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While you're technically correct here, quicksand or similar as a hazard in deserts is a trope as old as time and probably isn't going away anytime soon.

And compared to the size of the overall hobby the player-base of those dozens and dozens of games adds up to a rounding error, which tells me that most of the sim-types or wannabe sim-types in the hobby are willing to accept a few necessary evils in their games.

This one's always been a problem. A simple, if perhaps inelegant, houserule solution: on a point-blank shot where the shooter has time to line up the shot and take good aim (thus not in the heat of combat) any hit prompts a save-or-die from the target. On a made save, damage accrues as normal...

Still means you're using what we agree to be bad D&D to disprove your claim, thus putting the disproof on a shaky footing. And a threat isn't a threat unless a) you're prepared to follow through on it and b) the recipient(s) of said threat know you're prepared to follow through. Otherwise it's...

For simple resting, proportionality makes loads of sense IMO. That a 75 h.p. Fighter and a 20 h.p. Mage each can only rest back 1 hit point per night (as per 1e RAW) is silly. Further, people in the setting would heal and recover at vaguely the same rate regardless of their class etc. And so...

Even the simmiest of sim types have to accept that the abstractions required to make the game playable end up producing some necessary evils. Hit points are the poster child for this. The main thing is that where there's a choice, take the sim path.

The Dragonlance DL1-12 module series might just be the railroadiest adventure path ever printed so I'm not sure I'd want to hang my hat on it as a good example of how to do...well, anything, really. Even if you don't want actual character death on the table, it's still worth having a real...

And sit through an argument every time. Ruling "No rolls before I ask for them" just brings pestering "Can I roll yet?" requests. If you give the players a rules-based avenue to skip the playing-out of role-play scenes and just resolve them mechanically, there's inevitably going to be some who...

Over what scale of in-game time is the conflict expected to keep rising, in order to "count" as such? The journey through treaty lands might see conflict rising for several days (assuming that's how long the journey takes), after which it's resolved somehow. The discussion/argument over...

They cause me to put them back on the shelf and pull out something different to run.

I'll freely admit this as a personal failing: if-when I try to describe things interestingly and-or in detail, I tend to get so long-winded about it that everyone gets bored anyway. And so, I've learned to stick to the quick and maybe-boring descriptions (or just read the boxed text) and let...

IMO it was a player problem, but a very very preventable one. The player was simply taking what the game gave him, as was his right, even though the guidance suggests otherwise. Easy means of prevention: do away entirely with social mechanics that both allow and encourage players to lead with...

And I sat through that discussion/argument between DM and player more times than I care to count. As far as I can tell, the only way to prevent this behavior is to remove the roll completely. I wasn't the DM. And the DM did his best, but it was an argument every time. (still is, from what I...

Says you. Pushing boundaries and acting in bad faith are very much not the same thing. The former is IMO expected of a good player of any type of game or sport where there's malleable boundaries to be pushed; and (I think) all RPGs qualify as such. The latter is not, and deserves to be...

Unless one sees in-character dialogue and thespianism as being the point of furthest advance, and thus sees subsequent movement as backsliding.

When done properly, this makes loads of sense. However, there's always that guy (and in 3e days, I played with a few) who just leads off with "I roll Persuasion. 16. He's letting us in!" or "Let's just skip to the roll, can we?". And the rationale behind this is crystal clear: the player...

Good summary. There's times when all four block points come into play: Intent - you want to do something but you're prevented before you start by internal (e.g. alignment, vows) or external (e.g. laws, physical restraint) considerations. Initiation - you set out to do something blatantly...

Uhhh...yes? Why else do we do this, as opposed to playing a board game or card game? "Moved past" it to what, though? Game-izing the in-character dialogue piece is in no way a forward step, so how have we moved past anything?

Your analysis falls apart a bit before it even starts, because you've put the GM in the position of having to frame scenes (a very NY approach where action is more expected to jump from one discrete scene to the next with little if any detail given to what happens between the scenes) rather than...

I agree it's not impossible. In fact, it would be pretty easy to implement; far easier than a lot of other kitbashes I've done. The more important question is whether it's desirable to add in these sort of mechanics (or expand them such that they work on PCs just like they do on NPCs). I'm...