D&D (2024) WotC On One D&D Playtest Survey Results: Nearly Everything Scored 80%+!

In a 40-minute video, WotC's Jeremy Crawford discussed the survey feedback to the 'Character Origins' playtest document. Over 40,000 engaged with the survey, and 39,000 completed it. I've summarised the content of the video below.

High Scorers

• The highest scoring thing with almost 90% was getting a first level feat in your background. This is an example of an experimental thing -- like advantage and disadvantage in the original 5E playtests.
• Almost everything also scored 80%+.

About The Scoring System

• 70% or higher is their passing grade. In the 70s is a thumbs up but tinkering need. 80% means the community wants exactly that and WotC treads carefully not to change it too much.
• In the 60s it's salvageable but it really needs reworking. Below 60% means that there's a good chance they'll drop it, and in the 40s or below it's gone. Nothing was in the 50s or below.

Low Scorers

Only 3 things dipped into the 60s --

• the d20 Test rule in the Rules Glossary (experimental, no surprise)
• the ardling
• the dragonborn

The next UA had a different version of the d20 Test rule, and they expect a very different score when those survey resuts come in.

It was surprising that the dragonborn scored lower than the ardling. The next UA will include new versions of both. The main complaints were:

• the dragonborn's breath weapon, and confusion between the relationship between that dragonborn and the one in Fizban's Treasury of Dragons.
• the ardling was trying to do too much (aasimar-like and beast-person).

The ardling does not replace the aasimar. The next version will have a clearer identity.

Everything else scored in the 70s or 80s.

Some more scores:

• new human 83%
• dwarf, orc, tiefling, elf tied at 80-81%
• gnome, halfling tied at 78%

Future installments of Unearthed Arcana

• The next one will have new ardling and dragonborn, a surprise 'guest', and a new cleric. It will be a shorter document than the previous ones, and the one after that is bigger again. Various class groups.
• Warrior group digs into something teased in a previous UA sidebar -- new weapon options for certain types of characters. Whole new ways to use weapons.
• New rules on managing your character's home base. A new subsystem. Create bases with NPCs connected with them, implementing downtime rules. They're calling it the "Bastion System".
• There will be a total of 48 subclasses in the playtest process.
• New encounter building rules, monster customization options.
• New versions of things which appear in the playtest after feedback.

Other Notes

• Playtests are a version of something with the assumption that if something isn't in the playtest, it's still in the game (eg eldritch blast has not been removed from the game). The mage Unearthed Arcana will feature that.
• Use an object and other actions are still as defined in the current Player's Handbook. The playtest material is stuff that has changed.
• Thief subclass's cunning action does not interact with use an object; this is intentional. Removed because the original version is a 'Mother may I?" mechanic - something that only works if the DM cooperates with you. In general mechanics which require DM permission are unsatisfying. The use an object action might go away, but that decision will be a made via the playtest process.
• The ranger's 1st-level features also relied too heavily on DM buy-in, also wild magic will be addressed.
• If you have a class feature you should be able to use it in the way you expect.
• If something is removed from the game, they will say so.
• Great Weapon Fighting and Sharpshooter were changed because the penalty to the attack roll was not big enough to justify the damage bonus, plus they want warrior classes to be able to rely on their class features (including new weapon options) for main damage output. They don't want any feats to feel mandatory to deal satisfying damage. Feats which are 'must haves' violate their design goals.
• Light Weapon property amped up by removing the bonus action requirement because requiring light weapon users to use their bonus action meant there were a lot of bad combinations with features and spells which require bonus actions. It felt like a tax on light weapon use.
• Class spell lists are still an open question. Focus on getting used to the three big spell lists. Feedback was that it would be nice to still have a class list to summarize what can be picked from the 'master lists'. For the bard that would be useful, for the cleric and wizard not necessary as they can choose from the whole divine or arcane list.

The playtest process will continue for a year.

 

[Blue]

If people didn't like the changes and thought that the game was perfect as is, they wouldn't rate the changes highly.

I've generally been in agreement with a lot of what you are say. I just want to point out that none of the questions were "Do you like this better than the existing feature". I can rate pizza highly as a food I enjoy, but that doesn't mean I like it better than steak, or would want to replace a steak meal with pizza.

All we know is that OneD&D so far has come out with rules that look like they will make a fun game. We don't have any survey feedback if people think it will make a better game than 5e - that's all based on what the designers think and provide options for.

 

[Blue]

I'll be honest, and it's going to sound terrible.
3.x was out for 8 years and 4e for 5 years.
For me, 5e is getting a little long in the tooth. Stripping away most of my exaggeration on here, I don't want to see 5e go 10 years only to be extended by 5.1 edition for another 8. I think there's much more dynamic and creative things that can happen in the RPG space than what we're seeing with OneD&D.

This part I can get behind. I enjoy 5e. It's my favorite edition of D&D since I started playing with Moldvay Red Box. But it's not even my favorite D&D-like game.

I have a group that isn't adventuresome when it comes to playing other RPGs. They will switch to the 50th Anniversary Edition when it's out. And I'll buy it to play with them.

But I wish that instead of some tweaks to improve the system, we were getting a turn of the crank and something new.

(As for the rest, my experience with newer gamers is that for every "I just learned D&D" there's one diving into as many different systems as they can have a lot of experience with other types of games as well, and that makes them great to vote for things that will upset the apple cart and give use something new.)

 

[UngeheuerLich]

If I say I dislike that strength based characters have no good ranged options, that's a very specific thing, an identifiable problem that I have with the game. It's also one where I can discuss options and what I do to fix it, which in this particular case is to make bows versatile in my home game.

And we are lucky, with the clarification for drawing weapons, javelin and shield just got a huge upgrade. Still behind dex in range and damage, but one handed and with more AC.
So at least a decent option after level 5.

 

[darjr]

I will play other games. But I do not want a very different 5e.

It’s just now getting mainstream traction and it’s a stable place for that. I also think that’s the way to grow it and the hobby.

Let other games soak up some players looking to spread their wings. Win, win in my book.

A very different version of D&D is bad for two reasons, I think. It’ll blunt the growth of D&D just when it’s about to really take off, and it’ll suck up all the other oxygen from other games, just when folks, like some of y’all in this thread, are looking for something different.

 

[Doctor Futurity]

Not all of it. I liked the setting.

Yes! I would kill for a Nentyr Vale sourcebook for 5E.

 

[Doctor Futurity]

That's possible, but shows like Big Bang Theory and Stranger Things, as well as Critical Role helped bring D&D into the main stream. I'd argue that had a bigger impact on D&D swelling the way it did than the edition itself. 3e might have done as well or even better than 5e has if it had been the edition to benefit from those things. I'm not saying that it would have for sure, but rather that we can't attribute the changes that 5e made as the reason.

I think we can. For example, when my son shows a sudden interest in D&D due to Stranger Things, I can hand him the latest Basic Set for 5E and he can figure it out. Although 3E did have a couple starter sets, and I think he might have been able to figure those out, I know that the next step: reading the actual main rulebook and not feeling overwhelmed, is considerably easier for someone today with 5E than it was with 3.5. Can a 12 year old figure out the 3.5 PHB? Probably, sure.....I mean, I figured out AD&D when I was 11, but the problem is that WotC is making a product for a broad audience for which there is a lot of competition with very easy to access entertainment....and that means that the PHB needs to be more accessible and easier to figure out than it used to be.

 

[Amrûnril]

It doesn't need a deep dive. "Ratings for dragonborn were 3.76 +/- 0.95 (two SD)." That gives REAMS more information than "70% of responses were positive." Even for a total layman, you now know that almost everyone gave a 3 or a 4, leaning toward 4--some people gave 5s, more than the people who gave 2s, and 1s are quite rare. With that, we can see that the response is favorable but not fervent.

And it is trivial to present that information in table form.

For goodness' sake, this is the kind of thing we demand from political polling, which almost everyone is at least loosely aware of. We know that polls have a listed "margin of error" and that that margin of error is relevant and needs to be accounted for. Giving something similar here cannot possibly be that difficult, if they really want to stick with proportion statistics rather than something more generally useful.

I very much agree with the general point that the developers are doing a poor job of writing effective surveys and presenting the results in an informative way. I want to add a couple of caveats, though:

First, the percentages for each response category would be more informative than a +/- indicator. It's very easy for casual observers to confuse indicators of confidence in the mean with indicators of data spread (with a large sample size, you can end up with a very narrow standard error of the mean, even with highly variable data). Plus, the answers are neither continuous data nor a random sample from a defined population.

Second, not providing a comprehensive summary of the results is almost certainly an intentional choice. While I think the developers are genuinely interested in the results, they are (and should be) considering other factors as well, and they probably don't want to give the internet a comprehensive list of every time they diverge from public opinion.

 

[mamba]

Why not?

Here, I'll say it:

I'm not interested in a bit of shifting around of the existing system that will invalidate 10 years of book purchases. Either give me a whole new iteration, or leave well enough alone. I enjoy 5e quite a bit, but just too-many-tweaks-to-be-errata doesn't mean I want to give up all the choices I have, or have to repurchase just because people I game with will likely move on.

you are not the one the question was directed at, and his two options weren’t ‘I like 5e, so either make a full new edition or let me stick with it’, they were ‘I cannot stand 5e, so it needs to be changed drastically - but I am ok with not changing it at all as well’

Notice the difference between your two options and his? Yours go together, his not so much

 

[mamba]

This part I can get behind. I enjoy 5e. It's my favorite edition of D&D since I started playing with Moldvay Red Box. But it's not even my favorite D&D-like game.

out of curiosity, which one is that and why?

 

[Benjamin Olson]

So a key part of the infamous switch to New Coke was the new formula doing better in taste tests. I had already taken to using New Coke as the metaphor for edition changes (to emphasize that I think the general rpg industry approach of retiring you existing product line, even when it's going strong, in favor of a new product line branded as the old one is a gonzo business model) but now that that they are claiming to base every decision on surveys, OneD&D is definitively "New Coke D&D" in my mind.