# OneDnD Have we potentially seen the end of the OneD&D Playtest?



## DEFCON 1 (25 minutes ago)

The thought came to me this morning as I was eating breakfast about what the next playtest packet for OneD&D could possibly be about and when it might get released... when it occurred to me that the D&D design team HAS to know that it would be crazy to actually release anything right now for people to test.  Mainly because of the 40,000+(?) people who have been stated to be filling out the surveys on the packets... I have to imagine that a large number of those people are people who are online and follows the comings and goings of Wizards of the Coast.  So a lot of those people are fully aware of the current 1.1 situation and have a lot to say about it-- moreso than anything they might have to say about any potential "Priest Classes".

Have we perhaps see the end of the playtest... because it is now possibly virtually impossible for Jeremy et. al. to get anything worthwhile out of the surveys because they could very well be overrun by torrents of comments only about how 1.1 is screwing designers and players over?  Do any of them actually WANT to try and engage with the community on creative endeavors right now when their higher-ups have poisoned the well so thoroughly?

Heh... I mean not to make light of things too much... but we've had a number of posters here in the past claim that OneD&D has "already been written" and that the playtest was just "marketing".  Well, at this point if it WASN'T already written, they might as well go ahead and DO IT NOW because any "marketing" from the playtest has crapped the bed.

So just to have a question for folks to respond to in this thread... if for the sake of argument the design team DID release their next playtest packet soon... would you be able to test and comment on just the merits of the info in the packet when the survey came out, or would you use the survey instead to let your feelings of the OGL 1.1 be known and "Priest Classes" be damned?


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## Nikosandros (8 minutes ago)

I think that you raise a fair point. Personally, I would not be able to keep my feelings about the OGL away and so I would refrain from sending feedback.


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## delericho (7 minutes ago)

I'm not involved in the playtest, and not about to start.

If I were WotC, though, I'd be introducing a filter to automatically discard any response that includes the word "OGL" or that has everything rated at the lowest level. Make sure nobody reads them, nobody counts them; they're just binned.

Whether that leaves enough responses to make it a worthwhile exercise, I don't know.


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## Ruin Explorer (3 minutes ago)

This has been discussed a bit already.

I think if WotC don't change course, they're going to lose a very significant fraction of the 40k+ people who fill in the surveys, because those people are at the more hardcore end of things, as the surveys are quite long and serious.

Whether that will matter of them, is another question. I do think it'll bias the results, given WotC appear to have returned to the 70% method, because I think there will be some uniformity to the people you drive away. @Umbran was saying I think justifiably that maybe that doesn't matter, because if you stick with 1.1 those people won't play 1D&D anyway, so maybe the people who stick around better represent your core audience? I personally think there's a bit more to it, because I think that, realistically, a bunch of people who play 1D&D won't even hear about this controversy, and they'll be people who have the full spread of playstyles and interests, including those of the people who got driven away by the OGL 1.1 stuff, and those people may well be disappointed with 1D&D's changes. But I could see it either way.

I don't think people will vandalize them much, for the same reason, though, because the surveys take like 20 minutes to fill in whether you're thoughtless or thoughtful. There will be some small percentage, I'm sure.

If WotC do back down, I think we'll see a significant drop in the number of survey responses for the current packet (which is due in by the 20th), but they may slowly increase over the next few months if WotC behaves.


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## Retreater (3 minutes ago)

As I wrote in other threads, I think the playtest (as it was) is over. I could see them doing a scaled back playtest - such as doing it through organized play events with select Dungeon Masters. But I expect just opening the development to a potentially angry community right now wouldn't be a good idea. And to wait until it all boils over would put them behind schedule.
I also expect to not see as many cheerfully optimistic promos. Or if we do, I think many fans will view them as false and may even make the situation worse.
I think the hype train has gone off the rails for the time being.


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