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Its not actually crazy to be upset that playtest materials aren't, in your opinion, sufficiently polished to be released as a playtest. There's a difference between an alpha and a beta product. I'm not in the playtest so I don't know whether the OP is right or not, but at least he doesn't...

Someday, someone is going to figure out that granting bonuses to seed values that don't actually change the number they seed is a deeply pathological way of running an RPG.

The difficulty is that different people feel like different things are mandatory for inclusion into D&D. And as time goes by, and different generations grow up with different core D&D experiences, the list of things that at least some constituency feels is mandatory is going to grow. I DMed...

I love the underlying assumption that howling at the door, beating down the entry to your home, are D&D playing barbarians who want nothing more than to ruin your game by refusing to accept the setting the DM lays out, and yet who will be instantly stopped in their tracks by a line in a book...

About restrictions- 1. If you think that the flavor of a class at your game table is dependent on the way that I play the class at MY game table, you're roleplaying wrong. You want Class X to be rare, and you're bothered that my game table has eight players all playing it? Cope. You're not...

I guess we'll see. There are structural reasons why combat takes up so much time. Its often intricate in a way that non combat events are not. It requires multiple die rolls per player, multiple decisions per player, and significant feedback between players and DM, as well as between...

One of the following is true: 1. These designers are incompetent. 2. Combat is no longer expected to occupy a plurality of minutes of game time, and individual combats are expected to be brief. 3. These articles are just advertising, and mean nothing. I'm fairly certain (1) is false. But (2)...

It depends what you're going to focus on. If you're going to give the characters 15 different ways each to chop up bad guys, you need a grid. Those 15 different ways each need an environment in which to live, where there are enough *things* to be interacted with in enough distinct ways that...

I think what he's saying is that a cleric's channeling of the power of the gods is believable within the context of the story, in which gods are real and regularly channel their power through clerics. Meanwhile he finds the warlord shouting at someone to get back up and get into the fight to be...

I understand what you're saying. I was actually writing in context of a conversation that occurred elsewhere between a couple of participants in this thread, in which everyone discussed the respective believability of healing from the brink of death via an overnight rest, versus healing from...

That's kind of the thing, though. What usually happens is this: Joe: Healing system X is a problem. Bob: Why? Joe: Because its unrealistic. Bob: What should we do instead? Joe: Use healing system Y. Bob: Healing system Y is also unrealistic. Joe: I am ok with that. Bob: So why is healing...

Why do you say "when it comes up"? "When it comes up" is always. If there is a fight and a player is struck by a weapon, the issue has come up. If it is coming up as an exception from regular game play, in order to create variety and an interesting and unique challenge, then you're proving my...

I believe that you feel this way. But I suspect that you feel this way because you've been grown accustomed to 3e levels of natural healing, not because there's any qualitative difference. In a weird way, 3e had a lot of rules that were very important to people even when the very people to...

1. In my vision of D&D, all characters exist in their own little bubble that has its own laws of physics. So if the party contains Lao the Badass Kung Fu Monk, Gritty McGritster the Merc, and Sir Toby the Bold, each can have their own style. Lao can balance on people's swords and kick them in...

When I read 3e for the first time, I was AMAZED at all the cool things I could do in it that I couldn't do in previous editions. The same thing was true of 4e. And every well written expansion book that's been published for either system. At some point while reading it, I got really excited...

I'll say it again. There is a difference between 1. There is a danger, and 2. You could die with that one shot. The idea that random crit deaths for fully healthy characters would make it less "easy" is laughable. "Easy" is a matter of challenge. There is no challenge in crossing your...

Nope, its poor design. There's ways to objectively quantify what is or is not poor design. And its not even difficult. Step 1: Write up the goals of the game's design. Step 2: Analyze whether those goals are being achieved. If your goals are deep characters that exist across a lengthy...

Depends how you flavor it. "Once per round, you may intercept an attack an enemy has aimed at an ally next to you. The enemy makes the attack against you instead of your ally." Now its not mind control. Its you shouldering your way in between the monster and your friend. But mechanically...

You're setting up a false dichotomy between a game where critical hits kill fully healthy PCs and a game where all combats are clearly going to be victories for the PCs. There's space in between in a well designed game. Space where bad decisions kill PCs, instead of pure, unavoidable, bad...

His polls hurt my brain.