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How much of this is changing perceptions, rather than changing inclinations? Perhaps people were just as inclined to focus on the next level before, and you simply weren't as observant back then. Perhaps there were just as many people who preferred a fast pace back then, and for whatever reason...

A quibble: I see the phrase frequently, but 'since 3E' is a bit misleading here. In 3.X, sure, but both 4E and Next fall into the 'since 3E' category, and neither uses the 3.X approach of pulling summons, animal companions, and polymorph/wildshape forms from their respective monster sources. In...

I think that that's a fair and reasonably accurate description of my own approach. I also think it's hardly surprising that it's a common take, given that the game world generally defaults to a pseudo–medieval Europe (complete with castles, knights, and princesses) that ditches the monotheism...

So, by disagreeing, are you saying that I in fact do feel they offer insight into my characters and that I do find them useful as categories? Because I didn't really say anything about whether they are useful or meaningful to you or anyone else. If you find them to be so, that's fine with me ...

What I like about this statement is how succinctly it sums up how I feel about the traditional alignments: I do not feel Lawful Good, Neutral Good, Chaotic Good, Lawful Neutral, True Neutral, Chaotic Neutral, Lawful Evil, Neutral Evil, or Chaotic Evil as labels offer any insight into my or my...

I'm not sure whether my answer will be of relevance to your underlying niche-protection question. In my edition of choice, healing isn't a niche that's restricted to the Cleric, or Divine classes, or even Leaders. The Cleric, as the Divine Leader, is arguably the best at it, with both the widest...

:erm: I've written on this before, but I rather emphatically disagree that the 'big four' are non-specific. Wizards, Clerics, and Rogues are not lacking in identity the way that the Fighter is, the way that @EnglishLanguage is talking about. Wizards are a very specific archetype...

So the fighter being able to exhaust their ability to do their more difficult manoeuvres, rather than being an untiring juggernaut who can attack at full strength continuously, makes them more like a superhero? Interesting.

I haven't used either of these approaches myself, but I have no objection to either of them. What exactly am I supposed to be afraid is going to happen if I grant the players these freedoms? Characters with ability scores over 9000? Levelling once per turn? If players think that being able to...

Perhaps, though given some of what you say in the rest of the post, there also seems to be a degree of misunderstanding of what I'm saying. Perhaps you're perceiving greater differences than actually exist. Or perhaps not. You're conflating character desires with player desires. The two need...

... eh? If my players are telling me what kind of monsters they want to fight, and what sort of rewards they want then my response is "Awesome!". Far better to know what they're interested in seeing than making stabs in the dark. And when I'm on the other side of the screen, I definitely make...

Because nobody save particularly delusional kings thinks kings have any special insight into whether a given action or philosophy is right or wrong, Good or Evil ... while it's generally accepted that the Lawful Good god of lawful goodness is fairly unlikely to make a significant error in...

My apologies. It was not my intent to attribute views to you that you do not hold. Yes, I agree that fighters should be mechanically broad ... at least, if we're going to continue to treat them as conceptually broad. Either we need to provide them the tools to represent the concepts they're...

While I'd happily agree with the idea that the fighter shouldn't suck (and would hope that it's not a terribly controversial position to take), to describe both the Wizard class and the Fighter class as broad is to conflate two very different meanings of the term. The Fighter is, traditionally...

Ceaseless sword swinging being silly does not equal "Therefore, martial dailies are the only viable solution." There are any number of ways systems could model fatigue, and many of them could be applied to both sword-swinging AND spell-slinging. For instance, if one were to embrace the idea...

See, I take the exact opposite viewpoint. I mean, it's absurd that someone could swing a sword all day. It's freaking heavy, and even if every roll that doesn't meet or exceed the target's AC is indeed a complete whiff that only connects with air, the hits you do get in obey that whole 'every...

Purpose and hierarchy are, again, concepts at odds with chaos. Chaos is purposeless and unstructured. Purpose and structure are the hallmarks of order. Also, intelligence and wisdom seem to be carrying the workload of telling us how creatures behave here to a much greater extent than alignment...

The save to take half damage from a fireball strikes me as a rather silly way to model the effects of an explosion of any sort. Instead of automatically hitting wherever you targeted, and the damage (relative to max) being determined by whether you somehow reflexively avoided half of the...

Rationally weighing cost vs. benefit doesn't strike me as terribly chaotic. Nor does behaviour that is predictable enough that one can say with any degree of certainty how a character will act given known conditions: chaos is unpredictability, not predictable violation of law. Someone who...

I can assure you that, despite the fact that neither of the two characters I am playing currently have the word "Good" written on their character sheets, neither is a liar, a cheat, or a thief (despite the fact that one of the two actually has the word "Thief" on his character sheet). I began...