D&D 5E New WotC Survey! Learn About A New D&D Product!

WotC has launched a new survey about the future of D&D. This survey includes an NDA (which some people have not taken to well!) halfway through, which asks you not to talk about the survey on pain of being tracked down and fined, but it's about an upcoming (unannounced) new D&D product. You can find out what it is by taking the survey (or it's all over social media aready).

 

[tetrasodium]

I don’t think questions like “what dice do you roll for initiative?” are there to screen out hardcore players. They were very basic questions that literally anyone who plays D&D would know the answer to. And they obviously weren’t looking for people who got answers wrong, because I answered them all correctly and got the NDA and the secret questions.

They may have set the bar too low, but there is logic to it. For a first attempt it's probably a reasonable starting point to get a baseline for things like percentage of what were either deliberate wrong answers or absurdly unfamiliar respondents. Better questions might have been things like

• What is the maximum damage a level 1 variant human fighter can deal to a zombie with a single attack immediately after character creation if they are the first in the party to act?
  • 15, 16, 21, 22, 26, 27, 37

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

They may have set the bar too low, but there is logic to it. For a first attempt it's probably a reasonable starting point to get a baseline for things like percentage of what were either deliberate wrong answers or absurdly unfamiliar respondents. Better questions might have been things like

• What is the maximum damage a level 1 variant human fighter can deal to a zombie with a single attack immediately after character creation if they are the first in the party to act?
  • 15, 16, 21, 22, 26, 27, 37

22. Zombies have an average of 22 hit points (yes, I know that off the top of my head. No, you're not allowed to judge me), and assuming they have the correct weapons, feats, and roll well (probably requiring a critical hit for most of them), that's the maximum damage you can do to the average zombie.

 

[Charlaquin]

A. The NDA and stuff aren’t the real deal. They want word of this to get around

I think there’s a lot of unfounded speculation going on about the nature of the NDA.

B. They are trying to see if you are an actual player. Real players know D20 is for initiative. Nonplayers dont.

Yes, this was exactly what I said. @Grantypants disagreed with my and I rebutted them.

C. Our age and spending pattern help them know if they cared how we answer. They want the younger crowd and their habits.

imho. I answered it all correctly, and got no NDA or video. But I also answered ‘no’ about buying digital products in combination with Hundreds in minis probably means I am not a digital player. If that is what they wanted to know…

and I am in my 40s…also less of a target for them

A casual reading of this thread reveals all sorts of combinations of people answering different things and getting or not getting the NDA and/or secret questions. It’s pretty clear there’s no one factor determining who got it and who didn’t.

 

[Charlaquin]

I'm in agreement - the 50th anniversary of D&D is just too much of a marketing opportunity to ignore.

But I'm thinking it will be a revised 5e along the lines of 1e to 2e AD&D.

WOTC ought to shift to an incremental "new edition" model similar to how Chaosium did CoC for decades.

Oh, yeah, I’m quite sure this is what they’ll be doing, at least for 5e to 6e, or 5.5e, or whatever they call it.

 

[tetrasodium]

22. Zombies have an average of 22 hit points (yes, I know that off the top of my head. No, you're not allowed to judge me), and assuming they have the correct weapons, feats, and roll well (probably requiring a critical hit for most of them), that's the maximum damage you can do to the average zombie.

22 might be another option . I actually looked them up and didn't think to check that lol.

Setting the bar higher can be enlightening because when they poll people in an area they are well versed in the results tend to be more reserved than areas they are not. Climate scientists and other types of scientists on climate matters is one with lots of studies.

 

[Charlaquin]

They may have set the bar too low, but there is logic to it. For a first attempt it's probably a reasonable starting point to get a baseline for things like percentage of what were either deliberate wrong answers or absurdly unfamiliar respondents. Better questions might have been things like

• What is the maximum damage a level 1 variant human fighter can deal to a zombie with a single attack immediately after character creation if they are the first in the party to act?
  • 15, 16, 21, 22, 26, 27, 37

That might be a better question to ask if their goal was to determine if the respondent is a hardcore player, sure. But again, I don’t think that was their goal. I think their goal was to determine if the respondent actually plays D&D, in which case the questions they asked would make perfect sense.

 

[Yenrak]

I got nothing. Just “thanks for taking the survey.”

 

[thom_likes_gaming]

I feel left out... Unless I gravely overlooked it despite the warnings here, I wasn't given an NDA, nor were there any questions regarding upcoming stuff. Only "how to you like this ability", sort of.

Are people in Germany being treated differently?

 

[Mecheon]

Are people in Germany being treated differently?

How'd you answer the Discord question?

Seems to be the thing that's triggering it from what I can see

 

[tetrasodium]

That might be a better question to ask if their goal was to determine if the respondent is a hardcore player, sure. But again, I don’t think that was their goal. I think their goal was to determine if the respondent actually plays D&D, in which case the questions they asked would make perfect sense.

Even still, the bar with those questions was set very low. No matter their goal here is a wide range between the two extremes.