Is WOTC/Hasbro mismanaging D&D?

[Sir Edgar]

It also provides a whole heap of rules-based distractions to soak time and thought away from the imaginative side of the game.

I have to agree.

Assuming a fixed amount of time to spent on D&D:


more time spent on stats blocks and rules adjudicating

=

less time to develop NPC characters personalities, plots, and other ideas and be creative during game time


From my personal experience, I spend more time building stats for an NPC than fleshing out his/her personality. Think about how much time it would take for you to draw up a 10th level fighter with all of his/her skills, feats, etc.

But I'm sure Khur will say you can just spend more time on both!

Khur:
"The time it takes to create a character has NO ramifications on the creativity involved in creating said character."

 

[Sir Edgar]

Sir Edgar, polls at this site are fun, but don't be fooled into thinking that they're scientific, or that the results are valid. The wording of the poll self-selects for those that think that Hasbro is mis-managing D&D, and at any rate, would exclude those that have no strong opinion one way or the other (like myself). Also, you don't have a representative population, and you haven't gotten nearly enough results even if the population were representative. Also, internet polls are notorious for ballot-stuffing.

Are you saying that internet polls are 100% useless and this one is inherently flawed? Why put them up then? Obviously, they are of some value to someone. Also, who would be ballot-stuffing for a poll like this? Maybe polls should be banned then.

Anyhow, I have to disagree. Even if the results were not in my favor, I would still respect them. In fact, I expected them not to be so. So, I am pleasantly surprised that quite a few people agree with what I have to say. Regardless, I just wanted to find out if ANY others had similar thoughts about the mismanagement of D&D by WOTC/Hasbro and share them.

 

[Tuerny]

Anyhow, if you are going to completely discount my argument as well as the opinion of over 200 of your peers than I don't know what else to say. I know that I did not even expect a majority to agree with the question that I posted for the poll, but I would have respected their opinion anyhow.

The fallacies in your logic aside, where are you getting 200 peers from? Only ~140 people agreed with your statement about Hasbro/WotC mismanaging D&D.

 

[Dinkeldog]

Are you saying that internet polls are 100% useless and this one is inherently flawed? Why put them up then? Obviously, they are of some value to someone. Also, who would be ballot-stuffing for a poll like this? Maybe polls should be banned then.
*snip*

Yup, thought I was pretty clear. All internet polls of this type are 100% useless. If you want it to not be useless, then you choose a large enough random sample, and you set up a restricted website that only those people can get to, and then you take into consideration the number of people that don't answer the poll. I could vote on this poll twice, as I access this computer from home and work. Three times if I bothered to go to the bf's house and use his computer. Four if I cared enough to go to my parents' place.

And still you have to carefully word the poll to make sure you're not biasing the subject. It seems like your poll question was really, "Is D&D in worse shape than it was 4 years ago?" but instead you asked "Is Hasbro/WotC mismanaging D&D?" You also timed it for when nerves were raw. Most people wouldn't read the opinions expressed here, as they're rushed and just want to sound off against Hasbro in retaliation for the layoffs Friday week. In reality, you seem to have few people willing to put out the effort to say, "You know, D&D was better in 2nd Edition than it is now."

As to what the polls use are and why keep them around: entertainment value. The same reason why people call phone psychics.

This isn't to slam you, at all, or discount your opinions. The discussion has stayed very calm and rational. I'm just trying to help you see why this poll wouldn't be very useful to take to a soapbox outside Hasbro headquarters.

 

[Sir Edgar]

And still you have to carefully word the poll to make sure you're not biasing the subject. It seems like your poll question was really, "Is D&D in worse shape than it was 4 years ago?" but instead you asked "Is Hasbro/WotC mismanaging D&D?" You also timed it for when nerves were raw. Most people wouldn't read the opinions expressed here, as they're rushed and just want to sound off against Hasbro in retaliation for the layoffs Friday week. In reality, you seem to have few people willing to put out the effort to say, "You know, D&D was better in 2nd Edition than it is now."

I am in no way making a comparison to four years ago or 2nd edition.

You're making a lot of assumptions about who is voting, the way they're voting, and how they're voting. It looks like you've completely misunderstood what I am saying.

Anyhow, I know that a lot of people are voting "yes" but are afraid to voice their opinions. Certainly, some of these people are publishers and they do not want to appear biased by bashing WOTC/Hasbro.

I think it's quite obnoxious of anyone to discount the opinion of so many other people.

It sounds like what you're saying is, "This poll is useless. It was probably ballot-stuffed. Everyone misunderstood what you're saying and they voted wrong. You're wrong. People are emotional and all the people that voted "yes" used to work for WOTC/Hasbro. You don't even know what you're talking about."

Looks like a lot of baseless accusations to me.

 

[maddman75]

To reiterate,

I personally voted yes not for the reasons you listed, which were primarily having to do with your opinion on products, but because of concerns I have over actions taken by Hasbro since they aquired WotC.

And internet polls are fun, but they prove nothing. They are guilty of just about everything you can do to throw off statistics. The discussion is far more infomative than the poll.

Problems with internet polls

- Only people who read ENBoards vote. This is a vast minority of WotC's customers, not even a blip on the radar
- Out of those readers, only those with a strong opinon one way or the other are going to vote.
- Wording of the vote introduced bias. Examples
(Anti WotC) - Is Hasbro/WotC mismanaging D&D?
(Pro WotC) - Is Hasbro/WotC doing a good job of managing D&D?
(Neutral) - How do you feel about the managent of the D&D game?

 

[Umbran]

It sounds like what you're saying is, "This poll is useless. It was probably ballot-stuffed. Everyone misunderstood what you're saying and they voted wrong. You're wrong. People are emotional and all the people that voted "yes" used to work for WOTC/Hasbro. You don't even know what you're talking about."

If I might interject, that doesn't quite seem to be what he's saying to me....

The poll is useless, insofar as it's methods are not scientific. While you may take it that some number of people do, in some sense or other, agree with you, you cannot at all use it to predict the opinions of other gamers, or guess exactly how or why it is they agree with you.

The possibility that the poll can be ballot stuffed, and that it was asked at a time when a lot of people have been showing anger could well bias your results. With only a couple of hundred respondants overall, it doesn't take all that many stuffings or emotional reactions to skew the results. If you took the poll one month from now, you mght see notably different results.

Everyone misunderstood what you meant? I don't know. The fact is that the way you posted the question is both leading and self-selecting for agreement with your position. And, agreement with the general posit that the game is being mis-managed does not mean agreement on any particular point about it's mis-management.

Now, I mean no insult, but the fact that you argue these points suggests that you are not well educated on statistics and the science of polling. In that sense (and only that sense) one might say you don't know what you are talking about. Lack of understanding polling as a science does not invalidate your other opiniions.

Polls on the boards can be interesting, and thought provoking. But we shouldn't take them to actually mean much most of the time.

 

[Khur]

That keyboard/mind interface...

From my personal experience, I spend more time building stats for an NPC than fleshing out his/her personality. Think about how much time it would take for you to draw up a 10th level fighter with all of his/her skills, feats, etc.

But I'm sure Khur will say you can just spend more time on both!

Khur:
"The time it takes to create a character has NO ramifications on the creativity involved in creating said character."

I love and hate the English language, especially when you're forced to convey what you're thinking in a medium that takes many times longer and is terrible at giving your recipient emotional information and other cues.

Thanks for pointing out what I said so I can clarify. What I meant was: the time it takes to create the 3E stats for a character has no ramifications on the creativity involved in the process. It does have ramifications on the time involved. I would say that you can just spend more time on both stat creation and personality (and ect.), only drawing up a 10th-level fighter in 3E is so abysmally easy, that it shouldn't be a problem. This becomes especially true if you have the non-statistical info before you start on the stats. When I create characters, the rules don't decide what that character's going to be, my imagination does. So I have the personality, plot, and other ideas in place before I worry about the rules. Fortunately 3E as written is flexible enough to allow for most things, and places where it isn't can be glossed over. Not only that, the authors of 3E also suggest that you do so whenever you need to. Where the rules interfere with fun, ditch the rules. They even do this when making "official" material. Example: Hmmmm, the monk multiclass restriction prevents us from making Oriental Adventures characters like ones that appear in comics, movies, and stories. I know! Ignore the multiclassing rule! Brilliant. (Why they even included the restriction in the first place is questionable, but I digress.)

You also have to remember that these rules were written with tournament play in mind.

Anyhow, I did vote yes, and not for emotional reasons (for those who might think so). I don't agree with most of Sir Edgar's basic reasons for thinking D&D is mismanaged, because they have little bearing beyond the level of personal taste. (The website problem is another issue.)

His personal taste IS important, because the game is supposed to be fun, not a chore. I'm not devaluing his opinions, even though some of them are highly personal points of view. But, WotC (the "official" manufacturer) can't please everyone all the time ... they HAVE TO aim at the middle of the road, and try to please most of the people most of the time. That's not an easy job, by the way, especially when you're dealing with over two decasdes of legacy material and legacy players.

Those legacy players are usually very bright and opinionated people. But, many of those players will rant and rave about how this or that is just a money-grubbing rehash of 2E or 1E stuff. Others gripe and moan because their favorite spell from Wizard's Spell Compendium 4 wasn't included in the PHB. WotC can't win, even if they try to cater to one group or another, at least not with a single product.

I will say that many products have enough good things in them to make them worth the price. A few don't (for my game). I have already stated that I FEEL some of the material that WotC has released is middling or worse, and not my desired type of FRPG. (Electricity shooting ballistas, anyone?)

My perception of the mismanagement has more to do with business direction, then the fact that I think "The Druid In Perspective" section of Masters of the Wild wasn't very useful for me, or the fact that I have to buy the Psionics Handbook or the Manual of the Planes (or a certain copy of Dungeon) to get Githyanki 3E stats.

Anyway, thanks for the opportunity to share my opinions and listen to yours. I think this poll served a good purpose, even if it's not scientific and a few people here are a bit rude. You get that everywhere, though.

 

[Rune]

You're making a lot of assumptions about who is voting, the way they're voting, and how they're voting. It looks like you've completely misunderstood what I am saying.

Anyhow, I know that a lot of people are voting "yes" but are afraid to voice their opinions. Certainly, some of these people are publishers and they do not want to appear biased by bashing WOTC/Hasbro.

Damn! You did it again! That's quite an assumption, there!

If you want to know the ironic truth, I would, strictly speaking, vote "yes," as well, if I were to vote.

But I won't, because you seem to be reading something into your poll that the rest of us aren't (because it isn't stated in the poll).

I'm afraid that if I was one of the "yes" votes, you'd think that I thought that all of WotC's decisions about what to include in their books were bad. Or that the Monster Manual(s) should include all of the monsters from past editions. Or other crap like that.

That's simply not true. If I were to vote "yes" in your poll, it would be to the question. I do believe that Hasbro is mismanaging WotC and, therefore, also D&D.

I'm willing to guess that most of the other "yes" votes actually mean the same thing.

 

[Codragon]

Past editions, smast editions

Gotta chime in here...

I voted "no" since 3E D&D was a smashing success.

Just because a monster was in a 1E or 2E monster book does not make it a "classic". WotC is under no obligation to include ANY of them in 3E material.

Sure, there are monsters that I wish were still in the game, but I can convert them myself to 3E. Sure, there are new monsters the WotC invented that I don't like. So I don't use them. But overall, I think the 3E Monster collection is pretty good. Yeah, the Tojinada (sp?) kinda sucks but that's hardly mismanagement.

Some of the older edition monsters will NEVER be included in new, official material. Things change. Things don't make the cut. Deal with it.