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THis is the sort of thing I was talking about concerning the revisionism about the "old school". Looking back, for example, and reading the accounts Gygax has posted about his experiences with his original group, there was precious little role-playing going on back then. Instead, a constant...

The only problem with this is that it is entirely speculative. We don't know how many gamers there were then, since nobody bothered to count them, or even try. We don't even know how many PHBs, DMGs, and MMs were sold back then, since TSR never told anyone, and WotC (who probably has the...

Yes. I don't understand the idea that the DMG should be off limits to PCs. It's that simple. The idea is so confoundingly silly, that it is incomprehensible. No, the idea needs to die so it doesn't keep getting trotted out like a propped up aged soldier used to demonstrate the defense bona...

Old school gaming was what it was. No more and no less. The problem I have with the trumpeting of the alleged enormous virtues of old school gaming compared with current gaming, usually involving one (or more) of the following (non-exhaustive) list of claims: 1. Old school gaming and old school...

And? The only place I'd disagree with you here is that the game rules should be used except where noted. If you need to change the game rules on the sly to make something happen the way you, as the DM, want it to, then maybe that's an avenue that a DM shouldn't be pursuing and an alternative...

And I think you are wrong on that. The focus is on exploration and role-playing, as always. "Old skool" gaming needs to be put in its proper context, not placed on a pedestal. The good old days often weren't so great, and many of the notions of "old skool" gaming need to die a hard death. In...

What I am disputing is your contention that the new game isn't about role-playing and exploration, and that the old game wasn't about manipulation of stats. Neither assertion is true. If 4e was designed to appeal to me, it missed its mark, since I prefer 3e. I've tried 4e, but decided to stay...

If you say so. I think you are wrong, but you'll never stop waxing lyrically over the 1970s. If the DM feels the need to play "hide the ball" to make the game fun, then in my opinion, the DM is simply unskilled. If the DM thinks that (as in my hypothetical) is it necessary to alter what are...

Even so, how many people would even think to ask? This is why there needs to be a shared baseline between the DM and players. Is the game going to require twenty questions for every foe? If so, that should be communicated to the players ahead of time. Maybe. But then again, kobolds are a foe...

Seriously though, how many people would think to do this sort of research for a monster that is as common in fantasy games as an orc? Do you research skeletons, zombies, goblins, kobolds, and wolves as well? This is what I meant when I said that the game turns into a lottery without the common...

So, you'd be okay if you were starting a new campaign and your character heard about an orc in a lair in the wilderness. Your PCs decide to head out to confront the orc, but when you get there, it kills all your characters with ease, not taking a scratch from any of your efforts. After the fact...

I just wanted to make clear that to me knowing the source of an idea and understanding the idea are two different things. I understand where the idea came from. I don't understand the idea itself. I know that the 1e and 2e DMGs had language talking about how the material inside was to be...

No one ever said choosing to work together as a team was easy. Well, unless the game rules do it for you.

I would have used stronger language, but you know, Eric's grandmother. Gygax made a great game and had many great ideas. He also had some ideas about the relationship between people at a gaming table that were, how should I put it, extraordinarily dumb.

Perhaps you haven't read my posts. That is not what I think. I have pointed out that house rules are fine about a dozen times in this thread. I am commenting now on the silly idea that the DMG is somehow off-limits to the players. The fact that it was written this way in earlier editions of the...

Sure. But as I said before, who the DM is, and what they emphasize is in my experience much more important for determining who gets spotlight time. Only if the DM emphasizes mechanical resolution, and even then, as I pointed out, the gains from optimization are usually fairly modest. While the...

But that's the point. With team based initiative, the PCs don't act as a team. All the delays, holds, and waits are the PCs actually acting as a team by making decisions. But with team initiative, the PCs don't make the decision to work together, they work together because the rules make them...

And that's simply silly from my perspective. The player's should be able to expect that the rules of the game are the rules being used unless they are informed otherwise, regardless of which core book those rules are in. Saying "that's DM territory, player's don't need to know" changes the game...

Yes, and that advice was a giant pile of crap then, and remains a giant pile of crap now. Is this unclear?

I disagree. Even if you are a non-optimizer playing in a game with an optimizer, that doesn't mean that the optimizer will get more spotlight time, especially since for the most part even if you spend time tweaking your character to perfection, the gains are usually pretty modest (save for rule...