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You know of your group. Which you have made quite clear is full of ruthless exploiters. Most groups aren't like your group, in numerous ways. But that ignores the possibility of other tools filling the gap. For example, 4e's quests, which can be individual, or for the whole group. That...

Well, three things. Genre fiction. That's pretty much what D&D is built on. Further, it's one of the reasons why both Eberron and Dark Sun were functionally instant classics. Eberron contains several types of genre fiction which are closely adjacent to the pervasive tropes of the usual D&D...

This divide was nowhere near as firm as you are implying. It was porous as hell (sometimes literally, as in, literally places analogous to the Underworld were porous and ordinary people could visit them simply by finding the physical entrances here on Earth. Consider the myth of Cupid and...

I just...the argument given literally said assume everything is standard except that the GM will tell you everything that isn't, which means those assumptions are built on...what, exactly? The fact that lazy stereotypes are common? That's not what I would call knowing anything about the setting...

If that's the case, doesn't that mean all GM actions ever count as "hooks...only on a smaller scale?" Because if the thing described counts as a hook "on a smaller scale", then every encounter the GM ever creates is such a "small" hook. Every shopkeeper. Hell, every NPC with motives is a...

If the shoe fits... More seriously, I would 100% consider this an outright bad GM decision if I saw it at the table. I also don't see how it is possible to square punitive GMing with preserving a logical world independent of the PCs. If you're punishing the player for not taking enough risks...

People have been so quick to jump on the slightest whiff of perceived accusation that GMs might act in bad faith. Yet here we have the exact same in the other direction. Direct accusations that players will ruthlessly exploit things. Instant assumption that, because there isn't special extra...

So...you can assume everything is standard, except that assumption may be undercut at any time? That doesn't sound like a solid foundation to me. It sounds like building on sand.

If you agree that you cannot know anything of what is in the world, not even in principle until the GM has undertaken efforts to inform you, then how can you possibly have a "shopping list" prior to that? Like you're literally undercutting your own message here!

But it doesn't actually protect you from being detected. It enables you to avoid creating tracks. Like that's literally in the name: you pass without trace. Surely that should be Illusion, since its only function is to make it harder for people to observe you, or at very least Transmutation (as...

This captures most eloquently why I choose to play roleplaying games. I want this stuff.

I'm of the opinion that psionics should be organized in a more...pseudo-scientific manner. That is, spells, even with the cleanup brought by 5e, remain kinda all over the place. Some things are assigned to schools that don't really make any sense (e.g. why on earth is pass without trace an...

I...question both of these assertions. That is, you can have a list of things you would like to have, but that's not a list of things you will buy--which, in this case, is what is actually needed when physically at the store. Desirables are not, in themselves, things you can just...take. That's...

I still find this idea of "encountering" such a strange way of conceiving things. If you are sneaking past something, surely you have "encountered" it? Certainly. I have a great deal of respect for any GM who actively sits down and checks their processes to make sure that those processes...

I have yet to add too many specific festivals to my game. I've tried to keep a light touch with the major religion of Jewel of the Desert, because it's inspired by a mix of Islam and Judaism, two religions I don't personally practice. Better to keep a light touch in that context, IME. (Doubly so...

I'm aware of the Quick Primer. I absolutely loathe it. So, respectfully, (re-)reading it isn't going to help me. At all. It is aggressively antagonistic and condescending in my experience, and does not actually do a good job of communicating whatever it was trying to communicate. I frankly...

Okay. Can you tell me what those expectations are? Because I'm fairly confident that that sort of thing is an actual answer to my questions for things about processes, procedures, guidelines, best-practices, etc. Like...a player who's never ever played sandbox before. What do they need to...

Sure. But can you have a shopping list if you aren't allowed to know what the store contains until after you get there and ask your Guide Merchant what the store contains?

Because it is a concrete example of a specific concern I personally would have in this context, which came from a real person. It can't be dismissed because it's a weird hypothetical. It can't be dismissed because it couldn't happen. It can't be dismissed as something I invented for purpose...

How can I know that I need to ask a question if I don't know there's something to ask questions about? That's the problem here. I can't know whether or not there are things I don't know unless I already know at least a bit! So, to loop back to the above: How do the players know to ask about...