What should WOTC do about Golden Wyvern Adept? (Keep Friendly)

[Ahglock]

Here is a list of real world secret societies (note can you spot the fake society?)

Skull and Bones
Freemasons
Rosicrusions
Ordo Templis Orientis
Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn
The Knights Templar
The Illuminati
The Bilerberg Group
The Priory of Sion
Opus Dei

How much differance is there in a name like Golden Wyvern from say Golden Dawn???

Note: Most of these societies have little to do with their titles. For example, Skull and Bones is not a group of pirates and Freemasons generally do not work with stone. The Bilderberg Group is only known by the name of the hotel where this group first met and may not be the real name of the group.

Do you have any idea from the names if you even want to look closer to see if its an organization you would be interested in joining?

If not then its not a particularly useful name for a rule book. If I can't glance at the name and at least guess that it might be a good feat to look at for my character concept the name has failed its primary purpose in a games rule book, ease of use.

 

[Smerg]

Do you have any idea from the names if you even want to look closer to see if its an organization you would be interested in joining?

If not then its not a particularly useful name for a rule book. If I can't glance at the name and at least guess that it might be a good feat to look at for my character concept the name has failed its primary purpose in a games rule book, ease of use.

Could I tell from the words Red Mages or Mages of Thay that I would want to put tattoos on my butt?

Yet, if either of those terms replaced the Golden Wyverns would you be having this same concern?

The arguement on the usage of the name relating to the actual rule mechanics has not been in vogue in the gaming industry for almost two decades when games like Vampire started to appear and give names to Disciplines and Geas that often had little direct linkage to the ability.

Proof, I pulled my 1996 copy of Vampire Dark Ages off the self (could not be bothered going into the boxes to dig out copies of vampire and werewolf). Here are the names of groups Assamite, Brujah, and Cappadocians which are now pretty much house hold words in the gaming community but back then were as alien as Golden Wyvern or Red Mages of Thay. Here are some other names taken from the book 'Howling Lunacy', 'Fear of the Void Below', 'Ride the Wild Mind', and 'Reveler's Memory'.

I could get similar phrases from Arcana Unearthed, 2003, 'Mojh', 'Runechildren', and 'Iron Witch'.

All of these have the words, groups, and abilities as part of the material and it has not affected the customer interest. Oppositely, it increased the customer interest to have these lexicons of words and phrases.

WotC is actually behind the trend of the industry when it comes to incorporating names for things in their books.

 

[Tquirky]

WotC is actually behind the trend of the industry when it comes to incorporating names for things in their books.

Irrelevant, because Vampire and the rest use WOD.

In D&D, a key draw is worldbuilding. It's core should reflect that, not compromise it.

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

WotC is actually behind the trend of the industry when it comes to incorporating names for things in their books.

Have you EVER tried to homebrew from the WW systems? It just doesn't work once you go beyond a painting over the facade level. more than half of all campaigns are played in hombrews. WoTC's own marketing research showed that. And given the near impossibility of homebrewing WW material (at least the Storyteller based systems) that is the last direction WoTC should go it wants the new edition to succeed.

 

[BryonD]

Could I tell from the words Red Mages or Mages of Thay that I would want to put tattoos on my butt?

Yet, if either of those terms replaced the Golden Wyverns would you be having this same concern?

If the feat was called Red Mage Adept or Mage of Thay Adept I would have the exact same concern because the exact same problem would exist.

 

[RPG_Tweaker]

Here is a list of real world secret societies (note can you spot the fake society?)

Skull and Bones
Freemasons
Rosicrusions
Ordo Templis Orientis
Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn
The Knights Templar
The Illuminati
The Bilerberg Group
The Priory of Sion
Opus Dei

How much differance is there in a name like Golden Wyvern from say Golden Dawn???

So? None of these organizations exist in most campaigns either... they are just as much an ill-choice to name a feat after.

Golden Wyvern is a great bit of chrome to offer in a sidebar in the PHB or in a campaign building section of the DMG, but not as hard-wired into a feat that should be generically evocative of what it actually does.

 

[BryonD]

1. The majority may already be happy with the proposed fluff+crunch balance. We have no way of knowing, and no poll on this site will ever tell you that.

2. Perhaps there is no solution that "works for us all". You need to be willing to consider the possibility that the "best" solution overall will leave you unhappy. The solution that makes the most people happy may not be one that pleases you. You cannot make everyone happy about everything.

3. I agree that some have been bashing the anti-GWA people. But several have offered constructive criticism. I worry that you are treating anyone who disagrees with your position as if they are not respecting what you have to say, and thus dismiss what they have to say. I can respect your opinion and still completely disagree with it.

Can you explain why "Shape Spell" Immediately followed by "Golden Wyvern Adept" as the default in game name would not please the pro-GWA side. There are times when win-win is easy to obtain. And this seems one of them. Why must one group be forced into a constraint when both sides can have what they want at the same time?

And you may not be able to get scientific data from an ENWorld poll, but I would readily wager that ENWorld is biased TOWARD the GWA side. The more casual beer and pretzel gamers are underrepresented here. And the kick in the door types I have known don't care about flavor beyond types of ale and colors of orc entrails. I exaggerate for point, but only slightly. There is certainly no presented evidence to support that GWA is favored by any majority. Are you OK that you may be the one who ends up unhappy? Hypothetically, would you make 55% unhappy so that the 30% you happen to be in is happy?

 

[Fifth Element]

Can you explain why "Shape Spell" Immediately followed by "Golden Wyvern Adept" as the default in game name would not please the pro-GWA side. There are times when win-win is easy to obtain. And this seems one of them. Why must one group be forced into a constraint when both sides can have what they want at the same time?

This may work for GWA, but remember this thread is also about "similarly named" things as well. It may not always work out nicely.

 

[Najo]

1. The majority may already be happy with the proposed fluff+crunch balance. We have no way of knowing, and no poll on this site will ever tell you that.

2. Perhaps there is no solution that "works for us all". You need to be willing to consider the possibility that the "best" solution overall will leave you unhappy. The solution that makes the most people happy may not be one that pleases you. You cannot make everyone happy about everything.

3. I agree that some have been bashing the anti-GWA people. But several have offered constructive criticism. I worry that you are treating anyone who disagrees with your position as if they are not respecting what you have to say, and thus dismiss what they have to say. I can respect your opinion and still completely disagree with it.

1. That is possible. Enworld still represents a market sampling and the longer the poll runs, the more accurate it gets. If you ran surveys in many places (game stores, wotc's site, conventions, fan sites like this one, in the books themselves) sure you would get a better idea. But opening discussion on a world wide forum like enworld, where the discussion and input is fairly intelligent and the fan base is very dedicated, does a decent job of weighing the pros and cons.

2. Yes, I considered that. I understand that not everyone can be made happy by everything. With that said, my interests here are for the long term health of D&D and the hobby industry as a whole as I have a professional, invested interest in them both. I want D&D to do what it needs to do to bring in more customers and strengthen the existing market as much as it can. My position and opinion are based in my business experience as well as my hobbist interest.

3. I realize it is not everyone, and more a vocal minority that is doing the bashing. But, I have seen very little reason given by those supporting Golden Wyvern Adept other than it a) doesn't bug them, b) they think it is cool because they don't do much fluff or c) they really like it. I have not yet heard a solution offered by the pro-GWA camp that takes into consideration the interests of those against fluff names in core products. Most of them say change the name of the feat if you don't like it, which doesn't address any of our concerns and it makes more work for us.

 

[Najo]

Could I tell from the words Red Mages or Mages of Thay that I would want to put tattoos on my butt?

Yet, if either of those terms replaced the Golden Wyverns would you be having this same concern?

The arguement on the usage of the name relating to the actual rule mechanics has not been in vogue in the gaming industry for almost two decades when games like Vampire started to appear and give names to Disciplines and Geas that often had little direct linkage to the ability.

Proof, I pulled my 1996 copy of Vampire Dark Ages off the self (could not be bothered going into the boxes to dig out copies of vampire and werewolf). Here are the names of groups Assamite, Brujah, and Cappadocians which are now pretty much house hold words in the gaming community but back then were as alien as Golden Wyvern or Red Mages of Thay. Here are some other names taken from the book 'Howling Lunacy', 'Fear of the Void Below', 'Ride the Wild Mind', and 'Reveler's Memory'.

I could get similar phrases from Arcana Unearthed, 2003, 'Mojh', 'Runechildren', and 'Iron Witch'.

All of these have the words, groups, and abilities as part of the material and it has not affected the customer interest. Oppositely, it increased the customer interest to have these lexicons of words and phrases.

WotC is actually behind the trend of the industry when it comes to incorporating names for things in their books.

Those names have meaning because there is background and story attached behind them. Names for names sake does not create story, nor does it provide insight into what they do. You know what brujah and cappadocians are because white wolf wrote pages of world setting attached to them. That is the very reason these feats belong in a campaign settings book or a sidebar add on.