Blizzardification

The Bilzzardification of D&D began with D&D 3.5E and roared into full swing with D&D 4E. By the time we got to D&D 5E, this trend had become the norm, and barely anyone noticed.

The game has too many races, classes, and subclass options, along with pointless choices that carry no thematic weight or story consequences.

Like World of Warcraft, we get another half-dozen elf shapes with no real meaning in the broader story, some mechagnomes because the character editor just couldn't do that with normal gnomes, and all sorts of other "why did they add this" character options.

There comes a point when so many silly shapes run through my mind that it shuts down, the story becomes trash and meaningless, and the world's original charm is gone. This isn't about diversity; this is about storytelling and "less is more." The story never needed dozens of race options, especially if the core conflicts are watered down to the point where nothing matters.

More is more! And we get yet another thing to buy and try to fit into a world that stopped making sense a decade ago. I don't even know what World of Warcraft is anymore, other than "Fantasy Second Life" full of silly shapes and random things that never fit together thematically.

Same thing with classes, in World of Warcraft, we have a few different types of fighters now, and they all need to have class roles, niche protection, and enough differences to make choosing one over the other a viable choice. I miss the days of "fighter was it," and even the paladin class was a main tank trade-off with slippery aggro.

And in D&D, too many fighter classes created with a thesaurus not only make the original class boring and unappealing, but also force the designers to create "role protection" and "self-healing options" for every fighter to make them viable solo classes. There are too many similar fighter classes. It makes the original fighter a joke. Why do I play a fighter again?

Boring choice. Play a swordmaster. A battlerager. A shieldmaster. An arcane combatant. A jumping lancer. Don't mind the fact that some of these classes feel like multiclassed characters, such as the arcane combatant being a multiclass fighter/magic-user; they just are a "thing" now, and world builders are now forced to shove them into every world somehow.

Even multiclassing is being attacked by the thesaurus class designers, and making "better options" with a new class that makes the entire charm of multiclassing the weaker choice. Worse yet, you can multiclass the multiclassed replacement.

What are you even doing anymore?

These "tack on and add on" games give me a headache.

If you come out with a game and can't even preserve and support the original game's solid class choices, and you can't help yourself and replace them with every book you release, you are a garbage game designer. You can't even support the original game anymore without making the choice in it obsolete with your "new power gaming stuff" released in every book. Ultimately, it ends with the players all getting sick of it, everyone quitting, and you being "forced" to release a new edition to clean it all up.

Look at how much better 6E is now and all the problems it solves!

We had those problems fixed when 5E was released, and you broke the game since then.

And the ranger and rogue were broken on release, and still are. They will be broken in 6E, too.

This is why basic BX is so appealing to me. It does not change unless I want it to, and I can control everything that comes into the game. I have strict control of worldbuilding. No one is coming along and making a thesaurus "archer" class and replacing a subset of fighters on me. I don't need to fit the new garbage into my world. There are no silly circus-like planes to factor into my worldbuilding.

If I say "an archer is just a fighter that uses a bow," then the fighter class covers it. The gladiator is just a "fighter who fights in an arena." Seriously, one secondary skill could cover the entire class and be used for all the "optional flavor abilities." We don't need to invent game mechanics and track pool points for "crowd support" or "archery focus." Who cares? It is a fighter. Stop making new fighters!

Put the thesaurus down.

You aren't being innovative or smart by trying to replace the wheel. You are just making slightly worse wheels that are only usable in specific situations.

If I only want "the core four" races of human, dwarf, elf, and halfling - that is all that is in the book and all that I will support in my worldbuilding. Orcs are orcs, not something someone on social media said they were; so, outside people, unconnected to classic myth and disconnected from reality, can ruin my game and world-building. The list of "monsters as player options" gets worse and worse every year, and I expect mind flayers. displacer beasts, and beholders to be player options in 6E. And I will be forced to add them, along with every other silly thing they put in the game's art.

Game designers. Stop it. You have a problem. Get some help.

Less is more.