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"Libramancer" is now making me think of a setting with 12 schools of magic organized around astrological signs, and what kind of spells as "Libramancer" or a "Scorpiomancer" should get. There goes my work productivity today. :)

I mean, if the concept is "we're going to play a sequel to BG3, using the BG3 companions as our characters", for maybe 12-15 sessions max, then I would be in. But I would expect the following. 1) The PCs can pick which character we want to play, in some sort of pre-game planning. 2) We...

Agreed. As I've mentioned before, my own views on RPGs shifted fairly dramatically based on conversations I've had on this site about the very topics we're still discussing now. Plus, I think there's an "iron sharpens iron" element to these discussions; the reasons behind my own views become...

I'll be honest, I'm not really sure what aspect of "backwards compatibility" hasn't been achieved. I'm playing in games where we use 2014 and 2024 material interchangeably, freely mixing and matching, and we haven't run into any issue. Heck, one of my characters is 2014 warlock multiclassed...

Realistically, desire for complexity in combat is going to be along a really wide spectrum, and requires multiple game systems to enable everyone to find a game that fits their preference. No one game, not even D&D, should be trying to be all things to all people in that regard. We should have...

It strikes me as a little funny that all the participants I saw in that 2018 thread are also posting in this 2025 one (with the exception of @Ovinomancer). I think we might be stagnating a bit.

Like a large portion of games, both luck and skill matter. Skill exists to increase the odds of success, but a random factor always plays a role (pun slightly intended).

I think a communication issue is here around “realistic”. We’re (we being this loose confederation of narrative game enjoyers) generally using it to means “within the boundaries of plausibility and causality”. The living world proponents are generally using it more strictly to mean “purely...

Imagine what a wacky world it would be if we just played a game the way the rules said we should.

Yes, because we were on such a roll before! It would be a terrible if a 5000 post thread wasn’t allowed to continue.

Because I don’t like simulationism.

Sure, lots of different approaches. Definitely not a “narrative camp” thing, purely a me thing. I get pretty bored after about two dozen sessions and am generally looking for things to wrap up.

No worries. When you talk about games going on for 1100+ sessions, I can only think about the literally 50 different games I could have run/played in during that timespan. :) Some people like 30 year soap operas, other people like 8 episode Netflix dramas. That's why they make both.

They can. But that's a way to narrate a failed check to climb, not a separate secret roll. Noticing stuff, as a separate mechanic, shouldn't be in any game. Gating info behind skill checks negates both player exploration of environment (in a classic dungeoncrawl) and simple clarification of...

Too difficult. Please mind control me into a choice, please.

Interestingly, Dragonbane, which is much more of a classic/trad style game, also has rules for taking a mental condition as a result of taking stress or damage.

There can be "nothing wrong with it" and I still wish it was different. I wish D&D and trad play were just a sizable fraction of the TTRPG play experience, not the majority, that there was no "800 lb gorilla", and trying new systems was the norm, not the exception. That's not the world we...

I can't, obviously. I'm lamenting the fact that the world isn't the way I wish it was. I thought that was kind of obvious. :)

I have 4 tables. In my ideal world, one of them would be D&D focused and the other three open to variable games (a "flex table"). Right now, I have three "D&D tables" and one "flex table". So it absolutely does affect me.

More tables like that!