WotC WotC general D&D survey just went live.

[Lanefan]

LOL that's a meaningless distinction. No, it's not all "after market stuff" to print to PDF. Come on Micah, if you want to have it on your computer (if you consider a PDF on your computer "owned") then you can do it, legally, without much issue. If instead you want to whine about WOTC "renting" you stuff without taking the steps open to you to have it not "rented" in your mind (which I also think is a meaningless distinction in this context but obviously you do not) then that's one you but it makes your point much weaker.

People who feel the need to use the products off-line, can do so. No matter how many times you repeat the lie that it's "rented" it remains an untrue claim. The only valid claim there is it's more difficult than it should be to use it offline. That's it.

Not meaningless at all.

If I pay to buy something, to me that means I own it and can - absent laws etc. to the contrary - make use of it at any time and in any manner I please. I own my car, which means I can - within the law - drive it whenever and wherever I want. I own my 5e DMG, which means I can pick it up and read it or write in it or whatever at any time I choose.

Contrast this with paying to merely access something in a manner and-or at a schedule of someone else's (usually the owner's) choosing. If I have to go to, say, a specific website to access the material because that's where it is stored, that to me is similar to having to go to a specific library in order to access a particular book. It's renting, at best.

PDFs are in the middle somewhere. Yes I might technically own the material and have it stored in my computer, but I still don't truly "own" it in that there are still major obstacles to my at-will use of it: I can't access it unless I'm sitting at my computer, I can't access it if there's no power, and I can't use it like I can a book until-unless I pay again* to print it out.

* - either through the cost of printer ink and paper or the cost of getting someone (e.g. Staples) to print it for me, if they even would.

 

[mamba]

I'd say D&D has a bit of a head start there. It's not a fair comparison.

and I'd say LU benefitted from that headstart and the playerbase D&D / 5e had found

 

[Lanefan]

There are always tradeoffs: the future D&D solution of simple refluffing with no mechanical consequence opens up personal storytelling options, amd avoids the mess of powergameable mechanical systems tied to Species...whi h WotC does not want for any price.

Agreed about the powergame-able aspects; the answer there of course is to make those mechanical systems just a shade sub-optimal - not unplayable, but you're trading a bit of mechanical advantage for being able to play that (half-)species.

And then playtest the bejeebles out of them. This would include throwing the beta versions up on the char-ops boards and seeing what gets done to them, and then shutting down the exploits as fast as they are found.

 

[Lanefan]

I know they do these surveys regularly, though I do not recall a recent D&D survey that asked about earlier editions, much less when the last time you played them.

They have asked before. I get questions like that pretty much every time I do one of those surveys.

 

[Parmandur]

Agreed about the powergame-able aspects; the answer there of course is to make those mechanical systems just a shade sub-optimal - not unplayable, but you're trading a bit of mechanical advantage for being able to play that (half-)species.

And then playtest the bejeebles out of them. This would include throwing the beta versions up on the char-ops boards and seeing what gets done to them, and then shutting down the exploits as fast as they are found.

And I think that bolder bit shows why WotC won't touch the idea with a ten foot barge pole.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Well no, of course it isn't, that's my point. A boutique hobbyist game aimed t the niche of people who think of 5E as being "not complex enough" isn't going to appeal to the broad audience WotC is aiming for when they try to treamline the game.

It still doesn't show that people are looking for a simpler game. D&D is the only RPG a lot of people know.

 

[Parmandur]

It still doesn't show that people are looking for a simpler game. D&D is the only RPG a lot of people know.

Mostly the people I know consider 5E spooking arcane and complex...the people who play it.

The room in the market on the simpler side is likely much larger, and I think that trying to be more complex than D&D is a common mistake on the TTRPG industry.

 

[MGibster]

The fact that it's on a queation with Birthright and Mystara tells us something as well. Not entirely sure what, but it tells us something.

I'm not going to lie, I had thought those two were on the list because I answered I was old on the survey.

The Power Rangers game is a great case study for building a system based on the story you're trying to tell instead of trying to quietly squash the skull of The Popular Thing into the gearbox.

That's a criticism I've had of D&D ever since I discovered AD&D 2nd edition couldn't run the type of fantasy game I had envisioned at the time. Don't get me wrong, when I want to scratch the D&D itch nothing but D&D will do.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Mostly the people I know consider 5E spooking arcane and complex...the people who play it.

The room in the market on the simpler side is likely much larger, and I think that trying to be more complex than D&D is a common mistake on the TTRPG industry.

Depends on what you consider a mistake, I suppose.

 

[Vaalingrade]

There are always tradeoffs: the future D&D solution of simple refluffing with no mechanical consequence opens up personal storytelling options, amd avoids the mess of powergameable mechanical systems tied to Species...whi h WotC does not want for any price.

Ignoring people afraid of mechanics existing leading to powergaming is critical to D&D's future.