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Honestly I see the restrictiveness and artificiality of the D&D morality system as a good thing--it allows you to do a little bit of moral reasoning but it puts it into a D&D-labelled box so you don't forget that you're just playing a game rather than actually debating these issues irl. It also...

Thanks :D

I used to do all of this with pencil and paper but it was getting out of control, so I have been substituting board game-like methods for different things. My favorite method that I've come up with is to have players trade encumbrance chips for treasure chips--this replaces two accounting tasks...

Really nice post here pemerton :D Makes a lot of sense to me. The fact that trad dungeoncrawling does all 3 is one of my favourite things about it. When I tell people I like sandboxing in the future I will be sure to make clear that I'm talking about "adventureland" sandboxing, not simulationist...

Why do you assume upper level fights will last for fewer rounds?

I don't think that class balance is completely unimportant. I like pretty spiky/asymmetrical balance, probably because in my game player emotional attachment to their character is limited and much of the game is handled in a class agnostic, often freeform way, so unless the classes have some...

I don't see how it's a fight ender--you know the frightened condition doesn't make you flee in 5e right?

Make sure before you advocate a save bonus that you're actually looking at the spells--they're much weaker than they are in 1-3e. They either have an HP threshold, require the caster to concentrate to maintain the effect, allow a save to throw off the effect every round, or something like that...

Well that's just the wrong way to DM this. Paladins should never fall for struggling between Law and Good. You're supposed to be pulled between the two axes sometimes when you're on a diagonal alignment. A Paladin should only fall if they forsake Good for Evil or Law for Chaos. Idk, how does it...

Yeah, this is the only part that I thought might be an April Fools joke. That is insanely fast. :eek:

No, I think the game should help to answer that question with good advice about what impact a magic item will have on the game. If magic items are player-chosen build components, they should be both balanced and transparent about their effect. If they are DM-chosen adventure components, they...

Problem with this is ForeverSlayer wants a more powerful Paladin that is balanced in some way by its alignment restriction. I want this too, but consider it so unlikely it's not even worth worrying about. It's too hardcore for most people these days. You COULD have a paladin class that granted...

In principle yes, but if you think these belts are too powerful then I don't know if there's much space between what I would call boring and what you would call too powerful. The only problem the belts could cause would be if the DM starts raising ACs to bring down the belt-wearer's hit chance...

This POV seems lopsided to me. It's so negative--it's the game designer's job to not break the game. I don't look at it like that. To me, it's the game designer's job to make my game more fun, not just to not make it less fun. If they only put boring, predictable items into the game, they're not...

No, no...what? No. Random encounters DO make the last battle tougher. You sound like you started with 4e, maybe late/degenerate 3e. In most editions of the game, healing is limited. Your HP don't recharge completely after every battle. Random encounters deplete your resources, making the rest of...

Do you understand why AC bonuses are much more important to keep under control than attack bonuses? Quick demonstration--let's say you do 10 average damage per hit. You hit at 50% so you do 5 damage per attack. Now your attack bonus is maxed so you hit at 95%: your damage per attack is 9.5. So...

Goblins are going to be acceptable to kill in a fantasy game whether it uses a morality system or not. Alignment is supposed to draw attention to the moral dubiousness of killing or torturing imprisoned goblins. Like so: As for MurderHobo, almost no one uses it in a seriously pejorative way...

Not a big deal IMO. In fact I think it's actually kind of lame for an artifact level item. Hitting every time isn't game-breaking. Being unhittable would be.

Eh, more complex choices are not always more fun. The different options need to have clear consequences that make sense. I want it to be clear what this is supposed to be like--are you like a burglar who wants to hurry because the more time you spend in the area the greater you risk being...

I think a better compromise of the old school version would have been -5 max HP until you gain your next level.