New D&D Survey: What Do you Want From Older Editions?

WotC has just posted this month's D&D feedback survey. This survey asks about content from older editions of D&D, including settings, classes and races. The results will help determine what appears in future Unearthed Arcana columns.

The new survey is here. The results for the last survey have not yet been compiled. However, WotC is reporting that the Waterborne Adventures article scored well, and that feedback on Dragon+ has been "quite positive".

"We also asked about the new options presented in the Waterborne Adventures installment of Unearthed Arcana. Overall, that material scored very well—on a par with material from the Player’s Handbook. Areas where players experienced trouble were confined to specific mechanics. The minotaur race’s horns created a bit of confusion, for example, and its ability score bonuses caused some unhappiness. On a positive note, people really liked the sample bonds and how they helped bring out the minotaur’s unique culture.

The mariner, the swashbuckler, and the storm sorcerer also scored very well. A few of the specific mechanics for those options needed some attention, but overall, players and DMs liked using them.

Finally, we asked a few questions about the Dragon+ app. We really appreciate the feedback as we tailor the app’s content and chart the course for future issues. The overall feedback has been quite positive, and we’re looking at making sure we continue to build on our initial success."

 

[Sacrosanct]

To you, D&D is something very different from what it is to me. Everything you've said is irrelevant to my game and sounds boring as hell to me. Fighters rock. They're a ton of fun.

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Yeah, us too. The fighter is most definitely the most common class our group plays. It's a great class and we've had a ton of fun with it. One of my favorite 5e PCs is a Halfling fighter with a criminal background as a matter of fact. It almost seems like people forget to factor in the "role-playing" part of the class when picking which one to play, but only look for the most optimized. That's fine, but it's hardly a universal playstyle. What I mean by that is people who want to play the paladin, but don't ever want to follow the role-playing guidelines of the class. We saw that ALL THE TIME back in the day lol. And it still seems to exist.

 

[ThirdWizard]

I wrote in warlord as well. Hopefully they got a lot of write ins for that!

Also, bariaur, githyanki, and githzerai would be nice. Ticked thise box as well, although I have my own written up, as well as Modron. Darn... should have written Modron in... missed opportunity there.

 

[SigmaOne]

I have a vague worry that Al-Quadim is a bit too close to Al-Queda to be republished without a name change.

If that were the reason, that would be sad.

 

[Tony Vargas]

And it seems a strong rejection of the expected "if you want it, you can house-rule it" tone of the edition so far.

I don't see it as a rejection, at all. The DMG, for instance, was full of options, those don't take away the ability of the DM to customize the game to this campaign, they just make it easier, if one of the options is a close enough fit. More options doesn't mean no house-ruling, it just means more options that might make the process easier for some DMs. Not a bad thing.

 

[Lidgar]

Planescape...Greyhawk....SPELLJAMMER!

I really want to drop my party into the middle of a battle between drow and mind flayers...in space.

Not too interested in additional races and classes. I can wing anything not there already.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Yeah, us too. The fighter is most definitely the most common class our group plays.

I've gotta echo this sentiment. Fighters are well represented. The Dragonlance game I play in has one straight Fighter, and two others that multiclassed because Action Surge is the sauce. The Lost Mine game I'm running has a fighter in it, too (Sentinel feat is owning the goblins!).

 

[Halloween_Jack]

I'm assuming you wouldn't let your players defy the laws of gravity, for example, unless they had a magical (or similar) ability to do so.

If you roll well enough, sure, you can run up a wall or whatever.

Every D&D character is defying the laws of physics by doing what adventurers do. If Godzilla existed, it would be impossible for a man with a sword to handily kill him. So if you're accepting that a high-level fighter can kill a dragon but "can't violate Newtonian physics" you are already going down a totally ridiculous line of thinking.

Ever since 3e tried to turn D&D into a universal system, some people have gotten into their heads that D&D rules are supposed to be a virtual reality simulator. Everything has to make sense in terms of physics, unless it has the "magic" label applied to it, which means it's full of midichlorians that can do anything even if it makes no sense. This is not D&D.

 

[Sacrosanct]

If you roll well enough, sure, you can run up a wall or whatever.

Every D&D character is defying the laws of physics by doing what adventurers do. If Godzilla existed, it would be impossible for a man with a sword to handily kill him. So if you're accepting that a high-level fighter can kill a dragon but "can't violate Newtonian physics" you are already going down a totally ridiculous line of thinking.

Ever since 3e tried to turn D&D into a universal system, some people have gotten into their heads that D&D rules are supposed to be a virtual reality simulator. Everything has to make sense in terms of physics, unless it has the "magic" label applied to it, which means it's full of midichlorians that can do anything even if it makes no sense. This is not D&D.

Once again, you're excluding a giant middle. Also, I'm pretty sure if I were in your game and said my 1st level fighter wanted to jump over that 30' wall via high jump, you wouldn't just say, "Roll high enough,and sure." I also assume that you assume your players have to eat and sleep at some point, even if it's in the background. And a million other laws of our universe work the same way in the game world as we do here.

So everyone accepts verisimilitude, it's just at varying levels. Stop acting like someone who likes more than you is trying to run a physics simulator. That isn't helpful to the conversation.

 

[spinozajack]

Why play D&D at all? It is not, and never has been, a physics simulator.

There's a world of gray area between D&D being a physics simulator and having fighters that can summon enemies to his side without using magic, or a halfling sliding a two-ton dragon using his at-will and no magic at all, and nary a strength check in sight.

If you compare battlemaster maneuvers that are limited by size differences and mandatory checks in 5e, with how such push/pull/slide shenanigans functioned every time without fail in 4e, you will see a clear difference.

I don't need or want D&D to be a physics simulator, but I don't want it to be a cartoon simulator either.

 

[RodneyThompson]

Thankfully Mr Thompson is gone now so the chance of Mike Mearls adding the warlord back in is very low. Maybe working on Destiny will disabuse Rodney of such unrealistic and to my mind, lazy game design as he is known to use. Verisimilitude is exclusionary. I want my non-magical PCs to follow the laws of newtonian physics, as best as they can be approximated in a table top game. Which means no spooky action at a distance, no quantum mechanics, no spiritual ghost particles making stuff happen over there when your character is over here.

First: Wow. Lazy game design? Really?

Second: What makes you think I had anything to do at all with the warlord?

Third: ...but you're fine with the Battlemaster, which I did help design?