D&D: More Is Not Better

With my D&D game, more is not better. You can have a few hundred subclasses for each class, thousands of spells and monsters, dozens of class choices, and still nothing. I can give players so many decisions that they freeze up, stare, blink a few times, and walk away. I have seen this happen.

A million choices, no one will ever have time to make or process.

Those million choices will keep people away from you and your games.

Imagine a game of Monopoly where you had to sort through a shoebox full of metal pieces to begin, where every piece had an extraordinary power, an advancement list, add-ons, and other choices you needed to sort through to start. Add to that, perhaps the game gives you a choice of three talent cards to sort through and choose. You would never play that game.

It would never be as easy as everyone picking a piece and rolling the dice.

This is what Shadowdark brought back to the table. Pick up a character sheet, roll some dice, and play. The choice you don't have, you never needed in the first place. 95% of D&D's choices are suboptimal and mostly flavor choices; a good half of the choices you get never matter on the tabletop. The more you add to that seeking "that one great choice for my character," the more you make the game worse for everyone else who has to sort through the mess of a game you built with too many books and options.

I only want meaningful choices.

Tales of the Valiant has the same problem as D&D 2014 or 2024. D&D 2024 is worse off since it ships with so many subclasses, and ToV ships two, which is too few. Subclasses are a terrible design feature in D&D overall, and they were created to enforce product identity (most are not in the SRD) and force you to purchase the books. Overall, they only bring a small number of powers to the class over 20 levels, so they don't change all that much (unless you are synergizing them), and are primarily a thematic choice for most characters.

Overall, a game with fewer subclasses feels better than one with too many. Three is perfect because you want to avoid shipping 6-8 that are never given the space and design room to be interesting. Plus, this gives me room to pick and choose the ones I want to include or have players bring new ones to me that they are interested in.

Fewer choices in the base game mean it is easier to learn and build characters in. The fluff choices should come in later, as optional books. ToV does have too few, but the new book should remedy that, and provide plenty of optional choices for my game.

If a game gives up and starts throwing in 95% garbage choices, it reflects on the game and on the game master, who would bring in so much junk that not playing becomes the best option. People just starting the game will walk away before they deal with a mess of books they have little interest in sorting through.