Today was a big day for fans of Dungeons and Dragons.
This morning Wizards of the Coast took to Twitch to make announcements for several of their product lines and the granddaddy of tabletop RPGs was no exception. First off, we got product announcements for five books coming out next year –
- Keys from the Golden Vault – This adventure anthology will focus on heist type adventures.
- Bigby Presents Glory of the Giants – This will likely be similar to Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons, but for giants.
- Phandelver Campaign – This will be an expansion of the classic Lost Mines of Phandelver adventure from the Dungeons and Dragons Starter Set into an entire campaign.
- The Book of Many Things – This is stated to be a book of new options for both DMs and Players – I expect it will be similar to Xanathar’s Guide to Everything and Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, but with fewer (if any) new player options.
- Planescape – This will be a full campaign book for the classic campaign setting.
They also spoke about their desire for more digital integration with the game and their acquisition of D&D Beyond has set the stage for them to make some moves in this category. They hinted at physical-digital bundles (and in fact, the upcoming Dragonlance release will be the pilot test for that), but the bigger news is that they appear to be hard at work on what appears to be an in depth VTT built specifically for Dungeons and Dragons developed with the Unreal engine to provide a fully immersive digital experience. I’m excited to see more about this.
But arguably the biggest news was the reveal and first release of playtest materials for the new Players Handbook coming out in 2024, which Wizards is calling One D&D. And before you go around screaming about new editions and the sky falling, let me assure you that this appears in every way to be what we were promised when it was first announced – a refinement and evolution of the 5e mechanics that we’ve come to know and love. The promises of full backwards compatibility with everything that’s been published so far seem to be holding true at least from what little has been released so far. The philosophy that they are working on is “we don’t want to take anything away, but instead add MORE to what you already love.”
As far as actual playtest materials are concerned, we got the new rules for character origin. This process will consist of three steps – 1) choosing your Race, 2) choosing your Background, and 3) choosing your languages.
Step number one is very similar to what you’re familiar with from standard 5e, but a little bit different. Races don’t provide bonuses to ability scores any more. Instead, they provide things like bonus vision options, natural magics, and other special abilities such as a Dragonborn’s breath weapon or a Dwarf’s stonecunning. And there are some surprises within these abilities that you may not be expecting – for example, stonecunning now gives the dwarven character a limited Tremorsense that they can activate with a Bonus Action several times per day. The document includes nine different choices that include: Human, Ardling (a new race), Dragonborn, Dwarf, Elf, Gnome, Halfling, Orc, and Tiefling. Notably absent from this list are Half-Elves and Half-Orcs, and I’m curious what they have planned for these two staple player options in future installments or releases.
Backgrounds, on the other hand, look quite a bit different from what they once were. Whereas they initially provided some roleplaying hooks, a couple of proficiency options, and a very limited but flavorful ability tied to the choice, they instead provide a lot of mechanical meat for the character. Choice of Background now gives you ability score bonuses, two Skill proficiencies, one Tool proficiency, one bonus language, and a 1st level feat. That’s right – feats aren’t optional rules anymore and appear to be gated by level, so maybe some of the more devastating feats that were “too good not to take” will get less play in this new evolution. You can choose to customize your Background or choose from a premade one. The document provides 18 fully premade Backgrounds that you can choose from including: Acolyte, Artisan, Charlatan, Criminal, Cultist, Entertainer, Farmer, Gladiator, Guard, Guide, Hermit, Laborer, Noble, Pilgrim, Sage, Sailor, Soldier, and Urchin.
And finally, you choose one final bonus language for your character, bringing their total known to three – common, a choice determined by their background, and one chosen from the standard list of other languages.
All in all, this is a fantastic start from what I’m seeing. I really like that Backgrounds are getting greater mechanical weight. It provides a lot of unique ways for players to build their ideal character and is a nice evolution from the updated character creation rules that were presented in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything. When coupled with class, this new origin system gives you “where you come from, who you were, and what you currently are” and I can dig that – there’s a lot of room for story hooks to be inserted in any one of those pillars of your character.
The document rounds out with a look at some 1st-level feats and a couple pages of a rules glossary. I like the feats – they’re super flavorful and provide some interesting benefits without being overpowering. I’m curious to see what the progression system for them is going to look like at later tiers and higher levels of play. The biggest takeaway from the rules glossary is that while there are still attack rolls, ability checks, and saving throws – they all fall under the umbrella of the d20 Test. A result of a Natural 1 on any d20 Test means an automatic failure. A result of a Natural 20 on any d20 Test means an automatic success (as long as there aren’t limitations that make the check impossible in which case – why are you rolling?). I don’t know if I personally care for this, and may change ability checks to “best possible/worst possible results” instead. The guard doesn’t believe your obvious lie, but is sympathetic to your cause. Or you not only fail to pick the lock, but you break it, meaning you have to find an alternate point of entry/exit. The other thing that rolling a Natural 20 on a d20 Test gets you is a point of Inspiration. The second biggest takeaway from this is Inspiration itself. It seems that they are putting a much bigger spotlight on this mechanic and I’m excited to see what else they have in store for it beyond the usual way of granting yourself advantage on a roll.
All in all, I really really like what I see in this first playtest document and I’m excited to see what they start to reveal in the coming months. It’s an exciting direction to be taking the 5th Edition rules and I want to see how they build on it. All that said – for the love of all the gods and goddesses, Wizards, please, please, PLEASE just adopt Ancestry instead of Race. You even use the term in your description of what Race is. It’s just a cleaner and frankly better term that isn’t weighed down with lots of baggage.
New playtest documents will be released monthly, and the feedback period for this packet starts on September 1st. You can find all the news about the release as well as claim your copy of the PDF by going here. I can’t wait to see more of what Wizards has up their sleeve with this project.
Ben Erickson
