D&D 5E "Damage on a miss" poll.

[Jester David]

I can't say I'm an expert on these food analogies, but this one seems misplaced.

I don't have to share my game with you. I only have to share my game with my group, who one the whole prefer "damage on a miss" and comparable mechanics.

But you are sharing the game with me. We're both connected by the hobby. WotC is making a game to accommodate as many people as possible, and that means compromising with mechanics you don't prefer so someone else can have a game they'll play.

So if WotC doesn't make a game that caters to our tastes, we'll play a different game.

Now WotC may be prepared to gamble on not getting our business - that's it's prerogative, obviously - but it would be a mistake for WotC to think that we'll buy in simply because someone else wouldn't buy the game that we might prefer.

But everyone could say the same thing. There's no shortage of games on the market to play instead of 5e. Heck, there's no shortage of games on my shelf to play instead of 5e.

The poll was pretty even. Every time WotC comes down hard on one side they risk halving their audience.

Damage on a miss has come up again and again since they introduced the mechanic, both here and the WotC site. Because people hate it. However, there were not equal numbers of "add damage on a miss" threads prior. I don't recall a single one.
Supporters of damage on a miss like it, but it's absence does not seem to warrant creating a short post suggesting it.

 

[urLordy]

My point is that I don't think it counts as a consensus solution to tell one group that they're simply not getting what they want. And I was trying to drive that home by asking you why you don't just martyr your position - hoping that you would see that that suggestion entirely mirrors the suggestion that others martyr their position.

Yes, I understand you don't count it as a consensus solution. There are so many things I want to point out about this, but put yourself in my shoes first. In my shoes, reading your posts seems be very introspective about your game style and not all reaching out or even understanding the other camp. For example, you wrote on the other thread that counterarguments (which I thought to be earnest) were "almost unintelligible" to you, and on post 85 here, you distilled it down to "gritty" preference which seems oblivious to the multilayers of opinions here, then declared that "we've got that out of the way" followed by the presumption that we're "pretending to be neutral". Why on earth would I take 1,000 points of fun damage trying to discuss a consensus solution with you? It would take at least 500 fun damage and 29 threads just defining what is "consensus". And you have way more hit points than I do on Enworld.

 

[DEFCON 1]

At the end of the day this is really the most pointless of arguments to have. Because if this single mechanic that appears one time in the Player's Handbook really drives any person to buy or not buy the game... there's something going on with that person more than just the one mechanic. And at that point, you might as well just cut the line on that player. If that player can base his or her entire decision on whether to play the game based on a single rule... then there's no way to ever please that person. Your design can't be beholden to them. Therein lies the way to madness.

It's like the Wish spell. If the Wish spell appears in the final game and it's appearance is the sole reason someone won't play 5E... then really, you can't do anything more than just say "sorry to hear that, best of luck in your future endeavors" because there's an issue there with that person that WotC can NEVER clear up. There will always be SOMETHING that will drive a player like that away.

 

[Iosue]

How would we go about creating such a truly random push-poll? (not self-selecting and avoiding biases)

Well, my experimental design class was 10 years ago, so there's probably someone better at this than me, but spitballing off the top of my head, the first big hurdle is finding a suitable frame from which to draw your sample. This is a fraught endeavor. Internet polls only attract those who have enough interest in the game to find such polls in the first place. What's more, you're going to get a skewed sample of people invested in the question, to the exclusion of a likely large middle that doesn't care one way or the other. You might try canvasing hobby and game shops, but organized play may again skew the results. Perhaps the best way would be canvas cons to create a huge list of potential respondents. Our sample is biased towards con-goers, to the exclusion of those who don't attend, but the casual player with a small community footprint is the hardest segment to sample. At least with con-goers we're likely to get a wide variety of players. Then you would randomly choose from that list the people you are going to contact. You contact those people and ask them to answer your survey. You want a clear distinction between "yes" and "no", so you offer only those two choices or four graded choices: "Like very much" "Like" "Dislike" "Dislike very much". You're going to get more responses if you include an "Undecided" option, but since we're only concerned with our two options here, it'll just increase the statistical noise, I think.* As Chris Perkins noted in his recent Game Hole Con panel, we're likely to get many fewer responses than our initial random sample, so the bigger the initial sample, the better.

But here's the problem. You're never going to get more than a plurality to vote against the mechanic. The respondents who play 4e are, almost by definition, going to say they are okay with it. There are even going to be respondents who play 3e and TSR-D&D who, while they might not play 4e, have no problem with this particular mechanic. The issue is not that there's so many that love the mechanic, but that there will likely be a large number that don't really care, and can thus accept it. The bigger and more random our sample, the more likely we're going to get a bell curve in the results.

*I'm happy to accept correction on this with someone more versed in survey design. My understanding is that on a multi-item survey "undecided" options increase the general chances of responding, but on a single two-choice survey, the undecided option doesn't really tell us anything.

 

[pemerton]

if this single mechanic that appears one time in the Player's Handbook really drives any person to buy or not buy the game... there's something going on with that person more than just the one mechanic. And at that point, you might as well just cut the line on that player.

<snip>

It's like the Wish spell. If the Wish spell appears in the final game and it's appearance is the sole reason someone won't play 5E... then really, you can't do anything more than just say "sorry to hear that, best of luck in your future endeavors" because there's an issue there with that person that WotC can NEVER clear up. There will always be SOMETHING that will drive a player like that away.

Maybe. If I was WotC I'd be taking this fairly seriously, though. When you're trying to sell a luxury product I'm not sure you can ignore strongly held opinions of even a modest part of your prospective customer base.

That's not to say they drop the mechanic, because that also jeopardises sales. They need to find a way to cut the gordian knot. The most obvious to me - but I'm no design expert - is to come up with a second aggressive option for the great weapon fighter (they can pick defence already, but that's not aggressive and doesn't really reflect your great honking sword), and then find a packaging/presentation solution that makes it clear no one has to play a "damage-on-a-miss" character.

 

[pemerton]

For example, you wrote on the other thread that counterarguments (which I thought to be earnest) were "almost unintelligible" to you

Something can be earnest but unintelligible - in my case, for example, sophisticated arguments in (say) molecular biology would have that character.

I'm not denying sincerity - just saying that I don't follow the arguments, which are generally framed not by reference to any particular playstyle preference, or any particular preferred interpretation of hit points, but in absolute terms that the mechanic "doesn't make sense" or "is at odds with verisimilitude", as if those who like it therefore have no sense, and have no care for verisimilitude.

But in any event, on that other thread you may recall that you made (some of) the arguments intelligible to me by pointing to something that had not occurred to me: namely, that (some of? many of?) those who dislike this mechanic merely tolerate, rather than actually embrace, D&D's hit point mechanic. Which is, in general, a sign of process-sim preferences.

 

[urLordy]

OK @pemerton, appreciate the clarification. As for me, I wasn't "pretending to be neutral." I wasn't even thinking in those terms. That other post about the mechanic martyr, it began with "I think" and ended with "IMO". It's my opinion, I think it's a rational one, and I'm not claiming to be neutral, but I didn't posit it The Consensus Solution.

 

[Mistwell]

How would we go about creating such a truly random push-poll? (not self-selecting and avoiding biases)

I just can't believe there's nothing we can do about this, I want to campaign for a better mechanic to take its place. I was really looking forward to playing a fighter with a big axe, but I can't stomach this for his fighting style, and I was about to start up a campaign but I don't know if I can swallow the prospect of giving a company that believes they are acting as "custodians of D&D" and allowing such controversial new stuff into it which 1/2 of us find unbelievable. I don't want to play a D&D where 1st level fighters can't not do damage to any target they pick, at will. It's just a bridge too far for me.

I just don't understand why you won't simply pick one of the other options for your fighter. There will be others that apply to a fighter with a big axe, like Defense, and Protection, and likely others in the final published book. Right now there are five options, and fully three of them apply to someone wielding a bix axe. If they simply had not included the Great Weapon Fighter option and you'd have to choose between Defense and Protection and never even knew about this ability, would you really be upset?

Why does this mere existence of this in the book, as an option you decide to not use, offend you so much? There are lots and lots of things I do not use in the books. They don't offend me, I just don't use them. If I am playing a wizard and I just don't like a spell - I simply don't select the spell. If this is an option for a fighter you don't like - just don't select that option.

What's the big deal? It bothers you that in other games out there, that you are not playing in, that people are using an option you don't like?

 

[jodyjohnson]

I like it because it's a different and unique mechanic that a particular class/build gets to use.

It's a standard selectable feature for all Fighters, Rangers, and Paladins who use a 2 hander.

 

[urLordy]

Why does this mere existence of this in the book, as an option you decide to not use, offend you so much?

I have a theory (Disclaimer: I can't speak on else's behalf and I can't fully justify this; it's just an opinion; take or leave it on those terms. Also, to clarify, I don't know yet how much damage-on-a-miss "offends" me, or what the stakes are for me personally)

Extreme example for illustration purposes: There is a new section in the rules providing mechanics on using an Assault Rifle.

If you're sim-oriented, the very existence of this rule can be problematic. You're thinking what the rule says about the game world. There are assault rifles in D&D! How is that compelling? It doesn't make sense! Where are the preceding muskets and gunpowder? Are there pistols too: why or why not? If there's an Assault Rifle rule, does that open a Pandora's Box of modern elements in my D&D game? Sure I can ignore this rule, but what if Bob wants to use an Assault Rifle? If I am a DM, how do I reconcile that with my worldbuilding? If I am a player, how do I reconcile that with a shared story of elves and magic? Why should FR become Shadowrun just because of one stupid rule? Basically, the rule has imagined repercussions.

Now take example of a 100% gamist (presumably quite rare, but just for illustration purposes) who isn't imagining what's happening in the game world much. Reads the Assault Rifle rule, decides if the mechanically is tactically interesting or not, but the game setting implications are less consequential. The rule is appreciate or not on its own terms. If it's a bad rule, it doesn't have to be used. It could be problematic if another player uses that mechanic and it'll be suboptimal (the PC doesn't carry their weight in the party), unbalancing, slow or boring, etc.

Not sure how a narrativist would feel about an Assault Rifle rule. I don't understand the playstyle too well. Presumably, it's OK if D&D rules are like a bunch of potential movie elements. You could have a Car Chase scene that you don't use in a Romantic Comedy campaign. If a player chose to take the Car Chase token, then the movie becomes a Rom-Com with a bit of action too, no problem. So add an Assault Rifle rule, and it expands the cinematic potential accordingly if someone chose to use it.

Just my theory. Never hashed this out before in my mind or on screen, so please be gentle.