Unearthed Arcana An Unearthed Arcana I would like to see - mechanical fixes

[Sword of Spirit]

I cut out the rest to save space, but I think that's a great idea. Now, to the question above. Are we going to come to a consensus about a given fix like GWM, or would we have like 5 different fixes for it in the document? If we are going with the former, I would recommend the following. A thread where the potential fixes are noted and discussed, followed by a thread where people vote on poll containing those fixes. 1 vote per person, and the top vote getting goes into the document. The lengthy explanations for each fix would be stated in the OP of that voting thread.

We'd only one want fix for a given issue, otherwise it wouldn't really get the job done.

So it seems like there could be some sense of convergence around @TwoSix and @Sword of Spirit suggestions. I'd prefer WotC got onto it, but I can see that a community project could be pragmatic, and maybe influence what comes along down the line.

How might we create that cabal?

I'm an idea guy and I'm decent at creating structural things, but I'm horrible at management and nitty gritty details. So that being said, here's what I suggest from the ideas and structure angle:

1) We need a few (3-5) administrators for the project, and a home locale for it. I thought I saw someone mention Reddit, which is probably a good idea. A subreddit for the project with administrators for it.

The administrators would stay in contact with each other and keep things in order. We'd need more administrators than we actually think we need, because some would drop out and most would have limited time. I'm willing to be one of them, but my depression limits my consistency, and I don't do management so someone(s) else need to deal with that aspect. I'm not too bad at sorting through data and drawing conclusions from it, so that's something else I could offer.

Administrators would also have recognize that they probably have personal fixes they want in their game that aren't going to make it into this patch, because it needs to stay broadly useful and simple.

In addition to a home subreddit (unless there is a better suggestion) we'd want to post the important information and polls to other places 5e fans congregate, like here on EnWorld, as well rpg.net, Giant in the Playground, etc.

2) We'd come up with a vision and parameters for the endeavor. Things would could state in a few short sentences. The parameters in support of the vision would give us guidelines for things like how we determine what issues are sufficient to be considered, how complex a fix can be (I think they need to be as simple as possible), deciding how much consensus we need to select an option from the suggestions (including polls and how administrators interact with the results), and how to present the materials.

3) We'd get to work asking people about simple fixes they'd like, as well as searching discussions for others that come up a lot. We'd implement the parameters we agreed on and figure out how to conduct polls and interpret results. We'd also invite discussion threads focused on these issues from the perspective of the patch. Administrators would have to make the hard decisions over which things (issues to address as well as proposed fixes) just don't get considered because they go beyond the scope of the project or the design philosophy of 5e (this is a 5e project and needs to feel like a "patch" not a revision). I'm decent at that sort of thing, although I know it will draw ire from those who really want to redo more extensive parts of the game.

Those are my basic thoughts on creating the project.

 

[clearstream]

We'd only one want fix for a given issue, otherwise it wouldn't really get the job done.



I'm an idea guy and I'm decent at creating structural things, but I'm horrible at management and nitty gritty details. So that being said, here's what I suggest from the ideas and structure angle:

1) We need a few (3-5) administrators for the project, and a home locale for it. I thought I saw someone mention Reddit, which is probably a good idea. A subreddit for the project with administrators for it.

The administrators would stay in contact with each other and keep things in order. We'd need more administrators than we actually think we need, because some would drop out and most would have limited time. I'm willing to be one of them, but my depression limits my consistency, and I don't do management so someone(s) else need to deal with that aspect. I'm not too bad at sorting through data and drawing conclusions from it, so that's something else I could offer.

Administrators would also have recognize that they probably have personal fixes they want in their game that aren't going to make it into this patch, because it needs to stay broadly useful and simple.

In addition to a home subreddit (unless there is a better suggestion) we'd want to post the important information and polls to other places 5e fans congregate, like here on EnWorld, as well rpg.net, Giant in the Playground, etc.

2) We'd come up with a vision and parameters for the endeavor. Things would could state in a few short sentences. The parameters in support of the vision would give us guidelines for things like how we determine what issues are sufficient to be considered, how complex a fix can be (I think they need to be as simple as possible), deciding how much consensus we need to select an option from the suggestions (including polls and how administrators interact with the results), and how to present the materials.

3) We'd get to work asking people about simple fixes they'd like, as well as searching discussions for others that come up a lot. We'd implement the parameters we agreed on and figure out how to conduct polls and interpret results. We'd also invite discussion threads focused on these issues from the perspective of the patch. Administrators would have to make the hard decisions over which things (issues to address as well as proposed fixes) just don't get considered because they go beyond the scope of the project or the design philosophy of 5e (this is a 5e project and needs to feel like a "patch" not a revision). I'm decent at that sort of thing, although I know it will draw ire from those who really want to redo more extensive parts of the game.

Those are my basic thoughts on creating the project.

Okay, this sounds like a good outline to start with. I can be an admin.

I'd like to try and do it here because I feel more connected with this community. Could we make the home here and post announcements and surveys on reddit? Right now I need to sleep, but this feels like a marathon not a sprint so I'll be back on to continue the conversation.

 

[clearstream]

2) We'd come up with a vision and parameters for the endeavor. Things would could state in a few short sentences. The parameters in support of the vision would give us guidelines for things like how we determine what issues are sufficient to be considered, how complex a fix can be (I think they need to be as simple as possible), deciding how much consensus we need to select an option from the suggestions (including polls and how administrators interact with the results), and how to present the materials.

It feels to me like we should try and resolve this part first, before setting anything else up. Because it's important to have alignment on vision and parameters prior to setting up structure and getting a wider audience involved.

 

[Maxperson]

Max. Dude. Read what was said.

At this point I think you may be intentionally being obtuse or dishonest in this exchange.

It makes more sense than you just genuinely not understanding anything I’ve said to you.

I'm not going to go back and read it to see if I got it wrong, so I will just assume that I did. It changes nothing. My statement is more broadly applicable(see what I did there? ) You accused me twice of Strawmen and I KNOW I didn't confuse the exchanges between us. You wrongly accused my responses of being Strawmen.

 

[Krachek]

3) We'd get to work asking people about simple fixes they'd like, as well as searching discussions for others that come up a lot. We'd implement the parameters we agreed on and figure out how to conduct polls and interpret results. We'd also invite discussion threads focused on these issues from the perspective of the patch. Administrators would have to make the hard decisions over which things (issues to address as well as proposed fixes) just don't get considered because they go beyond the scope of the project or the design philosophy of 5e (this is a 5e project and needs to feel like a "patch" not a revision). I'm decent at that sort of thing, although I know it will draw ire from those who really want to redo more extensive parts of the game.

Those are my basic thoughts on creating the project.

Present material as Variant. They already use that term in core rule.

 

[Maxperson]

So it seems like there could be some sense of convergence around @TwoSix and @Sword of Spirit suggestions. I'd prefer WotC got onto it, but I can see that a community project could be pragmatic, and maybe influence what comes along down the line.

How might we create that cabal?

Maybe start a thread around one of the perceived issues with a 1 or 2 week shelf-life. Take all of the actual ideas put forth and create that poll I mentioned. Limiting the thread to 1-2 weeks for ideas will allow us to get several issues handled in a reasonable amount of time, and it seems like most of the good ideas come early on in the thread, before the thread digresses into arguments and other discussions.

 

[Maxperson]

We'd only one want fix for a given issue, otherwise it wouldn't really get the job done.

I tend to agree, but then I think about the old UA books and the multiple alternative ways to do hit points, magic, and other things.

For the rest, my idea on how to go about it is posted above.

I'm an idea guy and I'm decent at creating structural things, but I'm horrible at management and nitty gritty details. So that being said, here's what I suggest from the ideas and structure angle:

1) We need a few (3-5) administrators for the project, and a home locale for it. I thought I saw someone mention Reddit, which is probably a good idea. A subreddit for the project with administrators for it.

The administrators would stay in contact with each other and keep things in order. We'd need more administrators than we actually think we need, because some would drop out and most would have limited time. I'm willing to be one of them, but my depression limits my consistency, and I don't do management so someone(s) else need to deal with that aspect. I'm not too bad at sorting through data and drawing conclusions from it, so that's something else I could offer.

Administrators would also have recognize that they probably have personal fixes they want in their game that aren't going to make it into this patch, because it needs to stay broadly useful and simple.

In addition to a home subreddit (unless there is a better suggestion) we'd want to post the important information and polls to other places 5e fans congregate, like here on EnWorld, as well rpg.net, Giant in the Playground, etc.

2) We'd come up with a vision and parameters for the endeavor. Things would could state in a few short sentences. The parameters in support of the vision would give us guidelines for things like how we determine what issues are sufficient to be considered, how complex a fix can be (I think they need to be as simple as possible), deciding how much consensus we need to select an option from the suggestions (including polls and how administrators interact with the results), and how to present the materials.

3) We'd get to work asking people about simple fixes they'd like, as well as searching discussions for others that come up a lot. We'd implement the parameters we agreed on and figure out how to conduct polls and interpret results. We'd also invite discussion threads focused on these issues from the perspective of the patch. Administrators would have to make the hard decisions over which things (issues to address as well as proposed fixes) just don't get considered because they go beyond the scope of the project or the design philosophy of 5e (this is a 5e project and needs to feel like a "patch" not a revision). I'm decent at that sort of thing, although I know it will draw ire from those who really want to redo more extensive parts of the game.

Those are my basic thoughts on creating the project.

I think to start with we should keep it local to this place. Once we have a handful of ideas written down and we can show others what we are doing, we'd get a larger and better response when we go elsewhere.

 

[clearstream]

I think to start with we should keep it local to this place. Once we have a handful of ideas written down and we can show others what we are doing, we'd get a larger and better response when we go elsewhere.

I agree with that. What do you guys think of doing it in two passes?

In the first pass, we collect all of the "bugs": things people think should be fixed, but not the solutions. We can then rank those (a poll for instance, or even a "survivor" contest).

In the second pass, we take the top X bugs and call for solutions. Admins would collate those. We might then publish the top X bugs, each one with one top ranked solution, or we could stay more agnostic and publish the top X bug with all solutions for each of them. Which seems better? Maybe something in between like the top Y solutions for each bug?

In terms of tools, I can make us a google sheet for collating and ranking.

Steps might be 1) announcement thread calling for participants, 2) bug posting thread, collated into 3) a google sheet, and then 4) voting. And then something similar for solutions. The way these forums work, maybe 1) and 2) end up conflated?