of Dragons adaptions for AL.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I kind of wish that they had simply limited classes to 10 levels, but apparently people like seeing 20 levels of classes in the game even if most people never get around to playing half or 2/3rds of them.

I feel like there might be some lingering Old Edition Itis here.

The amount of levels doesn't matter, what matters is the total levels over how fast you get them when you're playing, in real-world time.

First by the book, XP gain is pretty fast in 5e. 20 levels is designed to go by in about a year if you play weekly. A year is a good chunk of time for a game to stick together, but it's by far the SHORTEST amount of time in any D&D edition.

A LOT of folks don't use XP by the book, they just hand it out whenever as a pacing mechanism. Just like they've always done. So folks level "when it feels right." In a lot of situations, especially when they're used to previous editions, that's going to be slower than 5e assumes.

The evidence from the survey bears some of that out - groups have been playing weekly since the game was released (ish) but still mostly hover in the 1-6 range. Accounting for a few campaign re-starts, the average should still probably be a bit higher than that after 6+ months, if the XP gain was as fast as the RAW presumes.

An alternate explanation that might have some weight is that people are having fewer encounters per session than the RAW presumes. A preponderance of 1/game day or 2/game day or 3/game day encounters in a session filled with exploration and RP could well lead to much slower XP gain than presumed. Even 5e's faster combats might not be getting the 6-8 in one game day that it presumes most of the time.

 

[Sacrosanct]

KM has a good point. As someone who stuck with AD&D all these years, and now plays 5e, I'd say the following is true for the amount of time spent


AD&D levels ----- 5e level equivalent
1 ----- 1-2
2 ----- 3-4
3 ----- 5
4 ----- 6
5 ----- 7
6 ----- 8
7 ----- 9
8 ----- 10-11
9 ----- 12-13
10 ----- 14-15


So the exact amount of time I spent in AD&D getting my PC to level 10 is about the same time it took me to get to level 15 in 5e. Assuming they all survived of course

 

[Staffan]

I think a large part of why high-level stuff sells less is that a high-level campaign is more established. That means that (a) the DM probably has more stuff of his own to spin new adventures from, and (b) the likelyhood that a particular published adventure will fit is lower.

And of course, due to the fact that there are far fewer campaigns that last until high levels. Most campaigns start at low levels (I'm guessing almost all 5e campaigns so far have started at 1st or 3rd level), and last for some amount of time until they dissolve beneath the pressures of reality. That means almost all campaigns last until 5th level, many of them until 10th, but drop off rather sharply after that. Adventure Paths are one of the few ways to get reliable high-level content, because (a) since the group is invested in the adventure, they are more likely to keep playing it, and (b) you can make sure that the high-level stuff fits with the low-level stuff.

 

[not-so-newguy]

KM has a good point. As someone who stuck with AD&D all these years, and now plays 5e, I'd say the following is true for the amount of time spent


AD&D levels ----- 5e level equivalent
1 ----- 1-2
2 ----- 3-4
3 ----- 5
4 ----- 6
5 ----- 7
6 ----- 8
7 ----- 9
8 ----- 10-11
9 ----- 12-13
10 ----- 14-15


So the exact amount of time I spent in AD&D getting my PC to level 10 is about the same time it took me to get to level 15 in 5e. Assuming they all survived of course

As someone who's reading through old DnD modules, this little list is a big help. Thanks!

Do you think BECMI DnD Level 1-10 has a similar level structure? I'm tinkering with B10 Night's Dark Terror right now.

 

[Fralex]

I kind of wish that they had simply limited classes to 10 levels, but apparently people like seeing 20 levels of classes in the game even if most people never get around to playing half or 2/3rds of them.

Hey, what if we just advanced our characters two levels at a time? Would that mess anything up? Now I'm curious...

 

[Fralex]

Just filled out the survey. I made sure to tell them about the swashbuckler suggestions me and the others collaborated on back when it first came out.

 

[brehobit]

On the sandbox thing: I prefer sandbox adventures. But by that I mean things like Kingmaker. Very different than a regional guide. There are a lot of things going on, but the players have huge choices and the "bad guys" aren't just sitting around waiting for them. I feel Princes of the A. isn't much of a sandbox. The old "L series" adventures are sandboxes IMO. Red Hand of Doom is sort of a sandbox. More a sandbox on rails in that it is easy to feel like there is a lot of choice even when there really isn't much.

 

[Benji]

I think part of the problem is not enough high-level content. It's a negative feedback loop. My group is at 13th level now. Part of the reason why we are starting other campaigns at 1st level is because of the lack of content for anything above 15th level. So they don't produce high level content, so people don't play to high levels due to lack of content, and therefore they conclude people don't make it to the higher levels so they don't produce much content.

I get that high level adventure content sells less product, but that's another reason why we need an OGL.

Man, despite currently talking about something very similar in a research proposal I'm currently writing, I'd never thought about it that way. It kinda makes sense.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Oh god no. If a halfling's longsword in two hands does the same damage as a greatsword wielded by a human, that's mechanically identical to giving them a bonus to damage with versatile longswords which goes against the way the rest of the game is designed.

Settle down vtuder. I'm saying let them use small greatswords. Which do 2d6 like all other greatswords. Since hit points arent meat, we dont need special rules for a slightly smaller greatsword. The halfling/gnome is already dealing less damage than most by virtue of not getting a strength bonus. They don't need to be penalized for using 2 handed styles due to lack of the great weapon fighting feat.

 

[WackyAnne]

Unsurprisingly, the awkwardly ported Encounters adventures are not popular. Because "hey, play 1/4 of this campaign and end in the middle of a story beat" is a tricky sell.
I am surprised most people play weekly. That seems very often. I would have guessed monthly or bi-weekly. Guess a lot of people are really making time for D&D.

I play twice a week - Encounters on Wedneday, and Expeditions on Monday. I just recently dropped a home game of Pathfinder that was bi-weekly, and I may be reducing the amount I play Expeditions over the summer so I can enjoy the weather Now, that sounds like a lot, and it kind of is, but I spent a year and a half only getting to game for a few hours every few _months_ when I got back to the tabletop, so I am taking full advantage!

As to Encounters, it's more that the books weren't at all tailored to the format of the AL program. My groups have all played past the free PDF portion, and I would imagine that's fairly common from the D&DAL Facebook group and other sources. We played to the end of ToD although we went non-AL legal eventually before hitting Tiamat, as it is pretty difficult to get the levels/power/magic items sufficient to survive her if you go by the stricter AL rules. That's not to complain about the program, it's just that we were getting crunched for time before release of the new storyline, Rise of Tiamat was seemingly built more with the intent of milestone leveling vs. XP, and our DM wanted to give us each a magic item of our choosing (within limits, of course. No Baba Yaga's hut for me lol)