D&D 4E Ben Riggs' "What the Heck Happened with 4th Edition?" seminar at Gen Con 2023

[Lanefan]

Well, we also know that people over 35 playing D&D are a fringe minority of players still, so that makes perfect sense.

Today that seems to be the case; but I'm not sure it was in 1997 when the game was dying. At the time, a fair chunk of the remaining player base were holdovers from the 1979-1983 glory days of 1e, and those who - like me - came to the game in college during that time would have been over the cutoff age. Those who started during D&D's early days would have been even more likely to exceed the cutoff age.

More importantly, most if not all of the people involved in designing, promoting, and expanding the game during its early years - including Gygax and Arneson themselves - would have been excluded.

Edit to add: and excluding fringe minorities from surveys is a very slippery slope: who do you exclude next?

 

[Parmandur]

Today that seems to be the case; but I'm not sure it was in 1997 when the game was dying. At the time, a fair chunk of the remaining player base were holdovers from the 1979-1983 glory days of 1e, and those who - like me - came to the game in college during that time would have been over the cutoff age. Those who started during D&D's early days would have been even more likely to exceed the cutoff age.

More importantly, most if not all of the people involved in designing, promoting, and expanding the game during its early years - including Gygax and Arneson themselves - would have been excluded.

Edit to add: and excluding fringe minorities from surveys is a very slippery slope: who do you exclude next?

I mean, WotC had the surveys, ao they probably knew exactly what percentage of the audience this includes: probavly less than yoy think.

Not liste ing to 5% of the audience with broadly unpopular ideas really doesn't make a huge amount of sense.

 

[Lanefan]

I mean, WotC had the surveys, ao they probably knew exactly what percentage of the audience this includes: probavly less than yoy think.

Wilfully ignoring even one response based on what that response might say makes the data invalid, because it means you're tweaking that data in order to make it say what you want it to say.

Not liste ing to 5% of the audience with broadly unpopular ideas really doesn't make a huge amount of sense.

Not listening to 5% of the audience, whether their ideas are broadly unpopular or not (we'll never know, now), is no way to do any sort of data gathering.

 

[Parmandur]

Not listening to 5% of the audience, whether their ideas are broadly unpopular or not (we'll never know, now), is no way to do any sort of data gathering.

I mean, it really is. I don't see any reason to believe that WotC is doing this now specifically, but being able to look past vocal minorities is one the key functions of this kinfmd of surveying

 

[pemerton]

I really don't know what you mean here; of course a cure light wounds can help a badly-wounded character, it restores 1d8 hit points' worth of injuries that the character has taken.

If someone's wound is bad, how can they be helped - let alone restored to full health - by curing a light wound?

 

[Alzrius]

If someone's wound is bad, how can they be helped - let alone restored to full health - by curing a light wound?

No one said they could be restored to full health; or at least, no one said that prior to this post. That said, curing a light wound still makes them a little less injured than they were before you cast it.

But again, this is a tu quoque divergence with regard to AD&D, rather than a discussion of the cognitive gap in 4E's conception of hit point loss/recovery being wounds taken/healed while simultaneously being a lessening/regaining of personal stamina.

 

[Lanefan]

I mean, it really is. I don't see any reason to believe that WotC is doing this now specifically, but being able to look past vocal minorities is one the key functions of this kinfmd of surveying.

It truly boggles my mind that anyone would actually defend them on this.

Unlike a discussion forum or newsfeed where people can get in your face, in a survey there's only so much "vocal" one can be. They're counting how many boxes get ticked, meaning any one person's input on that question is limited to ticking a box; and even if they add a place for comments they only allow you to type x-many characters, thus rather limiting what one can say.

You're also assuming two things: one, that the ignored group would all have said the same thing; and two, that what they said on average would have been unpopular with the greater community (as opposed to the designers, who I very much think had their own ideas going in and just wanted them publically confirmed).

 

[Old Fezziwig]

Unlike a discussion forum or newsfeed where people can get in your face, in a survey there's only so much "vocal" one can be. They're counting how many boxes get ticked, meaning any one person's input on that question is limited to ticking a box; and even if they add a place for comments they only allow you to type x-many characters, thus rather limiting what one can say.

At a certain point, why wouldn't you discount the outliers? That's not willfully ignoring the data, especially because they're not starting from zero in this case — they have context for whatever data they're collecting now because they've done previous market research, they've watched the messageboards/Twitter, they've gone to Cons, etc. Like, what would count as willful ignorance?

 

[Parmandur]

It truly boggles my mind that anyone would actually defend them on this.

Unlike a discussion forum or newsfeed where people can get in your face, in a survey there's only so much "vocal" one can be. They're counting how many boxes get ticked, meaning any one person's input on that question is limited to ticking a box; and even if they add a place for comments they only allow you to type x-many characters, thus rather limiting what one can say.

You're also assuming two things: one, that the ignored group would all have said the same thing; and two, that what they said on average would have been unpopular with the greater community (as opposed to the designers, who I very much think had their own ideas going in and just wanted them publically confirmed).

I don't have to assume it, that's what Dancey said. It really makes sense to focus on what the 95% want. Nowadays they should have the ability to parse out the data better, but what they did then makes sense.

 

[pemerton]

No one said they could be restored to full health; or at least, no one said that prior to this post. That said, curing a light wound still makes them a little less injured than they were before you cast it.

Imagine a NPC blacksmith in AD&D, with (let's say) 7 hp. Orcs raid the village, and one stabs the blacksmith with a spear, dealing 6 hp of damage. The blacksmith is now down to 1 hp. Presumably that's not a light wound.

A friendly cleric comes by and casts Cure Light Wounds on the blacksmith, and restores 6 hp of damage (not a remarkable result when rolling 1d8). Now the blacksmith is at full health again.

Clearly the AD&D spell names are not very accurate; they're superficial flavour.

In my 4e game, there was never any doubt what happens when a cleric speaks a Healing Word: they pray, and urge on their friend, who draws on their own reserves (a healing surge) and has their vigour and resolve restored. There is no weirdness that it is easier to heal a badly injured blacksmith than a merely grazed Conan; and in the fiction we know what is going on.