Thursday, August 18, 2022

The Launch of One D&D

Today Wizards of the Coast announced the next phase of D&D with the code name "One D&D."

One D&D

The playtest is being run out of the D&D Beyond Environment, so you will need a Twitch account to get access.

https://www.dndbeyond.com/one-dnd

The first playtest packet covers Character Backgrounds/Origins

What do we know so far?

The new core rules will be backward compatible with D&D 5 to the point of all existing D&D 5 materials work with the new rules.  This fits my prediction that rules were going to be closer to something D&D 5R or Edition 5.5.

They will be taking feedback, giving people time to playtest first. 

The new edition/revision will have new core rule books.  There will be a closer tie to the books and D&D Beyond as well as their own new digital service.   [source]

Wizards will also be including more features for inclusivity, so among other things I expect more species options as PCs and dropping the default alignment for characters, but maybe not necessarily so for monsters.  I think we have seen some of these changes for monsters in the Spelljammer Monstrous Compendium and Monsters of the Multiverse.

So to me, this feels like the changes 2nd ed did to 2nd ed revised, 3.0 did to 3.5, or 4e did to Essentials. 

Beth Rimmels over at ENWorld has a complete coverage of what is going on.
https://www.enworld.org/threads/one-d-d-takes-5e-to-new-digital-places.690754/

In any case, it is going to be fun to see where this new D&D goes.

Grabbed the playtest. Looks like we get a "Primal" spell source for Druids now. No Goblins though as a playable species!

4 comments:

JB said...

Mm.

Having only just now been able to watch this video (thank you for the link), I find I have zero words to express my feelings on this. Literally: there aren't words in my vocabulary, or I'd use them.

They would not be positive words.

I spent the bulk of my day teaching youngsters how to play D&D. Real D&D, i.e. 1E. They included a 9 year old girl, a 10 year old boy, and an 11 year old boy. To be perfectly transparent, this was not the 10 year old's first go around, but since his FIRST session lasted all of 30-some minutes before he was eaten by an owlbear, I still consider him a "rookie."

Inclusivity my ass. "Storytelling" my ass. Digital integration my ass. This shit is Bull. Shit.

But, hey...fuck *my* opinion. I'm just an old geezer who has no idea what the young hipsters want these days. I mean, I ASSUME that's who this shit is aimed at. It certainly isn't aimed at me or the kids under 12 I'm teaching to play the real thing.

Christ started a religion with 12 Disciples. I'm up to eight-ish. I'm not trying to start a cult...just want to keep the flame of actual D&D alive. Need to keep plugging away, I guess.

[apologies, Tim, if I give offense. My ire really isn't directed at you]

Timothy S. Brannan said...

I get it.

The only "real" D&D is what is at your table at the time. So for me that is D&D 5, Pathfinder 2, and B/X. There is no "actual" D&D, to claim this minimalizes the experiences of people that did not have the happenstance to have been born in the 60s or 70s to play what was the then-current D&D.

Frankly, I am not expecting anyone even remotely around my age to care for this and neither really does WotC. Why? Because our market is so damn tiny as to be non-existent. This is all for the fans of D&D 5th Edition.

Ok, so Grogs won't buy it. An empty threat since they were never buying anything from WotC anyway. Myself. I am going to buy it. I am going to enjoy it. As a professional game designer, I want to know what the industry leader is doing. I want to see what sells.

There is also nothing in the new proposals for One D&D that I have not seen in games since the 90s. This stuff isn't new, it's only new to D&D.

My ire is also not directed at you, but really no one cares where the ire is directed. D&D 5 has been hands down the best-selling, most popular version of the game well ever. The data from Ben Riggs in Slaying the Dragon shows that even at its height 1st Ed and BECMI were not even close to 5e sales.

WotC has no reason to make us happy nor even should they.

JB said...

There aren’t people “our age” playing 5E? I must have been misinformed.

trollsmyth said...

Very intrigued by these goblins: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cf9a-kUj8tI&t=919s

Trying to decide how I feel about ubiquitous Inspiration. That and dwarven tremorsense are sticking in my craw, but not so much that I want to throw the whole thing out.

Most interested to see what they do with EXP and leveling as the new default.

- Brian