Take the Winter 2026 D&D Community Survey

Quote from DamnScoutOne >>

I took the survey. I have one thing to add.

I know you have passionate people who LOVE D&D and are frustrated by the direction. Listen to them. The Maps stuff is exciting, and the new tools are nice when they eventually show up. But it's all locked behind Official Corporate Speak with legal sign-off. But you do have people who want to do the best they can, and I know corporate is working hard to ruin the company.

Having to feel like I need to apologize for liking D&D sucks. Join the community again. Talk to real people. That doesn't mean surveys. You don't have a face of the company anymore. You're like the McDonald's CEO of RPGs now.

 Yes, This!

Make sure to take advantage of this survey and especially the comment box at the end. You do not need to be a subscriber just have an account.

Fake answer: Get sold to anyone else at all.

Real answer: Stop pumping out $60 books that only say, "You do it, DM." The books have been lacking, and the development has been scared and timid of doing anything at all thats meaningful. The old face being gone means you guys finally have a chance to actually take this game somewhere. Even you guys FINALLY just calling it 5.5e means, to me, that you're ready for progress instead of faffing about like the old crew did. I want to say, too, that DDB site development has been bad! Fandom/Curse had site development plans. Their roadmap was glorious, they had weekly updates, they talked regularly to the community, and they asked us what we wanted the site to do. The acquisition killed all momentum. Build it again with us by building the site. Let us be lycanthropes. Let us have dark gifts. Let us have dragon gifts. Let us add sanity and honor. Let us sort the skills by ability rather than alphabetical. For the love of god, give us a "Dawn" button to reset magic items. Let DMs blacklist specific books (not just publishers) from their campaigns. Let DMs choose to blacklist spells. Give them more control.

MAKE THE SITE RULES COMPLIANT. We should have add that literally years ago.

My comments submitted with the survey:

"Treat DnD beyond as a TTRPG, not a mobile game monetization cash grab. We all know it's happened with GamePass and Steam and GTA online and on and on. We get it. You want profit margins. We get it. You view D&D as under-monetized. We get it. You think WE are not contributing enough. We get it. You know that a smaller player base willing to pay more cash for content they don't actually own and can't keep if or when D&D Beyond closes is worth more than the revenue lost from players that leave. But for real? Stop with the Fear of Missing Out antics and the pay wall. DnDBeyond was meant to be a tool set to increase access, not a content-delivery system that restricts access and ownership. D&D has *always* been about community, creation, storytelling, and sharing moments with friends; this game is *not* about controlled access, seasonal passes to push revenue, or loss of content and tools when we can't afford our subscription. Do better."

Surveys are great, but it is the follow-up that counts. I love D&D and I don't share most of the negaitivity that some express. I don't mind paying for books and things I see as useful. I like the new 2024 rules, but not all of them, which is true in almost every case of rules/guides etc because we are individuals. That doesn't mean that the books are bad, just that it is difficult to please everyone. Keep up the good work.

I really believe this is too little, too late.

WotC has given us a case study in alienating customers and destroying brand loyalty that should be taught in every business school around the world.

Pre-OGL, if you asked TTRPG players what they thought of the brand and WotC's stewardship of D&D, the response would have been overwhelmingly positive.  Even if they had moved on to other systems, there was plenty of positive nostalgia for D&D being the gateway into TTRPG for almost all fans.

The 50th anniversary should have been 12 months of nostalgia and promotion.  Their customers wanted  to celebrate the history.  WotC was too ashamed of it.  Create limited edition leather-bound books.  Host podcasts and YouTube videos with the legends who helped make D&D into what it is.  Partner with local game stores for monthly give-aways.  Host events that are more than just "buy this, paypigs".  Cross-marketing with shows like Forged in Fire. 

And biggest of all - RELEASE 5.5 DURING THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY!  Does NOBODY at WotC own a calendar?  Did they think 2024 would never get here?  Start developing 5.5 early enough that you can have "D&D 50th Edition" and drop the books in a nice 3 box set.

Forgot to mention this in the survey but it's very important: KEEP GENERATIVE AI AWAY FROM D&D

Lord_Talen summed it up incredibly well. There has been a massive corporitization movement within WOTC towards DND. Supplements are getting more expensive with less content, and the a la carte system was removed from DnD Beyond to force players to spend more money on content they dont want just so they can treat this tool as a toxic microtransaction shop rather than the aid it was meant to be from the beginning. The people who play this game do so to feel a sense of community, and when a company takes advantage of this to try and squeeze more money out of people in the short term, there are consequences to your reputation. I would gladly spend $100 on a third party addition if I knew that the creators were keeping their customers at the forefront of their thoughts than spend $20 on this platform for a new book that just has repackaged assets from previously released expansions. And not having a face to talk to, not having a company team that actually talks to players, invites content creators to talk about different subjects or issues within the community, and pretending like everyone is just a cash cow who will follow the company blindly is a horrible look.

Also, hard agree that the books we buy on this platform should be downloadable as PDFs. I havent thought about that before but honestly its insane that this isnt already a possibility on this website.

What happened to holiday released content, like the Advent Calendar?

We used to get content and tangible material, now we get a very small discount on a select few books.

Quote from Gnomarchy >>

WotC can communicate all they want. But the more they push digital "services" over products I can own, the less I'll spend. Two things:

1. Sell PDFs. Nearly every other RPG publisher does. I want to store my books digitally, carry them offline, and never risk losing access because a platform shuts down. I don't trust WotC any more than any other company on this.
   
   
2. Stop recycling the Forgotten Realms. 5e is saturated with it. Give us more original settings like Radiant Citadel.

 This. If I am paying $60 bucks for a book, I want a downloadable PDF. I don't want to pay $60 to rent the book.

In fairness, Nuisance, the “people here” are, well, here. 

That tells me they are probably playing 5e rather than being OSR zealots who hate anything with a copyright date after 1983. 

Those of us who have been D&D (and all the others) players for many years remember the time when you could write to Gary Gygax and get a personal reply. (Hell! You can still do that with Traveller and Marc Miller!) We remember when the writers and publishers REALLY did engage, listen and care about the community. We miss that.

D&D used to be like the FLGS. Now it feels like Amazon or Walmart. 

responding to to the survey isn’t an act of rebellion or vandalism, it’s a cry of frustration with the (openly money-grubbing) direction Hasbro is taking with Non fungible tokens, making us pay twice for books we already bought and the whole OGL debacle where they tried to change the rules to suit their bank balance. 

As for the “quality of the criticism “ I found a lot of it to be well thought out and entirely reasonable. 

Why is the survey not working 8 days later?

Can't access it either. 

Glad I took the survey when I had the chance. The fact that it was only up for 7 or 8 days is ridiculous. 

I didn't think about it at the time of my doing the survey, but something that I think that would help add to the trust of players and WotC would be to mend bridges. You've already apologized to Luke Gygax, and that's a big deal. But, what about Paizo? They have done well for themselves, and even converted a Pathfinder 2e module to 5e on D&D Beyond, which shows the partnership. People have been complaining that there aren't enough modules to play, especially at high level. Paizo has been asked on numerous occasions to convert their Dungeon Magazine adventure paths to Pathfinder 1e and 2e, which they can't do because it's joint ownership, not unlike how Disney/Marvel can't do Spider-Man movies without Sony. If you converted the Big 3: Age of Worms, Savage Tide, and Shackled City, which are all 1-20 modules, and beloved ones at that, that could go a long way to show that you're both sincere with apologizes and working with third party publishers, as well as that you're listening to your fan base. Two birds, one stone, so to speak. As for which one, go with whatever had the highest sales numbers. I know Paizo sold a lot of the Shackled City hardcover back in the day, and a lot of people I know gave rave reviews for Savage Tide. You'd have better access to the analytics though. If not you, Paizo definitely does due to all the requests for the past 15 years.

This might get completely ignored because the survey's closed, but it just popped into my head so I thought I'd post it regardless.

I don't get the latter day veneration of Gygax. He sued small creators and supported OGL like licensing for DND far past the time he had official ties to it. He might of written to you but, like Hasbro, he didn't think it was your game. 

As far as the other stuff. I think it's clear Hasbro has learned it's lessons. I mean, how far in the rearview does OGL have to be? And when's the last time anyone mentioned NFTs? It's up to us to be vigilant, but they haven't made a major mistep since. We need to show support when they're doing good otherwise all the pushback is just lip flapping from people who were and are never going to support the game.

This a new team and the people that brought you 5.5 and the disappointing books before that have been exited. Off to ruin another game. All their books have been published and this year will tell the tale of the foreseeable future of the game. Anyone being negative at this point isn't paying attention and shouldn't be listened to. You can be critical and hesitant, but bleating on about mistakes years in the past at this point is tiresome.

How odd. I just learned about the poll today and it's already closed. WotC: What do you think about us? Okay, that's enough!

I love a lot of the updated website, but I haven't been able to find their blog easily anymore. I don't care that much, but after clicking a bunch of links on the main page and not finding it I figured they just didn't care about it anymore. There's hardly anything really new or exciting since Jeremy Crawford and Chris Perkins left. Hopefully this year changes some.

@Bohr14 THIS!

where are the results? it says "Take the Survey" that leads to a page that says "we're not taking any more surveys" so I missed it, which is fine. But what are the results.