One D&D: First Playtest Results Revealed

Several months ago Wizards of the Coast announced the early development of a new Dungeons & Dragons system they’ve tentatively called One D&D. While much is still unknown about the product, Wizards has stated that it will be released sometime in 2024, will be compatible with Fifth Edition Dungeons & Dragons and will include a number of new rules and features. The development team then opened it up to playtesting in August 2022.

Now, several months later, the One D&D team has unveiled the results of that first playtest, going over the details in a video with Games Rule Architect Jeremy Crawford.

What Was the First One D&D Playtest?

In the interview, Crawford notes that over 39,000 users completed the playtest, which was released as part of their Unearthed Arcana content series (also sometimes referred to as “UA). The playtest focused primarily on rules updates to character creation, racial features, D20 rolls for attacking, and backgrounds. Users were asked to score each of these features from 1-100%.

For context, according to Wizards of the Coast, anything with a 70% satisfaction rating is considered something that the D&D community wants, while anything with an 80% satisfaction rate or higher is something that the D&D community wants in almost that capacity. Conversely, something in the 60-69% range is considered “salvageable” but in need of being re-worked, while anything lower than 60% has a good chance of being scrapped by the team.

What Did Users Like ?

According to Crawford, user feedback to the One D&D playtest was overwhelmingly positive, with the majority of features receiving 80% satisfaction or higher. The feature that received the highest satisfaction rating was the concept of awarding players with new feats as part of their background. Crawford noted that the background feats were an experiment and that he was surprised how the free feat at first level was received by the community. Races that rated highly among playtesters included the human (which Crawford noted is the most popular race in D&D), the orc, the dwarf, the tiefling and the elf. 

What Did Users Dislike?

In the interview, Crawford states the only three features had a satisfaction rating in the 60% rating. The first was the introduction of Ardlings, are a new race that descends from celestial beings, much like Tieflings descend from demonic beings. Crawford noted that the feedback regarding the the race was that they tried to do “too much,” with additional questions about the Ardling’s relationship to Aasimar, a race from the Forgotten Realms that shares many of the same characteristics. 

The second feature to receive a poor rating was the new Dragonborn race, due primarily to the new implementation of the race’s breath weapon. Similarly, Crawford noted that a rework of the D20 attack rolls (in which a natural 1 is always a miss and a natural 20 is always a hit) was also poorly received (notably, this is a rule that has been heavily debated in past editions).

Crawford noted that both the Ardling and the Dragonborn will be updated for the next playtest, with the new Dragonborn race in particular getting a new fifth level ability.

What Comes Next?

The next One D&D update (released via Unearthed Arcana) will include a new version of the Cleric, along with the revised Aardling and Dragonborn and a “surprise guest.” Crawford also noted that the next One D&D playtest will include new weapons rules, a new subsystem designed to manage players’ “home base,” updated encounter rules, and new monster customization rules. 

You can check out the full video interview below.

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