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I've seen in other threads and boards that a complaint about 5e is a lack of distinctiveness in weapons and armor. In 1e, this was less of a problem, but also got obscured because distinctiveness was delivered through the universally reviled Armor Class Adjustments modifiers (ACAs). This...

If you want a rich, living campaign, you need politics, particularly religious politics if you want to avoid racial or tribal conflict. Fantasy religions can be sufficiently divorced from real faiths to add the needed color and intensity without out-game conflict. Warring against distant lands...

Boy is this a good comment, both the benefits and the problems. Though the DM could and should solicit player input on reskinning where the DM has not yet made a firm call. Why not let players add to a world's lore? ETA: I just realized that my perspective on this is influenced by the first RPG...

I hate wasting food, so I often eat leftovers for breakfast. I cook breakfast when my wife wants a nice breakfast, and then there are lots of possibilities: British-style "fry-up", huevos rancheros, breakfast sandwiches or burritos, buttermilk pancakes or waffles, and berry buckles.

This is a very good summary and analysis, thanks for posting. One way of adjusting older problematic content is to assume these in-game commentaries are written by outsiders to the target group--usually humans, elves, and/or dwarves--and understand that they are biased and racist. I don't have a...

I have a homebrew 1e campaign, so different list but fun exercise. I'd cheat slightly and have humans, gnomes, dwarf-gnomes, half-elves, half-orcs, and half-ogres. Dwarf-gnomes and half-elves are all that remains of the long lost dwarfish and elfish civilizations (in my actual campaign, humans...

As an ancient 1e DM, I use a method with is generous by 1e standards but quite risky by 5e standards. There is always some uncertainty, but the tails can be cut off to reduce variance. 1) You roll for each HD; 2) At 1st level, the minimum roll must be 4 or the HD average rounded up, whichever...

Quickleaf's point about How is really great. I realize this is probably not want you were thinking, but my 1e mind looks at this setup and it is screaming "Henchmen!" I'd be hiring level 1-2 fighters and the like to accompany the main party. As henchmen, they are under the command of the PCs...

Great idea. If fact, add to it the older notion of a dungeon as a "living environment"--doors that won't open for PCs but will for monsters, doors that close by themselves, tricks and traps everywhere--and such a city could be infused with that spirit.

I hadn't heard of this concept. Now that I know what it is, I'd say the issues the OP raised are outside of what I'd want in a PoL campaign. I happen to like very believable settings, so highly settled area must by definition have few monsters in them. Remember in 1e you had fighters and clerics...

From an impact standpoint, surely it's the loss of life-draining in undead, no? This is why clerics turning undead was so important. You did NOT want many of those fights unless they were completely on your terms.

There is no end of random tables.

Random tables. Lots of them, tuned to the current environment (encounters, monsters, events, treasures). No one can be infinitely creative, and random tables can spur creativity where it was lacking before.

If all you care about is combat, this analysis is correct! But in 1e we cared about more than combat. Actually, that's another big difference from 1e to 5e, that 5e mostly cares about combat, which to be fair is what most modern players seem to care about, that and lots of character...

Because (my interpretation, of course) alignment languages are about the metaphors and symbolism of the alignment. You can hear the words, but the meanings are not the usual one. Simple example: if I ask you "Are you a sister of the Sun", what does that mean? You might be able to guess, but you...

I like alignments and have always used them. I even like alignment languages, which make even more sense to a modern mind (they're moral meme-speak, basically). I like campaigns with religions and religious conflict (and covert religions--great idea!). And I totally understand why alignments...

This is a great comment. No additional input needed.

I'll be a chaos agent. It is either Superhero '44 because of its legacy as one of the first examples, or Gamma World because I love Gamma World and mutations map well to super powers. I fully accept all incoming flack.

As a very old person, I believe that the DM has a major obligation to know the rules. This is doubly true if you are a "rulings over rules" person because you need to know when there is not a clear rule. As a result, early DMing was very hard, and all DMing is hard regardless, which is why the...

Yes, this is exactly right, and is the essence of implicit bias. Humans are natural pattern matchers, and it is mostly a helpful adaptation. But it also produces implicit bias: anything different from what we know as "normal" is potentially a threat. This is where we must fight against our...