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General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Public Playtests Should Be Fully Playable
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<blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8939375" data-attributes="member: 6790260"><p>Oh, no, they listened—when it suited them. When it didn't, they listened <em>creatively,</em> shall we say.</p><p></p><p>For example, because the playtest Warlock and Sorcerer (which were incredibly creative and interesting concepts) didn't get instant supermajority approval, they were <em>scrapped forever</em> and we got the poorly-made, bland, barely-tested final products you see today. Conversely, Expertise <em>Dice</em> were consistently unpopular, but beloved by the designers (AIUI, specifically Mearls), so they went through several iterations before finally getting canned fairly late in the process.</p><p></p><p>So, it's incorrect to say they didn't listen. They did. They just tended to dig in their heels with several ideas that should have been abandoned much more quickly, and conversely they failed to speak up for and defend ideas that <em>should</em> have gotten more than a single playtest packet. E.g. a big complaint about the Sorcerer was that people felt they were being pigeonholed into being a beefy warrior type, but that was only due to the nature of the example subclass, Dragon Soul. If they had instead responded to the feedback with, "We hear you and understand your concerns, but would like you to seriously consider what we're offering, so we're including Shadow Soul in the next playtest packet as a contrasting example," I think most of the complaints would have disappeared and people would have been fairly enthusiastic about the playtest Sorcerer.</p><p></p><p>But because every single choice HAD to be either a designer's pet project OR nigh-universally popular, these two awesome and creative options got deleted with extreme prejudice.</p><p></p><p>So yeah. They listen. I just wish they were (much) better at it.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="EzekielRaiden, post: 8939375, member: 6790260"] Oh, no, they listened—when it suited them. When it didn't, they listened [I]creatively,[/I] shall we say. For example, because the playtest Warlock and Sorcerer (which were incredibly creative and interesting concepts) didn't get instant supermajority approval, they were [I]scrapped forever[/I] and we got the poorly-made, bland, barely-tested final products you see today. Conversely, Expertise [I]Dice[/I] were consistently unpopular, but beloved by the designers (AIUI, specifically Mearls), so they went through several iterations before finally getting canned fairly late in the process. So, it's incorrect to say they didn't listen. They did. They just tended to dig in their heels with several ideas that should have been abandoned much more quickly, and conversely they failed to speak up for and defend ideas that [I]should[/I] have gotten more than a single playtest packet. E.g. a big complaint about the Sorcerer was that people felt they were being pigeonholed into being a beefy warrior type, but that was only due to the nature of the example subclass, Dragon Soul. If they had instead responded to the feedback with, "We hear you and understand your concerns, but would like you to seriously consider what we're offering, so we're including Shadow Soul in the next playtest packet as a contrasting example," I think most of the complaints would have disappeared and people would have been fairly enthusiastic about the playtest Sorcerer. But because every single choice HAD to be either a designer's pet project OR nigh-universally popular, these two awesome and creative options got deleted with extreme prejudice. So yeah. They listen. I just wish they were (much) better at it. [/QUOTE]
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