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I only call for initiative if players are aware of an enemy and want to attack it. Or an enemy is aware of the players and wants to attack them. Seems rather silly to me to let players roll initiative out of combat just to see who to ask what he is doing first. I just let my players act freely...

We are talking about attacks that instantly kill a character, right? My rule is usually to be harsh but not unfair. All PCs can die, but they will only die if they mess up. So I would probably telegraph a high risk of death ahead of time so they have a chance to react to it. Additionally, I...

Yes of course, but it's still a huge difference between maybe able to use 2 of 20 magic scrolls you find in an adventure or learn 20 extra spells.

A Warlock ability allows them to learn all Ritual spells. If all spells were Ritual spells they could cast everything.

*rubs head* Preferred DM type: As close to RAW/RAI as possible. Strict. No house rules. Preferred player type: Someone who can roleplay well and is very involved, but doesn't come up with too crazy ideas that completely ruin my preparations. I also have a secret fetish for rules lawyers.

If the core issue is "players have no idea what to do with their skills if they are not specific", then I wouldn't change the rules at all and instead simply give them a handout that lists each official D&D 5e skill with a list of things you can do with that skill. On top of that, I'd check...

If an NPC is telling the truth, I tell my player "It seems he's telling the truth". No DC needed. The player might still not be sure because if he was lying, there's a chance I'd say the same thing if their Insight was too low. I think this is the best way to handle it. The higher their insight...

My variant of that would be: A new player says: "I move to the next room." An experienced player says: "The DM said appears and not is, there must be something in this room!"

Actually the Hiding and Surprise rules pretty concretely refer to passive perception. It's an exception to the common rule.

By RAW smell has nothing to do with hiding. I wouldn't place a general house rule for this but rather determine it by situation. As said earlier, I might tell my player the rough or even exact location of the enemy if it's reasonable in the situation to determine it by smelling. For monsters...

The only use of that is that it's easier to guess the correct position. (As if you guess the wrong position the attack automatically misses.) And as iserith said, it helps with AoE placement.

You can tell your allies immediately where the enemy is (Edit: Okay Iserith is correct, you can only communicate on your turn by the rules.), but the enemy will still be hidden from them (unseen and unheard). It's not too relevant in actual play as you cannot react to what's been said until...

If you roll a 12 and enemy A has 11 passive perception and enemy B has 13 passive perception, then you are hidden from A but not from B. You won't become hidden for B at all. Don't make the mistake to think that "hidden" is some kind of status change you get when you beat ALL passive...

I think this is all intentional as it actually increases the fun players have in combat. Basically players hit monsters most of the time - they would have less fun if they missed more often than they hit. Monster have high HP to rebalance this. PC on the other hand have less HP, but are also...

I guess you got a point. If it says "Everyone within 30 feet of you", it doesn't really refer to an AoE, so there's no definition on what the point of origin of that AoE is, so consequently it's impossible to determine if there's line of sight between point of origin and the target. So by RAW...

The text you quoted is part of the Area of Effect section, so I'd apply that as well of course. That is unless the ability description says otherwise. Banshee's Wail is very specific in how it works and doesn't even refer to an AoE type.

If the monster ability refers to an Area of Effect (e.g. "Cone"), I'd apply the rules for that AoE.

The problem is their expectation over the whole span of their (new) adventure. Since they expected it to happen for so long they don't want it any other way anymore. As DM it's better if you know what your players want ahead of time and prepare them to reach that goal. For example if you slowly...

Currently I'm playing Princes of the Apocalypse and there the Adventure Hooks actually determine when a PC gets inspiration. Usually that means each PC gets inspiration two times. Other than that, I handle inspiration rules as once suggested to me. I only grant it (outside of adventure hooks)...

If one of your players asked a question that I didn't expect, like about the whereabouts of someone I never heard of, rather than sidestepping for a short moment I'd go OOC and ask my player how he got to that question. The player would then show me his background story and I'd quickly improvise...