D&D (2024) GenCon 2023 - D&D Rules Revision panel

[mamba]

For a commercial game, it's easy. It is what is popular.

I agree with the notion, but strangling things that are close to your threshold instead of iterating on them can prevent you from actually identifying them in the first place

WotC did not just offer us some random things they came up with, they looked at painpoints. Taking too short a look can result in a misdiagnosis, esp if your way of diagnosing / measuring is flawed (the 70% threshold, being unclear / confused about what you actually poll for)

 

[Parmandur]

I agree with the notion, but strangling things that are close to your threshold instead of iterating on them can prevent you from actually identifying them in the first place

WotC did not just offer us some random things they came up with, they looked at painpoints. Taking too short a look can result in a misdiagnosis, esp if your way of diagnosing / measuring is flawed (the 70% threshold, being unclear / confused about what you actually poll for)

If the feedback is "we don't like templates, period," iterating would be a waste of time. Finding another solution is a better use of resources.

 

[Ashrym]

the audience did no brainstorming, it provided feedback on WotC's brainstorming

I need to disagree with this. I provide ideas in feedback and saw those ideas come into play during Next and during these packets. The Dev's are looking at the ideas we provide in feedback within my personal experience.

And not to mention backwards; people don't know if its good or not until they've bought it already and played it

I don't agree with this. 5e developed basic rules that cost nothing for people to play and learn if they like the basic game, and those rules increased as the 5e SRD came out at the time. IME, most players learn to play first with friends or in clubs before buying products.

The surveys are really good at telling the design team what's wrong. It may be that they're not interested in our ideas about how to fix it.

See my response above to @mamba. I've seen my feedback come out. Either we have minds that think alike and it's a remarkable coincidence or WotC devs do look at suggestions in the feedback.

As far as I know they haven’t said. My money is on one of the existing mostly-blank canvas settings like Mystara or 4e’s PoLand.

I would absolutely love to see Mystara as a setting provided in the core rules.

Because it's the only subclass available to the fighter on DNDBeyond for those using the free version of DNDBeyond. That's the beginning and end of that mystery. WOTC has mentioned they filter data before analyzing it, and I am willing to bet they filter the "didn't ever level or change that PC after creation" builds like so many of those Champion builds on there.

One of the Beyond popularity releases claimed they were drawing the data from accounts from which all the classes and subclasses were available. If that's the case then the popularity of the champion fighter argued as being from a free class has gone from speculation to invalidation. We all do a lot of speculation because we don't have the actual data and filters ourselves. At least I don't.

 

[FrogReaver]

One of the Beyond popularity releases claimed they were drawing the data from accounts from which all the classes and subclasses were available. If that's the case then the popularity of the champion fighter argued as being from a free class has gone from speculation to invalidation. We all do a lot of speculation because we don't have the actual data and filters ourselves. At least I don't.

I challenge this claim!

 

[Ashrym]

I challenge this claim!

Sure. Here is a comparison using the 2019 and 2020 released data. It was the 2019 data that specifically claimed all character options were unlocked. In those subclasses we can see the champion just as popular as the battlemaster, for example. The 2020 did not make the same claim, but the moon druid and artillerist (not the free subclasses) were the most popular.

When DnD Beyond demonstrates they can pull the filtered data in that way and then we can see that data they've pulled that way it doesn't make any sense for us to claim that they are not pulling that data when they make their claims on the popularity of the subclasses unless we access that data fully to prove otherwise. The claim that it's the free classes makes sense on the surface but it's still speculative instead of fact.

The claim that all class options were unlocked in one of the data sets comes from 2019.

 

[FrogReaver]

Sure. Here is a comparison using the 2019 and 2020 released data. It was the 2019 data that specifically claimed all character options were unlocked. In those subclasses we can see the champion just as popular as the battlemaster, for example. The 2020 did not make the same claim, but the moon druid and artillerist (not the free subclasses) were the most popular.

When DnD Beyond demonstrates they can pull the filtered data in that way and then we can see that data they've pulled that way it doesn't make any sense for us to claim that they are not pulling that data when they make their claims on the popularity of the subclasses unless we access that data fully to prove otherwise. The claim that it's the free classes makes sense on the surface but it's still speculative instead of fact.

The claim that all class options were unlocked in one of the data sets comes from 2019.

Thanks! Here's the graph in question and it's important to note that not all the graphs and charts are framed as having all material unlocked. Maybe even more importantly, it would seem to be a lookback on all characters ever created on an account with all player options currently unlocked. Since most people probably tested out with the SRD, or PHB then the weightings of the SRD and PHB classes may still be skewed higher than otherwise.

 

[mamba]

If the feedback is "we don't like templates, period," iterating would be a waste of time. Finding another solution is a better use of resources.

but that wasn’t the feedback, it was evenly split from my understanding, half the audience liked these arguably bad templates better already

Did they understand that voting low meant ‘no templates’ rather than ‘better templates’? I doubt it... another advantage my two questions would have is that the one answering decides which of the two they are looking for

Something not winning because no one knows the implications of their vote (better vs none) and what WotC imo is measuring not being what they say they are testing for, makes me think that the process is not working so well and proposals don’t get their fair chance. That does not mean they cannot fail after a change of process, but at least then I would have more confidence that they failed for a good reason, not due to misunderstandings

I feel that right now it is a cointoss between those two, and only options that are overwhelmingly popular out of the box can make it. You can call that a feature, I call it a bug

 

[mamba]

I think it was intended.

I don’t

They said from the beginning it wasn't even really a new edition, and would be backwards compatible and that 5e remains evergreen. We just didn't believe them. Then they came out with experimental stuff which seemed to demonstrate they were not going to do that, only for it to turn out they were doing that all along. So, is it an unintended consequence if that was the plan and they told us up front that was the plan?

if they had no intention of keeping that stuff, why test it? Seems like a giant waste of everyone’s time

 

[MockingBird]

There's also the written in feed back to account for. Weather anyone believes they read it or not is up for debate. They tell us they read it, and it appears they do. It's possible there were more "I don't like the templates" written in than "I like the templates". I personally liked it, but seeing what they changed it to, I actually like the prepped wild shape better. Turns out I had already used the prepped wild shape method for simplicity.

 

[Kobold Stew]

See my response above to @mamba. I've seen my feedback come out. Either we have minds that think alike and it's a remarkable coincidence or WotC devs do look at suggestions in the feedback.

Didn't mean to suggest that they don't. But for any given specific point, there is going to be one very happy individual for a dozen or two who don't see their feedback or requested change. It's not something any individual responder can expect.