FrankTrollman wrote:The character class example is pretty solid. [some] People want a large number of character classes, but they don't actually enjoy making selections from long lists. What to do?
fixed that for you, and to note when i started rewriting AD&D about 2 decades ago i went through a process of removing classes to simplify things down to abilities to see if that would work. the problem came down to the long list of little abilities that could be given to a character and the value of each and how to assign them.
not even bothering the "balance" of power of the abilities the size of the list such as 2.5 gave with little bits and pieces of customizable class abilities and race abilities, and 3.x skills/feats... it became a futile effort in silliness.
you really dont need THAT much. the ability to quickly make a character based on a few small but important choices is what people preffered all the while saying they wanted lots of interchangeable parts.
i really dont see that has changed. sure computer let you manage the little parts quicker in some cases, but in the end, you still have to deal with them all during play, and if you aren't playing on a computer, this takes time for each single step to check each little part.
this is why MMOs can do things TTRPGs cannot, because they can manage all those little parts seamlessly and give them to you slowly in chunks. it just cannot come back to TTRPGs even at the lengths 3.x tried to apply those number of choices. that is where "builds" come from rather than gameplay.
for some that IS fun, but then what do you do with the character when you have it built? you often get frustrated with it not performing as well with all the time put into it to make it such as K in another thread feeling "left out" when a character that took time to make and play gets killed or otherwise impaired from playing, and a few other people that get bored when they dont have what furthers their plan of their build.
this is something people should probably think about that how players fel about now with their builds or special rapier requirements as magic should think about that DMs have been going through for decades...a well laid plan goes off course or gets destroyed in a single die roll. DMs rarely get so upset to kill the campaign over it, they continue on. well there are those that do NOT and throw a temper tantrum like the 3.x game i played, or go into TPK mode to get revenge.
also to think about that efort put into building and makes the game unplayable through losing a character or an amount of playtime means those times playing the character are not worth the effort into making them if it will jsut die after a single combat when it took 2 hours to make it.
in ye olden days of yore... EVERYONE made TONS of "dream characters", but the idea you would play them was unheard of because just how far they could break a world or the system itself by poking at the extremities using ALL the options. the broken combos of multiclass characters i had with AD&D that would laugh at Punpun and more usable "builds" of 3.x is mountains full after CoreRules.
yet again this entire topic goes back to my sig. "play the game, not the rules".
rules are there to allow things that the designers though of, not to say to use everything. and ALL groups cut those lists in some fashion so that that 30 becomes only 6 classes for some reason or another, jsut so they can more quickly get to the game.
those options are great to choose from, but you have to have focus in choosing which means narrowing down the lists.
someone wants to cast spells, they have already narrowed down a list for themselves to remove those that dont cast spells, or vice versa.
but you cannot get to finite in your list such that you end up with a character than is no longer able to be played unless 100% of the time every die roll and action goes your way, since random factors exist to thwart your design to make you think about what to do when something doesnt work the way you want it to or hope it would... like getting a magic rapier or katana.
that is the part of the game. not having that random bit throw in you have left playing a game, and it doesnt matter how many choices, you are just writing a story.
writing a story is ONE use of D&D, but not the only, or default use for it. and as D&D stories go...you dont even need the lists or rules in the books to write them, you just do what you want to do because it is your own little pocket dimension within the D&D universe.
picking things for a character that you find fun will always be a process of elimination where you remove things you dont want to see which ones you do, in effect making smaller lists.
so to get back to your post specifically...what to do...like every other part of the D&D game, you play with what is available that you can have the most fun with.
Necromancer is a DM tool or concept, then players dont get it for a class choice.
someone has to set a limit to the lists, and that job falls to the DM that must manage it all. the company will print anything it thinks it can sell.
