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For large enough parties (three or more) I'll let the players find a way to shore up their weaknesses. I haven't been let-down yet. For smaller parties I think the sidekick rules work well here. Keeps it relatively simple, and you can just hand it off to one of your two players to run the NPC...

And the most revealing one. But as you said, "good day".

I think these quotes say enough.

Here's what I'm hoping for... A Planescape setting book, a Dark Sun adventure book, and a Spelljammer adventure book. The Dark Sun adventure could be focused on rising up from level 1 and taking on a sorcerer king. You could do a 1-12 adventure on that. The Spelljammer adventure would lean...

Yes, we know your group is full of power-gamers, and that this distorts your thinking. I'm currently in two games. In one, I play a ranger, and have for three or four years now (this game also includes two sorcerers who joined the campaign last year). In the other, I'm the GM. But please...

Back in college, most of my rolls were "hidden", but that wasn't so much because I wanted to hide them, but because I used a DM screen to reference tables, hang notes on, and so-on, and it's a hassle to roll dice outside the DM screen. In my one in-person game these days, dice rolls are mostly...

IIRC, when they published the 3.X psionics handbooks, they did exactly that, saying the GM can use the MM version of the monster or the new updated version that uses the new psionics rules, per their preference. So it wouldn't be unprecedented or confusing. The contrary, it would be both...

I'm currently running Curse of Strahd as a solo adventure with the one player using some quick-and-dirty "gestalt" rules. He also has a sidekick (using the UA sidekick rules). During combat, the player runs the NPC, but I provide the voice. That said, the NPC is, rather explictly, a sidekick...

Nope. Spotlight issues are not caused by rules, they are caused by players and GMs. Trying to point to the rules to justify a spotlight issue is the sign of a bad player/GM. If we accept your premise as true for a moment, this would mean that prior to this variant rule you would invariably...

That's a spotlight problem, not a rules problem.

Works for me. I played psionics in 3rd at tabletop, and 2nd in that Dark Sun game, and the real difference was never mechanics, it was fluff. And this? Can easily be fluffed.

Most of the "variant class features" don't bother me, but the spell versatility one... I'm conflicted. On one hand, it basically turns "spells known" casters into "spells prepared" casters, but with a slower process for changing their selection and different "spells prepared" mechanics (all...

Regarding reprints... Meh. They're minor enough to me that I'm not bothered. That said, I also bought a few of the "compendium" books from the end of 3.5, so my position on co-locating information isn't hard to guess.

I think some formatting changes mentioned here would be useful. What comes to mind most readily is the formatting used in Roll20, but most of the ideas I'm seeing floated would work. Regarding spells themselves (and this goes beyond formatting and into design) I would personally both more...

I'm at the point of my financial and hobbyist life where I'll probably buy Rime when it comes out if I can get the alternate cover (didn't pre-order, it'll just be a walk-in thing) but won't read more than the synopsis until I'm planning on running it... Similar to what I did with Strahd years...

Pizza and seeing peoples expressions. That said, I transitioned to virtual play years ago because folks moved around, so that's not likely to end soon.

For the Theirs Theros campaign I'm planning (probably won't run, but it's fun to plan) most enemies would be drawn from the NPC appendices rather then the monster section.

Yes. Hence my objection. Others have found wait to express similar thoughts without sounding "too real". I have every confidence you can too.

Fixed that for you. You can literally sit at the table, give everyone the same index card with the commoner stats from the MM, and say "choose your race and name" and go from there with no change to the sheet, and have people roleplay different races. You do not need mechanical differentiation...

By the same token, everyone could have the same exact stats and abilities, and be playing a variety of elves, dwarves, humans and more exotic races. The differentiation of races has never depended on mechanical differentiation.