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The problem with your "simple option/complex option" split in this scenario is that the simple option will not help a person who refuses to read or remember it, because the problem isn't the complexity/simplicity of the options, but the effort put forth by the player. I find the argument that...

The point for comparison is likely 3.X, since it has far more inter-related rules since it isn't exception-based design. Early versions of D&D are way easy to learn on the player side. Absolutely agreed there. And I recognize that fact when I introduce new people to 4e. I give them a book to...

I don't really feel sympathy for these supposed "huge swathes of people" who refuse to learn the basics of an activity in which they are trying to engage. If someone isn't willing to learn the basic rules of basketball, then I'm not going to play 1-on-1 with them. If someone isn't willing to...

If one wants to engage in discussions or research in astrophysics, the person should take the time to actually read up on astrophysics and remember it. The same applies to D&D. Read what you should read (your class at the level at which you're playing it, at the minimum) and actually remember...

Oh, I agree. I love 4e, but a theoretical clone needs to do better than it without sacrificing all of its core language, and I don't think the shift from encounter/daily to scene/whatever is a net positive change (despite having spent roughly half my RPG time playing Storyteller and FATE games).

Should it be minimized below "Read your character." or "Remember things you've learned."? That's the problem I see with B.T.'s post about the group. Most of them didn't read their characters or retain the information from them. He had one guy get something corrected and explained, then continued...

Remember, cosmetics can be the difference between you being attracted to someone and being disgusted by them. In these 4e clones/heartbreakers, there seems to be a lot of "change the terminology just because," which will actually work against you. Even if its cosmetic, a change makes someone...

In my experience, it specifies when it applies to superior cover (-5), otherwise it only applies to regular cover (-2). However, I don't think it would be out of place to interpret that as "reduce cover category by one," so if they had superior cover (-5) would become regular cover (-2).

I think he's discounting the opinion of someone who is telling us what D&D is really supposed to be while at the same time demonstrating through his article that his experience with the game is quite limited. And his insistence that D&D is, and should be, about telling a great story just smacks...

Reading the Bluff rules in the Rules Compendium, I see nothing that prevents its use on other players, so the DM isn't really making anything up.

Bloodlines' ambient sounds, club music, and official soundtrack are my go-to sounds for modern games (which usually have horror elements). For sci-fi-ish games, I usually pull the music files from Half-Life 2, as I find it to be excellent for mood without being overwhelming. Word. One of my...

I use Syrinscape, and have for a couple years now. Check it out. The thing I've found works best with it is (brace for it)... World of Warcraft music. Once you have the game fully downloaded, you can use MPQEditor to go into the various MPQ data files and extract all of the music and ambient...

Something that WotC never pointed out (but should have): the monster damage expression tables (which were updated in the errata) were identical to the page 42 damage expression tables, so you can just use the updated version for page 42. Otherwise, yeah, the DM's Kit had the updated numbers.

I find it the opposite. Since I don't have to worry about mechanics in 4e, I have more time and brainspace to spend on story.

It was just an example, not an actual statement of what the system contains. I don't actually know if accuracy would be an option.

So, the fighter gets a certain amount of dice/number of sides depending on level, and can spend them to do stuff like boost damage, boost accuracy, do a special attack, and the like. Maybe I missed something, but it sounds like it's basically a point system that pretends that it isn't a point...

Or, heaven help you, if you take ability damage, ability drain, or energy drain, those wonderful "recalculate all your derived stats mid-game" conditions.

Two nitpicks. The first is the incorrect use of retcon. The didn't magically change the timeline to have the cosmology always been that way (unlike 3e and it's "The Simbul was always a sorcerer, you just never noticed." explanations). The continuity was not retroactively changed, therefore it...

So, the guy who was listed as the D&D Story Design and Development Manager for 4e, which would make him the head of the team that ditched the Great Wheel, now tells us "all options are equal" and "it's not D&D without the Great Wheel" in the same breath? Charming.

What's amusing about this oft-repeated phrase is that ALL game mechanics in every edition of every game ever made are artificially contrived.