Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Is D&D Survey Feedback Read? [UPDATED!]
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Juomari Veren" data-source="post: 8905593" data-attributes="member: 87428"><p>It's been pretty common knowledge that UA surveys are an imperfect system, Mike Mearls (back before he got rightly stuffed in a drawer in a cubicle somewhere in the offices never to see the light of day again) once said in a tweet that while Surveys are invaluable for gathering data, the way the data is formatted when it arrives to them makes it impossible to truly read every single word of a response, be it a few characters or really pushing the limits of the 2/500 word limit that they normally impose. I'm sure it's a very sensationalist take that these surveys aren't being read; As someone who routinely maximizes the comments they make on UA surveys every time knowing for a fact that they are never read in full, and having never seen an opinion I've had matched up with what the community at large has been saying (apparently I was the only person who wasn't picking up the majority of what the Dragonlance UA was putting down), I know that it's probably an ineffectual way to be seen, heard, and known, but that's sort of the reality of creating a game that thrives on this kind of feedback and has an active playerbase that's probably more than 7 digits long at this point (er, was, before the OGL business broke out). Do I wish they had one where my feedback was read in full and iterated upon? Not really, that seems like a burden to try and get the game that's already pretty perfect in its design and appeal to me to be even more bespoke than it already is.</p><p></p><p>But I've never once questioned whether or not it was worth it to do a survey because I know that 1) the amount of players that actually do surveys must be abyssmally low compared to those that use the UA or just play the game, this has to do a lot with player enfranchisement (something WoTC apparently has super strong numbers on, as Mark Rosewater regularly comments on data gathered from MTG players that really highlights the echo chamber-esque nature of online communities not unlike our own vs. what the average consumer thinks about the game). It makes reasonable sense that someday, my feedback will actually be vital, and that I'm happy to spend 15 minutes of time that I would otherwise use doomscrolling social media to give my two cents on my favorite all-consuming hobby, and 2) It's more important that I know how I feel than how my feelings are interpreted by the company on any given subject, and these surveys let me sit down and better analyze what every little piece of content means to me. I fill those surveys out so I know what I want out of a product, and when it doesn't have it, I know what I want to do with that product (Spoiler: If I ever run Shadow of the Dragon Queen, my campaign is gonna be a <em>lot</em> more boring, like deathly so). It's pretty evil of them to hang the fate of any meaningful OGL change that isn't familiar to what we've already had (or been offered in the case of this most recent post, where they seemingly say "actually not a thing we wanted before is going to be in the final version", which also kind of raises the question as to why they felt they need to do a UA-style Survey on it if they're just taking the OGL 1.0 and adding a "do not make NFTs or we will find where you live and sh** down your throat" clause to it), but I've mostly sat the experience of declining in interest to play/run D&D over the last two weeks because I 100% expected this to be their solution from day one, and I knew that until I had something that I could actually think over, straight from the source and complete with survey for me to hmm and haw over what I really think and feel, any opinion myself or others is going to form isn't going to be what I really feel until I'm more or less forced to make a choice on where I stand on a lot of these things.</p><p></p><p>Does that mean I want the utter downfall of all things 3rd party? No, of course not, and OGL 1.1/2.0 were blatantly evil and had no hope of being received warmly unless they invented a new language with completely alien grammatical structure and drafted the entire document in it (which I'm frankly surprised they didn't do). But we're in the third act of a song and dance that anyone who's ever been familiar with corporate meddling has seen before and could've called from a mile away. And while it's never fun to get to this point, it's the one I've been waiting for, if only so I can firmly say I should start dusting off that d20-based system I was working on...</p><p></p><p>But I think this hullaballoo with someone somewhere supposedly knowing the score about how UA is handled is ridiculous, anyone could've guessed "maybe they don't read every comment ever????????" and been right without having to twist the narrative, and I hope that this person's laurels that we've seemingly been resting on for a while rot underneath their temples for thinking that attacking the employeees (who, mind you, are not the shareholders or execs, nor have they seemingly been able to speak on the subject at all and I'd hope that was apparent from almost a week of radio silence from most of their Twitters) is at all a fair shake in a game where people's livelihoods (theirs and ours alike) are at stake.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Juomari Veren, post: 8905593, member: 87428"] It's been pretty common knowledge that UA surveys are an imperfect system, Mike Mearls (back before he got rightly stuffed in a drawer in a cubicle somewhere in the offices never to see the light of day again) once said in a tweet that while Surveys are invaluable for gathering data, the way the data is formatted when it arrives to them makes it impossible to truly read every single word of a response, be it a few characters or really pushing the limits of the 2/500 word limit that they normally impose. I'm sure it's a very sensationalist take that these surveys aren't being read; As someone who routinely maximizes the comments they make on UA surveys every time knowing for a fact that they are never read in full, and having never seen an opinion I've had matched up with what the community at large has been saying (apparently I was the only person who wasn't picking up the majority of what the Dragonlance UA was putting down), I know that it's probably an ineffectual way to be seen, heard, and known, but that's sort of the reality of creating a game that thrives on this kind of feedback and has an active playerbase that's probably more than 7 digits long at this point (er, was, before the OGL business broke out). Do I wish they had one where my feedback was read in full and iterated upon? Not really, that seems like a burden to try and get the game that's already pretty perfect in its design and appeal to me to be even more bespoke than it already is. But I've never once questioned whether or not it was worth it to do a survey because I know that 1) the amount of players that actually do surveys must be abyssmally low compared to those that use the UA or just play the game, this has to do a lot with player enfranchisement (something WoTC apparently has super strong numbers on, as Mark Rosewater regularly comments on data gathered from MTG players that really highlights the echo chamber-esque nature of online communities not unlike our own vs. what the average consumer thinks about the game). It makes reasonable sense that someday, my feedback will actually be vital, and that I'm happy to spend 15 minutes of time that I would otherwise use doomscrolling social media to give my two cents on my favorite all-consuming hobby, and 2) It's more important that I know how I feel than how my feelings are interpreted by the company on any given subject, and these surveys let me sit down and better analyze what every little piece of content means to me. I fill those surveys out so I know what I want out of a product, and when it doesn't have it, I know what I want to do with that product (Spoiler: If I ever run Shadow of the Dragon Queen, my campaign is gonna be a [I]lot[/I] more boring, like deathly so). It's pretty evil of them to hang the fate of any meaningful OGL change that isn't familiar to what we've already had (or been offered in the case of this most recent post, where they seemingly say "actually not a thing we wanted before is going to be in the final version", which also kind of raises the question as to why they felt they need to do a UA-style Survey on it if they're just taking the OGL 1.0 and adding a "do not make NFTs or we will find where you live and sh** down your throat" clause to it), but I've mostly sat the experience of declining in interest to play/run D&D over the last two weeks because I 100% expected this to be their solution from day one, and I knew that until I had something that I could actually think over, straight from the source and complete with survey for me to hmm and haw over what I really think and feel, any opinion myself or others is going to form isn't going to be what I really feel until I'm more or less forced to make a choice on where I stand on a lot of these things. Does that mean I want the utter downfall of all things 3rd party? No, of course not, and OGL 1.1/2.0 were blatantly evil and had no hope of being received warmly unless they invented a new language with completely alien grammatical structure and drafted the entire document in it (which I'm frankly surprised they didn't do). But we're in the third act of a song and dance that anyone who's ever been familiar with corporate meddling has seen before and could've called from a mile away. And while it's never fun to get to this point, it's the one I've been waiting for, if only so I can firmly say I should start dusting off that d20-based system I was working on... But I think this hullaballoo with someone somewhere supposedly knowing the score about how UA is handled is ridiculous, anyone could've guessed "maybe they don't read every comment ever????????" and been right without having to twist the narrative, and I hope that this person's laurels that we've seemingly been resting on for a while rot underneath their temples for thinking that attacking the employeees (who, mind you, are not the shareholders or execs, nor have they seemingly been able to speak on the subject at all and I'd hope that was apparent from almost a week of radio silence from most of their Twitters) is at all a fair shake in a game where people's livelihoods (theirs and ours alike) are at stake. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Is D&D Survey Feedback Read? [UPDATED!]
Top