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I'm growing tired of this back and forth circle pattern. My argument derives entirely from my belief that an RPG's style is influenced by its rules (or lack thereof). You don't need rules to role play but if this were an adequate argument the role playing business would've died before it...

OD&D was literally called 1st edition in Dragon magazine. Holmes' Basic was 2e, Moldvay's Basic was 3e, and Mentzer's Basic was 4e. Eventually they changed the name to Basic Set to differentiate from AD&D and they eventually changed it to Classic D&D and finally D&D Adventure Game.

Yes. It's the only game I play in and occasionally run offline because my friends have moved on and don't want to look back. If I want to retain mystery, I would not use magic items found in any books players are expected to own and use. That instantly rules out 80% of your list. My point...

Neonchameleon I'm not going to quote everything you wrote but a few key things: This is personal opinion but I feel it cheapens a game when I have to tell people "That chapter on items? Forget it, I'm not using it." I could come up with different identify rules but that's another balancing...

I always liked how HackMaster made fun of this by including a dice jail on the player's "mat." There was a little area you could "condemn" your cursed dice so it wouldn't infect the rest of the table.

I thought about banning the sale of magic items and instead forcing characters to use what they find or personally enchant themselves. For a sword and sorcery vibe you could enforce the Conan rule where adventurers throw away at least 50% of their income on partying and fine living. It...

You weren't limited by the cleric because you had magical options for healing. 4e ironically enforces the 10-minute day more than any other edition because once you run out of surges there's very very very very few options for healing left. A healing potion is absolutely worthless in 4e because...

And I reject this as a means of capturing the old school feel. Old school is more than grimdark one-shot kills. If there's a difficult encounter in 4e the players can simply run and spend 24 hours to fully recover. Classic monsters are meaningless when they lack odd quirks and ridiculous...

There's no way to accurately recreate the feeling of AD&D, OD&D, or BECMI in 4th edition. This isn't a knock on 4E, it's simply a manner of the game's functions. A couple of major points: 1) Meta-knowledge is obvious in 4E. You know a creature is a minion because he dies in 1 hit. You know...

Hey, this is how mainstream comic books are handled. DC had a pretty big event in the late 80s when they blew up their multiple continuities and most fans hail it as the companies greatest story telling event. I'm ambivalent towards differing time lines set within the same continuous setting...

I (and all my players) agree about the disruption of play and generally allow rules to slide when it's not harmful to the flow of the game. Golden rule is the GM always has the final say so unless he's doing ridiculous crap like negating established rules (opening a door is a move action for...

The Black Destroyer was released in 1939 but Vogt died in 2000. Other sources (like Final Fantasy) have been using the name and appearance for years and nothing came of it (although Final Fantasy still uses Mind Flayer and piscodemon interchangeably even in their new games; I doubt Wizards...

Wizards protects the copyrighted name and exact likeness, not the rules. You can't copyright rules, only the artistic representation of them. For my retro clone I remade several iconic monsters such as: Bullywug - Bogwart Umber Hulk - Tunnel Lurk Osquip - Mutant Molerat Jermlaine - Widget...

I'm not talking about a chain effect but what a character can do if his entire backpack is available in an instance. Think of a character that can quick draw an item turning into walking donkey cart that can pull out and set aside his party's entire inventory within 6 seconds or until the DM has...

Attack of opportunity, that's why. Free actions don't normally provoke attacks of opportunity but retrieving an item does. Quick drawing items is also a balance issue as it leads to the "never-ending draw" where someone can simply free action: draw potion -> free action: drop potion -> free...

It's wrong because 3E shifted away from the "leave it up to DM!" play style to "everything works like X." Talk to anyone who hates diplomacy and intimidate and they'll tell you something along the lines of "You shouldn't blur role-play with roll-play." If in real life I'm an introvert but my...

The way I create enemies in GURPS is using an easy/average/hard point set up. Easy creatures are built using 1/4 the points of the PCs, average creatures 1/3 the points, and hard creatures 1/2 the points. Because they're NPCs I only focus on their attack abilities. Some tweaking is necessary...

Bag of holding is a nondimensional space, not an extradimensional one. In other words, it doesn't exist within the multiverse. Unlike the space within a rope trick, you can't planeshift or use extradimensional spells to affect a bag of holding. The only item bag of holding negatively reacts...

No, it's not a static difficulty because you have to rely on the d20 which generates a random result. A person with 10 is slightly above average while a person with an 18 is almost an expert. There is no take 10, therefor there's no automatic or instant success. A level 1 wizard with 16...

Addendum: By "created the concept of a static difficulty" I mean within the game of Dungeons & Dragons. In AD&D, everything is tied into your ability scores. Want to swing across a chasm? Roll for dex. Swim the raging rapids? Roll for strength. 3E, within the D&D game, created the static...