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The cRPG heavyweights are all, on some level, derivative of D&D. It's not like D&D is at a disadvantage*. I don't see why a new D&D game couldn't knock the socks off the market, given that it was done well. *Well, it is, because the published game hasn't been in a good state for a while...

I don't think it has to be nailed down. I just think it has to be assumed. If we're talking about analysis or criticism of a published set of rules, I can't take into account what you do at your table (nor vice versa). So in cases where what you do at your table is both outside of the game's...

At least with regards to what you're calling "DM fiat" what I'm talking about is not a style of play or houserule from my table. It's objectively clear and explicit how these things work, and it's foundational to the rules. So, for example, if the situation arises where a player wants to use...

Baldur's Gate was a formative experience for many, if not most of the gamers I've met. Neverminter Nights was okay, but not on that level. Not much around since then. A really good D&D cRPG with modern technology would probably be the single best thing that they could do.

You'd be surprised. Most people do though. For anything athletic, you work your butt off, do whatever some coach tells you, and then probably lose at some point. For strategy games, it becomes a second job learning what the strategy is. Collecting magic cards, building model trains, gaming...

Logically, that would make sense. If we weren't talking about Dark Speech. However, Dark Speech is "inherently full of spite, malice, corruption, and hatred". It is also impossible to use if you're unwilling. I think it's pretty obvious that the RAI (which is what you asked) meant that...

Asking a creature to do an obviously harmful act negates the spell. So the question is simply whether the harmfulness of attempting to use Dark Speech is obvious. I would say that given how the dark speech as described as being obviously evil and grossly abnormal ("mortal tongues" were not...

That's another expectation that sounds unrealistic to me. I cannot think of any games or other hobbies or recreational activities that are constantly fun. They have peaks and valleys, and the dynamic between the fun parts and the not so fun parts is part of what keeps people coming back. And...

One thing I learned from some players was that if I don't say no authoritatively and frequently, they'll behave like rampaging psychopaths (their characters will too). Part of it is about in-game considerations, but part of it is also establishing who's in charge. It's very important that the...

No, it isn't. Unless the entirety of the game world is one throne room and the area around it, and the only meaningful imperative is to get inside it and have a chat. I'd say a lot of plans simply won't work. Hopefully, the players avoid most of the obvious ones, but there are rules for a reason.

No, not every pitch. Just one. And only if it's thrown a particular place. And only given that this place is roughly the location of the batter's head. Again, the whole point of the example was to show something that is obviously an inappropriate request from the player. In the original...

No, that's not the definition. Railroading implies taking choices (or apparent choices) away from players through restriction or subversion, which you can't do if they never had (or reasonably believed they had) those choices to begin with. That's one of the reasons I picked the whole audience...

Great book? No. Great cover? Yes. ...

Given the title of the thread, I don't think you're derailing it. All matches up reasonably well with my experience. Sometimes, playing this game starts with metagaming, and then people trying to correct for it by asking "well, okay, but how much of that would the character actually...

Ratskinner That's kind of what this thread that I started was about though. Most people seem to have decided that to some extent, your character's hit points are in-character knowledge. I suspect that while no one wants shouts of "How many hit points do you have?" echoing across the...

It's didn't to me either. It just seemed to be aiming too high. When I think of my first PHB, I don't think of characters in melee with giants, I think of something more low-powered, lower-fantasy.

I don't like that line of reasoning either. My opinion of its quality and the mass numbers are independent. I think it becomes relevant, however, when you say that you can't believe other people paid to see it, that they did.

Ah, but the hidden truth is that D&D is a democracy. Even democratic countries generally don't have voters directly making policy, we have representative democracies. That is, we elect people to be in charge. The reason we do that is that direct democracy is cumbersome and fickle. Some really...

Adventuring is a roleplaying game is also fundamentally about entertainment, even if the characters themselves might not see it that way. The books and their art are likewise to facilitate enjoyment. Quite the contrary! There isn't some set of physical postures that's restricted for sexy time...