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

[Clint_L]

1) the Next playtest was essentially aborted because they ran out of time and WotC then mostly did what they wanted, untested (by the playtest)

This is certainly one way of spinning that process. I disagree with that interpretation of how 5e was developed.

2) look at the satisfaction ratings in the slide that was posted, a class being in the 20s is not a sign that a process that should result in 70% approval is working

How many things are in the game? And how many resulted in that low score? Given the scale of the project, only a few things scoring low would be an extremely impressive accomplishment. And WotC has since continued to iterate on 5e - it's not like they walked away from it in 2014. Most folks seem to feel that Xanathar's and Tasha's improved the ranger class tremendously.

3) the methodology from my perspective is full of holes, and if the only way WotC knows what my rating actually means is me writing an explanation, then the whole thing is reading tea leaves because most people don’t do that

Okay, and your perspective is based on what expertise in conducting and analyzing surveys? Why is your perspective supposed to mean more to me than the perspective of the professionals designing, conducting, and analyzing these surveys?

None of these are signs of doing a good job with it

ha, the argument from the result backwards that I used a few posts up.

My talisman against bear attacks must be working, because I was never attacked by a bear.

No, sales can be great despite the surveys doing a poor job, to me that is what we are seeing

Sales that greatly exceed all projections, as 5e's have done, are always going to lead a corporation to believe that their process is generally working. Your attempt to invoke the argument from absence is very flawed - I am arguing based on something that did happen (sales vs. projections, which are objectively measurable), not something that did not. It is true that I can only show correlation, not causation, but I acknowledged that up front. However, this is typical when analyzing sales trends, and the correlation is very suggestive.

no we don’t, that is why there is such a thing as the good old times

This is just incorrect. A great deal of research shows conclusively that human beings recall negative events much more easily than positive ones. I invite you to Google it.

For example, above you cite a few instances of low-scoring results, while ignoring the hundreds of high-scoring ones.

no, but there is good or bad

What does that even mean? "Good" and "bad" are meaningless terms outside of context.

 

[mamba]

Doubtful. They are getting thousands of thousands of responses to this surveys, as opposed to a few dozen posters on a given topic on these forums.

not sure how the two relate to each other, that is a non-sequitur

The question was is a significant portion of those filling out the ratings in the survey also providing extra feedback in the text boxes. I expect that to be a fraction of the people

Yes, it 100% will produce a better result than a completely undefined question such as "do you like the concept of druids using templates for wildshape?" What does that even mean to an average respondent? Which kind of template?

Nobody said there would be no playtest material, the only thing changing is the survey…

You do realize that they did ask that, they just let us communicate in 1 to 5 instead of yes and no… and then have to figure out whether a 3 is ‘I like templates, but not these ones’ or ‘I do not like templates much’.

Yet a 3 means ‘no templates’ by default, because WotC decided to throw them out instead of iterating on them. Do you think the person giving either 3 rating knew that at the time?

Do you think the first one would have given a 3 if they expected them to be thrown out if they did?

However, there was room to write your response.

so we are back to ‘what you really need to do is fill out the text box’ (and vote 5 if you do not want them to just throw it out, no matter how much you actually like it)

What percentage do you think does that?

 

[mamba]

How many things are in the game? And how many resulted in that low score?

we are talking about subclasses here, not a spell or skill. I’d say that means a lot of stuff needs to be pretty bad to get your subclasses to a 25% satisfactory rating when your methodology was meant to ensure 70+

That is a complete failure of your methodology. I mean, asking for no feedback probably could not do worse…

Why is your perspective supposed to mean more to me than the perspective of the professionals designing, conducting, and analyzing these surveys?

I explain my perspective, you are free to agree or disagree, you do not need to hide behind the presumed authority of someone you do not even know the name of

That is just an appeal to authority, not an argument

This is just incorrect. A great deal of research shows conclusively that human beings recall negative events much more easily than positive ones. I invite you to Google it.

doesn’t matter, the good old days phenomenon exists because we generally do not, even if we can when prompted. No one is prompting you here. I happily drop this whole line however, because to me it does not relate to anything at all here

What does that even mean? "Good" and "bad" are meaningless terms outside of context.

but right or wrong aren’t? I am not going to bother providing context, it obviously was in the context of this discussion, so it is all available. I’d say it was the same context as yours

 

[MichaelSomething]

Why bother worrying about the whole NEXT play testing when there's already an improved version of 5E in Level Up?? Just click the Enworld store link on this web page to access high quality 5E compatible material.

 

[Reynard]

Why bother worrying about the whole NEXT play testing when there's already an improved version of 5E in Level Up?? Just click the Enworld store link on this web page to access high quality 5E compatible material.

I am guessing you are being cheeky, but between LevelUp and Tales of the Valiant, the community really is proving that the most important part of "D&D" is that it is official. Kind of depressing, really.

 

[Incenjucar]

Using 3P, indie, etc. comes with a time and energy cost and a reduced community, so it's entirely rational for people to just default to the Windows of RPGs instead of checking out the Linux options.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

I am guessing you are being cheeky, but between LevelUp and Tales of the Valiant, the community really is proving that the most important part of "D&D" is that it is official. Kind of depressing, really.

It's attachment to the settings for me, otherwise I'd happily cut ties with WotC.

 

[FrogReaver]

Using 3P, indie, etc. comes with a time and energy cost and a reduced community, so it's entirely rational for people to just default to the Windows of RPGs instead of checking out the Linux options.

Honestly brings me to something I’ve been thinking about. How much time investment is there in learning a new RPG?

 

[Reynard]

Honestly brings me to something I’ve been thinking about. How much time investment is there in learning a new RPG?

Depends on the RPG, obviously, as well as the format. I want to learn PF2 but I run most of my games online and I just don't have the wherewithal to learn Foundry.

 

[Incenjucar]

I DMed 2E, 3E, and 4E and just the PF2 character creator alone is draining to fiddle with.