The Future of D&D - ONE D&D Reaction/Impressions

NOTES & CORRECTIONS: Ardlings: I think may be wrong about Ardlings REPLACING Aasimar. That's something I assumed, but I don't actually see that noted anywhere. Spells: I also assumed the new spell divisions (primal, divine, arcane) would replace the class spell lists, but I don't see that actually spelled out anywhere either. Playtest: Unearthed Arcana is always playtest material, and they want player feedback. Just because it's here, doesn't mean it will stick for the rules revision. LEAVE FEEDBACK once that opens up in September.

They are trying to pre-emptively de-escalate the inevitable edition conflict. Whenever a new edition comes out, WOTC loses a fraction of their players. Some people stayed with 2e instead of advancing to 3e. Some people stayed with 3e or 3.5e instead of moving to 4th edition. We call those pathfinder players. When 5e came out, some players preferred to stay with 4e. It's human nature. The more money you spent on the previous edition, the less likely you are to change to a new edition. Now 5e was an interesting experiment because they recruited the community to serve as playtesters which served as a trial/getting to know you period with the new rules. That helped with buy-in. Then they actively worked to include the elements of the previous editions to bring those players back to D&D. This, I see, is more of the same. By de-emphasizing the word edition, they can make a bunch of new rules changes and as long as it is still backwards compatible with Tasha's and Xanathar's and Fizban's, etc. They can still call it the same edition. You can't control language. Ultimately the players are going to decide what this is called.

One of the things that stood out to me, as I am currently playing as a tiefling in the campaign I play in, was this line "Thanks to the victories and sacrifices of these legends, tieflings throughout the multiverse enjoy widespread acceptance." Like, obviously every table has a DM who can decide exactly how each race is perceived in every single nation in their world. But I absolutely think something is lost with tieflings losing their persecuted-ness I think it is far easier and more reasonable to keep that element of the race intact in the core rules, and for individual DMs, if they so choose, to scrap that, than it is for the widespread acceptance to be a part of the rules, and then individual DMs saying "actually no racism is a thing" And it feels like everythings just being kind of homogenised and that's not a positive in my eyes I dont think there was anything wrong with racial stat bonus'. A Goliath getting a boost to strength inherently is perfectly fine, or an elf with a bonus to dex. Some tweaking could certainly be done ofc cause it didnt make a ton of sense in every single case, but removing it completely is just.. weird. Gnomes aint as strong as Goliaths... that should be plainly obvious.

Personally, I'm not a fan of the idea of splitting ability scores and races, because being of a certain race will give bonuses to certain things, period. For example, a giant goliath is automatically going to be stronger than a halfling or a human at a base level. It's just how their bodies are. And wanting to break stereotypes for the fun and play a half-orc wizard, gives the cool innate challenge of that character having to overcome stereotypically lower intelligence (although half-orcs don't have reduced intelligence). Having to work around those innate disadvantages creates challenges and conflict ingrained in the character which is what a good character has, rather than having everything go well for them. It's why we roll for stats instead of taking 18s in everything. Part of why nontypical combinations (such as the half-orc wizard) are cool and intriguing, is because they don't have an innate advantage in being a wizard (and shows that the player is doing it for the roleplay rather than optimization). If suddenly a half-orc can take a +2 to intelligence, there isn't that appeal to playing nontypical characters (like the half-orc wizard) because then the race is only cosmetic. Race isn't a cosmetic in real life or in D&D which is why a bear in either, is stronger than a wolf.

i agree about the virtual tabletop, i prefer 2D like roll20 a lot more because it's so easy to build and forces you to imagine it yourself.

My concern would be that, with taking ability score bonuses away from races and removing class-specific spell lists, the race and class become more superficial and everything becomes more amorphous. A dwarf becomes not so different from a barbarian or a halfling. A wizard isn't really different from a sorcerer. And so on. Everything becomes like a Star Trek alien: a person with a rubber suit on.

Wizards having a VTT makes me thing their is more potential for them to monetize stuff, then enhance our play experience

The death of Theater of the Mind is a SAD thing & other massive amounts of potential are being lost.

The way I interpret "One D&D" and "It's just D&D" is that it would be ran like a service video game where anything they create in the future will be applicable to their "sole" edition and changes to the rules will act like a patch in a video game

...and now I'm even more motivated to invest in OSR games instead. Thanks, WotC!

One of the big changes in this UA document is that only player characters can land critical hits now, and only when it's a physical (weapon or unarmed) attack. So magical attacks cannot land critical hits even with a nat 20, and, more importantly, MONSTERS cannot land critical hits. Not a fan of this change.

Par for the Reasoning as to why I stopped using the "Beyond Page" was due to the lack of physical bought product's not having a redemption code like many of their MTG product's have had. Why spend twice the money for half the fun...??

From what Jeremy Crawford said in the interview I watched, Ardlings don't replace Aasimaar (or however it's spelled), but are in addition to (which is weird) and directly mirror the subdivisions they've added to tiefling (infernal, chthonic and abyssal), and are meant to be less angelic and more reflective of the animal-themed gods of older religions. Or something. One thing I dislike is that they want to do make it so you can only crit on a physical attack, not a spell-based one. It's unclear how that impacts the rogue's surprise attack features. Also, one thing I'm not sure you spotted in your scan through is that the backgrounds they list in the document are meant to be "examples' more than choices - people are encouraged to use the formula (+2 in one ability, +1 in another, a language, a feat, etc.) to design one that is appropriate to their character.

The first 5e Dragonlance book has a bundle option that includes a DnDB version, but only if you buy from the official store. Shipping to Canada from the store is $43. Not worth it outside of the US.

I’m a guy who loves tech. I’m often an early adopter. Heck, I want to see the Internet become sentient. But I want D&D to be analog. I don’t want laptops and phones at the table. I want paper and pencil and Mountain Dew and Cheetos. To me, the game is at its best when it’s totally disconnected from reality.

I always thought the best version would be if you combined the best parts of 3.5 and 5. 3.5 had a whole bunch of stuff to use and to do, but it could sometimes be needlessly complicated. 5e was a lot easier to get into and more simplified, but didn't have as much variety and certain things felt dumbed down. Both are great versions and the next one should have combined the best aspects of both versions.

would be nice to some credit for the Physical book we already own.

Like other people say, its IS a new edition. They just don't want people to stop buying the current edition while waiting for One D&D.

I love VTT, but I agree. I want to be able to draw and load that drawing into a VTT. I want my VTT to be a table top.

Inspiration should be stackable but you lose it all by taking a long rest. This would encourage players to press their luck in an adventure rather than continuously taking long rests when their powers are only partially depleted.