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Dwarves are great as-is. Don't break what's not fixable, or whatever that old saying is. The "staleness" of dwarves is a strength for roleplaying games overall because it provides a common framework for examining and understanding the game. Dwarven stereotypes--stout, bearded miners and smiths...

D&D simply isn't designed to handle "boss fights" very well because of the nature of the game's history as a wargame. Frankly, if you want to do "boss fights," you do need to give NPCs extra actions, but the best option is to stagger them throughout the turn, giving him multiple initiative counts.

I really like the idea of making race more of an important part of your character beyond the ability scores. I think granting racial feats is a splendid idea, and I would impose some disadvantages to counterbalance it. Giving elves fey vulnerabilities is a good example of that, but you want to...

The sidekick system is lazily designed and needs a heavy revision, that's why. I do not allow them in my game for that reason.

The D&D wizard is the best at being the D&D wizard: a spellcaster from Jack Vance's Dying Earth series. It's based almost entirely on a single story therein: Mazirian the Magician. D&D is its own genre at this point. Harry Dresden and Polgara are not D&D wizards. Gandalf, Merlin, and Thulsa Doom...

If we get down to brass tacks, D&D is entirely up to the whims of the GM. The GM decides everything: when to call for a skill check, what the DC of a skill check is, what the impact of that skill check is. It's entirely controlled by the GM with an illusion of player input upon it. The only...

The fundamental herein remains: the expectation of a "good GM" (a subjective qualifier) to know that it is appropriate to ignore the design of the system in favor of handwaving the game's design as part of gameplay. Even then, this measurement of "goodness" is entirely reliant on a consensus...

This is not indicated in the rules. Stating that a GM should know not to "roll a combat that's that one sided" is dismissing the procedures of the game and expecting a talented GM to cover for a design flaw. Even moreso, what if that combat does matter? If the PCs are allow low on hit points and...

Most published adventures are essentially railroads, and Here's Why That's A Good Thing--well, back that up: it's not good, it's not bad, it's neutral. It's understandable. A lot of players and GMs don't have the free time to devote to writing sprawling campaigns and generating vast hexcrawls. A...

Not even once. I love "non-optimal" combinations and 5e has done considerable (and sufficient) work to make race/class combinations viable. Some are less optimal than others, but 3e/Pathfinder exhausted me on number-crunching to the point where I don't even look at the racial mods until I've...

What would you recommend as an alternative? The goal was to provide a limitation to the mechanic while allowing players more opportunities to garner Inspiration outside of strict GM fiat.

Best practices: 1. 3d6 down the line, no rerolls. 2. Human only. 3. Players must have been playing for at least three editions before joining the game. 4. Final destination. Anything less than this is incorrect and an abysmal failure. More seriously, here are my best practices for gaming: 1...

I like the +2 to +6 increase in modifiers, as I think that's a fair increase. I mostly object to the radical HP increase. I'd like to see more non-combat options added to the game.

I've never been embarrassed to talk about D&D in social settings. I'm not One of Those Players who insists on gleefully sharing lengthy stories about how my level 28 fighter received his +11 sword of godslaying and annihilated Tiamat in one blow (partly because that's never happened and party...

It's numerous confounding factors. Changing the way modifiers were calculated turned Constitution from an ability score that initially capped out at +3 to average characters getting a +5 or +6 easily. Add onto that the increase in total Hit Dice and you have a recipe for very large pools of hit...

There's been a bit of discussion about incorporating roleplaying mechanics and "talky" encounters as of late, so I want to lay out some preliminary mechanics I'm contemplating for my next game. It's like Fate, but lighter and less codified (that's deliberate - Fate is a bit too codified for my...

Yes. That was the stated design goal of 5e developers. My personal preference is to drastically flatten the power curve overall, starting the PCs with a little more oomph in their britches and tapering power as the game progresses. There's a reason my preferred playing range is levels 3-7. I...

I'm totally in favor of reducing HP bloat, but 5e has made it clear that HP progression is the primary source of character progression, and the entire system is built around that. I think that the Constitution modifier to HD at each level is positively preposterous (not to mention 20 levels of...

Players rolling all the dice is palatable to me, so yes, but the differentiation between rolling saving throws to defend oneself and having a target number to hit creates a mechanical and cognitive distinction that is likewise pleasing.

I could not agree more. Your mileage might vary on how this is best handled, but Hillfolk does a fair job with very simple mechanics. I think that gaining and spending inspiration could be ported fairly easily into 5e to handle this.