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Penalties for being hurt create a deathspiral. Once your hurt you're more likely to get hurt and this gets progressively worse until you can't pull out of the nosedive.

One of the requests of Gamism is fairness and balance between classes. While 3e failed at this goal I think it made an attempt. Since 4e fairly succeeded at balance it would probably be the most Gamist version of D&D. Might be hard to claim that 1e and 2e were more G than N & S.

Good quote and true for me. This is why I play low-magic Dungeons & Dragons.

^ What he said. Exactly my thoughts as well.

Official cosmology matters very little. What matters is source material for a variety of options and game mechanics to match a variety of flavors. Feywild really needs material to flesh it out such as prestige classes or paragon paths or themes or races (elves & eladrin) or monsters. Shadowfell...

Great thread idea. I am definitely in the gritty low-level camp! However, I'm also perfectly happy to have a game that goes to 30 levels and your play style can own levels 15-30. Just so the designers know that they shouldn't carve all the cool design space out and only offer it to level 15-30...

I was a huge 4e advocate and now I'm even more positive about 5e than that. D&D 4th edition had a lot of good ideas in it but lately I've soured on the quality of the execution of 4e. I'm very happy to see that 5e has a much better opportunity, because of public playtesting, than 4e ever had to...

The source material I referenced use the following explanation: "Strategic" means "a perspective larger than the immediate future and surroundings". "Tactical" means "a perspective focused on the immediate future and the immediate surroundings." "Invade the Normandy beaches on D-Day" is...

I always assume that people are smart enough to think for themselves. However, I mistakenly thought that GNS Theory was more widely known and understood here on EN World. Please, set up the poll with the correct explanation and the preferred terms. I will happily participate in your poll. I'd...

As I said over in another thread, a few different approaches to understanding potential 5e gamers would be beneficial to Wizards of the Coast. In the interest of helping them succeed with D&D Next I present another poll: Which approach or influence is strongest when you're playing Dungeons &...

Respondents gave me a hard time in Timmy, Johnny, Spike, and Vorthos for referencing a human model designed for trading card games, aka Magic: The Gathering. I believe that human beings, and their interactions with the world around them, cannot be neatly (or easily) categorized. Despite that...

Mike Mearls full quote doesn't make any sense or at least he is making odd claims about time-space. Because 4th edition came out first, the designers of Essentials were able to understand what didn't work and produce something that was less "bland". Had Essentials come first they wouldn't have...

D&D 4th edition combat is too complicated once you start playing it (though it was easy to learn).

The six D20 Modern Roleplaying Game classes loosely based on ability scores were boring as hell and lacked flavor. Defaulting skills to ability checks is only slightly less bland. However, it appears they're going to lessen the impact of ability scores by lowering the overall steepness of...

A gap of +2 does not equal a 10% better chance to hit in most situations. If the d20 needs to be 11 to succeed for +0 and 9 to succeed for +2 that is a 20% "better" chance to succeed. If the d20 needs to be 17 to hit for +0 and 15 to hit for +2 that is a 50% better chance to hit. Each '+1'...

The majority of games don't go above 11th level. This means players spend the majority of their time with 1, 2, or even only 3 feats. That is far less than the five you desire. Feats in 4th edition were really timid and often applied in very niche circumstances. Normal characters, levels...

I agree that story-driven doesn't mean that story is the most important. Story-driven reflects game mechanics the respond to the story instead of standing alone and influencing story outcomes with an element of randomness.

I'm not sure what game Monte played but 2e kits had little to do with your background and a lot to do with transforming the rather narrow class options into a much broader class system. The Loremaster kit took the Bard class and effectively created a neighboring Loremaster class which share a...

Mark Rosewater classified Magic: The Gathering players into three categories or motivations. The awesome Matt Cavotta added Vorthos. Based on the popularity of the Timmy-Johnny-Spike theory, the head of Magic: The Gathering design revisited the concept again. Theories like this can prove very...

Almost half of respondents voted "No, I don't like the 1e arcane magic system" with many more choosing that option than disliking the 1e wizard drawbacks. Perhaps EN World really is biased in favor of 4th edition. :) Is there some strong distinction between the 1e-style magic system and either...