CleverNickName
Limit Break Dancing
This is the crux of the whole topic, I think. What do we do about it?What is the remedy? Force folks that don't want no edition change no more to participate?
I think there are a couple of things we could do.
Remember Who We Speak For
As only about 6% of the player base, each survey response is speaking for 16, maybe 17 other people! So when you respond, remember that you are also speaking for your friends and fellow players at the table. Talk to them about the playtest, take note of the things they like, and try to keep them in mind when you're filling out the survey.
My friend Doug, for example, hates warlocks. He thinks they are a blight on the D&D landscape, from their goth edgelord energy they bring to the lore, to their spammy way of casting spells, he wants them removed from the game. Now obviously he's wrong, warlocks are undeniably awesome. So when I filled out the playtest survey, I spoke highly of the warlock and all the things that I liked about it--but I also mentioned my friend Doug (by name!) in the comments and voiced his opinion as well, even though it conflicted with my own.
And I'm also speaking for my nieces and nephews, who are just getting into the hobby and are really excited about owlbear druids and princesses with fairy wings and playable unicorns. They don't give a fig about "bounded accuracy" and "action economy" or the "martial vs. caster disparity," they only care about freedom and imagination. I need to make sure the hobby doesn't leave them behind, that twenty years from now they will be able to pick up a D&D book and smile and remember being a kid. So I try to look at the game through their eyes, and remember that fun must always be paramount when I'm filling out that survey.
Temper Our Expectations
Remember that we are only 6% of the player base. (Sorry to keep harping on it, but it bears repeating.) So when Wizards of the Coast talks about "70 Percent Approval!" they mean 70% of that 6%. Their 70% approval is only about 4.2% of the player base...and that isn't going to win any elections. It would be folly to base the direction of their flagship, breadwinning product on such a low sample size, right? So it's safe for us to assume that they are also listening to other sources of feedback: shareholders, sure, but also their own playtesters, and professional game developers, experienced writers, professional mathematicians and economists...it would be foolish of them not to.
So we should temper our expectations a bit, and not get inflamed with outrage when we don't get everything we wished for. I imagine that when the next product is released, we will be able to see our influence and feedback to some degree...but it'll also be pretty clear that we were not the ones in the driver's seat. And we never were.
EDIT: What @Vael said.
If the survey was the only thing WotC was doing, I'd be more concerned. But they have internal playtesters, focus groups, other ways to acquire data.
I'm the only one in my IRL DnD circles that even participates on a board like ENWorld, so I know I'm the outlier who's more plugged into what's going on, and one of a few that has even looked at the playtest materials (I offered to let players use them in the last short campaign I ran and everyone just went back to the 2014 books or DnD Beyond).
TBH, I think that makes me the outlier. So I expect some analysis of the unsurveyed. That's probably why the threshold for change is 70%
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