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They still know all the possible outcomes, so they can actually care.

This is a side point, but if the encounter can be solved by running away, hiding or negotiating and these options are reasonably obvious to the players, it's not a tough encounter, just an encounter that requires a non-combat solution.

This is a very good question because it illustrates when randomness is actually useful. But before engaging that question, let me point out that by determining what the jump skill of the monster is, you have predetermined how useful the players' strategy is. So if this is a standard strategy of...

I think this is pretty much it. It makes the games less predictable for the DM, which can be fun for him. I don't think it ever improves the play experience for the players.

But that abdication is an illusion. The DM after all makes the table. So there is no difference if he designs an encounter with a 20% probability of a tpk or if he rolls on a table on which 50% of all encounters have a 40% probability of a tpk. Either way, the DM decides that there should be a...

I don't think the difference is even remotely as big as you are making it out to be. This is true for any edition of D&D ever. Lifespan of a creature in combat and damage output are random variables and have therefore expectations. And IIRC, AD&D monsters not only had treasure types, there was...

What innovative stuff by Monte are you thinking about? An I overlooking something obvious? For me, Monte is a strict classic RPG guy who has never been interested in modern RPG design goals. Moreover hiring him back to WOTC best serves as a signal of continuity to 3.x, not as a way to innovate...

You are saying way too many sensible thing s today, i can't XP you twice. It is nice though, that your point is immediately illustrated by the post following yours.

Quite Negative To me this looks like a Hail-Mary Pass to keep Hasbro from mothballing D&D. I don't see how this can succeed. They either maintain most of the modern design in 4ed or they return to the classical design of the older editions. Either way is going to leave one half of the fandom...

I second the consistent cosmology. I also like Dragonborn, they save D&D from being too much of a Tolkien rip-off. Cool, varied things to do for every character.

This is a nice article that really shows how messed up the rules for spell scribing are. However, it is more of a blog post than news so I'm not sure why it is on the front page.

I think it would be much smarter if they just started to make supplements for 3.5 again and got the core rule books back in print. They could siphon off some of the 3.5 market without needing to invest a lot of manpower or money.

Ask Kung Fu Monkey I think the connection between Rand and Fantasy has been explained by Kung Fu Monkey http://kfmonkey.blogspot.com/2009/03/ephemera-2009-7.html

gomes are monsters, rawr An other option in probably either of the two roles may be gnomes. After all they are monsters now. Moreover, they have a pretty strong fey flavor with their ability to appear and disappear, they are known to be in conflict with other fey and they also can fill the...

nvm

Do they want you to re-apply for beta tester status? this page could be clearer.

Those are two adventures well criticized for being particularly poor. You may want to look at Demon Queen's Enclave or The Slaying Stone for better offerings from Wotc. Incidentally, Pyramid of Shadows is a typical example of Wotc trying to use old TSR design principles. There are plenty of...

I think this gets to the heart of the actual problem: The 2 page spreads for encounters in the Delve Format are very useful for running the encounter. However, in recent adventures, they often contained important information that is necessary to know outside the encounter. Thus when reading or...

That may be the wrong conclusion; after all, only a single 3.x module made it on the list and that edition spans 8 years of adventure publishing and the first three adventure paths by Paizo. For me, this suggests either A) WOTC (and Paizo) suck at writing adventures for any edition. B) There is...

You are right, most gamers are not douchebags and will not intentionally ruin other people's fun. However, you may have to boot one in five players, because it is possible for him to overshadow everybody else. I would say that is enough of an issue to call it a problem.