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<blockquote data-quote="Crazy Jerome" data-source="post: 5432711" data-attributes="member: 54877">Since you've had many good answers by now, I'll just go ahead and assert that those are the wrong questions. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink&nbsp; &nbsp; ;)"&nbsp; data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />&nbsp;By that, I mean essentially that there are limits to market research vis-a-vis good game design, and those questions run right into them.&nbsp; Market research may be able to answer questions like, &quot;Which races do people want to play?&quot; but it can't really answer questions like, &quot;Is Vancian magic fun?&quot;&nbsp; The reason is that careful construction of the first can filter out issues of mechanics, and get to the flavor and fun inherent in playing elves or not playing gnomes or whatever.&nbsp; The second one is too wide-open.&nbsp; All you can really do with a question like that is build a particular magic system that is a flavor that could be called Vancian, and then playtest it.&nbsp; If it looks promising, broaden the test.&nbsp;So I say the answer to, &quot;having a lot of people play something called D&amp;D,&quot; whatever the percentages involved or other concerns, is:&nbsp; Have a fairly small group of talented and interested designers do the best they can.&nbsp; Call the product D&amp;D.&nbsp; Try to insulate them from direct market research and other outside concerns.*&nbsp; Have a second, internal group doing the fluff by making homebrews and playing the game, and then giving feedback to the first group.&nbsp; And see what happens.&nbsp; If the game is good enough, a lot of people will play it.**&nbsp;* Specifically, they need to know some of the useful data gleaned from the research, such that the percentage of players that like humans for flavor reasons, but nothing that will actually affect the game design itself.&nbsp;** You'll note that people will play it, not that it will necessarily make a lot of money.&nbsp; This is a problem for a corporation trying to solve this issue.&nbsp; I still also assert (earlier topic) that the best possibly designed version of D&amp;D would not make very much money, because the amount of material to support it would be rather small.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Crazy Jerome, post: 5432711, member: 54877"] Since you've had many good answers by now, I'll just go ahead and assert that those are the wrong questions. ;) By that, I mean essentially that there are limits to market research vis-a-vis [B]good[/B] game design, and those questions run right into them. Market research may be able to answer questions like, "Which races do people want to play?" but it can't really answer questions like, "Is Vancian magic fun?" The reason is that careful construction of the first can filter out issues of mechanics, and get to the flavor and fun inherent in playing elves or not playing gnomes or whatever. The second one is too wide-open. All you can really do with a question like that is build a particular magic system that is a flavor that could be called Vancian, and then playtest it. If it looks promising, broaden the test. So I say the answer to, "having a lot of people play something called D&D," whatever the percentages involved or other concerns, is: Have a fairly small group of talented and interested designers do the best they can. Call the product D&D. Try to insulate them from direct market research and other outside concerns.* Have a second, internal group doing the fluff by making homebrews and playing the game, and then giving feedback to the first group. And see what happens. If the game is good enough, a lot of people will play it.** * Specifically, they need to know some of the useful data gleaned from the research, such that the percentage of players that like humans for flavor reasons, but nothing that will actually affect the game design itself. ** You'll note that people will play it, not that it will necessarily make a lot of money. This is a problem for a corporation trying to solve this issue. I still also assert (earlier topic) that the best possibly designed version of D&D would not make very much money, because the amount of material to support it would be rather small. [/QUOTE]

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