Last D&D Survey Results In! Plus What's Up With The Ranger?

As you may know, WotC has a monthly survey/feedback system going. I report on it each month. Last month's survey was about product expectations Gen Con, and the results report was much shorter than usual - just a couple of sentences. "In terms of product, setting books and monster books proved the most popular. We were also happy to see that many of you had played in our published campaign worlds or wanted to try them out. We also saw plenty of support for new character options, with a consensus that most players are happy with our current pace of "slow but steady." I personally feel that my - anecdotal - experience with the online community says the opposite about the current pace, but a survey's a survey!

There's a new survey up, covering the recent Ranger playtest. As WotC mentions, the Ranger is the least popular class, and they intend to approach the class in a number of different ways over the coming year. The Ranger is interesting, because it attracts a lot of snotty comments (not as many as the very concept of a Warlord, but that's another thing).

Click here to take the Ranger survey.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

Why would buy less if there was more to choose from? Wouldn't you be buying the same amount but spreading the money over a wider variety of products?

Let's try an illustrative analogy of game content as food:

A fine dining restaurant has a small number of options on the menu. There are a few appetizers to choose from, entrees that are at their base a choice between types of protein (chicken, steak, or fish, for example), and there are a couple of desert options. Each of those menu items has been carefully planned, and focus is given to producing a high standard of quality, which is more easily reached and maintained because the kitchen staff only have these handful of things to concern themselves with.

A restaurant that is decent quality, but definitely not fine dining, might have a menu which has 8-12 options in each menu category, and might even have more menu categories than a fine dining restaurant. Using a local favorite of mine as an example, they have a dozen snacks, 25 appetizers, 10 starter soups & salads, 13 entree salads, an assortment of sandwiches, a variety of burgers, street tacos, pizza, steak, ribs, and sections of the menu dedicated to seafood and vegetarian options. It is functionally impossible for their kitchen staff to be able to deliver each of these menu items at fine dining quality because there are so many different things for them to have to pay attention to. By no means is the food necessarily going to be bad enough to call inedible, but if you want better sushi than they serve you need only go to basically any sushi-focused restaurant, you want better pizza you can find it at a pizzeria, a better burger at a burger joint, and so on.

And, to bring the analogy home: At a fine dining restaurant, I have confidence that I will be able to enjoy anything on the menu that isn't obviously something I don't like (i.e. I know not to order octopus because I have had "good octopus" and found that I don't like it). At a restaurant like the one I describe above, which I again state is one of my favorites in the area, they might have 100 menu items... but their menu reads like this to me: deviled eggs, blackened swordfish tacos, pizza, because those are the only portions of the menu that meet my standards for what I will actually eat.

 

[graves3141]

More products would likely necessitate less time spent polishing each part of each product, which would mean quality of game content slipping to a lower standard... which, as I base my purchases on quality of game content, would mean that more products usually means less products that I actually will buy.

Not a win for me, even if it is a win for someone else.

I don't think anyone wants more products that are of lower quality. However, a lot of material was produced when 2nd and 3rd edition was in print... not all of those products were gems but a lot of it was good too. It was fairly easy to look over what was being put out back then and just buy what appealed to you and what you thought was good. People have different tastes, so why not give them more to choose from.

 

[graves3141]

Let's try an illustrative analogy of game content as food:

A fine dining restaurant has a small number of options on the menu. There are a few appetizers to choose from, entrees that are at their base a choice between types of protein (chicken, steak, or fish, for example), and there are a couple of desert options. Each of those menu items has been carefully planned, and focus is given to producing a high standard of quality, which is more easily reached and maintained because the kitchen staff only have these handful of things to concern themselves with.

A restaurant that is decent quality, but definitely not fine dining, might have a menu which has 8-12 options in each menu category, and might even have more menu categories than a fine dining restaurant. Using a local favorite of mine as an example, they have a dozen snacks, 25 appetizers, 10 starter soups & salads, 13 entree salads, an assortment of sandwiches, a variety of burgers, street tacos, pizza, steak, ribs, and sections of the menu dedicated to seafood and vegetarian options. It is functionally impossible for their kitchen staff to be able to deliver each of these menu items at fine dining quality because there are so many different things for them to have to pay attention to. By no means is the food necessarily going to be bad enough to call inedible, but if you want better sushi than they serve you need only go to basically any sushi-focused restaurant, you want better pizza you can find it at a pizzeria, a better burger at a burger joint, and so on.

And, to bring the analogy home: At a fine dining restaurant, I have confidence that I will be able to enjoy anything on the menu that isn't obviously something I don't like (i.e. I know not to order octopus because I have had "good octopus" and found that I don't like it). At a restaurant like the one I describe above, which I again state is one of my favorites in the area, they might have 100 menu items... but their menu reads like this to me: deviled eggs, blackened swordfish tacos, pizza, because those are the only portions of the menu that meet my standards for what I will actually eat.

Are you a chef No, I do see what you are saying. I just think it wouldn't be too hard for WotC to produce a few more things every year without necessarily lowering the overall quality of their products. That's just my opinion and I understand that your opinion is different and I respect it.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

Are you a chef No, I do see what you are saying. I just think it wouldn't be too hard for WotC to produce a few more things every year without necessarily lowering the overall quality of their products. That's just my opinion and I understand that your opinion is different and I respect it.

I am a cook, but since I don't make a profession of it I would not call myself a chef.

As for how hard it would be for WotC to produce a few more high-quality products each year, I'd say we don't have enough information to be sure since we do not know how much time (man hours) have actually been needed to reach the level of quality currently being produced - if WotC's D&D crew hasn't been having 'free time' of equal or greater proportion to the time spent on each product so far, then any time spent on another product would have to be taken away from the product it was originally intended for, and having less time for each thing is usually going to reduce the quality achieved.

 

[epithet]

I don't get the beastmaster sub-class, it seems unnecessary and awkward to me. All characters can have retainers or henchmen, the DMG has rules for that. Rangers can talk to beasts if they want to. Let the Ranger (or druid, for that matter) have a beast as a henchman. The paladin has a squire, the wizard has an apprentice, the cleric has an acolyte, the ranger has a puma. Why does it have to be complicated? Just like any other follower, the beast needs to be fed and cared for. Accommodations need to be made for the beast to travel with the ranger in civilized areas. The beast will have wants and needs, and will leave the ranger if it is mistreated. Use the optional Loyalty rule in the DMG.

With regard to the product release schedule, I think some folks need to be more open minded about the third-party offerings out there. Necromancer, the Sasquatches, and many others have been putting out products designed to work with D&D5e, and a lot of it is first-rate stuff. Considering how bloated 3.5 became, I think a measured, careful, and patient release schedule for official branded content is a feature, not a bug.

 

[Parmandur]

I don't think anyone wants more products that are of lower quality. However, a lot of material was produced when 2nd and 3rd edition was in print... not all of those products were gems but a lot of it was good too. It was fairly easy to look over what was being put out back then and just buy what appealed to you and what you thought was good. People have different tastes, so why not give them more to choose from.

2E put TSR our of business, and 3E went bust. They are trying to find a model that works for fans, and works for business: they apparently have found what works for the majority of fans, and they seem to be doing OK business wise.

 

[Parmandur]

Well, I don't suffer from analysis paralysis or buyer anxiety or whatever you want to call it. I'm sorry that you do.

It's not anxiety, but when there are two options, I might buy both; when there twenty, I'll probably buy none. Thus is a known phenomenon that exists in the population at large.

Wizards wants to minimize their spend, and maximize our buy in. They are very near the sweet spot now.

 

[graves3141]

It's not anxiety, but when there are two options, I might buy both; when there twenty, I'll probably buy none. Thus is a known phenomenon that exists in the population at large.

If too many options resulted in people not buying anything then most people would have a ton of savings instead of always being in debt. Most people spend money like water on tons of crap they don't need... just look at yard sales if you need proof of that. Capitalism ensures that people have tons of options all the time and I don't see the average person suffering from analysis paralysis because of it.

 

[graves3141]

2E put TSR our of business, and 3E went bust. They are trying to find a model that works for fans, and works for business: they apparently have found what works for the majority of fans, and they seem to be doing OK business wise.

I suspect the average fan wants more.

 

[graves3141]

I am a cook, but since I don't make a profession of it I would not call myself a chef.

As for how hard it would be for WotC to produce a few more high-quality products each year, I'd say we don't have enough information to be sure since we do not know how much time (man hours) have actually been needed to reach the level of quality currently being produced - if WotC's D&D crew hasn't been having 'free time' of equal or greater proportion to the time spent on each product so far, then any time spent on another product would have to be taken away from the product it was originally intended for, and having less time for each thing is usually going to reduce the quality achieved.

You're right, we don't know for sure. It's all just speculation on our part. However, I doubt that an extra couple of 32 page adventures each year would strain the staff too much.