D&D 5E I don’t really care what rules the players use.

[Reynard]

I feel like overly curating the player facing material is the kind of control that most GMs would be better off letting go of.

 

[Distracted DM]

I feel like overly curating the player facing material is the kind of control that most GMs would be better off letting go of.

Overly curating suggests that there should be some curation- and that line between "curated" and "overly curated" is surely a personal one.

 

[Ringtail]

That's no problem, though, because WotC's basic monster design is not particularly tight, and swings wildly for even the same CR. You are better off picking monsters that are fun to fight and run, eyeballing difficulty.

I definitely agree. Designing encounters and eyeballing difficulty is my biggest annoyance with 5e, so its aspect of the rules I'm most susceptible to bending for the sake of an engaging combat. The presence of books like Monster Manual Expanded and especially Flee Mortals! seems to imply that a lot of people feel the same.

 

[Distracted DM]

Setting consistency matters to me far more than mechanical consistency, or even mechanical balance.

Mechanical consistency can affect setting consistency- I've had to grapple with this a bit when we switched to A5E and the mountain dwarf culture provided fire resistance because they spend their lives around forges. Are mountain dwarves now all fire resistant when they weren't previously? Does being a smith make you fire resistant?
Personally I reasoned this out by saying that character origins solely affect player characters, not NPCs etc.
Sometimes new things like this can be be inspirational and help evolve a setting, "huh you know maybe smiths SHOULD have fire resistance," but in this instance I had to come up with a compromise between mechanics and setting that sat comfortably in my head.

It did help me understand why between some D&D edition changes there was some kind of apocalypse that changed how the world/magic/etc worked- in fact I adopted that idea to my setting. Different ages of history use different game systems

 

[overgeeked]

This is a refreshing take, and a freeing one.

I recall a story about Dave Arneson running games at conventions and handing out character sheets from different editions (3e, Basic, AD&D and I believe something else entirely like Adventures in Fantasy maybe). Some of the players were naturally confused and he just smiled and said "Hi, I'm Dave Arneson."
You can run a satisfying game experience for people with wildly different characters and powers, each can have their own special mechanics even. If you apply consistently how the world reacts that can be all that matters.

I wouldn't go quite that far in most circumstances, but there's a reason that in my game Simple Superheroes #0 you basically make a rule for every heroes powers. There's just a solid framework so that you can do that quickly.

I’ve been thinking about how to do just that for awhile now. It would take some doing and a bit of math but I think it would work pretty well.

 

[Reynard]

I definitely agree. Designing encounters and eyeballing difficulty is my biggest annoyance with 5e, so its aspect of the rules I'm most susceptible to bending for the sake of an engaging combat. The presence of books like Monster Manual Expanded and especially Flee Mortals! seems to imply that a lot of people feel the same.

Yeah, not only is the 2014 design bad, it's boring. I'll take bad but fun any day over even good but boring.

 

[Reynard]

I’ve been thinking about how to do just that for awhile now. It would take some doing and a bit of math but I think it would work pretty well.

You would probably be better off not doing the math and instead just winging it based on what the intent is. You'll never get a B/X MU and 5E wizard to jive, numbers wise.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I feel like overly curating the player facing material is the kind of control that most GMs would be better off letting go of.

I generally don't curate for balance, unless it's really obviously a problem. I curate for setting logic.

 

[Reynard]

I generally don't curate for balance, unless it's really obviously a problem. I curate for setting logic.

I know that setting verisimilitude is important to you, and all I can say is let it go, my dude. Let the glorious fun of gonzo fantasy wash over you!

 

[Micah Sweet]

Mechanical consistency can affect setting consistency- I've had to grapple with this a bit when we switched to A5E and the mountain dwarf culture provided fire resistance because they spend their lives around forges. Are mountain dwarves now all fire resistant when they weren't previously? Does being a smith make you fire resistant?
Personally I reasoned this out by saying that character origins solely affect player characters, not NPCs etc.
Sometimes new things like this can be be inspirational and help evolve a setting, "huh you know maybe smiths SHOULD have fire resistance," but in this instance I had to come up with a compromise between mechanics and setting that sat comfortably in my head.

It did help me understand why between some D&D edition changes there was some kind of apocalypse that changed how the world/magic/etc worked- in fact I adopted that idea to my setting. Different ages of history use different game systems

I didn't transfer a campaign over to A5e from another game, so these are not issues for me. Personally, I work very hard not to treat PCs and NPCs differently in the setting, unless its by their actions (never as a class). A PC mountain dwarf is not a different order of being from an NPC mountain dwarf. That sort of narrative difference really bothers me

That said, if it's an issue for your table, you should do what's best for you.