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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Janx" data-source="post: 5150037" data-attributes="member: 8835">Canis's topic raises a bunch of points.First off, in any study, the results are a generalization and there are going to be exceptions to the rule.  Thus, there is no point to get one's panties in a was if you know of an exception.Humans, I think, are wired to like having choices.  Just like having anything else, if having zero is bad, 1 is better, and so on, a human will generally assume that more is better until it reaches some obvious limit of usefulness.  Thus, a zillion dollars is pretty useful.  A zillion girlfriends is not so much, when one considers all the presents one must buy.  The difference, a zillion dollars can solve its own problems.  A zilliona girlfriends introduces new problems, let alone containment.  A zillion choices, seems good, because like a zillion dollars, it doesn't have to take up space or time (at least not appearing that way).Incidentally, the paralasys referred to is often called "analysis paralasys", and happens when one gets stuck in the deciding phase, and can't make a decision, so one analyzes over and over again, looking for, and finding a new angle or metric.As individuals, having some choices is good.  How many is debatable.  For any one topic, there is likely a threshold of actual usefulness.  Particularly in variant choices.  Having a choice between living or dying is good.  Having a choice between living in one of 6 colors, versus a color wheel of selection, not so useful, whether that wheel is broken up into 100 or 100,000 choices.To the people MANUFACTURING choices, there is value in this human conditioning.  It's pretty easy to off variations off a base product.  Once you invented the hamburger, your product looks so much more versatile when you can have it with mayo, mustard, ketchup, cheese, pickles, onions, lettuce, tomato, in any combination of those.  And a raise goes to the guy who comes up with more sauces and cheeses to choose from.The same thing goes with paint.  Once you figure out how to make a liquid that can be brushed over a wall and let to dry, and it seals it and gives it a uniform appearance, adding coloring to that is a no-brainer.  Then being able to have more colors satisfies that human desire to have "just the thing".How does this fit with D&D?  Adding morre feats, more spells, more monsters, more classes has been how D&D has been able to sell more than just the PH, DMG and MM for over 30 years.  Otherwise, it could be done with a skills-based system, and a dynamic spell buildiing system.  1 rule book.  Done.Thus, for people selling stuff, Choices are a very useful marketing tool.In 4e, how many different ways are there to make a "warrior".  Oodles with all the feats and stuff.  In 1e, the was the Fighter, Paladin and Ranger.  if you picked a Fighter, you could play him as a ranged guy, sword and board, fencer, etc.  1 choice had lots of versatility.Furthermore, if you wanted a warrior type, you pretty much got it when you made a Fighter, instead of a Wizard, Thief or Priest.  In 4e, you've got so many choices that you still may not have picked "just the right thing" to get what you envisioned.I'm not for cutting down all choices.  I suspect though, a ruleset could be made, to limit the choices to "meaningful ones" for character creation.  And to remove or balance the sub-optimal choices where you'd never pick Feat X because it was a waste, and thus a non-choice.</blockquote>

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