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This isn't an indicator of system complexity, but of bad design aesthetics. The system should be asymmetric. There's no reason why an NPC should be designed using the same rules as a PC.

I think where THAC0 gets weird isn't just subtraction, it's that the whole thing is counterintuitive with how you subtract the AC from the roll and the modifier can get negative above a certain threshold. For example: Ascending AC goes from, let's say, 10 to 20 or whatever. Very...

WAR is clearly and obviously the best D&D artist and anyone who disagrees is wrong! (His cover artwork is always fantastic imo)

And a -2 Penalty to AC is in fact added to the AC. And things like thief skills are in fact ascending so the system isn't even consistent with itself.

There's a balance between being so abstract that it becomes nonsensical and trying to blend the whole thing smooth like some Gygaxian hell cocktail. I think Lancer handles this very well. In the cases where it might not be clear, the rules text tends to incorporate flavour elements to make...

A properly written manual is easy to read. That means no fluff text mixed into rules text, and clear rules with concise terminology. This benefits everyone. People who don't want rules text get less of it, and it is separated from the other text and thus easier to avoid, and people who like...

The system needs to distinguish between text intended to provide description and flavour vs text intended to be clear, because doing so makes it more readable. We don't need the rules of some particular spell or ability to be nice to read because the rules are the mechanics. GEO 1 action, range...

Keywords are great. One great flaw in 5E is that it is very rules-hesitant. It feels like the designers are ashamed of actual mechanics. I agree that capitalising them is a bit excessive though. I prefer bolded (or none at all).

But 4e had a major problem! It didn't have a true good alignment. It had a flimsy "lawful good" and "good". What about "chaotic good"? The alignment specifically opposite of "lawful evil". The latter being the obviously most evil alignment! :mad:

Seems pretty good to me. I'd probably add some organisation that works for him too. Perhaps some bardic spy org. They might not even know who they're really working for. Edit: In fact I'm a strong fan of making things really messy, so I'd have two separate organisations working for him. One...

I'm perfectly aware of everything you are saying, and I mostly disagree with it. I agree that it's possible to play courtly intrigue stuff without rules to support it, but at that point the GM needs to cover for all the things that can go wrong playing something that the system does not...

D&D is pretty bad at intrigue because you need more than a minimalist ruleset for it. It doesn't need social combat rules, but it needs some kind of system that lets you concretely influence organisations without being in direct contact them. Blades in the Dark can do this, as can Wicked Ones...

But that's exactly what I was saying in my post. I was saying that you have been saying that balance is a bad thing and that D&D should not be balanced and that it is good that casters are superior, as the status quo. But you just said in the previous post that you believe that you don't think...

That is an absurd argument. People will play what classes are available.

Not going to bother digging up your posts on the subject because I don't have the time, but I am fairly certain I have seen you in multiple threads on the subject of how crappy class balance in D&D is, and I remember your nickname in particular because unlike most people who argue against class...

And while you haven't seen that irl I have seen it, in fact I know several people who actively dislike D&D for this specific reason. You might think "you've searched these people out" or "it's confirmation bias" or something but no. One of them in particular had this opinion before I had it. I...

If you want to be able to have great impact outside of combat you must be a caster? This seems bad, because it gatekeeps influence behind class and it says that if you want to play a martial all you care about is DPR.

Thanks! The local library seems well stocked. They have several, including the first book of Lankhmar.

Fafhrd and Grey Mouser must be really obscure characters, or perhaps locally popular only in the US or something? First time I ever saw their names mentioned was in some forum thread here about 5E and everyone seemed to treat them like their names were common knowledge. If one wants to check...

I agree. As someone who did not like 4E at first, but came to like it once I actually tried playing it, one stumbling block was actually the look of it. It looked very minimalist and abstract compared to the older edition books