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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 8487029" data-attributes="member: 18">Being "guided by surveys" and so on is an interesting double-edged sword.I think it lead to 5E initially being only slightly less misguided than 4E - it was saved by being an "apology edition", and the surveys actually guided it off-course somewhat I'd say initially. Surveys gave us 6-8 encounters/day with 2 short rests which it really doesn't seem like is reflected in the mass-play of D&D at all.It seems like they dropped the "70%" thing at some point and maybe started looking at surveys in a more nuanced way, and since then I feel like 5E maybe has been on a better track. I do think it's kind of funny that when the surveys were pointing to a more "trad" D&D, certain people were all for them, but as the player base massively expands and they maybe don't point that way as much, people are claiming they're being "abandoned" and so on. Live by the sword, die by the sword, honestly.I suspect a survey-driven 4E wouldn't have looked hugely different (a little more like the later iterations of 4E), to be honest, but I think they might have made much smarter decisions on presentation, marketing, and perhaps class design, and also not been as gung-ho re: digital.I think that's the wrong approach myself, because there's no real problem with there being more races, and every new race stands a chance of like totally being amazing for some specific player, and/or turning out to be a big hit generally. The more the merrier. "No funny hats" always reminds me of the "We only need 4 classes" people, which is like yeah, no. That's not a good way to design an RPG like D&D. D&D is, like World of Warcraft, very much about "the fantasy" - each class and race sort of embodies a specific themed fantasy. There are races which fail because they don't embody a new fantasy, or just embody an existing one worse, or are just a dumb idea, but they're a small minority overall.I read an interesting thread on Twitter (no, come back, stop running!!!), where it was pointed out that a lot of younger players don't at all mind the "restrictions" of D&D's classes and races, because video games being the first introduction to RPGs for virtually everyone under 30 (and maybe a bit older) means they're really used to the concept. This benefits D&D, which works that way (and doesn't benefit other RPGs, which don't), and D&D can in turn benefit from it by doing stuff like releasing more classes/races ("splats" in general).</blockquote>

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