New D&D Survey: What Do you Want From Older Editions?

WotC has just posted this month's D&D feedback survey. This survey asks about content from older editions of D&D, including settings, classes and races. The results will help determine what appears in future Unearthed Arcana columns.

The new survey is here. The results for the last survey have not yet been compiled. However, WotC is reporting that the Waterborne Adventures article scored well, and that feedback on Dragon+ has been "quite positive".

"We also asked about the new options presented in the Waterborne Adventures installment of Unearthed Arcana. Overall, that material scored very well—on a par with material from the Player’s Handbook. Areas where players experienced trouble were confined to specific mechanics. The minotaur race’s horns created a bit of confusion, for example, and its ability score bonuses caused some unhappiness. On a positive note, people really liked the sample bonds and how they helped bring out the minotaur’s unique culture.

The mariner, the swashbuckler, and the storm sorcerer also scored very well. A few of the specific mechanics for those options needed some attention, but overall, players and DMs liked using them.

Finally, we asked a few questions about the Dragon+ app. We really appreciate the feedback as we tailor the app’s content and chart the course for future issues. The overall feedback has been quite positive, and we’re looking at making sure we continue to build on our initial success."

 

[Obryn]

That's a pretty unhelpful re-framing of the issue.

If WotC came out with a "collectible" D&D variant wherein extra feats and spells were only available to those who had paid WotC for randomized "booster packs", would the inability of DMs to restrain their fury really be the only problem? Externalities and system effects can't matter?

The fact that externalities can matter doesn't mean they do matter, and it's possible that 5E/CCG would be easily ignored and not a real problem for most DMs. Same thing holds for warlords: maybe it wouldn't actually be a problem. But you haven't proved that or even argued that, you've just dismissed and belittled it. Since you won't persuade anyone who doesn't already agree with you using that tone, it's really just another way of wasting your breath.

Those fortune cards they came out with for 4e came and went like a fart in a monsoon. Nearly every table, including mine, shook our heads and ignored them. I hear some tables liked them though, so more power to them, and no skin off my nose. So if that counts as a test case or evidence... There you have it.

In a more direct sense, if people don't like and don't use a supplement or an Unearthed Arcana or whatever, it's cool. If they go off in a rage and quit because an optional thing they don't like exists? Frankly, screw those people. There's such a thing as a toxic fanbase, and catering to them is crazy.

 

[I'm A Banana]

If you haven't seen people complain then you haven't looked. At launch there was a LOT of people derisively referring to them as 'healing surges redux".

That's not a complaint in my mind, it's just accurate. There's no real indication this is anything more than aesthetics - even "grittier" healing still uses HD, and plenty of folks who don't like 'em dropped 'em.

What I'm referring to, though, is the hypothetical ability of this proposed 5e healer to use HD to heal - I haven't heard much complaining about that. And, again, I'm a pretty dang meat-heavy person. No short rest in my games will ever be 5 minutes. I think it'd probably be fine.

The surveys are the market research. That's it. I don't recall seeing any checkbox of pro/con martial healing.
Secondary feedback would be forums and playtesters, and I doubt very much the opinions here are representative of the general audience. A lot of the warlord stuff here is an evolution of the edition wars. A war by proxy. The average player likely doesn't have an opinion.

I don't imagine for a second that the surveys on their website are the only market research they're doing. That'd just be shooting themselves in the foot - I've every confidence that they're aware that their surveys are getting the most well-informed fans' opinions and that if they want a true representation of the diversity of D&D's wheelhouse they'll need to do more than online polls.

Except it won't be that optional. Again, the resources required mean they're giving up four or five subclasses in pages and twice that number in okay testing time. Anything that takes that much effort means they want people to actually use it, not turf it because of a flavour problem.

It's a lot if work to satisfy a minority of people, piss off another minority, and generate something the majority of prayers won't look twice at.

My point is that how minor this minority is is something WotC would have an idea of and that none of us would. I certainly never made any claims of popularity, merely of reasonableness - I think can see the logic of the "warlord malcontents" and I think their complaints are reasonable and able to be addressed mechanically.

Is that any different than saying something isn't a good enough warlord because it can't restore hitpoints?

Yep, it is. I'm not telling people what they need to accept at their tables, I'm just telling people that - shocker - there's going to be ways of playing this game that they're not into that are still part of this game.

And it's not just about the fun police, it's about table stability. These arguments we're having here? The one that's derailed two threads this week and derails every thread that begins on the warlord, or hitpoints as meat, or the like. These could happen real time at a game table. These DO happen. That is anti-fun, Mechanics that cause fights and disagreements should be minimized. That includes stuff like wound points, damage on a miss, complicated grappling, and yes, martial healing. There will always be table fights, but WotC doesn't need to arm both sides.

If you don't like an option, you don't use it. If you want an option, you use it. Either way, there's not a fight about it. Even at an individual table - the DM determines what's going on ultimately, and either that's cool, or it's not. There isn't One True Way, here. That was absurd when 4e tried it, and it'd be even MORE absurd for Big-Tent-5e to try it.

There's lots of 3rd party and homebrew warlords. I'm sure if you looked you could find an awesome one. That might also be a good topic for an En5ider article. But WotC should probably draw the line at the battle master.

I am not convinced that it should. In fact, if the reason it would draw that line is to appease people who want to exclude a certain playstyle from the game, I think it should erase that line completely and sing the praises of morale-based narrative HP from the rooftops, as much as I'm not a fan of it, because we should always push back against this purity test for "real D&D" that pretends that WotC's approval is like a gold star of approval for hating on someone else's playstyle.

That's some toxic purity test weapons-grade bolognium.

 

[GobiWon]

The problem with bloat is that you put the DM in a hard position. I've heard plenty of people say if don't want something at your table, just say no. The problem with five hundred supplements becomes the DM saying no to 60 to 70 percent of the official printed material. You end up looking like a killjoy when an excited player comes to you with a psionic infused pixie vampire. You want to create a story around classical fantasy tropes ... your players want to play with these new "toys" thrown at them by the game developers. In the long run bloat hurts the game. It ends up breaking the game because there always ends up being unintended combos. The more moving parts you add, the more likely something is going to break. When additions to the game are added in setting expansions, though, it becomes easier for a DM to say no to something. I find it easier to disallow the current minotaur, because the minotaur presented was one for Dragonlance. Since my campaign is not set in Dragonlance, no becomes a legitimate answer that my players readily accept. On the same token if I like the minotaur presented it becomes something that I can easily adapt and allow. This segregation of new rules makes for a better and more vibrant game.

 

[Lanefan]

Nope, I'm completely serious. At my table, HP represent the extra binding energy of lifeforce, over and above the mechanical durability inherent in your flesh and bone. A 20th level fighter with 200 HP is literally more durable than the corpse of a 20th level fighter. He has a higher tensile strength, higher shearing strength, is harder to rip/tear/cut, etc. A 168-joule bullet that would penetrate 6 inches into the corpse's chest might only penetrate half an inch into the fighter's chest, but in the process it would ablate some of that energy until eventually he becomes a corpse.

This "life force" is the same stuff that prevents enemy wizards from burning all your clothes off with fireballs, and also makes objects immune to certain spells as long as they are being worn by a creature.

Therefore, poison affects you normally ("the ghoul's claw penetrated your flesh, so the poison is in your blood stream").

I have to say, this is one of the better - maybe the best - in-game explanation for h.p. that grow with level that I've ever seen. And - bonus! - it still allows poison to work. And - further bonus! - ...

In short, HP is HP, and temp HP is also HP but it's temporary and non-additive. Nothing complicated, it's just what it says on the tin.

...it allows temporary h.p. to work just fine as well. Brilliant stuff! I might just have to swipe this.

The only hole I can see in it is explaining h.p. for lesser undead e.g. zombies and skeletons that have no life force at all. For constructs, robots, golems etc. the h.p. are of course explained by the hardness of the material they're made of.

As for the warlord-y stuff, in my view an inspiring-word-like ability that gives temporary h.p. before combat is FAR better (and better suits the genre trope as well; look how many movies have the inspiring-speech-before-battle scene in 'em) than having it affect those already too badly hurt to stay awake.

Lan-"Get up and fight, you lazy swine! Pain is for wusses, and who needs two legs anyway?!"-efan

 

[angrylinuxgeek]

"Table stability" is a personal problem WotC should not be concerned with. They should present options in setting material or Unearthed Arcana for DM's and players to include in their games. There's no real reason to claim what goes on at someone else's table ruins what goes on at your own. It's almost like a real life issue just decided by the supreme court.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I have to say, this is one of the better - maybe the best - in-game explanation for h.p. that grow with level that I've ever seen. And - bonus! - it still allows poison to work. And - further bonus! - ...

Really? You haven't heard the "Marvel Asgardian" theory of hps before? The arrow that transfixes the 1st level fighter bounces off the 10th level one? No?

 

[Lanefan]

Really? You haven't heard the "Marvel Asgardian" theory of hps before? The arrow that transfixes the 1st level fighter bounces off the 10th level one? No?

I have, but never with the life-energy tie-in; and it's that which makes it so elegant.

Lanefan

 

[Tony Vargas]

I have, but never with the life-energy tie-in; and it's that which makes it so elegant.

OK, so a little less Asgardian, a little more Highlander?

Weird. I'd've thought you'd object to something that made every living thing innately magical, that way. Blows the doors off any nod to realism or verisimilitude, I mean. Every high level character is just this life-energy battery. Makes sense to the 4e Artificers, I guess (just let me get out my adapter and we'll put some of your life energy in this capacitor - I mean, infusion....)

 

[Corpsetaker]

The problem with bloat is that you put the DM in a hard position. I've heard plenty of people say if don't want something at your table, just say no. The problem with five hundred supplements becomes the DM saying no to 60 to 70 percent of the official printed material. You end up looking like a killjoy when an excited player comes to you with a psionic infused pixie vampire. You want to create a story around classical fantasy tropes ... your players want to play with these new "toys" thrown at them by the game developers. In the long run bloat hurts the game. It ends up breaking the game because there always ends up being unintended combos. The more moving parts you add, the more likely something is going to break. When additions to the game are added in setting expansions, though, it becomes easier for a DM to say no to something. I find it easier to disallow the current minotaur, because the minotaur presented was one for Dragonlance. Since my campaign is not set in Dragonlance, no becomes a legitimate answer that my players readily accept. On the same token if I like the minotaur presented it becomes something that I can easily adapt and allow. This segregation of new rules makes for a better and more vibrant game.

I would like to take a stab at this.

Let's break things down a bit into a more realistic process.

1: Why are you creating a character before you know the type of game and why are you assuming it will be allowed?

2: Most DM's will let you know in advance what kind of game it will be and what is allowed. If they don't then it's assumed the DM has no problem with the options from supplements.

I personally don't believe the ability to not be able to say no is not an overall problem. Does it happen? Sure it does, but I don't think it happens to the point where the structure of the release schedule needs to be changed. If I am running a game that is only dwarves then why would you bring in a non dwarf? If someone wants to do something that is obviously outrageous during the game and can lead to a problem, are you going to allow it or are you going to say no?

Being a DM comes with a responsibility and part of that is to structure your game and make sure you clearly explain the rules of your game whenever you present it to your players?

 

[pemerton]

If WotC has worked out that the optimal point on their profit curve can be reached by excluding inspirational healing beyond what's already in the game (HD and second wind, plus the fig leaf of "healers' kits"), then of course that's their prerogative. They can only work with the fan base that they have, and perhaps it really is true that introducing the warlord will cost them more sales and players then it would gain them.

But in discussions among the fans, it seems to me that the situation is a bit different. For WotC, the preferences of the fan base are more-or-less fixed. But when Fan A is telling Fan B that A will quite the game if the option that B wants is introduced, is A entitled to take his/her preferences as a fixed point? Or is it reasonable for B to expect A to be a little more flexible in ignoring published options that don't appeal to him/her?