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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8578224" data-attributes="member: 6790260">I am reminded of a concept I heard recently from the MMO critic Josh "Strife" Hayes: the idea of MMO designer gluttony as the overproduction of systems for their own sake.While it is true that people come to understand things only if they are taught, that does not actually respond to the first criticism: "that's too complex." You may believe "that's too complex" and "that doesn't make sense" are synonymous, but you would be incorrect. Things not making sense is a fault of the explanation process, which can be fixed as you suggested, by giving better explanations. Things being unnecessarily complex cannot be fixed by better explanations; they can only be fixed by making them less complicated.One of the big problems with D&D is that it can be difficult to get into. It has extremely effective word of mouth marketing, because anyone who wants to DM must convince at least a few other people to play with them. But the market is still extremely small. As in, 5e right now has sold roughly as well as a moderately-successful niche video game. That's not an insult; for 5e to have done even that well is impressive by tabletop gaming standards. Part of having done that well, however, is the level of effort put into making it approachable. Now, sometimes, problems with how approachable a game is can be fixed by improving its presentation--that was one of the lessons learned from 4e, for example. But the thing you are asking for isn't that, by your own admission. This is not "take a complex thing and explain it better." It is "make a thing more complex because more complexity is inherently better than less complexity." And that's simply not true.Don't get me wrong. I like crunchy systems. 4e is my favorite version of D&D. But complexity for its own sake is gluttonous game design. It is filling up the game with more things to learn solely so that there are more things to learn. That, right there, turns people off of a game. The initial exposure period, which sometimes may be only an hour but is certainly less than a single evening, is absolutely critical for getting players interested and invested into a game. D&D is, and has long been, really really REALLY awful at actually making this intro period effective. It tends to focus on conveying the whole of the rules, rather than the necessary rules. It tends to focus on many systems, rather than elegant systems. And, perhaps worst of all, many editions--including 5e, which actually backslid on this issue--put an enormous weight on the DM's shoulders and do not take basic efforts to lessen that weight.Keeping class mechanics interestingly varied is an important element of any class-based game design. You are not wrong to want such variety. This is just a system unlikely to support one of the key goals of 5th edition: reaching more fans, growing the base. This is something that will only appeal to the hardcore/veteran players, and which offers little to no actual design benefits other than being a new shiny thing for hardcore/veteran players to play with. The push toward shared standards is not simply a matter of ease of design; it exists specifically to help make the new player experience more welcoming so people will want to keep playing.As I said above: consider whether this is "so nice" because it would give you personally something fresh and new to work with, or "so nice" because it would make a better gaming experience for everyone involved, including the brand-new people that have to learn it.Because if the answer is the former, then it may just be the case that you are asking for mechanical supplementation of the rules--things innately geared for people "already invested"--and not fundamental rules changes that absolutely everyone has to abide by.</blockquote>

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