Help! (gasp) drowning in D&D options... (urk) so many... can't focus... (cough)

[Rashak Mani]

More options are... simply... more options. Use them if you want. This demands DM control. Like someone mentioned... the problem is balance. Some PrC are way underpowered... other way overpowered. Some demand silly feats that ruin the game.. This means DMs have to read a lot of stuff everytime someone thinks about getting a PrC.

So WOTC get some balance going and help those poor DMs.

 

[TrubbulTheTroll]

Less, not more. WotC produces LESS supplemental material now than TSR EVER did in its heyday. Are you aware that in the 1990's TSR used to produce anywhere from 5 to 8 supplements a MONTH??? And it was the same thing then as now - cool magic items, cool kits, cool specialty priest classes, and cool adventures. Cool this, that, and the other, for consumption.

There is a fundamental shift - away from drowning, not towards it.

Ultimately, it IS about picking and choosing. And about what sells and what doesn't. And if the majority of D&D players out there didn't want what's being offered, D&D still wouldn't have the lion's share of RPG sales currently.

Yet they do.

The shift that HAS occurred, is the one where WotC saw what TSR never did - that there are six times as many players as DM's, and players will buy crunchy stuff more than DM's will buy fluffy stuff. So they hextupled their market share, by marketing to players as well as DM's.

It's still ultimately about picking and choosing. What do I do? I drop back and punt. Core rules only, supplemental on a case-by-case basis. No need to "drown" if you closed the sluice gates.

Excellent reply, my dear Henry. And I agree on all points. But please be advised though that I was not comparing TSR to Wizards (your comparison is very valid but not applicable to this argument. 2e is yesterday's news and TSR's woes are old lessons).

As for picking & choosing, closing sluicegates, sales to players, etc., these are simply obvious answers. We all know we can pick and choose (but for some reason many posters think they are offering great advice about such an apparent choice of action). We also all know that Wizards is going to do what makes the most money for them (they are a business after all). A smart business makes smart decisions.

The shift I speak of is from 3.0 to 3.5, where a slew of rules follows the edition's release, only to be incorporated into the core with the next edition and then the race begins anew. It is a philosophical shift in how the game is being played, in how the game is conceptualized and marketed, in how it creates and nourishes expectations among the gaming community, in how it steers this great game in a partcular.

To take your cue and go back to the days of TSR, most crunchy bits (and there were tons of them) were heavily tied to a particular campaign setting. The lack of this "fluff" in today's market is a mark of the shift I mention. And as someone has mentioned here, this ceaseless flow of crunchy bits becomes in and of itself soulless. You may not see what I am seeing and/or it may not even matter to you but it is of importance to me.

 

[hrafnagud]

For those who have come to realize that 'More is Less,' the obvious answer is to draw a line in the sand. I have been pleased to see the number of people falling back on core material and reserving the rest on a case for case basis. It has been said that optional material be justified only in the context of the setting, and I cannot agree more. For this to work, the DM needs to have a very clear picture of his cosmology, georgaphy and politics. In other words, the setting ought to be well defined.

How am I supposed to simply drop in races and cultures previously unseen and retain any credibility? Ideally, my setting will have a general feeling of continuity. Only when the players are familiar with the ins and outs of language, law, prejudice, history, commerce and other minutiae does the roleplaying reach a new level. A level not achieved, incidentally, by merely piling on more feats, more skills, more special abilities, ad nauseum.

More to the point, I feel the game has gotten away from me when a player begins asking for this feat or that, and I can't even identify the book from whence it came. Better, I feel, to ground the game in basics. I regret that I now have to resort to an extra-planar, giant, undead, lycanthropic split class NPC to get any attention.

 

[jasper]

Now while the door is open a little more than when i first started 3rd. I urge new DMs to start out only the core material. Tell your players you will start a campaign using only core materials. Then go 1 to 20 with new characters being created at the current game play level. This way everyone gets to learn the basic system. After that retire the characters, the start over at first with x,yz options. At this pt you could start ad hoc adding splatbooks irregardless of game play level.

 

[Chronosome]

As a DM, I see the options as a campaign toolkit. I can make my setting be unique in flavor just by including, excluding, tweaking, and renaming these cool addons as I see fit.

As a player, I see the options as guidelines and surprises. I can make any character I can concieve of (within the campaign's parameters, of course) and expect all kinds of interesting challenges to spring up for that character.

As a savvy consumer, I see these options as optional. I don't need them all.

As a twitching D&D fanboy, I NEED new crunchy!!

Seriously, though: It's all about options, IMO. Keeps things interesting and fun. And, hell, I can always just design a new class or monster or whatever if I need one...all these options have given me a good idea where that mystic balance in crunch lies.

Keep printing 'em, I say.

 

[xrpsuzi]

Barsoomcore, Mark, Hong--you make my morning. Think you could donate little versions of you to sit in the corner of the room and make remarks all day for my personal amusment? I could get you a monkey with a drumset if it helps?

Without repeating too much of what has already been said-- what's the purpose of buying rgp's? To use them? To the have them? To maximize your game/characters? Theoretically, in the best case senario, it's all of the above, but just because one component isn't there, doesn't mean it wasn't worth the purchase. I know gamers are a value conscience group, but rgp's are one of your hobbies for a reason. You like them. Reading and thinking about the possibilties makes you happy. And if you could test drive them and fiddle with them at the table, all the better.

I don't know how many campaign settings and supplements that I won't be able to run (like spycraft..... I've been trying so hard to find a spycraft group in dallas....) but I have it and one day... I'll play it. Or not. I've gotten great joy just because it's got my creativity and interest flowing.

I don't know how many times Joe walks into a gaming store saying the mantra "I'm not a collector," and walks out with all the AD&D stuff that reminds him of the past.

That being said, both of us rarely buy sole splat books (they usual have a merit to it besides PrCs and feats), so we are not swimming in too many feats/spells/PrC/magic items. And it got pretty bad with one gaming group that joe closed down PrC's not in the DMG. Sometimes he would suggest a PrC from a splat book if he felt the character was going in that direction, but then the PrC is based on how the guy was playing it, NOT min/maxing to death. It's amazing how much easier it is for joe (DM) to choose a PrC that fits the way a player is playing his 6th level dwarven fighter out of the hundreds of PrC's he's read, b/c players not only want the cool idea and character development. They want the power, which adds another layer of possibility that has to be exploited.

Some food for thought at entirely too early a morning.
-suzi