As I write this, it is the 19th of August, 2022, and I’ve just become aware of the new Playtest for Dungeons & Dragons. While Wizards are code-naming it “D&D One”, let’s call it what it is – Dungeons & Dragons 6^th edition.

While they say it will be backwards compatible with the current edition (5^th edition), I’m betting that it’ll be about as compatible as Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1^st edition was with Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2^nd edition. That is to say: You’ll be able to mix and match a lot of stuff, but, especially for character stuff, you’ll want the material of the newest edition.

And, honestly, I’m okay with that.

Dungeons & Dragons is not a static game. It would have died out a long time ago if it were. Our appreciation of the fantastic has grown significantly since 1974, and Dungeons & Dragons needs to reflect that. (And yes, the fantastic also draws on real life. Our appreciation of being human has also changed over the years; D&D also needs to reflect that).

This doesn’t look like a massive overhaul of the game. What we get in 2024 will look very similar to what we have in 2022. However, saying it is mostly the same is not to say it will be identical. There are significant changes to how the game works going forward. I will slowly be incorporating material into my ongoing games and report back my thoughts on the various mechanics as they come.

That said…

The Next Day – Are You Inspired?

It’s now the 20^th of August. Last night was the latest session of my ongoing Greyhawk campaign with a group I have been playing with for almost 20 years. We started a new campaign recently, and the characters are still low-level – primarily 2^nd and 3^rd level. I chose one particular mechanic of the playtest to implement this time: the new Inspiration rule.

I was incredibly enthusiastic about Inspiration when it first debuted in 2014. Finally, there was a mechanic that would allow me to reward players for good roleplaying! Unfortunately, that is not how it turned out.

Inspiration in fifth edition could also be called the favouritism rule because a DM gives out Inspiration to their favourites and not the other players. It doesn’t even have to be conscious – some players are more aligned with the DM’s style than others, so their actions become more evident to the DM. Then too, some players are quieter and don’t make those sorts of contributions, despite being highly effective team members. As they were quiet rather than showy, the DM would often pass them by and not award them Inspiration.

The most significant change to how Inspiration works is this: although it still has the “impress the DM” component, you can also gain it by rolling a natural 20 on a d20 Test. (A d20 Test is the new terminology to cover all of attack rolls, ability checks, and saving throws. And wow, that name doesn’t trip off the tongue!) Now, there are problems with linking Inspiration to d20 Tests. In particular, spell casters using spells with no d20 rolls – you know, like fireballs – won’t get it as often. On the other hand, they need it less often.

In addition, it feels very arbitrary and “win more”. Why not make it apply to natural 1s instead, which benefits players having horrendous dice luck?

Well, you could. It *is* an arbitrary mechanic, but it is easy to remember and gives that little extra boost of joy when rolling a natural 20, even when there isn’t another benefit to it. And anything that makes inspiration flow faster is a win in my book. And it must be arbitrary to get away from the favouritism problem of how Inspiration worked previously.

So, the first player to get Inspiration from this was from a Perception check. Bears were approaching the party, and I needed to see if the characters were surprised.

From there, this rule came up three times during the two hours of the session, which mainly featured two combats. Three natural 20s in 2 hours of play.

Do I like this rule? I do. I think it will work well.

Oh, one other thing: If that character already had inspiration, they can immediately give another character inspiration. I forgot to use this rule, but it’s great!

The Joy of Advantage

Now that a player had Inspiration, did they get to use it? Unfortunately, Inspiration still has the major problem it had before. You must declare you are using it before you roll.

So, even though the players gained more Inspiration than in a typical session, they still tended to hoard it and not use it.

My solution is to use the house rule that many players worldwide have adopted: Instead of declaring that you have Advantage before you make a roll, you instead get a reroll.

(Yes, my players still tended to flub the reroll, but at least they had another chance).

I hope that at some point, Wizards recognise that this is how Inspiration should work. However, it brings me to another interesting feature of the playtest document: the rewording of the Lucky feat. I reproduce the relevant section here:

Advantage. Immediately after you roll a d20 for a d20 Test, you can spend 1 Luck Point to give yourself Advantage on the roll.

Can you spot the difference with how it worked before?

Lucky now gives you Advantage on the roll, not just rerolling a die. I find this fascinating but also confusing. I assume that Lucky does not work if you already have Advantage. When you have a standard roll, it works as expected – you roll an additional d20 and take the higher result. But what happens if you have Disadvantage?

I can see two solutions to that:

• You switch immediately from Disadvantage to Advantage and can choose the higher of the two rolls
• You can’t use Lucky at all, as you’re rolling 2d20 and not a single d20, so the feat doesn’t apply.

I was enthusiastic about how Lucky would no longer start stacking with Advantage, but the current wording confused me.

However, if Wizards can clear this up, perhaps it can also pave the way for Inspiration to be useable after a roll, not just before!

I will have more thoughts on the playtest soon, but that’s enough for today!