Savage Species Chat- Evidence that WotC Writers Don't Know What They're Talking About

[Cuddly]

Here's a transcript from the Savage Species chat between the writers & consumers:
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dnd/20030321x

In between their platitudes, they display an abysmal knowledge of the rule set, and what actually makes a character powerful.

A few gems:

"navonodsemaj: The "Cumbrous" line of feats grant a huge advantage when activated, but at a cost. What if the character with a Cumbrous feat could somehow circumvent the downsides to the feat? For example, a paladin is immune to fear, and he has Cumbrous Will. Cumbrous Will's negative effect is being shaken, which is a fear effect. Paladins, as everyone knows, are immune to fear at 2nd-level or higher.

wotc_jcw: Shaken does not have to result only from fear, I think. In this case, it's more like exhaustion."

"josh_kablack: Is the illithid savant's acquire class feature itself a class feature for purposes of this ability?

wotc_jcw: I guess it is. Do you mean one could eat another savant and pick up all its absorbed features? That wasn't the intent, even if that's how it came out."

[edit]
I should point out that this is old, and that 4e is far, far less haphazard than 3e in design.

[Inyssius Tor]

Wow, the dev team has gotten a lot better at its job.

[Kurald Galain]

I have no doubt that any sufficiently large company, including but not limited to WOTC, has its share of employees that are subpar or downright incompetent.

[Zeta Kai]

I have no doubt that any sufficiently large company, including but not limited to WOTC, has its share of employees that are subpar or downright incompetent.

As an employee of a Sufficiently Large Company, I can attest that this is true. Subpar is all too often the norm.

Back on-topic, I like Savage Species, but I agree that certain aspects of its design philosophy are downright daft. It seems like the few times in which the rules appear to be achieve game balance were arrived at largely by accident. I often tell new DMs that if they want to use that book, they should read it carefully, houserule liberally, & don't let it fall into the hands of players.

[monty]

Wow. That's hilarious.

[AstralFire]

This makes Sean K. Reynolds look like a genius. I'm not sure if that's because he really is (It's been a long time since I read his articles, but I did like them) or if it's simply because he didn't say much of anything.

[Person_Man]

WotC customer service probably handles tens of thousands of emails a day, if not more. WotC owns dozens of rules sets. Larger rule sets (Magic, D&D) probably have designated representatives. But there are still enough smaller rule sets out there that representatives are expected to know several of them, which would clutter up their understanding of any particular rule set. And like most other customer service representatives they're probably paid between minimum wage and $10. If they're in India, they're paid less, and have an additional language barrier trying to translate and understand American jargon in addition to the game jargon.

The vast majority of people who play WotC games, and D&D specifically, are at least somewhat educated, and can generally get jobs that pay more then $20,000 a year. So a lot of people who work in customer service probably don't play D&D. And even if they did, D&D has the world's most atrocious codex creep. You'd have an easier time tracking and understanding all of the laws published in the U.S. rather then trying to learn and understand every D&D supplement.

[Crow]

Fun Fact: Between City, County, State, and Federal laws, nobody really knows how many laws actually exist in the United States!

[Magnor Criol]

You'd have an easier time tracking and understanding all of the laws published in the U.S. rather then trying to learn and understand every D&D supplement.

I have a couple friends who are in law school, and their significant others are gaming buddies with me. After seeing us around the game table, crafting characters and deliberating over rules, almost this exact comment came out of their mouths...

We then went on to imagine law schools offering courses in DnD theory and execution, simply to build a lawyer's skill in loopholing and codex knowledge. =p

[chiasaur11]

I have a couple friends who are in law school, and their significant others are gaming buddies with me. After seeing us around the game table, crafting characters and deliberating over rules, almost this exact comment came out of their mouths...

We then went on to imagine law schools offering courses in DnD theory and execution, simply to build a lawyer's skill in loopholing and codex knowledge. =p

Yeah, but imagine the dangers.

I mean, Legal CharOp can't be a good thing for the country as a whole.

[Person_Man]

Fun Fact: Between City, County, State, and Federal laws, nobody really knows how many laws actually exist in the United States!

True. However, the vast majority of those laws are never enforced, or are only enforced on a small group. For example, I happen to be an expert on welfare laws and regulations, and can quote from memory the development of those laws and regulations in the U.S. starting in 1935 with the passage of the Social Security Act, up to the present day.

But no one really cares about those laws unless you happen to administrate one of the various welfare programs. And once you understand how to read law, and which laws have controlling authority in a given situation, resolving most legal questions becomes quite easy. Very few legal questions actually go to court, and most questions that do go to court do so because of disagreements over policy (this is the way I think it should be handled) rather then law (this is the way it was plainly written).

Understanding the entirety of D&D is much harder, because new rules are published every month, rules often conflict with each other, and as amateurs (and not professionals who get paid to do this for a living) DMs tend to read the rules very differently from each other. So having a correct, expert opinion is very difficult.

Of course, that doesn't excuse WotC from hiring people who don't understand anything about the core rules. It's just a statement of fact that if you're going to have 200+ books with 200+ pages a piece and endless online supplements, it'll be tough to understand in its entirety.

[Cuddly]

Of course, that doesn't excuse WotC from hiring people who don't understand anything about the core rules. It's just a statement of fact that if you're going to have 200+ books with 200+ pages a piece and endless online supplements, it'll be tough to understand in its entirety.

I know it would be anathema to current corporate culture, but I really think WotC should vett their products with CharOp boards. Public beta, if you will. I imagine that they will eventually adopt this paradigm, though their current monopoly on D&D makes holding onto their intellectual property more attractive.

[AstralFire]

I know it would be anathema to current corporate culture, but I really think WotC should vett their products with CharOp boards. Public beta, if you will. I imagine that they will eventually adopt this paradigm, though their current monopoly on D&D makes holding onto their intellectual property more attractive.

Eh. Closed beta. Invite a few CharOppers that are well respected and you can keep a very tight lid on and pay them a token of respect to keep them interested.

[Kurald Galain]

Eh. Closed beta. Invite a few CharOppers that are well respected and you can keep a very tight lid on and pay them a token of respect to keep them interested.

At least that's how WOTC used to work. In the early days of Magic, WOTC looked over the usenet, saw two or three particularly clueful people answering whatever questions popped up, and offered them a job. How's that for meritocracy?

[Crow]

I know it would be anathema to current corporate culture, but I really think WotC should vett their products with CharOp boards. Public beta, if you will. I imagine that they will eventually adopt this paradigm, though their current monopoly on D&D makes holding onto their intellectual property more attractive.

In most cases this is going to end up with legalese-like rule wordings that end up creating tomes instead of rulebooks. I see more people twisting words and quoting obscure, unrelated texts, than real optimization a lot of the time on those boards.

Ask some of the respected posters who have a clue, but don't just throw it out there for all the wolves.

[potatocubed]

Ask some of the respected posters who have a clue, but don't just throw it out there for all the wolves.

This. I've run open beta tests, and I have to say the signal to noise ratio is very, very poor. A load of people will just say "this is great" which is nice to hear but doesn't help improve anything, a load of other people will latch onto their particular bugbear - which may or may not actually be a problem - and bitch about it to the exclusion of everything else, and the last five will give you useful feedback and criticism. This is a case where selecting your playtesters with care pays dividends later on.

And yes, I'm still bitter about that particular experience.

[Kurald Galain]

This. I've run open beta tests, and I have to say the signal to noise ratio is very, very poor.

Well, yes. Paizo is in the progress of figuring that one out...

[Person_Man]

I know it would be anathema to current corporate culture, but I really think WotC should vett their products with CharOp boards. Public beta, if you will. I imagine that they will eventually adopt this paradigm, though their current monopoly on D&D makes holding onto their intellectual property more attractive.

Actually, it'd be an easy way to make a lot of money. Have part of their monthly online subscription be access to the beta versions of new books, and a separate set of forums specifically for beta testing that only subscribers could post on. I'd be happy to pay $6 a month to test out every WotC product before its published. It would save me the trouble of having to download it off the interwebs before I decide whether or not to buy it (which is what a big part of their audience does anyway).

This. I've run open beta tests, and I have to say the signal to noise ratio is very, very poor. A load of people will just say "this is great" which is nice to hear but doesn't help improve anything, a load of other people will latch onto their particular bugbear - which may or may not actually be a problem - and bitch about it to the exclusion of everything else, and the last five will give you useful feedback and criticism. This is a case where selecting your playtesters with care pays dividends later on.

Well, I won't deny that any large group of playtesters will create a large amount of noise. However, they will catch virtually every spell, grammar, table, and math error. They will also catch blatant contradictions, unclear rules, etc. The editors will have to ignore much of the "this is awesome" or "this is garbage" commentary. But I think it would vastly improve the overall content, and remove the need for errata/updates.

[potatocubed]

Well, I won't deny that any large group of playtesters will create a large amount of noise. However, they will catch virtually every spell, grammar, table, and math error.

Yeah, but 1-3 groups of dedicated playtesters (depending on skill, time, etc.) can discover virtually every game error and produce less rubbish to wade through. A few hand-picked testers who know what they're about are far better than 'anyone with an interest'.

As for spelling and grammar, two proofreaders is about the maximum you can employ before returns (i.e. errors discovered that have not already been discovered) diminish to 0.* Every publishing company I've worked for (all two of them ) goes with two proof stages.

Of course, any form of checking is better than none at all, and all the checking in the world doesn't help if your writers don't understand the game system.

In conclusion, Wizards should hire me and pay to relocate me to Seattle.

*Assuming your proofreaders speak English as a first language and aren't terminally lazy or stupid. I'm bitter about this, also.

[Talya]

This makes Sean K. Reynolds look like a genius. I'm not sure if that's because he really is (It's been a long time since I read his articles, but I did like them) or if it's simply because he didn't say much of anything.

I love Sean K. Reynolds work.

[Person_Man]

Yeah, but 1-3 groups of dedicated playtesters (depending on skill, time, etc.) can discover virtually every game error and produce less rubbish to wade through. A few hand-picked testers who know what they're about are far better than 'anyone with an interest'.

As for spelling and grammar, two proofreaders is about the maximum you can employ before returns (i.e. errors discovered that have not already been discovered) diminish to 0.* Every publishing company I've worked for (all two of them ) goes with two proof stages.

Of course, any form of checking is better than none at all, and all the checking in the world doesn't help if your writers don't understand the game system.

In conclusion, Wizards should hire me and pay to relocate me to Seattle.

*Assuming your proofreaders speak English as a first language and aren't terminally lazy or stupid. I'm bitter about this, also.

Well, if that were true, why are there so many issues with D&D products now? There are several possibilities:

1) WotC doesn't have a playtesting and editing department(s).

2) WotC does have playtesting and editing departments, but it's a poorly run bureaucracy. It doesn't matter how good the staff is if they have to spend all their time filling out TPS reports and the managers are idiots.

3) WotC does have playtesting and editing departments, but the staffs are idiots, and/or poorly trained, and/or have to work on so many different rules sets that obvious errors are missed.

4) WotC does have playtesting and editing departments, but they're a relatively small staff, and overwhelmed by the sheer volume of work that they have to do. Thus obvious mistakes are often missed.

5) WotC does have playtesting and editing departments, but they're a relatively small staff, and thus succumb to group think. Obvious mistakes are missed because they play D&D a certain way, and assume that everyone else plays D&D the way that they do.

Did I miss anything?

If #1 is the problem, then hiring you and a few similar smart hardcore gamers would solve the problem (your solution).

If #2 or #3 is the problem, then the solution is new management, and/or making the process more transparent (involving the internet community, my solution). It's generally pretty hard to fire all the staff (legal issues, and it ruins moral) unless your company is going belly up. And hiring a few dedicated and intelligent worker won't solve the problem of 90% of the staff not knowing what they're doing.

If #4 or #5 is the problem, I think either of our solutions would work. Either involve the online community in a well managed way, or just hire 10 new playtesters and editors to ease the burden of work and inject new blood into the process. Heck, you could pay nerdy college students to do it for cheap. It's just a matter of getting a sufficient mass of staff/testers, and running your organization well.

[Magnor Criol]

Heck, you could pay nerdy college students to do it for cheap.

I know plenty of people that would do it for free. Hell, some that would even pay Wizards to do it. =p

I'd certainly be a cheap buy. I would love to work on creation - it's really one of my passions, though I rarely actually finish a project, and I'm not good with mechanics. I am, however, excellent at fluff, and melding fluff for mechanics (if I do say so myself).

[AstralFire]

Not me. I love creating and I love game design, but there are frankly far too many books for me to juggle in 3.5 to really make a serious attempt at modular balance with it. I'd love to be hired to be the guy who makes the fluff and framework of the design, though.

[AlexanderRM]

You missed the best line for the second quote there...

josh_kablack: Is the illithid savant's acquire class feature itself a class feature for purposes of this ability?

wotc_jcw: I guess it is. Do you mean one could eat another savant and pick up all its absorbed features? That wasn't the intent, even if that's how it came out.

rich_redman: My response would be, "Neat, you get the ability to acquire class features, which you already had."

Also, may I ask what exactly this ability is? It sounds rather overpowered...

We then went on to imagine law schools offering courses in DnD theory and execution, simply to build a lawyer's skill in loopholing and codex knowledge. =p

Heck, if D&D became popular enough, you could have people going there to DM (for RGPA or whatever) as a living. And/or WOTC using it as a school to send people to when they need to create employees* with masterful knowledge of all sorts of rule sets...

*SUPEREMPLOYEES: The new Supersoldiers...

I know plenty of people that would do it for free. Hell, some that would even pay Wizards to do it. =p

I can just see them employing a bidding system for positions in the playtesting/editing department. Actually, I'm not seeing WOTC making a HUGE amount of money off of that, but in any case, they'd probably be able to find plenty of dedicated gamers who'll do it at least for free.

[Lord Lorac Silvanos]

Eh. Closed beta. Invite a few CharOppers that are well respected and you can keep a very tight lid on and pay them a token of respect to keep them interested.

The RC had some "fan-input", but the product did not really correct that many of the inconsistencies or cleared up the rules. Instead, in one notable case, it unbalanced things even further and in a place where the rules were fairly clear.

A steady stream of errata could have corrected some of the design errors, helped balance the game and clarified the rules, but there are just too many arguments against doing that.