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Too many choices? (Options Paralysis)
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<blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 7865499" data-attributes="member: 18"><p>I don't believe analysis paralysis is a thing that genuinely "new" players experience at all. In thirty years I've never, ever seen a player genuinely new to RPGs do any kind of "analysis paralysis"-type dithering. Why? Because new players don't analyse in that way. They just hear a cool-sounding thing and go "yeah, that!". Other players sometimes cause a problem by constantly suggesting other options but a good DM tells them to zip it.</p><p></p><p>Long-time DMs who become players are absolutely the worst for analysis paralysis. I have never seen as much dithering, chopping, changing and obscure class/race considering as when a DM is suddenly a player I include myself in this!</p><p></p><p>Next-worst are very experienced players, who often get stuck considering a wide variety of powerful combinations and can chop and change a fair bit. Or overanalyse things and end up with something they don't actually enjoy.</p><p></p><p>The third group who actually do this are what I'd call armchair players, for lack of a better term. The sort of people who actually don't get to play D&D or RPGs in general for years and years, but keep following it (either having played when younger or having always wanted to). When they finally do get to play they do often get stuck even with limited choices because they want the choice to be perfect.</p><p></p><p>But genuinely new players? Nah. Also 5E is way less bad for this than 4E which was in turn way less bad than the apex game for analysis paralysis, which was 3.5E (specifically, not just 3.XE - PF1E is also dreadful for it).</p><p></p><p>(Edit and if we go well outside D&D nothing causes this kind of paralysis like GURPS with say 300-400 points and access to a ton of source books, like a wide-open GURPS Supers game. Of course least analysis ever was also a supers game, the old FASERIP Marvel game, people were just like "Wait I can be Spider-Man? Ok I'm Spider-Man!)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Ruin Explorer, post: 7865499, member: 18"] I don't believe analysis paralysis is a thing that genuinely "new" players experience at all. In thirty years I've never, ever seen a player genuinely new to RPGs do any kind of "analysis paralysis"-type dithering. Why? Because new players don't analyse in that way. They just hear a cool-sounding thing and go "yeah, that!". Other players sometimes cause a problem by constantly suggesting other options but a good DM tells them to zip it. Long-time DMs who become players are absolutely the worst for analysis paralysis. I have never seen as much dithering, chopping, changing and obscure class/race considering as when a DM is suddenly a player I include myself in this! Next-worst are very experienced players, who often get stuck considering a wide variety of powerful combinations and can chop and change a fair bit. Or overanalyse things and end up with something they don't actually enjoy. The third group who actually do this are what I'd call armchair players, for lack of a better term. The sort of people who actually don't get to play D&D or RPGs in general for years and years, but keep following it (either having played when younger or having always wanted to). When they finally do get to play they do often get stuck even with limited choices because they want the choice to be perfect. But genuinely new players? Nah. Also 5E is way less bad for this than 4E which was in turn way less bad than the apex game for analysis paralysis, which was 3.5E (specifically, not just 3.XE - PF1E is also dreadful for it). (Edit and if we go well outside D&D nothing causes this kind of paralysis like GURPS with say 300-400 points and access to a ton of source books, like a wide-open GURPS Supers game. Of course least analysis ever was also a supers game, the old FASERIP Marvel game, people were just like "Wait I can be Spider-Man? Ok I'm Spider-Man!) [/QUOTE]
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