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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jester David" data-source="post: 6928571" data-attributes="member: 37579">It is the other school of thought: provide more options so everyone will find something they like, rather than generic options that people will tolerate or just not hate. The Baskin Robbins 52 flavours vs just chocolate and vanilla. It doesn't always work like that in practice however. While a few people might prefer a very specific flavour, on average more options tend to make people indecisive. They tend to have two or three choices they like equally and then have trouble picking between. Then they wonder if they made the right choice, feeling less satisfied with their final decision. D&D has the advantage with the surveys and audience feedback. They can target the gaps where people need the support, providing options where needed. (Like they tried to do with the sorcerer, adding another option to SCAG because people with dissatisfied with the choice between draconic and wild magic.)Between that and making subclasses flexible and open to reflavouring should be able to satisfy most people. You'll never hit ever mark though. Even in 4e and Pathfinder, there were some characters and options that were never quite possible. Very true. I like 5e but it's not everything to everyone. For people who just like options and building characters, there are other games out there. Just like if you want a game really focused around investigating horrific things in a modern setting you might be better off not with D&D. Or if you want to play a space wizard and his smuggler sidekick, there are other game systems. I'm playing in a zombie apocalypse campaign right now (that is in fall hiatus) and we're not using D&D because it's just not suited for a modern era Romero zombie apocalypse game. Which is a chicken-egg thing. If the content was released at a rate other than "fire hose" they would have had time to smooth out the balance through playtesting and more concentrated design. The "don't want it, don't buy it" argument always seems poor to me. First, because I have crap impulse control and like to say "yes" to my players. Which is why my Pathfinder games went off the rails... I like buying new books too much. (That and I do reviews on my website, so I'd buy it for that purpose, like I've done for a bunch of Pathfinder books of late...) Second, because once the books exist, it will also affect the books I do want to buy. If all the go-to warrior subclasses are crammed into Volo's Guides to Pointy Shards of Metal then the fighter content in the books I want become subpar. And they won't have had enough time to playtest that content, since they were busy trying to create the five or six page filling subclasses needed to round out the page count of VGtPSoM. And once they run out of easy content and good book ideas, we start getting the crap books. Magic of Incarnum or Heroes of Shadow that people don't *really* want, but the company needs to release something or just lay off the entire RPG department. They're not keeping Mearl & co. on the payroll because they run a good Friday lunch campaign. It hastens the end of the edition. Oh, and third, "don't like it? Then don't buy it" is probably the exact opposite thing WotC wants people saying about their books. A complication book down the line wouldn't be a bad idea. It'll probably take a while to get enough content though...(But, then again, all that takes is a smartphone, a scanner app, and $10 on Lulu.com)</blockquote>

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