WotC April survey

[caudor]

I have DMG II and enjoy it.

I let them know that the section on Campanion Characters was immensely helpful to me. For me, that one section was worth the price of the entire book.

 

[Dice4Hire]

I know it's been mentioned before, but that survey seems to lump OD&D, 1e, and BD&D all together. At least that seems to be what they're doing with their "1st edition (1974)" option.

It might seem like a nit-pick, but if WotC cares enough to gather the data, you'd think they'd at least want to gather meaningful data.

From their standpoint, how are those different? They were printed over a decade ago, and WOTC, at least, has done minimal to no support for them for that same decade (at least)

I'm not trying to start a fight here, but I don't see how differentiating those is "gathering meaningful data" Just like differentiating Australia and New Zealand is probably not meaningful, especially if there is a group called "Europe" and one called "Asia", both of which have far greater diversity.

 

[Fifth Element]

It might seem like a nit-pick, but if WotC cares enough to gather the data, you'd think they'd at least want to gather meaningful data.

That assumes that differentiating between the earliest editions would be meaningful for them. I doubt that would add much meaning to their results.

Yeah I was pretty bumbed to be put in with Australia too. Obviously the surveyers have never been to New Zealand and didn't realise it's a world unto itself.

Apparently Canadians could be from Mexico for all they care. I would have thought the Canadian market would be the closest match for the US market. Whatever.

 

[MerricB]

How many gamers to every human?

7:1. Unfortunately, the sheep don't game with humans, only sheepdogs.

Cheers!

 

[rogueattorney]

From their standpoint, how are those different? They were printed over a decade ago, and WOTC, at least, has done minimal to no support for them for that same decade (at least)

I'm not trying to start a fight here, but I don't see how differentiating those is "gathering meaningful data" Just like differentiating Australia and New Zealand is probably not meaningful, especially if there is a group called "Europe" and one called "Asia", both of which have far greater diversity.

They're very different games. In a lot of respects, 1e and 2e are closer in actual rules than 1e and either OD&D or BD&D - baroque and rules heavy versus simple and rules light. Someone who likes BD&D isn't necessarily going to like a product catered to the 1e fan and vice versa. Thus, if they're trying to find out what type of games people prefer, the categories they have there aren't telling them anything.

If they're not trying to find out what kind of games people prefer, I don't know why they're asking the question. If they're just trying to find out how many people still play pre-3e, why divide 1e and 2e? They have questions for finding out how long people have been playing and how old they are already, so the edition question doesn't need to be asked to find that out. Just from a surveying standpoint, the "1e (1974)" is confusing to those who play those respective editions that may be covered by the category in question. (1e came out in 1977, OD&D came out in 1974, are the BECM products from after 1988 "1e" or "2e".)

It doesn't bother me so much as a D&D fan as much as it does as someone who spent way too much of his undergraduate years studying about polls, surveys, and public opinion samplings. It seems to me to be a classic "garbage in, garbage out" question, and I'm not sure what useful information they could possibly be deriving from it... "This percentage of people may or may not be playing one of these three or four editions of the game which may or may not be any more alike than one of these other categories we asked about..."

Other than perhaps, "Not enough people click this choice to make us care enough to clarify," which is probably the case.

 

[Nikosandros]

Yeah I was pretty bumbed to be put in with Australia too. Obviously the surveyers have never been to New Zealand and didn't realise it's a world unto itself.

Imagine how the Europeans feel about being lumped with us Italians...

 

[MerricB]

They're very different games. In a lot of respects, 1e and 2e are closer in actual rules than 1e and either OD&D or BD&D - baroque and rules heavy versus simple and rules light.

Part of the trouble is that you have OD&D and BD&D being relatively similar, and then you have AD&D, 2E and OD&D+Supplements... which are similar. OD&D, depending on when you stopped paying attention to the supplements, gave a great insight into the development of the game, and changed quite radically in the process!

Cheers!

 

[jbear]

Yes: the humans of the land share it with sheep and possums.

(12 sheep to every human, 7 possums to every human...)

Cheers!

Yep, that's inspiration for a campaign right there!

 

[Votan]

I replied and pointed out that I still dislike skill challenges. It is posisble that they have never been introduced to me effectively but the general approach seems hard to create tension using and very routine.

It's also hard to penalize failure (effectively) in the examples that I have seen.

 

[avin]

So am I.

I only use skill challenges for physical actions. Stoping roleplaying to say "you get a +1 bonus to bluff" or just trying to keep track of it during RP do not work for me.