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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9840674" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Let me put it this way:Games--including D&D--have been trending extremely hard toward maximal simplicity, all the time, for everything, for the past like 15, 20 years. Back in 2008, 2010, that was a big plus. It brought many casual players in, it opened up game spaces to players that had never really been "gamers" before, etc. Video games, tabletop games, hell even board games!5.5e isn't going to last forever, I think all of us recognize that, but I would be shocked if it tapped out sooner than mid-2029, and at least somewhat surprised if it didn't hold on until sometime in 2030. At that point, we'll have had some variation of 5e for over 15 years--and the design trends that went into 5e's content were already a few years old to begin with. The world of 2030 is going to look rather different from the world of 2010, which is what 5e was a response to.The pendulum swings. It doesn't stay fixed in place for 20 years. The key thing is that that doesn't mean all complexity all the time either. It means that there needs to be a clear and valued place for simplicity that serves a function--and there also needs to be a clear and valued place for complexity that serves a function."Make EVERYTHING simpler" is a bad approach. "Make EVERYTHING complex" is a bad approach. "Demand complexity only for a purpose, and simplicity only when productive" is a good approach. One of the most common complaints I personally hear, even from people who very much do not like complexity, is that 5e feels really shallow when it comes to making choices for your character. That you basically decide everything that will ever matter about the character between level 1 and 3, and from then on you're almost completely locked in to that one thing.For completely green, "my first character" type players, that's a good starting point. It avoids being overwhelming, helps folks get their start. But people never remain "completely green 'my first character'" type players for long. Maybe--maybe--five years? And that would be a real long time. Now, there are some people who just prefer things that way, a good chunk (probably like...a quarter of players?), and they deserve options which support their interests. Forcing everyone to live by those interests is the problem. Just as forcing everyone to play only ultra-complicated character is also a problem--something 3e was very, very guilty of.The actual path forward is to have a handful of simple options for every role, and then complex options for every role, and then some middle-of-the-road options, and then some do-it-yourself options for the folks hungry for more. Of course, this is a major design commitment. You have to make sure that those simple classes aren't overpowered, because then nobody will bother with the complex ones, and folks will be annoyed that you do all that complex work for worse results. But they also can't be underpowered, or folks will feel they're punished, paying a tax so they don't have to to a ton of work just to play. That's a challenge, but not an insurmountable one.Again, it is simply true that too much simplification IS bad for a game, it's just that the effects are usually long-term, not short-term. This absolutely should not be used as an excuse not to make some things simple. It just means we can't use "but some people need simplicity!" as an excuse to never make anything complex, or to avoid a mix solely because a mix is harder to balance.</blockquote>

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