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For me, I played in one campaign with the red book, I think it was Moldvay. I fell in love with the game. I moved on though to AD&D mainly because of the modules. My local store had a lot of AD&D modules and no B/X modules. For me I think the ideal class lineup is Fighter, Cleric, Thief...

I think we chase a hopeless goal. Encounters are easy and hard for different reasons for different groups. Maybe it's true the bad guys shouldn't be flying if the good guys don't have a good ranged option. But the DM should be able to eyeball a lot of this with experience and while...

I'm talking about building a world slowly and probably improvising some because the edge of what is known is not far off. To be honest, their chances aren't good. You may likely burn through an entire group of potential long term players because all they know is the complete mess they first...

I think in a typical campaign it is something you can choose. I don't play LOTR's style PCs must perform or world succumbs to darkness type campaigns. I suppose if you made a campaign like that then you could make time be of the essence the entire campaign. In my campaigns, players are in an...

What do you mean? the rule? The way it is displayed?

If you want to design your own deities, "The Book of the Righteous" is perhaps one of the best rpg books ever written period not just on that subject. It is for 3e but I think you could pretty easily migrate that part to any edition of D&D.

This is a good idea but I might add a -1 penalty to all rolls until the x.p. drained is regained. But it handles it more easily while still being pretty scary.

I think most of the time the locale of the adventure sandbox is not known to the characters. They are always coming to it. As time passes though, it is not uncommon, for someone to ask me as DM if they know anyone in a town if the group begins to travel out. Based on their backgrounds...

It's like we are playing totally different games. Oh wait. Practically we are.

I think rules books are products of their times. If you want to rank them by PLAYSTYLE then 1e wins for me too. If you want to rank by CLARITY then it doesn't come close. Modules are another matter. I like Ravenloft but it would never be my #1. It's too alien. For me maybe the D1-2 module...

That is a way but not everyone has the genius of Gygax to do that well. Some do. I would hope in almost all cases the DM comes from the ranks of players. Play the game and see how a good DM does it and then carry on. I am not at all against inside out designs. To some degree even the...

I didn't mean to imply there were not safe places to go after adventures. Though I will say at super high levels if you've offended a big bad evil, you probably should prepare for attack at any time. It's why my groups traditionally have went out of their way to remain anonymous, use scry /...

Well I will concede that a complete newb is not going to learn world building quickly and is best advised to use a prebuilt world. Having a good world though is essential. My concern is that as soon as a DM becomes proficient, he will want to build his own world. So a good DMG would spend a...

I voted "yes and I don't see much difference". Everything I didn't like is still in the game. I wasn't thinking it would be otherwise.

I think there is a big disconnect between the way many of you play D&D and the way I do. I guess that goes without saying. My parties are afraid. They do not assume they can rest ever. They think they could be surprise attacked at any moment. They expect bad guys to be plotting and planning...

I wouldn't use the word Thespian as it has some negative connotations in some circles but overall I agree. I think stories emerge from games. It's a game and stories emerge. Absolutely. The greatness of D&D is doing something you really can't do in any other type of game.

Well I didn't say "design" goal. And businesses make decisions that impact the design all the time. Why is 3e different than 2e? They thought streamlining the game would make it more appealing and thus make it more sellable. Sales are the bottom line for a business. I'd argue that 5e...

I don't know what you think ad-hoc means to be honest. When you can create a new power without having to conform it to some system, that is ad-hoc. That is not a bad word. I'm not sure I get your use of top down vs bottom up. This is the physics of the universe being related to the rules...

For me it is taste and mechanics that dissociate. (e.g. plot coupons). At lower levels and perhaps into mid-level I agree. They were always hard to kill at higher levels. I agree though that WOTC has made them far more formidable at lower levels. I like magic being a start weak and grow...

I wouldn't say it's a goal when designing a particular subsystem but which subsystems you include might be driven by profit or expense. Often page count limits what goes into a game which is an aspect of expense.