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Yup. Pretty much. My first long-running 3E character was an Arcane Trickster from Tome and Blood. Even with bad caster-levels I was still head-and-shoulders more useful than any two non-casters. It was way too easy. Yup, as I moved into 3.5 I transitioned over to Bards so I could do some...

In general people will be indifferent or hostile towards a game they don't want to play. It takes attention away from the game they want to play, and they need the interest of others to have a good gaming experience. If a new game comes along and takes my good players away and leaves me with a...

The thing for me is that those that favor caster-types and those that prefer non-caster types can both be equally concerned about balance for opposite reasons. Some people love playing a 3E Swiss-army Wizard with 9,001 scrolls and wands, the master blaster that destroys small continents 8...

That's a very nice set of monster design guidelines. You get a general notion of damage output and HP as far as a certain challenge class of monster go. You get some examples of how to give monsters distinction in the framework while working from a common root. It'll take some tweaking between...

Sorry, but I can't help but remember discussions over a decade ago about how fun and balanced a game Magic: the Gathering was until those rotten kids started copying good decks off the Internet. - Marty Lund

Nah, apparently on this particular issue it's just non-negotiable to take up rule-book space for a module. Some people consider it a "non-issue" due to their ad hoc play-style decisions so it just must not be. I mean, that's precious real-estate we could be dedicating to a bigger list of Vancian...

My friends are playing a game. For it to capture their dramatic and competitive interests there must always be a possibility of failure and success. It doesn't have to be a statistically significant chance of failure all the time, but they appreciate the fact that if their character wanders...

True enough. There is no incentive innate to the system to reward doing anything other than Nova-Rest-Nova. It's just the macro version of searching every 10' square for traps so automatically that the local inn doesn't even need to pay someone to sweep their floors anymore. The DM or adventure...

OK, I see what you mean. I disagree with a dismissive attitude towards game theory wonkery, though. You have to have in game theory, too. I've seen too many games fail, decline, or simply never live up to expectations because it took years for players to finally articulate clearly what the...

I think I may not have communicated my point clearly. There's a reward to fighting in the Caves. The reward was the same whether the characters increased their risk of failure by pressing on after burning resources or fought for 48 seconds and then decided to bug out and take rest. There's no...

Actually, no, that's not sweet at all. The argument has never been that the majority of games and tables experience a 5 minute work day or a 15 minute adventuring day or whatever. When you get a 30% ratio of screw-ups you've got a system failure. Well, it wasn't a huge explosion and it didn't...

15 Minute Adventuring Day might be a stretch, but my players did have the "one combat and run to rest" experience after scouting the caves. They basically sandwiched into a sprawling fight with the Kobolds and some giant rats and got beat up, felt they lacked sufficient healing resources, and...

Well, in AD&D -> 3.5 Edition they padded the page-count of the PHB with 100+ pages of Vancian Spell Lists. 4E cut that out so they had to replace it with something. They cut almost all the Magic Items out of the Essentials player's books (leaving in only a few examples) but then again they cut...

Player: "Dude? What are you talking about? If we close the gate to the Abyss how are we going to get to Orcus to kill him and take his stuff? I've got to find some place to pawn this stupid stick so I can get a Holy Avenger before we leave ..." D&D takes all kinds - from the Thespians to the...

True, though I think the "random encounter" tied back to the 15-minute work-day is the sense that threats from Ye Olde Wandering Monster Table (yes, there was totally a wandering monster check in AD&D) created incentive to not blow all your resources and count on being able to restore them all...

Well, the "wish list" thing isn't even a rules mechanic. It's in the advice for successful DM'ing in the DMG about communicating and managing expectations re: treasure. That advice was basically a response to the old AD&D problem of rolling random treasure tables and getting loot no one can use...

Thankfully, 5E is all about having the Magic, Loot, and XP dials available so the settings can be customized for the game you want to play. If you like low-magic, slow-level, and high-risk games you can certainly have your fill without anyone else's fun getting in your way. As above, the dials...

Cue the Angry DM dropping the Celestial Neck-Arrows of Odin in 3 ... 2 ... 1 ... I mean, if it has to be a Spear instead of a Sword to fulfill the Great Narrative Prerogative then obviously breaking it for the XP calls for a flipped table and hurt feelings. I mean, these rotten players are...

Someone needs to write a book titled something like, "Dr. StrangeDM or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Game." The game is for amusement purposes only. If you want to run a game with a weapon as the key treasure / artifact feature and your primary weapon-user has specialized in...

Almost everyone wants a narrative flow that makes some sense to them. Chopping things up with a Nova-Rest-Nova routine cuts into the narrative flow badly. The DM can come up with ways to avoid it but the Players also have incentive to look for the best risk-reward deals they can find in the...