D&D: Survey Released Into The Wild
WotC wants to know what you think of their exploration rules. Pretty wild, don’t you think.
Just a short but sweet piece to cap off a Thursday–does anyone really ever get the hang of those? Regardless, Wizards of the Coast is currently taking in your feedback for this month’s Unearthed Arcana: Wilderness Exploration.
Now, if you couldn’t tell from our writeup, I really enjoyed this particular iteration of the rules. I think that exploration in the game is one of the more often overlooked things as parties either go from encounter to encounter with just movement rules and a little bit of narration to “get them to the good stuff” or poor DMs fumble about in the dark trying to figure out how to make describing trees interesting to players for the seventh time.
But surely the eighth time is the charm?
Whatever your experience may be, I feel like these rules gave exploration a purpose. And gave aspiring DMs a set of much needed guidelines. I mean, for the first time ever I think I’ve really understood what Random Encounters are for–they’re there to help reinforce the theme of whatever location you’re in. A good random encounter plays up the fact that you’re traveling off the map, so to speak. If the GM describes strange crystal obelisks along the way, a random encounter is a great chance to see them in action.
And these rules do so much to try and encourage players to think about the environment as another thing to be designed. It’s a really cool suite of rules that changed the way I think about the game. I mention all this just to emphasize how important it is to get your feedback in with something like this. We’ve already seen how these survey results feed into their own playtesting–surveys from previous Unearthed Arcanas directly changed the way that certain subclasses worked in Xanathar’s Guide to everything.
So now here’s your chance to weigh in on these exploration rules. Do you love them (like me?) do you think they’re a waste? Either way, let your voice be heard, and really make the game your own.
Take the Unearthed Arcana – Wilderness Exploration survey
Happy adventuring!
