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Thread: Why is D&D still Medieval?
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2021-02-09, 10:39 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is D&D still Medieval?
While I personally quite like that game, it really needs a rework. Also the entire levelled weapons thing annoys me, it's clearly because of the fast scaling of HP and Stamina but it feels like it would have been more elegant to give an extra damage die every X levels.
That said, there are many science fantasy games out thereleaning to every side of the spectrum, and some which technically aren't but can easily be hacked to be (such as Stellar Adventures material being easily cross compatible with Advanced Fighting Fantasy material).
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2021-02-09, 10:52 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is D&D still Medieval?
I want you to PEACH me as hard as you can.
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2021-02-09, 11:52 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is D&D still Medieval?
There are tons of 5E examples. How about a path of wild magic barbarian shooting off wild magic surges each fight? A Warlock Hexblade? The Fighter Arcane Archer?
Yea, but gamers mostly seem to want more. Tell them their character can punch or just swing a weapon and they are unhappy at best. Tell them their character can go all "Lightning God Blaster" like Thor or Captain America in Avengers Endgame and they get all excited to play.
And a LOT of the 'gritty' movies are fake with CGI: people jumping or falling form heights, people impossibly dodging and shaking off hits. Plus the wacky "jump in the air, kick three other people, spin around in midair, somehow 'fly' backwards several feet, land on a wall sideways several feet off the ground, then jump sideways through a window, and land on a passing moving truck.
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2021-02-09, 12:06 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is D&D still Medieval?
In default D&D, there's religious freedom, (mostly) racial tolerance, and magic is seen with awe, respect and maybe fear, but not necessaily inherently evil, and strangers are almost always immediately offered a dangerous (but handsomely paid) jobs. That's NOT medieval by ANY means. Why, thats and improvement over ANYWHERE in the real world.
A pseudo-medieval word offers many convenience for murder-hobos: you don't pay taxes, you don't have to have a passport to enter a different country, its lawless enough to give jobs to random bands of mercenaries.
More importantly, as somebody said, its more credible that you can solve things with swords. In a modern setting, a your average dungeon would very likely flooded with a compost lethal to monsters but harmless to precious metals and magical items; all handled by the countries military. Lack of technology is what makes DnD playable.
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2021-02-09, 01:00 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2015
Re: Why is D&D still Medieval?
These are things that exist. They are not things that move the game past the bounds that already existed in D&D. People (including fighters, because magic weapons) have been throwing around bigger and flashier effects from day one.
Yea, but gamers mostly seem to want more. Tell them their character can punch or just swing a weapon and they are unhappy at best. Tell them their character can go all "Lightning God Blaster" like Thor or Captain America in Avengers Endgame and they get all excited to play.
And a LOT of the 'gritty' movies are fake with CGI: people jumping or falling form heights, people impossibly dodging and shaking off hits. Plus the wacky "jump in the air, kick three other people, spin around in midair, somehow 'fly' backwards several feet, land on a wall sideways several feet off the ground, then jump sideways through a window, and land on a passing moving truck.
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2021-02-09, 03:06 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is D&D still Medieval?
You're still over-generalizing and making a lot of assumptions I disagree with. Some people do that, others do not.
I honestly have no idea what you're talking about here. This sounds more like something that would happen in a wuxia film or a super hero movie like Captain America than something grounded like James Bond.
But yes, even James Bond or Jason Bourne surely use some CGI. That's part of the movie magic. The difference is in how it's used and what it depicts. You can use CGI to help show gritty things just like you can use it to help show fantastical things.
Let's take Die Hard as an example, because I find it interesting how it's changed over the years. In the 80s and 90s, Die Hard was a very practical action franchise featuring a very down-to-earth hero. Then in the last couple films in 2007 and 2013, John McClane suddenly became a larger than life action hero. In one sense, that could be seen as a logical progression of his character, but it feels like a departure from the series' roots. The latter films use CGI to make plane crashes and explosions more exciting, but that's because CGI has become much cheaper and easier to do since the earlier films were made.
Despite that, jumping out of CGI airplanes doesn't stop John McClane from continuing to be a gritty action hero who punches bad guys and feels pain when he gets shot. He's not a super hero who flies through the air and spin kicks the bad guys, or whatever. He may have more skills in driving and flying helicopters, but he's still a basic Fighter-type hero who shoots guns and punches the bad guys without any extra fancy moves. He's just higher level than he was before, with more knowledge and experience.
I don't have any problem with a character like John McClane, who just gets incrementally better at punching/shooting bad guys and surviving life threatening injuries. Watching him or playing as him, he doesn't need to have magical abilities for me to have a good time. There is satisfaction in simplicity.
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2021-02-10, 11:47 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is D&D still Medieval?
For all of 1E and 2E D&D there were plenty of classes that did little more then 'hit a foe' with few special effects.
So, yes there are people that play D&D super hardcore gritty. 5E even has core rules for it, and there is at least one 'gritty' sourcebook out there. So, if that is what you are saying, then OK.
The rest of the gamers, when offered a choice between:
A. Your character can hit with a weapon and do some damage
And
B.You can use Lightning Strike to charge your weapon with energy, do more damage, maybe stun your opponent and possibly shot a arc as a bonus action at a nearby foe.
Now, I meet few players when given both options pick "oh, I want to just hit a foe and do damage".
I'm not trying to talk about Hollywood: my point was what "fans" like.
If you put out a action movie with no CGI period and only limited 'real' stunts and no explosions.....most action movie fans, that don't specifically like that exact setting, won't like the movie.
If you put out a movie with near endless CGI spam over the whole movie with no real stunts and lots and lots and lots of explosions....then nearly all action movie fans will love the movie.
It's the same with video games:
80's action video game: hit the foe with a sword and they fall down and fade from the screen.
21st century: massive colorful animated spam covers the whole screen as the character swings their weapon and hits the foe and causes even more massive colorful animated spam, and more massive colorful animated spam.
AND this is NOT about "just" the bland fact that computers and special effects have gotten better so they AUTOMATICALLY put them in everything. You DO NOT have to use super computer special effects: It IS possible to make a movie with out them. Even an action type movie.
So my point is MOST gamers LIKE and WANT special flashy abilities in the game. And D&D over the years has added more and more and more effects.
BUT the setting lags way, way, way behind. A character can be covered with lightning and force effect spam......but in the setting it is still 'strike two rocks together to make a fire to cook for dinner'. A character can teleport around, but still have to walk 100 miles to the next city.
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2021-02-10, 12:23 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2021
Re: Why is D&D still Medieval?
Seems to be mostly an easy frame of reference, granted funny enough many new campaign settings seem to shy away from the weirdness of yesteryears mixing science fiction and fantasy into one, it was fun.
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2021-02-10, 02:22 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is D&D still Medieval?
Do you have any evidence to back up this assertion?
Also, even if you're right, how many people are going with B because they like special effects, and how many are going with B because they like dealing more damage? Would there still be a preference for B if it had the same mechanical effects as A, and was only described differently?
Again, do you have any data to support these claims about changes in the preferences of movie and video game consumers?I made a webcomic, featuring absurdity, terrible art, and alleged morals.
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2021-02-10, 03:10 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2015
Re: Why is D&D still Medieval?
First and foremost, no, not really. Because, as previously pointed out, magic items. Regardless, the movement in 'flash' from fighters then until fighters now is less than the flash provided by magic users, who have been able to throw balls of fire initially built around the same template as artillery weaponry since chainmail. That some (some) fighters now have flashier options than some fighters had then is a point you really need to flesh out on why you feel that it is meaningful.
So, yes there are people that play D&D super hardcore gritty. 5E even has core rules for it, and there is at least one 'gritty' sourcebook out there. So, if that is what you are saying, then OK.
*btw, If you mean Hardcore Mode, that 'gritty sourcebook isn't for people who want to play gritty, it is for people who want to pat themselves on the back for how 'hardcore' they are.
The rest of the gamers, when offered a choice between:
A. Your character can hit with a weapon and do some damage
And
B.You can use Lightning Strike to charge your weapon with energy, do more damage, maybe stun your opponent and possibly shot a arc as a bonus action at a nearby foe.
Now, I meet few players when given both options pick "oh, I want to just hit a foe and do damage".
I'm not trying to talk about Hollywood: my point was what "fans" like.
If you put out a action movie with no CGI period and only limited 'real' stunts and no explosions.....most action movie fans, that don't specifically like that exact setting, won't like the movie.
If you put out a movie with near endless CGI spam over the whole movie with no real stunts and lots and lots and lots of explosions....then nearly all action movie fans will love the movie.
AND this is NOT about "just" the bland fact that computers and special effects have gotten better so they AUTOMATICALLY put them in everything. You DO NOT have to use super computer special effects: It IS possible to make a movie with out them. Even an action type movie.
So my point is MOST gamers LIKE and WANT special flashy abilities in the game. And D&D over the years has added more and more and more effects.
BUT the setting lags way, way, way behind. A character can be covered with lightning and force effect spam......but in the setting it is still 'strike two rocks together to make a fire to cook for dinner'. A character can teleport around, but still have to walk 100 miles to the next city.
Regardless, what is systematically not clear is why you think that the desire to garner special abilities (which again, I do not think you have shown has progressed since the 70s) means that the D&D setting should have moved to science fiction. The two do not seem to be correlated in any particular way.
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2021-02-10, 08:53 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is D&D still Medieval?
Okay, so Bugbear's argument appears to be:
1) Swordmages or Fighter/Mage multiclass characters or archetypes exist.
2) "Most players" prefer these to regular Fighters because they do more than just hit for damage.
3) Therefore, why should mundane Fighters even still exist in the setting? And therefore, why should mundane anything still exist in the setting?
The third point is where he is jumping the shark, even considering that many people in the thread are also disagreeing with the second point.
The assertion that players preferring non-mundane characters (which again, many people are challenging) should lead to a sweeping change to the general D&D-style campaign setting is a bit ridiculous. He's essentially arguing for the Tippy-verse, where everyone is magic because obviously everyone would want to be magic, and therefore we can use magic to raise the quality of life of everyone from the medieval to modern or futuristic levels of security and convenience.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that WotC, who is actually able to poll gamers and study focus groups and perform market research, probably has a better idea of what "most gamers" want than Bugbear does.
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2021-02-10, 08:58 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2013
Re: Why is D&D still Medieval?
You can have both, as a contest did way back when in 3E had a certain person named Keith Baker convince WOTC to modernize D&D and gave us Eberron if you don't want to do the work yourself. People travel by train and plane. They have appliances to keep food cold and heat it up. They have indoor plumbing and a metropolis of skyscrapers. They have robots!
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2021-02-11, 09:46 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is D&D still Medieval?
Spoiler: Sixteen TonsSome people say a man is made outta mud
A warforged's got oil for blood
Metal and wood and steel and bronze
A mind that's a-weak and a back that's strong
You load sixteen tons, what do you get
Another day's orders and ya ain't free yet
Sweet Maker don't you scrap me 'cause I don't know....
What happens to a warforged when he ain't no mo'
If you see me coming
Better step aside
Lotta men didn't, lotta men died
Got one fist of iron, the other of steel
If the left one don't get you
Then the right one will
You load sixteen tons, what do you get
Another day's orders and ya ain't free yet
Sweet Maker don't you scrap me 'cause I don't know....
What happens to a warforged when he ain't no mo'
I was made by the Cannith, I was rune-forged
Given a sword and sent to the wars
I was raised by a sergeant on the front line
Though it's made of stone, got a heart like a lion
You load sixteen tons, what do you get
Another day's orders and ya ain't free yet
Sweet Maker don't you scrap me 'cause I don't know....
What happens to a warforged when he ain't no mo'The Cranky Gamer
*It isn't realism, it's verisimilitude; the appearance of truth within the framework of the game.
*Picard management tip: Debate honestly. The goal is to arrive at the truth, not at your preconception.
*Mutant Dawn for Savage Worlds!
*The One Deck Engine: Gaming on a budget
Written by Me on DriveThru RPG
There are almost 400,000 threads on this site. If you need me to address a thread as a moderator, include a link.
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2021-02-11, 11:07 AM (ISO 8601)
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2021-02-11, 11:17 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is D&D still Medieval?
"How to Lie with Statistics", a $5 to $10 book that's possibly one of the best non-math explanations of all the ways stats, studies, and survey data can fail, be manipulated, or get misrepresented.
https://www.google.com/search?gs_ssp...PEPvPG8qA821:0
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2021-02-11, 11:35 AM (ISO 8601)
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2021-02-11, 12:52 PM (ISO 8601)
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2021-02-11, 03:35 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is D&D still Medieval?
Notably, it's easy to see why it's the case, especially for beginning players.
Human is the easiest race to play. It's approximately average, and you kinda know how to act like a human from your own life. There aren't always that many stat adjustments or extra abilities to write down, at most you get a bonus feat or skill point.
Fighter is the easiest class to play. You have a sword, you hit things with the sword. You don't have to rely on sneaking around, keeping track of spells, or anything else.
And since it's what you start with, it's what you become used to.
Now, I'm sure an optimiser can say something about battle masters being more complicated than that, or how it's actually really hard to build things properly in third edition, but I'd point out that most parties don't optimise so strongly, and I'd also point out that a beginning player is likely also part of a beginning gaming group where nobody else really knows how anything works either.
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2021-02-11, 03:38 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is D&D still Medieval?
Why is D&D still Medieval?
Because swords are cool.The Cranky Gamer
*It isn't realism, it's verisimilitude; the appearance of truth within the framework of the game.
*Picard management tip: Debate honestly. The goal is to arrive at the truth, not at your preconception.
*Mutant Dawn for Savage Worlds!
*The One Deck Engine: Gaming on a budget
Written by Me on DriveThru RPG
There are almost 400,000 threads on this site. If you need me to address a thread as a moderator, include a link.
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2021-02-11, 03:41 PM (ISO 8601)
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2021-02-11, 05:40 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is D&D still Medieval?
I've seen many people play wizards or other casters as their first class, but it does seemed to depend a lot on 'read the book beforehand'. But it's part of why I like skill based systems so much, because they tend to have vastly more possible 'simple' characters.
Although I've also considered using Romance of the Perilous Land for new players, due to it in many ways being a simpler version of D&D with only one magic-using class.
I'd like to see more pre-medieval games. Just had a new classical Greek one delivered today, I own a great Stone Age, a pretty nice warring states China game as well as that company's iron age Celt (British Isles) one, and would love to know of a decent one for Indian, Native American, or Egyptian fantasy. Because swords are cool, but I've played enough 'medieval' games that I wouldn't mind playing in a game inspired by earlier time periods.
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2021-02-11, 06:06 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is D&D still Medieval?
Ah, you've made an assumption based on the title of the book. The book is concerned with how statistics can mislead, not all of which is intentional.
Basically all surveys of people will have multiple inherent biases and most surveys have areas of ambiguity that require interpretation. Professionals and experts involved with making and running surveys try to mitigate these flaws and still semi-regularly come to incorrect conclusions. Based on past experience with WotC, it's surveys and results I simply have no faith that they would pay for professional survey and analysis services. So, not saying that anything iffy is going on, just that I think they have shoddy surveys that they analyze based on their own unchallenged assumptions.
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2021-02-12, 02:51 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Jun 2020
Re: Why is D&D still Medieval?
Are you saying that D&D prohibits campfires that aren't made by two rocks being struck? Or are you saying that it's weird that there aren't any firestarter kits from REI in the item lists? Because you could throw those on there for 1gp or whatever.
Is there a requirement to walk 100 miles somewhere? Or are we imagining a setting where everyone has easy access to 7th level conjuration spells? Like... if you have Teleport, then Teleport. What's stopping you, exactly?
I'm really baffled as to what kinds of setting upgrades you're expecting.
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2021-02-12, 05:43 AM (ISO 8601)
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- May 2019
Re: Why is D&D still Medieval?
Um, given that gritty warfare shooters and live action films with conservative CGI are very, very popular, this very much does not hold true. In general, people praise interesting practical effects and direction over pure flash. Things like Mad Max are both popular and stick. Even what many might consider bottom of the barrel mass-market shlock doesn't just put a million colors on the screen every time anyone does anything. Honestly the attitude of treating use of lots of color and vibrant special effects as "spam" is pretty insulting, since lots of movies do use these things and are all the better for it, but it's used skillfully. And people have been making vibrant colorful movies with special effects for as long as movies in color have existed. Back when there wasn't even colored film, and people painted individual frames. Yet even when it was a complete novelty, when film was still figuring itself out, it wasn't what everyone wanted.
If everyone thought the more CGI the better, no one would watch anything but cartoons. After all, those are nothing but special effects. Yet as is cartoons are often considered a lesser form of entertainment, and when they do reach mass appeal they tend to be pretty tame in terms of effects, like The Simpsons, Family Guy, South Park, which largely rely on comedy rather than action, and are certainly not visually thrilling at all times.
If most gamers wanted a superhero-like or modern setting for DnD, then you'd figure that homebrew for it or official settings would be all the rage. But they're very much not. You absolutely get high magic practically modern settings like Eberron, but even that for all its quality is just very well-loved, not completely dominant. d20 Modern is hardly forgotten, but to my knowledge was never particularly popular. The fact that these settings exist, are considered serviceable or even great, yet are not even close to the only things people play, is about as obvious an indication as any that people do in fact like other things.Last edited by AdAstra; 2021-02-12 at 05:56 AM.
The stars are calling, but let's come up with a good opening line before we answer
Spoiler: Homebrew of Mine
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2021-02-12, 05:55 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is D&D still Medieval?
Regarding the ”Is Human Fighter really the most common race-class combo in 5e?” debate, I’m leaning more towards Telok’s view of things. The most common source for the statistic in 5e is D&D Beyond data. However, I have yet to see evidence that the D&D Beyond userbase is statistically similar to the general D&D playerbase, so it could potentially be a non-indicative sample. Furthermore, not every PC built in DDB is played, so we have to take into account which characters actually receive playtime;I have no idea how one would accomplish that.
As for WotC’s own data, while I trust that more than D&D Beyond, Telok again raises some decent points as to the quality of WotC’s data collection, which I am treating as more of a wild card than an outright negative.
It’s almost 3am where I am; I may come back too this post when I can think more coherently.
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2021-02-12, 06:59 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is D&D still Medieval?
The most common fantasy protagonist is a human, by something like a 100 to 1 margin. Warrior is also the most common character concept for said protagonist. That human and fighter would be the most common combination is logical.
If anything the trend in modern fantasy is against offering non-human options at all.
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2021-02-12, 07:38 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is D&D still Medieval?
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2021-02-12, 08:09 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is D&D still Medieval?
Which isn't a bad thing in my opinion. Playing a human in a silly hat is much more fun when we all acknowledge the existence of the dragon-feather hat.
You also get the middle ground of providing different cultures of humans instead of different races which can be... problematic. To use D&D terms it's gone when they're getting free skills or Cantrips, dodgy when they're getting stat boosts or unique powers. Not that there's anything inherently wrong about giving Rohirrim +2 Dexterity, just that you have to be very careful with how you frame it (and for the love of Pelor don't give them minuses).
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2021-02-12, 08:26 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is D&D still Medieval?
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2021-02-12, 09:07 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Why is D&D still Medieval?
I'm not sure what you expected them to do with your posting. Just dropping the link in here without also including an explanation as to what parts of the survey in question you think are non-representative and why is vaguely like wandering into the middle of a discussion and shouting 'Fallacy!' as loud as you can instead of formulating a thought and explaining it to others. Sure, those of us with a data science background can impute* your point from missing data, but for anyone else, you've just dropped a link to a book slightly too expensive to buy just to figure out another poster's point for them (mind you, they could have asked 'and what conclusions did you draw from this book, that you consider pertinent to this discussion?')
Basically all surveys of people will have multiple inherent biases and most surveys have areas of ambiguity that require interpretation. Professionals and experts involved with making and running surveys try to mitigate these flaws and still semi-regularly come to incorrect conclusions. Based on past experience with WotC, it's surveys and results I simply have no faith that they would pay for professional survey and analysis services. So, not saying that anything iffy is going on, just that I think they have shoddy surveys that they analyze based on their own unchallenged assumptions.Last edited by Willie the Duck; 2021-02-12 at 03:25 PM.