Open Letter to WotC from Chris Dias

Morrus said:

Early in the concept phase for ZEITGEIST I did consider including Pathfinder stats. We quickly realised, though, that you can't just substitute statistics (any more than we could for the 3.5 - 4E WotBS conversion) and that it would require a lot of rewriting for each system to do a job worth doing.

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From personal experience (and take this with whatever grain is available) converting an adventure shouldn't be too hard. As for a campaign setting, it's vastly more difficult than one can expect. The entire design philosophy between 3rd and 4th is so radically different, there are elements you can get away with with 3rd Edition that you can't with 4th Edition. I have been accused of "following the 3rd Edition design philosophy"--a critisism that equates to not writing a 4E supplement to "feel" 4th Edition. Quotes from reviews have included them saying, "3rd edition is about saying 'no' while 4th edition was about saying 'yes'" (I'm not agreeing; it's a quote). I have written Amethyst for both 3rd Edition AND 4th Edition. The games act and feel very different. 4th edition, by my observations, is more difficult to write for, as it is more strict with wording and balance.

I am only making this statement based on my experience with 3.5. If Pathfinder has moved into the same philosophy, then I recant my statement and state that it would be hard, but not as hard as it was adapting 3.5 to 4.0.

DiasExMachina said:

From personal experience (and take this with whatever grain is available) converting an adventure shouldn't be too hard.

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We've converted 10 of them so far, with two to go (WotBS, not ZEITGEIST). It proved to be much more work than we initially imagines. Substantial rewriting was necessary for 3.4 -> 4E, and I imagine that equally substantial rewriting would be required to convert 4E ZEITGEIST to Pathfinder. The systems just don't work the same.

From little things like when PCs can fly or overcome obstacles, to relative power levels, to advancement rates, to the number of balanced encounters per level, to environmental expectations and dangers; these all require large-scale changes, which are much more than switching the stats for a 4E goblin to the stats for a Pathfinder goblin.

pawsplay said:

Tell me how, "Have you had any side effects this wee?" (however phrased) is not collecting anecdotes.

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For starters, because your question is posed to the experimental group that you are targeting. Second, because it is asked consistently of all participants. There's rigor and intent behind the line of questioning; it's not simply a pool of volunteered stories from self-selected individuals.

The main difference between anecdotes and surveys is methodology, as I've said. Surveys have methodology behind them, including population selection, bias control, and validity studies. Anecdotes have none of these. And I can't believe I'm explaining this to someone who claims a background in research.

I'm not sure which part of my post you're replying to. From a controlled study standpoint, you've missed an important issue. You can't do a cancer drug study with a placebo. You just can't. Since there are existing treatments that are somewhat effective, it would be unethical.

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And all of these can nevertheless controlled across the population. "Placebo" does not mean, "let your cancer have a field day." When we're talking new cancer treatments, the baseline is someone who's already receiving treatments of some kind - just not the kind you're investigating.

Like I said, this is basic, rudimentary experimental design.

You've already admitted you don't know how social sciences do research, are you ready to admit you don't know much about marketing research, either?

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I'm not going to speak to anthropology in specific, beyond some basics, because it was not my field of study. (I would ask which sub-discipline you're talking about, though.) I'll happily speak to psychology, which is, and which shares a good deal of overlap.

In no social science that I'm aware of is anecdotal evidence acceptable. Given that surveys are frequently used in social sciences, I would expect that you'd know the difference between the two.

-O

BryonD said:

But by this standard, some of the market data we have are also "surveys" and not anecdotes.

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I'm not certain about this - it's still primarily volunteered and spontaneous expressions rather than a controlled collection of data from a good sample, collected by passive observers.

One may challenge whether or not a given survey, as soundly scientific as it may be, is representative of the larger whole, or simply of the group which was surveyed.

Then you get into splitting hairs. A valid survey of group A' may be representative of A, or it may simply be the A' anecdote on the true nature of A.

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It's pretty far from splitting hairs, IMO. You could definitely criticize psychology even as late as the mid-90's as knowing a whole lot about pigeons, rats, and undergrads, but not much about the general populace as a whole.

For example, collecting surveys of game store sales tells you what game stores are selling. With good sampling, you have a pretty solid grasp on the population of game stores as a whole, and the purchasing patterns of people who visit game stores. You have no meaningful data on players who don't visit game stores, players who don't buy books, players who buy from Amazon, etc. Given that probably nobody but WotC has this sort of data at their fingertips - and they ain't talking - it means sales data from game stores is completely ungeneralizable to the population of gamers as a whole.

-O

Obryn said:

...the population of gamers as a whole.

-O

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What about "google trends"?
Here is one trend request regarding the following keywords:
pathfinder rpg, d&d essentials, d&d 4e
http://trends.google.com/trends?q=pathfinder+rpg%2C+d%26d+essentials%2C+d%26d+4e&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0

Obryn said:

I'm not certain about this - it's still primarily volunteered and spontaneous expressions rather than a controlled collection of data from a good sample, collected by passive observers.

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I'm not just talking about ENWorld surveys.

It's pretty far from splitting hairs, IMO. You could definitely criticize psychology even as late as the mid-90's as knowing a whole lot about pigeons, rats, and undergrads, but not much about the general populace as a whole.

For example, collecting surveys of game store sales tells you what game stores are selling. With good sampling, you have a pretty solid grasp on the population of game stores as a whole, and the purchasing patterns of people who visit game stores. You have no meaningful data on players who don't visit game stores, players who don't buy books, players who buy from Amazon, etc. Given that probably nobody but WotC has this sort of data at their fingertips - and they ain't talking - it means sales data from game stores is completely ungeneralizable to the population of gamers as a whole.

-O

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IMO where THIS specific debate has gone IS splitting hairs.

I agree with your observations about game store sales information. But it is still a survey of a group. And we end up declaring one group representative and another not.

And when you get games store's data, and distributor's data, and book store data, and 3PP data, and simple personal observations, and so on and so on, and you keep getting the same conclusions for Group A' A'' A''' A'''' etc... it may be very reasonable to not be fully convinced, but it becomes absurd to believe the opposite is true.

It isn't just a matter of saying "game store sales are not representative" of the whole. It is a matter of trying to discredit each and every data piece, one by one, and then declare that because none of them represent the whole, that the collective of them provide no window whatsoever on the whole.

And there are plenty of legitimate studies which get hit with the same kind of nullification arguments that only really work when you ignore that all the individual parts DO exist in the same whole. And to micromanage each piece as its own universe requires splitting hairs.

xechnao said:

What about "google trends"?
Here is one trend request regarding the following keywords:
pathfinder rpg, d&d essentials, d&d 4e
Google Trends: pathfinder rpg, d&d essentials, d&d 4e

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Try is with: pathfinder rpg, d&d
Google Trends: pathfinder rpg, d&d

You can't even see Pathfinder - it's a little blue line at the bottom of the graph. But, notably, D&D has been dropping for several years.

But Google trends can be used to prove anything if you pick your desired terms correctly! Make one general and the other specific (eg a specific D&D book vs. a full brand) and you could probably reverse that easily. And if you just say "Pathfinder", of course, you get a hell of a lot more than the RPG.

Well, Pathfinder is essentially a d&d 3.5e spin off. That is, I doubt that there is anyone on earth that has not heard of D&D, while being aware of the Pathfinder rpg.

But Wotc currently only supports 4e. Mike Mearls' last article excluded, Wotc has given the impression to be aggressive towards everything not 4e D&D.

At the same time, Pathfinder taps on the most relevant segment of this d&d community: "3.5 thrives". Based on all accounts and evidence, this seems to be a segment of the most active part of the community.

Morrus said:

But Google trends can be used to prove anything if you pick your desired terms correctly!

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Yep, just try paizo and wotc. That's an interesting one there since they're both quite specific.

Morrus said:

We've converted 10 of them so far, with two to go (WotBS, not ZEITGEIST). It proved to be much more work than we initially imagines. Substantial rewriting was necessary for 3.4 -> 4E, and I imagine that equally substantial rewriting would be required to convert 4E ZEITGEIST to Pathfinder. The systems just don't work the same.

From little things like when PCs can fly or overcome obstacles, to relative power levels, to advancement rates, to the number of balanced encounters per level, to environmental expectations and dangers; these all require large-scale changes, which are much more than switching the stats for a 4E goblin to the stats for a Pathfinder goblin.

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Well, there you go, Morrus. I concede the point. I have no experience in converting adventures, only converting campaign worlds. I know that converting a campaign world was WAY more work than I anticipated. Back then, we only had the first core books to work from (not even through the first errata by that point). What made our job more convoluted was that we were also changing the setting as well, making it more inline to my original concept...another reason why I liked 4E over 3E--I was able to make the setting closer to canon without breaking gameplay balance.

So I would totally differ to your experience on adapting adventures. I was only speaking from what I knew from Goodman Games; their first DCC volumes using 4th Edition had originally been 3.5 adventures that were converted. I have no idea how hard it was for them to do so.