D&D would like feedback on your experience with fireballs

Dungeons & Dragons is a consumer product, and like every other consumer product it requires good data in order to … well, better appeal to its players. However, the reality is that getting this kind of feedback can lead to some hilarious and unintentional situations. Case in point is a survey, launched this past weekend, that asks for player feedback on the game’s iconic — and entirely fictional — list of spells.

“How satisfied are you with these spells, as presented in the Player’s Handbook?” asks the survey, before proceeding to detail dozens upon dozens of iconic spells from 5th edition. Fireball, alongside Finger of Death is also included. On the same page, Protection From Evil and Good is also found Prismatic Spray. Do you feel very satisfied, somewhat dissatisfied or slightly dissatisfied about Stone Skin and Stone Shape? With Tasha’s Hideous Laughter? With Tenser’s Floating Disk? Was Transport via Plants your most recent trip? Have you enjoyed the Vicious Mockery

Photo: Charlie Hall/Polygon

There’s nothing revolutionary about these surveys. It’s the kind of player engagement that publisher Wizards of the Coast has been going after since it spent all that time creating 5th edition, gathering feedback from hundreds of thousands of eager playtesters. It regularly releases mockups of new content through its Unearthed Arcana series. This includes character classes and races. Then, they ask for feedback about how the characters work together at the table. Heck, there’s even a QR code published inside the flyleaf of most new books (right next to the now-traditional Easter egg) that directs you to surveys that are even more specific to a given product.

But asking for feedback on individual spells, as if they were toasters or functions on a universal remote control, actually cuts right to the core of the D&D experience. It is not easy to choose the best spells for magic users. That mix of offensive, defensive, and cantrip actions reflects not only the character’s lived experience but their viability in combat. It’s a very personal and intimate choice.

Nevertheless, it’s an amusing read. I imagine the survey being delivered by a gnome or a satyr, patrolling the market stalls like they’re running for local office in Waterdeep, peering over tiny spectacles and making elaborate marks on a clipboard.

But, in addition to being a great goof, it’s actually a promising sign of what’s to come for the world’s most popular role-playing game (and one of its corporate owner’s largest profit centers).

In September, during the annual D&D Celebration, executive producer Ray Winninger said that the “next evolution” of the game was in the works, set to be published in 2024. The stated goal is to mark the 50th anniversary of the creation of D&D, but also to move the current game — which came out way back in 2014 — forward.

Winninger is a very specific term It is not say that his team is working on the next “edition” of D&D. There have been many fractious reboots of the urRPG over the years. All tend to splinter playerbases and scatter community. Histrionics led to the creation of Pathfinder, but also the poorly received 4th edition of D&D and its even more poorly received reboot, a flailing, forgettable series of books known as Dungeons & Dragons Essentials. Nobody wants that to happen again. Fans, Wizards and even Hasbro’s owner are not interested in seeing that happen again.

These findings are evident in surveys such as the one that was published over the weekend. Wizards isn’t looking to reinvent the spell-casting wheel here. They just want to buff out the surface a little bit — maybe change the bearings. Winninger and the creatives tinkering behind the scenes of D&D want a smooth transition in 2024. The team wants to smoothen out the edges, improve the spellingbook, and bring D&D into line with current societal trends. The spell survey can be seen as a conservative document.

Doesn’t make it any less funny to read through, though.