D&D 5E In your Years of Gaming, How many Psionic Characters did you See played

[Paul Farquhar]

That's not how the poll works. You can only vote for the three you are most interested in out of the dozen plus choices. Getting anything over 20% or so is pretty darn popular in that sort of poll.

More specifically, the poll has 23 options, and three votes, so any score over 13% is above average popularity.

 

[Hussar]

Again, I believe you are interpreting the data incorrectly, but I've already made my point above.

Well, that is the joy of interpretation. It's not like either of us can actually prove anything.

Time will tell.

 

[Hussar]

More specifically, the poll has 23 options, and three votes, so any score over 13% is above average popularity.

Again, "above average" is damning with faint praise. So what if it's "above average"? WotC isn't interested in something that's "above average". That's what DM's guild is for.

Now, if something on that list hit the 50% mark or better? Sure, I'm all in. That's a clear winner and WotC should definitely be looking in that direction. But something that manages to interest 1/3 of respondents? Meh, that's background noise.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Again, "above average" is damning with faint praise. So what if it's "above average"? WotC isn't interested in something that's "above average". That's what DM's guild is for.

Now, if something on that list hit the 50% mark or better? Sure, I'm all in. That's a clear winner and WotC should definitely be looking in that direction. But something that manages to interest 1/3 of respondents? Meh, that's background noise.

You really don't understand maths, do you? (Or do you deliberately play dumb so you can misinterpret data to your advantage?)

Average is 50% in a "do you prefer A or B" type poll. In a "choose your top three out 23 poll", 13% is equivalent to 50%. 32.5% is a very very long way above "average/50%".

 

[Olrox17]

Well, that is the joy of interpretation. It's not like either of us can actually prove anything.

Time will tell.

I made a poll, specifically asking who would buy a Dark Sun book, if WotC published one: Would you buy a Dark Sun setting book for 5e?
The current results might surprise you.
People who would probably or certainly buy are at 75%, people who wouldn't buy or are unlikely to buy are at 21,2%, and then there's a 3,8% that doesn't buy setting books, regardless of the setting.

It appears that Dark Sun might pass WotC's benchmark, at least on this board.

 

[Lem23]

Back on topic, from more than 35 years of gaming, I think I've seen maybe one psionic character (D&D anyway - more in Traveller, Rolemaster mentalists, etc). Never played one.

 

[Aldarc]

Again, "above average" is damning with faint praise. So what if it's "above average"? WotC isn't interested in something that's "above average". That's what DM's guild is for.

"Above average" is probably got what half the PHB classes in the core book. I vaguely recall that when WotC was testing D&D Next that the psion and artificer actually ranked higher in popularity than some of the classes that made the core rulebook.

 

[TwoSix]

But, again, comparatively poorly isn't really a measure is it? When the BEST performer is somewhere in the 1/3 range, it's not like there's a huge demand for it.

Look, again, I'm not trying to piddle in anyone's corn flakes here. I'm really not. But, if the best you can say about a setting is that 1/3 of people are interested in it, well... that's kind of damning with faint praise.

Or, to put it another way, if you know that a product is only interesting to 1/3 of your fanbase, are you going to invest several hundreds of thousands of dollars in it? Remember, WotC isn't interested in anything that's not going to move 100 000 units.

Nah, man, gotta say you're wrong here. I didn't vote for Dark Sun in that poll because it doesn't crack my top 3, but I would still absolutely buy a Dark Sun book if it came out.

You gotta remember that poll was specifically "Vote for 3 ONLY" out of 23 options. If I could have voted for as many as I wanted, I would have voted for over a dozen. I can afford to buy more than 3 out of 23 books.

I mean, I have 4 kids; if you made me vote for my 3 favorite it doesn't mean I want the 4th to pack their bags. Not most days, anyway.

 

[Hussar]

You really don't understand maths, do you? (Or do you deliberately play dumb so you can misinterpret data to your advantage?)

Average is 50% in a "do you prefer A or B" type poll. In a "choose your top three out 23 poll", 13% is equivalent to 50%. 32.5% is a very very long way above "average/50%".

Wow. Talk about not understanding how math works.

When you have a poll with multiple choices like this, and none of the choices particularly stand out from any of the other choices, that means that none of the choices are particularly appealing. Sure, Dark Sun and Planescape might be more appealing than, say, Dragonlance, but, again, that's just a RELATIVE standing. I mean, according to that poll, Planescape should come out before Dark Sun, right?

And, as far as a poll with such a leading question as, "Would you buy this book yes/no", you're going to take me to task for not understanding math and let THAT slide?

Hey, sure, I could be totally wrong. I know that. That's my point. I don't really know. I started this thread because there are a few people who make it sound like the fandom is frothing and the mouth for psionic classes and that WotC is totally leaving money on the table by not immediately feeding this need. OTOH, in this thread, we see that most people wouldn't care at all if Psionics ever came to light and only a pretty small slice of the fandom has ever used the rules, regardless of edition.

Same goes for a lot of these settings and whatnot. It's all confirmation bias where folks that want a particular ruleset REALLY want it and just can't fathom that what they want isn't actually all that popular.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Wow. Talk about not understanding how math works.

I teach maths, my Astrophysics degree included maths as a key part. I understand how maths works.

When you have a poll with multiple choices like this, and none of the choices particularly stand out from any of the other choices, that means that none of the choices are particularly appealing.

No. Wrong. VERY WRONG. That would be true if the poll was "choose as many as you want". BUT IT IS NOT. It is "choose maximum of 3". That means that if everyone selected at random - i.e. "nothing particularly stands out" - everything would be on 13% (=3/23x100). Anything with more than 13% stands out - it's popular. Anything with less than 13% stands out - it's unpopular.