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One of my little game design mantras is that you should always be looking to provide players with more meaningful choices. But all such rules have limitations and exceptions, as I discovered yesterday. #dnd #ttrpg
I proposed a change to the Champion subclass that gave players a meaningful resource management choice to make while slightly increasing the overall power of the build (before level 11 at least).
And fans of the Champion did not like it.
And fans of the Champion did not like it.
Listening to folk, it turned out that what I thought was a deficiency (the swingy, uneven chance of criticals) was actually a feature of the subclass. Part of the appeal was the mini-dopamine rush you get from fishing for criticals.
Substituting that for a resource management feature was not appealing, even if it gave you more power and control. More meaningful choices is not always better.
Some folk have suggested this was the real problem with 4e - that things were too precisely balanced. D&D treads a fine line between a game of resource management and a crap shoot. Getting that balance right is key.
Turning toward adventure design, I've been very focused on putting more and more meaningful choices there, and that's been well received. But its ok, and actually good, to have things blow up in a completely unpredictable way as well. That is part of the fun of as well.
Still learning something new every day! Finis.
