The newest version of “Dungeons & Dragons” is made to be the last. According to the “D&D Beyond” Website, One D&D is going to be changed and updated after its release in 2024, not made into a new edition of the game.

An easier way to think of it is a game that has a new season every few months, instead of a new game every few years. In theory it’s a great idea, but for D&D it’s gotten mixed reviews from fans.

Every new edition of D&D is a huge deal, getting players excited for new classes, species, and spells. Because of this more drip-fed approach there won’t be massive drops of new, interesting game mechanics. Many people might come back for a new edition of D&D, but after the initial launch of “One D&D” no one will be back for a few spells.

In addition to huge changes in how D&D parks going forward, the big gameplay changes haven’t been received well at all. Clerics, which many fans consider the best class in the game, were made better, while many worse classes were unchanged. Martial classes were already barely able to compete with spellcasters, but this hasn’t done anything to help game balance

The biggest downside is that only Wizards of the Coast, also known as Wizards, will be able to make content for “One D&D”. With 5th Edition, anyone could make an adventure with unique classes, species, and spells. Now that’s going to be restricted to just Wizards.

“I do like what they are doing with feats,” says Jared Dettlebach, Freshman at Silver Creek High School, “Like that it is more connected to your character, making backgrounds more integral.”

Something already affecting “One D&D”’s popularity is many D&D content creators talking about it. That would be good for Wizards, but almost everyone doesn’t like the changes.

“I think that the changes to the species in “One D&D” are bad because they have trivialized other species options by removing what makes the changed species unique and removing their weaknesses,” Says Cole Sheppard, a Freshman at Niwot High School, and a member of the Niwot D&D club.

Wizards is making some good changes, but they also seem really intent on keeping spellcasters better than martial classes. Wizards blatantly favors some classes over others, and just doesn’t seem to care enough about balancing so far.

Less creative freedom, along with just making the game more unbalanced, more people will be playing 5E instead of “One D&D”. Unless there are more huge changes in the next play test for it, “One D&D” is going to fail.