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Then I've never played with a good dm. But I'd argue that standard at best orthogonal to what it takes to be a good dm.

I've played/dmed with pretty smart people: doctors, lawyers and actuaries. No one could keep all the needed rules in their head.

But if the NPC in the DMG just lists 3/5/4/3/2 then you're left with the problem that you claim isn't there. You're still left with 17 (ok, really 14 as the orisons don't matter) choices that you have to make to get a playable NPC. There's no fast way to do that.

As I recall, that didn't include spell selections, nor did it have spells applied. Additionally, if you stick to the requirement that each wizard/cleric be somewhat unique, that does limit the usefulness of that prepped generic npc. But yes, if you ignore all the reasons why that doesn't work...

It was only simple or not time consuming if you brush over all the choices. Choosing skills, feats, ability points, etc all take time. Sure you can be lazy, only ever raise spot, choose toughness, raise con, etc. to make the process easier and faster. But that means an awful lot of the touted...

Wait, you don't even run 4e yet every other week you feel then need to drop a critical semi-baiting thread in the 4e forum?

The skill of being a game designer/rules creator does not nessisarily overlap with the skills of running a game or telling a good story. The reason a lot of DMs were not trusted is that they were not good rules designers. Separating the two is a really good thing, IMO.

As much as anything, I think the categories from the DMG are at least as useful as CG or LN. Especially as a newbie crutch, they help to answer the question of what do you as a player want out of the game.

I guarantee that if I write my alignment as "Impulsive Button-Pusher" it'll have significant game mechanical effects.

In theory they are cool. In practice they lead to arguments about if Batman is lawful good, chaotic good, chaotic neutral, or lawful evil which I find tiresome to even think or care about.

Conversely, I'll almost always ignore a mark, unless the mark makes the attack impossible. It activates a PC's power, makes him feel good about doing his job, etc. And in general, because defender AC tends to way out scale other PC ACs, it often makes sense as well. But more importantly, this...

But setting up the encounter, choosing who to attack, where to move, which power to use, etc, all can be influenced by dm intent.

Ummm, that's pretty blatant strawmaning, to the point that you can only be trolling.

Admitting you rig the game to minimize death and then chastising others for doing the same is in poor taste, IMO.

At least its properly named. I'm very aversive toward that item.

I can't say that I've seen more tpks with 4e, but certainly not any less.

Who said anything about level? I don't care about level, that's just a random number. I more object to stuff like all the fighter types having to ditch all their equipment by level 3 because they needed to get masterwork magic weapons, plate armor, etc. Or the paladin not getting his mount...

Done well, that can be good. IME though, it has always felt like I have to wait a really long time to play the character that I actually want to play.

For my group, Irontooth basically wiped the party once at level 1, nearly wiped the party again at level 2 and managed to escape, and ended up almost killing a character again when he showed up at level 5.

I never understood the theory behind older editions in which I start off as a farmhand with a sword and then suddenly just become an expert warrior. The 4e paradigm of starting as a competent, but maybe still inexperienced, example of my class makes a lot more sense in terms of who would...