D&D 5E In your Years of Gaming, How many Psionic Characters did you See played

[Sword of Spirit]

Sure, Dark Sun and Planescape might be more appealing than, say, Dragonlance, but, again, that's just a RELATIVE standing.

...

Same goes for a lot of these settings and whatnot. It's all confirmation bias where folks that want a particular ruleset REALLY want it and just can't fathom that what they want isn't actually all that popular.

Relative standing is all the poll really can tell us. But that's also extremely relevant to the issue at hand. What sorts of information do you think could be relevant from a poll that allows you to choose 3 products from 23 options? I'm not sure what standards of significance could possibly be met in such a poll that you think have not been met (other than sample size, which no ENWorld poll hits satisfactory numbers on; with 170 results, this one is actually doing well here).

Of the 23 choices, the mean result is 12.7%, which is almost exactly where Dragonlance falls. The top 5 results are:
1) Planescape/Manual of the Planes (33.5%)
2) Dark Sun (32.9%)
3) Other (32.4%)
4) Psionics (25.9%)
5) Greyhawk (18.2%)

The poll has some issues, including that some people appear to have voted for more than 3 options (the numbers don't add up completely), the presence of a broad Other category is probably better left out of it, and the different treatment of some settings makes it hard to determine popularity of certain things. (For instance, it's more difficult to tell how popular FR is for more content than Mystara because we can't tell if the same people are voting for all three FR categories, or different people are voting for different categories.)

However, with what the poll does give us, it shows us that psionically-dependent Dark Sun was the second most desired option (and only 1 vote less than the first option). Psionics was the 4th option and clocks in at double the mean result, falling right behind the incredibly broad and generally popular "Other" option, and being more than 40% more popular than the option behind it.

As far as I can tell, within the limits of the poll, it demonstrates that Psionics are very high on the list of official content priorities for respondents.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

including that some people appear to have voted for more than 3 options (the numbers don't add up completely

It's not possible to vote for more than three options. It is, however, possible to vote for fewer than three, which is where the "doesn't add up" comes from (plus rounding errors).

 

[Hussar]

I teach maths, my Astrophysics degree included maths as a key part. I understand how maths works.

No. Wrong. VERY WRONG. That would be true if the poll was "choose as many as you want". BUT IT IS NOT. It is "choose maximum of 3". That means that if everyone selected at random - i.e. "nothing particularly stands out" - everything would be on 13% (=3/23x100). Anything with more than 13% stands out - it's popular. Anything with less than 13% stands out - it's unpopular.

And, yet, funnily enough, you go after me for my math, but, ignore the other poll. Huh.

See, no. Not buying it. Since none of the choices are weighted, it could easily be that the most popular choice is the third choice of three more often than not. In other words, it's Vanilla ice cream. It's most popular, not because everyone likes it, but, because it's the easiest second choice.

To me, I look at the poll and see that nothing stands out particularly. There's no clear choice there. At best, you've got three equally popular guesses. Now, since 77% people DON'T want any of those options, even as a third choice, to me, that says that they are not quite as popular as folks would like to think they are. At least, not of the self-selecting, very narrow group of people on En World who choose to answer a poll about settings.

But, again, to bring this back to psionics. I'm actually a little surprised that Dark Sun seems to be the rallying cry for psionics. Sure, psionics were part of the setting, but, the main element wasn't psionics - it was defiling and preserving. Psionics was just a side note in the setting AFAIC. When you read Dark Sun adventures and setting guides, psionics was usually just a footnote. It's not like you become a Dragon King by being psionic. The movers and shakers of the setting weren't psionicists. The world wasn't defined by psionics in the way that the world was defined by magic.

You could very, very easily have a non-psionic Dark Sun and very little would change about the setting.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Okay, I'm bored with trying to explain something to someone who is making a very good job of role-playing an intelligence of 3.

 

[Olrox17]

To me, I look at the poll and see that nothing stands out particularly. There's no clear choice there. At best, you've got three equally popular guesses. Now, since 77% people DON'T want any of those options, even as a third choice, to me, that says that they are not quite as popular as folks would like to think they are. At least, not of the self-selecting, very narrow group of people on En World who choose to answer a poll about settings.

So, are you willfully ignoring the fact that another poll showed how more than 70% of Enworld posters would, in fact, buy a Dark Sun book if it ever comes out?
It looks like you are ignoring facts that fly in the face of your opinion, instead of addressing them accordingly, and it's pointless to discuss with people who do that.

 

[Aldarc]

Perhaps we should rename this thread Hussar vs. Strawpoll Math?

 

[Ezequielramone]

I saw a few, but never 100% official (if there is something "official" in RPGs).I started playing pathfinder and rapidly moved to the dm seat after my first campaign. After a few years I allowed Psionics Unleashed from Dreamscarred press. Really good book. And one player used that class where you create a custom psionic armour. He was playing Ironman (or Psionicman).
Then I moved to 5e and one player started playing a mystic. Since I was dming I allowed the mystic class. After a few months I bought a convention really close to 2e psionics and adapted that character. Really big mistake. Never again. We can fly, support, buff, debuff, counterspell, teleport when hit, great melee damage, great range damage, can heal, and can't remember much more now. I think that's because this is the kind of player who see dnd as a competition for winning (he called me up for now giving him magic items with THAT Character), but that is another story.

I now realise a few things about what I prefer:
I don't want 2e psionics (balance and complexity). It's ok to think about psionics as something complex, like magic, but IN game, not for the players.
I like the idea of psionics as they were convinced in the mystic class. Lonely wolves (because they are those crazy sages that wander around or live alone in the peak of a mountain) and they were easy to use. I don't think that "mystic overlaps with every class" is a valid complain. The mystic was everything psionic in one class. That's cool. For sure you need to fix the balance.
And last thing, I like to add psionic subclasses only to martial classes like the fighter. Not to Wizards or sorcerers.

 

[Hussar]

So, are you willfully ignoring the fact that another poll showed how more than 70% of Enworld posters would, in fact, buy a Dark Sun book if it ever comes out?
It looks like you are ignoring facts that fly in the face of your opinion, instead of addressing them accordingly, and it's pointless to discuss with people who do that.

Wow, @Paul Farquhar, are you going to let the math stand here? I mean, if I'm guilty of misinterpreting the math, what would you call this?

Look, your poll is so misleading that it's worthless. It's completely biased, for one, and, if you did THE EXACT same poll, but, change Dark Sun to pretty much anything, you'd get exactly the same results.

I accept that my poll isn't exactly science, but, it at least dovetails nicely with anecdotal evidence, and the fact that I've got several hundred modules from 1e on forwards and pretty much none of them feature psionics. Psionics is an afterthought in most settings, if it appears at all, and, even in Dark Sun, where it's supposed to be a BIG DEAL, it's still largely a side bit that is easily ignored. The flavor of Dark Sun focuses on MAGIC, not psionics. None of the Dragon kings ascend through psionics, do they? Even Borys doesn't have any psionic powers.

Perhaps we should rename this thread Hussar vs. Strawpoll Math?

Seriously? Your strongest argument is that Dark Sun is almost as popular as another setting, so, that's why we need psionics? ROTF. Yeah, that's a really strong position to take.

 

[Aldarc]

Seriously? Your strongest argument is that Dark Sun is almost as popular as another setting, so, that's why we need psionics? ROTF. Yeah, that's a really strong position to take.

Okay, I was wrong; instead, this thread should be renamed to Hussar vs. Hussar's Strawmen. In the future, I would prefer that if you are going to quote me that you would actually not shove words in my mouth.

I am not making an argument in favor of psionics or Dark Sun with my statement, but, rather, I am flummoxed like so many others in this thread by your inability to interpret data from this poll - though this is me being generous and not assuming willful ignorance or malice - which largely points at you trying to derive a predetermined conclusion rather than listening to people explain how your interpretation of the data is wrong.

None of the Dragon kings ascend through psionics, do they? Even Borys doesn't have any psionic powers.

You had to be a dual-classed defiler/psionist to become a Dragon. Psionic enchantment was required to ascend. It constituted a magical spell, but it required a mind sharpened by psionics (i.e. dual-classed) to achieve these higher level spells. After achieving 20th level in both psionist and defiler, we are told that both terms become meaningless as one becomes a new class of being. Same with preserver/psionists becoming avangions and cleric/psionists becoming elementals.

Wow, @Paul Farquhar, are you going to let the math stand here? I mean, if I'm guilty of misinterpreting the math, what would you call this?

Holy WhatAboutism, Batman!

 

[Maxperson]

Again, "above average" is damning with faint praise. So what if it's "above average"? WotC isn't interested in something that's "above average". That's what DM's guild is for.

Now, if something on that list hit the 50% mark or better? Sure, I'm all in. That's a clear winner and WotC should definitely be looking in that direction. But something that manages to interest 1/3 of respondents? Meh, that's background noise.

The poll doesn't show you what you are saying is there. With only 3 choices, many options that would have much higher percentages are not where they should be. I was interested in far more than 3, but I couldn't vote for them. Not one of those 23 options gives you any information that says that it doesn't interest 1/3 of the respondents.