WotC Jeremy Crawford Interview: Playtests from experimental to focused. By Christian Hoffer at GenCon.

[Pedantic]

I agree. That said, as we saw in the TSR era, there can be a fair amount of changes that can be done while remaining interoperable (or, to use the preferred nomenclature, backwards compatible.

I guess I'm just a little dissatisfied with the nature and scope of the proposed changes. While I understand their desire, and appreciate that they have followed through, with their previously announced intentions to carry through with the whole, "Evergreen" idea and the "Not a new edition" (despite the calumnies heaped upon them by people, including here), I still find this as dissatisfying as going to the paint store and debating the difference between "eggshell" and "off-white."

I think that's pretty much a have your cake and eat it too situation. The bigger the scope of change, the more criticism that it's a new edition. It would have been significantly less burdening to the design if they could have just accepted a 5.5, and started the marketing with "with real, meaningful changes that make it better than last time we did this! See, surveys!"

 

[doctorbadwolf]

The evidence is that it exceeded 70% and they threw it out despite this.

So no evidence. I thought so.

Here’s mine:


The whole video goes into detail about their process, but around the 10 minute mark is where Crawford literally tells the audience what I’ve been telling you in this thread.

At no point does he say that 70% means it necessarily gets iterated on, and he even gives an example where something didn’t, that being the Jump Action. Feedback was meh, they looked at it internally, and decided against trying to rework it further.

So, if this is news to you, that isn’t really their fault, and your rage should have come back in January. At this point it’s just kinda silly.

yes, because that is what iterating means. How can you get from 70% to 80% with iteration when you never show it in a playtest again?

Maybe it doesn’t. If the qualitive feedback is mid at best, and they sit at a table and hash it out and don’t see a good way forward for it, why should they feel obligated to waste time putting another version in a playtest doc? Just to satisfy absolutists who won’t be happy anyway? Nah.

Your 'they iterated internally' is an unfounded, nonsensical excuse, nothing more.

If I’d said that, maybe. I didn’t, though. I basically pointed out that you don’t know at all whether they did or not, you’re just making assumptions that support the angry conclusion you want to heap further justification on top of.

When did I ever say the playtest process was good, healthy, or effective? I’ve been critical of their approach since D&D Next. I just accept that it’s not going to change.

EDIT: If anything, the fact that this shows they’re willing to make decisions based on more than just the satisfaction numbers is a positive thing in my opinion. That means it’s not pure design-by-committee, and they are actually willing to make decisions based on their own design goals and sensibilities. Good for them.

Same. I think their overall approach is pretty terrible, but I'm not mad about it. I'm just not going to drop the money on the new books.

I do like the playtest process, but that’s partly because it has seemed pretty clear to me for years that this is how it works. If the written feedback and the feedback outside the surveys don’t back up the math, they examine that feedback, take a look at the thing in question, and sometime just set it aside without a second iteration because they are making a judgement call.

IMO, that’s a good process.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I think that's pretty much a have your cake and eat it too situation.

Do you not see my avatar?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I think that's pretty much a have your cake and eat it too situation. The bigger the scope of change, the more criticism that it's a new edition. It would have been significantly less burdening to the design if they could have just accepted a 5.5, and started the marketing with "with real, meaningful changes that make it better than last time we did this! See, surveys!"

But that wasn’t their goal, so there was no reason to do that.

 

[Charlaquin]

Same. I think their overall approach is pretty terrible, but I'm not mad about it. I'm just not going to drop the money on the new books.

We still have a ways to go before the playtest concludes, so I’m not making any decisions just yet. However, I will say that despite being critical of their process, I’m mostly pleased with the results so far. Yes, there are some ideas I liked that don’t seem to have made it in. But, I plan to tell them so in the surveys, since we now have confirmation that they make decisions on written feedback as well as satisfaction numbers. Moreover, just because not everything I liked made it in, doesn’t mean the process has been a complete waste. Some stuff I liked has made it in, and so far nothing I’ve hated has made it in. I’ve been critical of the process, and still am, but at the end of the day I can’t deny that it has produced my favorite iteration of D&D so far, and looks to be producing some real improvements to that game.

 

[Charlaquin]

I think that's pretty much a have your cake and eat it too situation. The bigger the scope of change, the more criticism that it's a new edition. It would have been significantly less burdening to the design if they could have just accepted a 5.5, and started the marketing with "with real, meaningful changes that make it better than last time we did this! See, surveys!"

There were a ton of surveys last time they did this…?

 

[MGibster]

Do you not see my avatar?

Who is that enchanting woman?

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I expect this is what was meant. And hope that as little of anything rushed is needed.

I hope that it's something that was so universally loved by the internal playtesters that they decided that it didn't need to reach open playtesting, and that we can be surprised and delighted by it.

 

[Scribe]

I still find this as dissatisfying as going to the paint store and debating the difference between "eggshell" and "off-white."

I have recently been subjected to that, and yes it was not to my satisfaction, at all.

 

[Charlaquin]

Who is that enchanting woman?

Pretty sure it’s Aubrey Plaza