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We skipped 4e for reasons that looking back had more to do with us than with the game so I cannot comment on what 4e did. If pressed I would refer to what my friend does as more along the lines of ad hoc or fiat leveling. When he thinks we've done enough toward a goal to merit leveling up we get...

The type of game you're describing still has rules however non-explicit they might be. If I want to solve a mystery without gameplay I'll read some old Dorothy Sayers or Ellery Queen or something. If I want to feel as though I'm trying to solve a mystery with a cheating GM there's always Dame...

What @niklinna is describing is pretty much exactly how my friend runs his D&D games. The PCs decide on their goals and as they work toward those goals they level up.

If the rules are being ignored then we're not really playing a game. If we're not really playing a game I am not interested. If the GM is unilaterally ignoring the rules they might as well write their novel and be done with it.

Are there things that show up in some games that don't show up in the games my friend runs? Yes. Those things mostly center around tracking and calculating XP and we do not miss those things. I did say that sometimes leveling up happens before the relevant inflection point if the DM believes...

It has become pretty clear that if we want to level up we need to set goals and take steps toward achieving them. Leveling up almost always happens after a story hits some sort of important inflection point. Rarely it happens right before such a point if leveling up makes surviving the...

It seems easy to presume that if you grant levels or XP based on milestones then the game becomes about achieving those milestones. Maybe it's too easy and that's incorrect. One of the DMs I play D&D with does fiat leveling when the PCs have done something substantial toward advancing one of...

Challenge in conventional TRPGs like 5e is usually pretty straightforward. The PCs have a goal. There are things in the game world the GM has placed between them and that goal. Maybe the PCs achieve that goal. Maybe the PCs don't achieve that goal. Maybe the PCs achieve part of that goal. The...

You are right that whatever lore there is that hasn't been established at your table should be open to being changed. That applies whether it's from inspirational material or from published setting material or from notes the GM has prepared.

It sounds like you're saying different rules written to work differently will engage people's brains differently. I agree with that.

I'm not quite sure I'd use "operationalize" to describe my approaches but I'll try to explain more clearly or at least more verbosely. By "unbounded list" I mean a list that in principle includes more or less all things possible and allowed in the game being played. There might be some...

An unbounded list would be one that contained more or less all the possibilities the game offered with no consideration for the PCs. An appropriately curated list would have some or most or all the results being relevant to the PCs' motivations and interests. I believe such an appropriately...

Bad indexes are a TRPG tradition.

I agree with you that an unbounded random encounter system is not likely to generate meaningful connection of story threads but an appropriately curated one might. I don't really see a big difference on this axis between a GM curating such a list and a game's mechanics doing this work.

This is precisely true. Some GMs will need to prepare more world than others but that's not a disagreement.

There was a big thread that was at least adjacent to this. https://www.enworld.org/threads/regarding-dmg-starter-set-and-essentials-kit-are-they-good-for-the-starting-dms.692409/ The upshot is that some people want changes to the DMG and some other people want minimal or no changes to the DMG...

"The confines of play at the table" will vary from one GM at one table to another GM at another table. The GM and the players and the game rules will all work to define those confines.

The world probably does not need to exist beyond what is needed for play. What different tables will need for play seems likely to have some variance. How realistic-ish it needs to be seems likely to also vary from table to table. Likewise how much input the non-GM players have into it. This is...

I was getting at the difference between what you quoted and what you said.

Not wishing to add a political message is not the same as not having one. I do not set out to score political points when I run but it is probably not hard to discern my real-world positions or to see some point or theme. Because not all my players agree with my politics I try to keep such...