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I hear your point, and I validate it. I think you're essentially right that 'feels like D&D' as a goal meant putting that before some other design ideas (there's some nuance, but it doesn't detract from the centrality of your argument). My point is: this isn't a bad thing. So the central...

Meanwhile, my reaction to a game about isekai'd humans who become My Little Ponies and/or vending machines....

You're almost there. Just a little further. Here's a little light to the next step: All design has goals. One of 5e's apparent goals is "to feel like D&D" (whatever the heck that means). This was a reasonable goal to have for many reasons, among them the hope of a smoother onboarding experience...

Classes don't define combat roles super tightly in 5e. Monks can get a high AC (they don't need heavy armor), and their mobility is part of how they control space. Paladins can become huge sources of damage via smites. Or they can spend those same slots on healing and buffing. It's honestly...

Same level, but I'd give it some minor boost to make it competitive. Silence is already a bit of a mixed bag (disables your spellcasters, too), so it wouldn't need to be much. With the visual you're going for, it might be fun if the spell also rendered you incapable of breathing. Suffocation...

It's a sexy idea, though I think there's different answers depending upon the context. For D&D, officially, I don't think it's a great idea. Spellcasting mechanics define classes in the minds of enough D&D players that messing with that is just going to cause unwanted havoc with things not...

The enclaves are VERY NICE, in a sandboxy kind of way. They take a little bit of work to get up and running, but they're full of good inspiration and can accommodate a session or three. They're pretty easy to weave into ongoing adventures, too. It's an idea I'd love to see more of, since not...

Wizards are nerdy fantasy characters, so I guess it's pretty much on point.

I really like this! My dwarves are basically guardians of the tomb, but they were coming off as a bit boring, and to have some conflict between them - some of them wanting release, some of them still clinging to hope that the curse can be ended - really could add some interesting dynamics...

So I've been throwing together a Dark Souls-inspired gothic fantasy Snow White campaign. I've got some good initial legs, but I'd love to get some more brainfood. So help me riff on the idea! Big ideas I've got so far include In this version of the story, the Queen won. Though the Huntsman...

I think it can be useful to talk about the micro-moments that lead to that jerk mercenary being a problem. Like, you mention a sharp veer toward hostility, but in the right circumstances, that's not necessarily a problem. It's just a player saying, "I want to take the story in this direction."...

Yellow flag is very sensible here! I'd argue that the line between "jerk mercenary character" and "jerk player" is a more of a scale. A social mechanic that values character performance should allow for flaws with an impact on the game. If the flaw is just handwaved away, it's not really...

Yeah, this needs some work in D&D. IMO, the best example of this in D&D so far is inspiration for playing your flaw. Which is nice, but not super strong (there's a lot of ways to get advantage). There's also the group check, which means that I can blow up the social situation personally and...

Yes! This really gets at the different "mode of play" involved here. And I'm of the opinion that we can get better at mechanics that encourage that mode of play, without turning it into something else. Skill checks are fine, but they can't be our only tool.

Incorrect, and another strawman. I didn't think it needed to be spelled out, but the goal is just to have more fun playing D&D. And a game where character performance is part of the game adds fun in some of these ways: It challenges different skill-sets. If combat challenges our tactical...

Yeah, mechanics are never 1-to-1 representations of reality. Actual combat doesn't work according to initiative, either. We don't need to set an arbitrarily higher reality bar for social mechanics than we do for any other mechanics. Which was part of the point I was making by describing...

We're totally agreed on this. But by "mechanics," I don't mean rolling dice and adding modifiers to achieve success. I mean things that will support other players in being better performers of their characters. I mean, one of the mechanics could be a formalized kind of social initiative, so...

I don't think the appeal to history is as reassuring as it maybe could be. Part of how we "learned something new" in the wake of the industrial revolution was to pursue war and death on an unprecedented scale that showed its teeth with genocide and ended with the prospect of a few skittish apes...

What happens if we flip the script a bit? I feel character builds should be a fun extra. I don't want my real life character optimization skills to overshadow someone who lacks those advantages. It's like if I was using my system knowledge as a way to become the most effective in combat...

The modern hysteria that reminds me of these campaigns is not the scientifically robust data that shows human influence on the climate. It's the book burnings and paranoia about drag queens and trans people that often go hand in hand with doubting the above robust scientific data. Just raw...