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I have a number of issues with sim-ish effects adjudication. All too often I have seen players punished by this sort of resolution when they don't think like the referee. For instance their attempted action gets assigned a very low chance of success after it's announced. Much of the time the...

It depends on a number of parameters such as campaign lenght, character turnover and player preferences. In a short campaign I might have one major quest whose resolution ends the campaign, and a number of smaller quests that can be resolved quickly if they successfully hook the players. In my...

I know this is pedantic, but players don't have alignment, characters have alignment (if one of the alignment mechanics is being used). Failing to clearly distinguish this can be a problem. PCs can often perform actions or support causes their player doesn't endorse or support at all, or...

I would tend to agree with most of the article, with the caveat that the DM needs to know the players will be open to being "heroic" members of society, as opposed to a roving band of adventurers or outlaws outside of society's constraints. While I can play in "trust no one" greed and paranoia...

How many units per player are you envisioning? A "robot" on a dinosaur is two units. In a wargame type scenario I would tend to use monster stats rather than PC character stats for units, including any warforged. Using minions for enemy foot(or tentacle) troops would reduce book keeping...

The most gentle way to introduce an NPC with a deep history, given the luxury of time, is to foreshadow them in multiple previous sessions *before* they turn up. This allows mixed opinions about the NPC to arrive naturally - refugees from a destroyed village consider him a mass murderer, whereas...

I have the feeling that in mythology, wizard archetypes tend to be NPC plot devices, while the protagonists tend to be the fighter archetype. Mythological wizards tend to be capricious, elusive, frustrating and unreliable - the archetype includes supernatural creatures, the feebler wisdom...

System mastery helping the players of spellcasters far more than the players of non-spellcasters I respectfully disagree. While that's one valid interpretation, it's not the only one. While I would shy away from being totally unpredictable, at higher levels I like to make my game feel more...

I'm not Huzzar, but I agree with the problem he raises and will give my own reasons. The issue, basically, is that spellcasters are rewarded far more for system mastery and exhaustive research than non-spellcasters. For any given problem, the player of a spellcaster is far more likely to find a...

1. Possibly, but very difficult, it would be the culmination of an epic quest to weaken a god, discover and exploit his vulnerabilities, gain allies and sufficient personal power to do the deed. Failing or abandoning the quest would be quite likely. Success would probably involve one of the...

IMO system mastery has much higher rewards and punishments for the tier 1 spellcasters than the other classes. This comes done to leveraging options, monster knowledge and synergy for increased power. The Tier 1 classes with poor system mastery, and/or a lack of patience can be surprisingly...

To me Mount Celestia would dwarf all prime material mountains, which would pale by comparison, so travelling from Mount Celestia and being challenged by an ordinary mountain sounds wrong, frankly. If the PCs are epic I would do the opposite and have mortal mountains feel more like foothills...

4e has spoiled previous editions of D&D for me. Apart from the advantages already provided by other 4e fans, and some of the more honest critics, the biggest feature of 4e that attracts me is the transparency. To a much greater extent in 4e, what you see is what you get. In previous editions...

I prefer strong classes that actually mean something, so saying your PC is X gives a fair idea of what they can do, and highly variable cleric classes really mess with this principle. I prefer for non-standard priest concepts to be represented by the closest class to the concept, which may not...

For campaigns, I always plan to - one-off games are different. I run campaigns that last years, with long-term PCs, so the survivors get to higher levels. I like to have a game where the PCs have (the option to) alter the game world by their own actions and efforts. My 3.x campaign rose to...

Healing is an area that screams out for options, lots of options, as so may people are crying out for very different treatments. Which makes designing the cleric, and any other healer classes more difficult, unfortunately. I think non-healing priests are best implemented as non-clerics - it...

I have run a few more complex skill challenges where I produced an abstract "gameboard" to give a visual representation of the party's progress in the challenge and the consequences of individual tasks. I'm visually oriented in my thinking and find such aids very useful in giving better insight...

As regards the player who wanted a utility wizards, whether that is valid or not depends on his concept and the group he is in. Many editions of D&D allowed utility wizards that could be better at solving non-combat problems than the system-designated specialist in that particular area through...

While being open to houserules, I would prefer if the next edition could work out of the box without houserules being absolutely necessary. The designers may be tempted to release a broken game and rely on DM houserules and hard work to fix it in each individual game - this would be a major...

I think the issue being danced around here is the extreme positions of "flavour/colour text trumps everything" and "RAW mechanics trump everything". Anyone who argues for "flavour text first" can be seen as advocating the former, anyone who argues for mechanics to be prioritised can be seen as...