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No, no they're not. They're dead only if no one wants to interrogate one, at which point- boom! Hey look, there's an Orc over there still bleeding out! His name is Dorngan! He's only here in human lands to search for his sister, lost in an attack on an orc colony... Ten seconds ago he was J...

Not only that, but the god-given intellect of the GM allows him to recognize when the provisionally applied abstraction of the rules does not produce an enjoyable outcome within the metagame context. For example, a thousand climb checks just to get to the top of a mountain, instead of just one...

You aren't. I can't see any logic to your statements. Your point is, frankly, nonsensical. EDIT: I'm entirely serious. How is "Dead at 0" somehow automatically removing anything interesting from an NPC? How is a "Dead at -10" npc any more developed than a "Dead at 0" NPC? There's no connection...

You can still do that, though, at the DM's discretion. What this means is you don't have to keep track of that stuff for J. Random Orc. And, for god's sake, people, if the PC's say, "Hey, is there one we could heal up and interrogate?" Just say yes! So what if he hit 0 hit points? You're only...

Clint Eastwood gets nearly beaten to death in A Fistfull of Dollars, but recovers enough to drag himself away. He heals up in a mine and comes back to kill everyone....

Yeah, but in actual play, that's a needless increase in complexity, headache, and boredom, so no one bothers. Yes, exactly. I like this rule. 4th is very slowly warming my heart. Admittedly this is mostly because I'm playing 3.5th right now and it isn't nearly as bad as I thought it would...

Didn't that article specifically say you aren't expected to keep track of this for NPCs unless you deem it necessary? If they're all important, named NPCs and it actually matters how long it takes for them to die, just pick an arbitrary number of rounds they stay stable before dying. Assume...

Jack McFighter's allies had all fallen. The castle was overrun. Beset on all sides by his foes, one finally brought him down- a sword through the chest. Jack stared down at it as he fell to the ground, life leaking away, watching as the enemy found the civilians taking refuge in the cellars and...

Besides, you should be aware of the plot-critical NPCs anyway, since they're the ones who get detailed, do all the talking, have names instead of 'Orc Guard 17", etc...

Huh. Funny, I could have sworn the new World of Darkness was entirely playable, what with my playing it all the time and all. I never noticed any gaping rules...

To what RPGs do you refer? Just so I have a sense of what you're talking about when you say "gaping holes."

Not until we see the new rules in their entirety, no.

Mr. Rogers: It came up on another board that someone took your "What else besides basic combat? Roleplaying!" statement as indicative of the complete absence of anything non-combat, non-roleplaying, like stealth or investigation. I thought that was a bit of a narrow reading, I took you to mean...

About as well as you could do it now with 3.5, I suspect.

Yeah, straight-up attribute check works fine. If the character doesn't know how to do it, the player won't try to roll it and there's really no point clogging up chargen just to get it all detailed.

Tri-Stat DX had a system like that. It was terrible- all it did was add to the needless complexity. I'm really not inclined to deny a player anything in this regard. As far as I'm concerned, they can cook if they want, know how to build houses if that's what they want, and speak as many...

Easy solution: In the off chance something like this comes up mattering to the adventure, the PC can spend an action point to do anything appropriate to his background in some kind of excellent manner. And if it's just routine use, assume it's fine. So, say, "My rogue used to be an expert cook...

Of course they can ignore them! Supplements are optional!

Funny, the new game I joined just last week (incidentally the first time I've ever played D&D outside of Baldur's Gate/Torment/Icewind Dale) had a metric truckload of house rules. All which I agreed with immediately! The SRD is a bloated abomination and the DM had trimmed a lot of the cruft...

If a player tells me that, they can walk away from my table and never return. Monsters are mine to make and break. Of course, every experienced player I have not only expects me to wing things, but appreciates it. Especially since I say "yes" to them, with few exceptions.