D&D (2024) Class spell lists and pact magic are back!

[mamba]

From the pov of the venture capital company buying them it was pretty much the point.

I don’t think the point was to buy TRU, and then lose money and end in bankruptcy

Did they skim some money off the top? No doubt, but having the interest payments for the loan kill the company you purchased with it, that was not really the idea

 

[Maxperson]

You claimed that a single new brand, new coke, was a sign of Coca-Cola making a mistake. I pointed out that Coke owns over 200 other beverage brands.

So, if we assume they have a 99.5% success rate (1/200) ... does that make their error matter more than their successes?

Yes it matter. Their name is Coke. Coke is their premier and most popular beverage. They screwed that up. That would be like a donut store screwing up donuts.

No Max. I think there is a difference between a shareholdering meeting where 20 serious people look over data and make serious decisions, and one rich jerk who throws money at things that hurts his feelings acting out because he was too dumb to do research before signing a legally binding contract.

You clearly don't understand corporate culture. 20 people in a shareholder meeting aren't deciding what the company does. Sometimes it's a single individual. Other times just 2 or 3. It doesn't happen like you describe above.

You linked that to them failing as a company, which makes no sense. And stupider products have made lots of money, and I have to wonder... were they actually the designers of that toy? They sold toys, but I was not familiar with them having an in-house design team. Have you actually researched who designed it, or did you just claim they made it because they sold it?

This is a Red Herring. It doesn't matter if they made it or not, they made the decision to sell pretend meth to kids along with the pretend cash to buy it.

I've been following the surveys and Unearthed Arcana for years, and I've never had this debate before. I'd remember it too. So, somehow, I don't think there has been a large outcry about WoTCs survey methodology for years.

I've seen it fairly often. Not every thread, but often enough.

So you believe all big corporations exist purely out of luck?

You believe luck plays no part in some companies taking off like a rocket? It's not even the only instance.

 

[tetrasodium]

I don’t think the point was to buy TRU, and then lose money and end in bankruptcy

Did they skim some money off the top? No doubt, but having the interest payments for the loan kill the company you purchased with it, that was not really the idea

Agreed!... They didn't lose money, other people did. Sears and Kmart were better documented because they were the first examples of Lambert's financial innovations but here is a quote that nicely summarizes the strategy without getting lost in the weeds *In January 2019, a group of Sears' creditors hoping to persuade a federal judge to force Sears to liquidate alleged that Lampert had orchestrated a "multiyear and multifaceted scheme" to strip away the company's assets and benefit from its decline." Toys r Us was subjected to the same kind of corrosive schemes and there was even a similar lawsuit.

 

[mamba]

Agreed!... They didn't lose money, other people did. Sears and Kmart were better documented because they were the first examples of Lambert's financial innovations but here is a quote that nicely summarizes the strategy

oh, he definitely made some money through shady practices, but I do not think the bankruptcy was always part of the plan and a necessity for it to work

They would have done the same deals and eventually sold TRU off for much more profit if the original plan had not failed

As to whether they lost money or bankruptcy protected them from that, I cannot say, I know too little about it, but it also does not matter to the point that was being made

 

[Chaosmancer]

if I ever get a straight answer to my questions from you, I will tell you. We have had this dance around the 70% and 80% thresholds for at least 5 rounds by now, and still no definitive answer. That in itself feels pretty telling.

So, you just make accusations towards people with no rhyme or reason? "Well, I don't know why I think you didn't consider this, but if you were to tell me what I want to know, I could tell you" is just... really telling on yourself.

What is binary is 'threshold', not 'requires'. That is very much the definition of threshold

That is a nonsense answer. Yes, there is a likely "binary" between 80% and 79%. But that doesn't mean that 70 to 79% is a threshold that therefore requires improvement. You are just ignoring anything that doesn't agree with your nearly baseless criticism.

I grant you that WotC is not even good at sticking to their own thresholds, but even so, there is not just the 'pass, you are in' threshold. Why is there a second, lower threshold?

Because game design isn't binary. It is complex. There is more than just "perfect" and "Trash" as things that something you have designed can be. There are a spectrum of options.

if by 'yet here we are' you mean 'and yet I am unable to answer this after having been asked 5 times', then I agree

Apart from that, no one is talking about deceiving, incompetence is not deception

Except that they had to have lied to us, because you want to know what these thresholds mean, because they can't mean what JC literally says they mean. Literally, you have argued against every single thing WoTC says they are doing, saying it is impossible they could actually be doing that, because it doesn't fit within your conception of how these surveys MUST be being handled.

are you saying it was no mistake?

I don't know or care. It was a single release from a company with over 200 brands. Again, 1 in 200 failure rate is still over 99% success rate.

Is your standard "if you failed once, then you likely fail all the time"? Or do we look at a 99% success rate and say.... that they are probably succeeding most of the time? Or is that too much pandering for your taste?

Toys R Us is the example of a bad decision, the bad decision was made by the guys buying it at that leverage ratio, and then failing to fix the issue in any way

So you fundamentally do not understand the situation. They didn't WANT to fix the issue. That wasn't their goal. Again, the Murderer makes a bad decision by framing an innocent man, because they should have made sure no one goes to jail and that guy has a happy life. Um... No, that isn't the murderers goal in any way, shape or form.

See also Bed Bath & Beyond, Sears and plenty of others

https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/25/business/bed-bath-beyond-share-repurchases/index.html

https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/30/business/sears-share-repurchase/index.html

Again, what do you think you are proving here? You keep hounding this point that companies aren't perfect, like if I admit that for the 5th time that somehow magically your evidence triples in strength and becomes irrefutable.

This doesn't prove what you want it to prove.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I don’t think the point was to buy TRU, and then lose money and end in bankruptcy

Did they skim some money off the top? No doubt, but having the interest payments for the loan kill the company you purchased with it, that was not really the idea

Is this a "because my feelings say so" or is this because "someone stated this in an interview about the situation and therefore I have proof"?

 

[Chaosmancer]

Yes it matter. Their name is Coke. Coke is their premier and most popular beverage. They screwed that up. That would be like a donut store screwing up donuts.

So diet coke was screwed up? No. Coke Zero? No. Cherry coke? No. Vanilla Coke? No. Is Coca-Cola still screwed up? No.

So... yeah, they tried something, it didn't work, and they reversed course. This clearly proves that large companies will blindly make a decades long mistake without ever noticing.... oh wait, no it doesn't prove that. At all.

You clearly don't understand corporate culture. 20 people in a shareholder meeting aren't deciding what the company does. Sometimes it's a single individual. Other times just 2 or 3. It doesn't happen like you describe above.

And even if it were a single person deciding that they can spend 40 Billion dollars becuase of their hurt pride.... shock and surprise, that would be a failing of the individual sole owner of the company. See, because I do know a bit about corporate LAW and shareholders can decide if you spend massive amounts of money on something like hurt feelings.

The only time you get single individuals making those moves is when they own 51% of the company, and if they are too stupid, then other people can buy their shares and throw them out.

So, again, Musk did something stupid =/= all massive corporations are as stupid as Musk.

This is a Red Herring. It doesn't matter if they made it or not, they made the decision to sell pretend meth to kids along with the pretend cash to buy it.

Right. So in the corporate world there are these things called "contracts". They sometimes do funny things, like force someone to take an action they don't want to take. That is why this is NOT a red herring, because depending on the contract, it may not have been a decision. Or, at the very least, it was a decision between this toy and being in breach of contract.

I've seen it fairly often. Not every thread, but often enough.

And I've never seen it. So.... clearly it isn't very widespread.

You believe luck plays no part in some companies taking off like a rocket? It's not even the only instance.

Not everything is black and white, not everything is either 100% or 0%.

Is Beyonce successful because she got lucky? In part, sure, I'm positive Luck has played some part in her life story. Is it all pure luck with nothing else? Not even close.

 

[mamba]

So, you just make accusations towards people with no rhyme or reason?

no, I have a reason, I just did not tell you which one. I'd say by now I have two, since you keep avoiding answering what you claim is really simple to know, despite you supposedly having given it some thought

That is a nonsense answer. Yes, there is a likely "binary" between 80% and 79%. But that doesn't mean that 70 to 79% is a threshold that therefore requires improvement. You are just ignoring anything that doesn't agree with your nearly baseless criticism.

How is saying that a threshold is binary nonsense? Still avoiding saying anything definitive about that second threshold too. How about you tell me what it is, instead of one example for what it supposedly isn't? You are not making a good case for you having looked into this at all...

Because game design isn't binary. It is complex. There is more than just "perfect" and "Trash" as things that something you have designed can be. There are a spectrum of options.

So what is the second threshold good for? You do not need two to decide what makes it in and what doesn't, do you? Esp. when you play loose with that one, as we already established WotC does... It cannot be the range between them that makes it in, that would be utter nonsense, so....

Except that they had to have lied to us, because you want to know what these thresholds mean, because they can't mean what JC literally says they mean.

I already said that I do not claim they lied, not sure why you keep repeating that. Also not sure why you cannot repeat what JC said, despite having been asked about the thresholds 6 times by now, if you agree that that is what they are for.

Literally, you have argued against every single thing WoTC says they are doing, saying it is impossible they could actually be doing that, because it doesn't fit within your conception of how these surveys MUST be being handled.

I have argued that there is a flaw, that does not at all say that what they are doing is not exactly what they say they are doing, let alone that they intentionally lied. All it does is say they do so with unreliable data.

I don't know or care.

That seems to apply to all of this, quite frankly

Is your standard "if you failed once, then you likely fail all the time"?

No, but my standard is not, if you failed this big once, that counts as you never made a mistake. Yours apparently is, or at a minimum 'don't know and do not care either', which already is pretty pathetic as an answer

Again, what do you think you are proving here? You keep hounding this point that companies aren't perfect, like if I admit that for the 5th time that somehow magically your evidence triples in strength and becomes irrefutable.

This doesn't prove what you want it to prove.

What was this supposed to prove? Guess your answer to that must also be 'I do not know or care', because I'd say it very much did. You even admitted it

You keep hounding this point that companies aren't perfect,

that is what it was supposed to prove, that is all it was supposed to prove. It has no direct bearing on WotC, other than to counter your 'they are big, so they do not ever make mistakes' narrative.

 

[Maxperson]

So diet coke was screwed up? No. Coke Zero? No. Cherry coke? No. Vanilla Coke? No. Is Coca-Cola still screwed up? No.

So... yeah, they tried something, it didn't work, and they reversed course. This clearly proves that large companies will blindly make a decades long mistake without ever noticing.... oh wait, no it doesn't prove that. At all.

A blunder is a blunder. They made a huge one. Apparently everyone but you recognizes that fact. This attempt to minimize it isn't working.

And even if it were a single person deciding that they can spend 40 Billion dollars becuase of their hurt pride.... shock and surprise, that would be a failing of the individual sole owner of the company. See, because I do know a bit about corporate LAW and shareholders can decide if you spend massive amounts of money on something like hurt feelings.

The shareholders generally wouldn't know until after the fact. They might be able to sue later, depending on the nature of the decision.

The only time you get single individuals making those moves is when they own 51% of the company, and if they are too stupid, then other people can buy their shares and throw them out.

That's false. The CEO can decide the direction of the company without owning 51%. That's why he is CEO. If he steers badly, the board can toss him out.

Right. So in the corporate world there are these things called "contracts". They sometimes do funny things, like force someone to take an action they don't want to take. That is why this is NOT a red herring, because depending on the contract, it may not have been a decision. Or, at the very least, it was a decision between this toy and being in breach of contract.

Yes, but you don't sign a contract blind. So when they signed the contract(assuming they didn't make it themselves) for that toy, THEY BLUNDERED.

Is Beyonce successful because she got lucky? In part, sure, I'm positive Luck has played some part in her life story. Is it all pure luck with nothing else? Not even close.

Don’t Underestimate the Power of Luck When It Comes to Success in Business

Managers are very prone to both benchmarking and stereotyping. These practices lead them into underestimating the power of luck, so that they often attribute success to capabilities and failure to bad luck in people or organizations they see as having the attributes of greatness, while they...

hbr.org

"Management research and education often focus on prescriptive theories that address how to move from “good to great.” This is problematic because being “great” in business often cannot occur without luck."

 

[Chaosmancer]

no, I have a reason, I just did not tell you which one. I'd say by now I have two, since you keep avoiding answering what you claim is really simple to know, despite you supposedly having given it some thought

Ah, I see. They aren't baseless accusations, they are SECRET accusations. How sneaky and clever of you, you can't seem like your accusations are baseless if you never tell people your reasons for making them.

How is saying that a threshold is binary nonsense? Still avoiding saying anything definitive about that second threshold too. How about you tell me what it is, instead of one example for what it supposedly isn't? You are not making a good case for you having looked into this at all...

Because you don't seem to have any understanding of what the various levels mean, despite having it explained to you. Because it has been explained to you MULTIPLE TIMES in this very threat, Crawford practically has a meme with them laid out in front of you mulitple times in this thread, but you are still acting like it is so confusing.

Just because I don't want to explain it a twelth time doesn't mean that I have never considered it. It doesn't mean I haven't listened to it be explained in over a dozen videos, where Crawford talks the numbers, the design, and how they will move forward.

But fine, since we insist, lets explain it one more time.

80% -> this is good, it doesn't need improvement, we probably should keep it exactly as is or very very similar.
70% -> This is good, but we may be able to make it better, we might still keep it as is though
60% -> This isn't so good. We need to improve this. It is probably getting altered
50% -> This was a bad idea, we should drop this and move on to other ideas.

Ta-Da! No please tell me how this is totally wrong, utterly confusing, and makes no sense because you voted a specific way and the thing you liked didn't make it in the playtest, because it rated something that you don't know but was too low to keep, and your single vote is totally exactly indicative of the percentage after the data processing of tens of thousands of votes.

So what is the second threshold good for? You do not need two to decide what makes it in and what doesn't, do you? Esp. when you play loose with that one, as we already established WotC does... It cannot be the range between them that makes it in, that would be utter nonsense, so....

Because design isn't a binary.

I already said that I do not claim they lied, not sure why you keep repeating that. Also not sure why you cannot repeat what JC said, despite having been asked about the thresholds 6 times by now, if you agree that that is what they are for.

Because I don't have his words carved upon my heart, and I'm not researching the exact wording when you could do that exact same thing yourself. And since you have likely already told me that I'm wrong, because despite them saying X Y happened... then you are saying they lied.

I have argued that there is a flaw, that does not at all say that what they are doing is not exactly what they say they are doing, let alone that they intentionally lied. All it does is say they do so with unreliable data.

Unreliable data based on exactly what flaw in their process? On "one person misunderstood"? Surveys have a margin of error for a reason. Their data processing ACCOUNTS for a small handful of people not understanding or giving troll answers.

This is why this is such a frustrating conversation, you can't seem to imagine that they know about this potential flaw in the data, and correct for it. Because it is not only a minor flaw, but an expected flaw in every survey ever run by anyone, ever.

That seems to apply to all of this, quite frankly

No, but my standard is not, if you failed this big once, that counts as you never made a mistake. Yours apparently is, or at a minimum 'don't know and do not care either', which already is pretty pathetic as an answer

Yeah, I don't drink Coke. I heard something about new coke tasting bad a few years ago. I do not care if it tasted bad, because I don't drink coke. And I don't know if it was a massive blunder on their part... because I never drank it and I don't know how it affected their sales.

And since, yet again, I never claimed big companies can never possibly make mistakes ever... congrats, you proved that people can make mistakes. A position I never disagreed with and that was a strawman you concocted out of the fact that I have yet to supplicate myself before your brilliance.

What I have said, is that if you want to declare something like "Coca-Cola Move released in 2023 is a horrible move by the company that is a massive mistake!" You need... evidence. And that evidence has to be more than "I know this is true, because I met a guy at the gas station who said he didn't like the taste!" because a single person not liking a specific taste of a specific drink is... absolutely normal and expected. It doesn't mean Coke needs to launch an investigation into their release to see what flaws might exist in the flavor profile, because if you were to tell them this information... they'd be completely unsurprised it happened.

What was this supposed to prove? Guess your answer to that must also be 'I do not know or care', because I'd say it very much did. You even admitted it

I admitted what? The thing I've constantly told you I don't believe?

This is almost hilarious, because your point is based on a single person not understanding written text, and you keep strawmanning me and making up things I've never said, despite my written text. You are literally creating a case study to disprove your own evidence as being troubling.

that is what it was supposed to prove, that is all it was supposed to prove. It has no direct bearing on WotC, other than to counter your 'they are big, so they do not ever make mistakes' narrative.

A narrative I never held, and told you constantly I have never held.

Congratulations. You proved a non-point that I conceded three days ago the first time you accused me of saying WoTC is perfect and without fault. And in the meantime, also proved that people misunderstand written communication all the time, so it is something that they would be incredibly likely to account for, especially since they likely would have noticed it over the DECADE of using these surveys to guide their productions.