Level Up (A5E) When to expect our first playtest package!

[Li Shenron]

That's literally the point of surveys.

I can try my best to contribute but... I feel alienated

 

[glass]

The first package is about the three building blocks of your Origin -- heritage, culture, and background. Each element has been redesigned, while retaining balance with the original rules (so your LU character can play a regular 5E adventure just fine). We've basically shifted some stuff around, and added a bunch more options (each heritage has four cultures, for example; a culture is roughly analogous to what was 'subrace', and about half of them you'll already be very familiar with). We're excited to see what you think!

One thing that strikes me is that "each heritage has four cultures" means heritage and culture are not separated. Still, looking forward to seeing the actual packet.

_
glass.

 

[Morrus]

One thing that strikes me is that "each heritage has four cultures" means heritage and culture are not separated. Still, looking forward to seeing the actual packet.

No, they are. They’re presented together but any heritage can take any culture.

 

[dave2008]

I am interested in seeing what you're coming up with, but I don't really know if should participate in the surveys... in the past couple of years it has become quite clear to me that I am not on board with the current gamer base, as I constantly vote against the majority in UA surveys, so it now starts to feel like I should not respond to surveys anymore.

That is why you have to participate. I am often on the opposite end of survey results too, but it will only be worse if we don't speak up!

 

[tetrasodium]

That is why you have to participate. I am often on the opposite end of survey results too, but it will only be worse if we don't speak up!

No the surveys are designed to get a specific result. "is x fun to play" is a meaningless question that excludes "yea but it's broken" and "well bob liked playing it but Alice felt like a third wheel to bob because he was equal in her niche & better in so many others" and "probably but I'm strongly considering telling bob he needs to play something else". How you word questions is critical to the result.

How you weight the answers matters too. It's extremely rare that wotc asks questions directed at player & GM individually & the number of people playing d&d is a massively larger group who depend entirelyon the people who GM. Yes there are people who play and GM, but it's rare to see something like a prison d&d group where the GM rotates each week so no one inmate has power over the others rather than one or two people in the group who generally do most if not all of the GM'ing. If you don't ask questions relevant to a gm & don't check who is mostly gm/mostly player you can't meet their needs/desires or even weight their answers at some reasonable level

edit: Pew writes about question wording in Questionnaire design - Pew Research Center Methods

 

[Haldrik]

• Love it
• Like it
• Feel conflicted about it (like some aspects of it, dislike other aspects of it)
• Dont care about it
• Dislike it
• Hate it

 

[Morrus]

Our team of Level Up designers turn in their draft for Origin playtest doc tomorrow. Your character's Origin is heritage + culture + background. Any heritage can take any culture. All inherited features reside in heritage, and all learned features reside in culture.

We hope to have the playtest document out by the end of the week (no promises!) -- it will be followed by a survey. We don't expect it to survive the process intact, but that's exactly what the playtest/survey is for!

 

[Morrus]

Pending a last review, we might be ready to post our first playtest packet later today! Looks like it's coming in at around 75 pages. give or take.

 

[Zaukrie]

75 pages? Yikes.....small bites are easier to test/comment on! But I will be reading it.

 

[ART!]

What's the window for playtest input/response for this package? You'll be doing a survey of those who received it, I assume, or something like that?