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We've kept training and the associated costs - if nothing else, having to train forces the PCs to take some downtime every now and then - but that stupid rating system went out the window in less time than it took me to type this.

If you're looking for a serious game, 1e will gently fight against you as there's a quiet underlying sense of whimsy and gonzo-ness to it that none of the other editions have really managed to replicate. That sense of whimsy is one of the things I love about 1e. I mean, I like first-person...

Interesting, in that by the time 2e came out we'd long since made many of these changes as houserules. We dropped xp-for-treasure (the slow-down in level advancement is a huge benefit if one wants to run long persistent campaigns), we changed it so multi-class characters had to go by the most...

I really like the idea of different creatures having different types of night sight, with each not always working in every situation. It keeps night vision as a benefit while reining it in somewhat; also gives different species different roles and uses based on their current surroundings.

Just because some RPGs do it that way doesn't make it any more sensible. Rolling the dice when one outcome is interesting while the other outcome is the status quo is more than good enough. You're rollng to see whether that interesting outcome occurs or not (and oftentimes without fully...

Things like that happen; but also sometimes people do legitimately forget things. To reflect that, in relatively trivial cases like this what I usually do is get them to roll under wisdom. Make it, and you remembered to pick up your arrows; blow it, and you forgot to.

Most of the time I prefer they declare they'll be herb-hunting before they start the trip; if nothing else, herb-hunting slows travel speeds considerably.

And oftentimes the players' default is to say not to. The option to say yes, however, is always open to them; I-as-DM won't shut it down should they choose to exercise said option.

Except there's three versions of "something interesting happens": 1. Something interesting happens on failure but not on success (i.e. 'success' maintains the status quo) 2. Something interesting happens on success but not on failure (i.e. 'failure' maintains the status quo) 3. Something...

When good narration would be "nothing happens" and nothing happens isn't allowed, bad narration is all you've got left.

What the roll locks or unlocks is progression in a different direction and-or with a different purpose. For example, from my own game: I wrote (in full near-publishable form) two modules containing a connected string of five discrete adventures. The first of these adventures (an empty villa...

If I'm in a passage that hasn't been disturbed in decades it rather strains credulity that only now does some wandering monster come by when I happen to fail my searching or pick-locks attempt. Narrating outcomes is the DM's job, not the players'. Welcome to the real world. Just because it's...

You keep repeating this phrase as if it's a bad thing. It isn't.

Absent kryptonite, Superman has about +40 in any skill you can possibly think of; and he doesn't auto-fail on a 1. Which is part of what makes him the most boring superhero ever. The PCs, on the other hand, don't have +40 to every skill roll they ever make and thus can - and do - fail at what...

Not quite. More that they CAN go through the haggling process if they want to, and that sometimes (not always) doing so can make a surprising difference down the road. I think we're closer on this than it seems.

Even if-when 'nothing happens' clearly makes the most in-fiction sense? Depends on the player. It still, however, puts the players into a position of having to work against their characters rather than for them, where I'd rather the players focus on advocating for and inhabiting their...

I don't see it as necessarily being poor design, though. When I design a dungeon-type adventure, unless I'm intentionally designing something more gonzo or "funhouse", I try to put myself in the shoes of whoever first built the place and think "What makes (or made, at the time) the most sense...

In isolation, they make perfect sense. When it happens every time a roll is failed, however, it quickly starts looking contrived; because it is. And yet the players in-character have a certain degree of choice as to just how "interesting" their lives are, don't they? They rarely if ever play...

And yet even then sometimes the module beat you. Could be because you missed something vital, could be because you got in over your heads and-or got unlucky on some rolls, could be because you brought the wrong team for the job, or whatever. Also, in past times when a party has missed...

Synthwave is great background music to play during the game sessions. :)