D&D General A video called "Don't Survey Your Players"

[billd91]

Honestly, I can see some of his point. The One D&D UA process was majorly botched. They took a lot of good stuff and tossed it out because a vocal minority of players balked at the changes and then when WotC scurried back on them, those players didn't see a point in buying the new PHB anyway. So we lost unified subclass progression, spell lists, templated wild shape, half-caster warlocks and a bunch of other innovations to a bunch of whiners who ended up playing Shadowdark anyway.

If my interactions with fandom (any fandom) is to be believed, the last people you should be soliciting feedback from are "fans".

Gonna disagree on most of your examples of the UA process being botched. I, for one, didn't want unified spell lists and though templated wild shape has benefits, the particular implementation they were presenting was bad. And I certainly haven't ended up playing Shadowdark.
People are going to have different opinions of these things and about the decisions that were made. The big question is how long you're going to drag it around as a grievance rather than moving on.

 

[Umbran]

It's kind of an odd idea anyway. How many players do you have? Six? You can't survey six people, it's nothing like enough to get meaningful results. You can talk to them and find out the kind of stuff they like. But that's a conversation, not a survey.

With respect, I survey my group at the start of the campaign, and it works quite well, for what I intend.

I hand around the questionnaire when they can think on it at their leisure, with a bunch of questions around what kind of game they might like this go-round. I use it to get a bit of a profile of what they are collectively thinking, and use that to do a first cut of games to offer.

I then get them together, and tell them, "From the survey, it looks like you are all interested in games that do X, Y, and Z. So I think games A, B, or C might be good for everyone. Here's what they all do..."

And that has worked well for us for decades. So, you know, maybe you've missed on the utility it can have for some folks.

 

[Stormonu]

I would discount the opinion of someone who’s never played the game and never will. Those who have never played, but would like to try, I’d certainly lend an ear on how to onboard them.

I would also have open ears to those who aren’t playing now but who have played in the past - listening for those things that might get them back.

I would give greater credence to those who are playing to keep them playing and hungry for more (being careful not to give them too much that would make the game uninteresting)

I would give the most credence to active Dungeon Masters, to give them the tools to enable them to keep their players playing and not burn them out DMing.

 

[SableWyvern]

Are you framing the "doing things you like" approach in a positive or negative light???

I'm not sure what you're asking here. Did you intend to quote someone else?

I'm saying the current version of 5e isn't for me and I have no expectation that WotC will cater to me in any future 6e. Conversely, there are people for whom 5e is a game they enjoy and want to play, and I would expect that WotC will not want 6e to drive those players away.

The only reason WotC might want to cater to my preferences in future products would be if they see a huge untapped market of people aligned with my thinking, which will bring in more money than their current audience -- but this seems likely a wildly unlikely scenario.

Edit: if you're referring to the point where I said "including some stuff I like" I was saying that making small changes in some areas to appeal to me isn't going to achieve anything useful. For example, reducing hit point bloat might be something I consider a positive, but there are still dozens of reasons why I'm not going to play -- so if what I refer to as "reducing hit point bloat" is considered a negative to the existing player base, you're just driving your existing players away and any hope you had that it might bring me into the fold was doomed from the start.

 

[MichaelSomething]

I'm not sure what you're asking here. Did you intend to quote someone else?

I'm saying the current version of 5e isn't for me and I have no expectation that WotC will cater to me in any future 6e. Conversely, there are people for whom 5e is a game they enjoy and want to play, and I would expect that WotC will not want 6e to drive those players away.

My TTRPG ideal has always been that WOTC should priories the strong (ENworlders like you and me) even (or especially) if that means they must purge away the weak in the process. I was just inquiring to see if you shared worldviews with me

 

[SableWyvern]

My TTRPG ideal has always been that WOTC should priories the strong (ENworlders like you and me) even (or especially) if that means they must purge away the weak in the process. I was just inquiring to see if you shared worldviews with me

In all honestly, I don't care in the slightest what WotC does or doesn't do. I mean, I don't want them to intentionally screw over their player base, and I think many of their decisions are greedy and not great for D&D, but I also believe that neither the wider hobby nor D&D specifically need WotC, and they'll both survive whatever WotC does. Importantly, my own games will continue unaffected no matter what WotC does or doesn't do.

I'm aware that I'm not WotC's market, and I'm perfectly fine with that. There are plenty of games out there for me, and there is no part of me that cares whether or not WotC publishes one of the ones I like or whether any of the games I play say, "Current edition of D&D" on the cover.

In the highly unlikely event WotC chooses to go all in on making a game I might like, I'll give it a look with an open mind and, if it passes the high bar set to make the shortlist of games I intend to run, I'll pick it up. Just the same as for any publisher.

 

[tetrasodium]

All of the but but but sowing trying to validate wotc's polling by giving reasons to discount various groups are barking up the wrong tree by assuming that those polls are capable of differentiating between groups that should be recognized in any d&d feature/player option survey.

The polls wotc did for 5.5 can't differentiate between responders who played a thing responders who played in a group with a thing and responders who ran a game where someone had a thing. All of those are distinct groups that have very solid reasons to view a thing differently and be questioned in ways other than "was x fun", but wotc's 5.5 surveys didn't even bother to ask questions that could differentiate responders to see if there is statistical differences or sampling bias between those three groups.

 

[SableWyvern]

All of the but but but sowing trying to validate wotc's polling by giving reasons to discount various groups are barking up the wrong tree by assuming that those polls are capable of differentiating between groups that should be recognized in any d&d feature/player option survey.

The polls wotc did for 5.5 can't differentiate between responders who played a thing responders who played in a group with a thing and responders who ran a game where someone had a thing. All of those are distinct groups that have very solid reasons to view a thing differently and be questioned in ways other than "was x fun", but wotc's 5.5 surveys didn't even bother to ask questions that could differentiate responders to see if there is statistical differences or sampling bias between those three groups.

Isn't that the original point? Surveys can be extremely misleading and it's not easy to tell which responses to take seriously. On a related note, I do recall some controversy about WotC flat out discarding responses from a segment of their actual customer base back in the 3e or 4e days, which is kind of the opposite problem.

In any event, you're certainly correct. I'm here saying WotC probably shouldn't listen to me, but if I was actually filling out their surveys, I have no idea how they would be able to work that out.

 

[Lanefan]

If your at sushi chef, your not going to poll the community and then open a taco joint. You have to take into consideration what you know and what you want to do.

If I'm a sushi chef hell-bent on opening a sushi restaurant I'm not going to poll the community at all, brcause the relevant decisions have already been made and everything else is just window dressing. Instead, I'm just going to open the restaurant and get on with it.

 

[Lanefan]

No, but like I said, if I was WotC and got a bunch of survey results in 2012/2023 that said "bring back Thac0" I would not weigh them with the same weight as someone saying "fix short rests".

Again, you're making my point for me only in reverse: if they got a bunch of survey results in 2012/2023 that said "bring back Thac0" and were legitimately willing to listen to said surveys then they should have seriously considered bringing back Thac0; and if they then decided not to, explained to the public why it was up for question (i.e. released the survey results unedited) and why that decision was made.

If you're not willing to listen to the results of your own survey - and also to be transparent with said results - then don't waste our time with it.

This doesn't just go for WotC. It applies to surveys everywhere.