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Wizard with a spellbook. Heavily-armored fighter. Magical healing priests. Trap-disarming cutpurses. Hippie shapeshifting pagans. Tribal berserkers. List goes on and on. Almost every D&D class is a D&D-specific trope.

RETVRN TO TRADITION (B/X).

Alright, that's a little harsh. Dungeon World is an early hack of Apocalypse World. Dungeon World stands as a decent introduction to PbtA games, but the overall PbtA hack/design space has advanced since its publication. World of Dungeons is a better option for the OSR-by-way-of-PbtA gameplay, in...

I measure my lifespan in between media franchises.

The biggest downside to at-will flight is the same downside as the outlander background: it removes core elements of gameplay. In a game about exploration, the ability to fly removes the need for climbing, swimming, balancing, and other sorts of obstacle navigation. Aside from that, the lot of...

The rules provided facilitate the game as the designers intended ("it's a feature, not a bug"), but I agree that there is some cruft that could be stripped away--some of the Hindrances and Edges should be revised and the list curated per-campaign--but the vast majority of rules exist to support...

Fellas, fellas, fellas. I didn't need an etymology lesson. It was a joke.

House ruled AD&D 1e could be great, as long as it's not designed by ______.

Dunno, why do the British pronounce aluminum as alyouminnieum? From whence hails this extra syllable?

I like ugly Middle Earth orcs. I like greenskin Warhammer orcs. I like they're-just-humans-with-a-different-skin-tone-and-also-tusks World of Warcraft orcs. I love ugly-but-good orcs, too. It just depends on the type of game I'm running.

Good policy. I measure out time in intervals of ten minutes, just as Gygax intended. Assuming checking for traps, characters can move through one large sized room cautiously--that's moving quietly, checking for traps, etc.--every ten minutes. One large room equals two midsize rooms or three...

Would you care to post your own RPG?

"Writing a roleplaying game isn't that difficult." No, it's not. Writing a good roleplaying game is difficult, and publishing it even moreso.

Savage Worlds is an excellent system and combines lighter mechanics with tactical combat. If you like D&D but think HP attrition and spell slots are janky, I'd recommend giving it a try. Fair warning: you're not going to "get" the combat system without playing it. Shaken won't make sense until...

We really oughta convert to GURPS at this point.

There aren't adversarial players. The power disparity and role differences between GMs and players means that there is not a mirror term. There are specific problem player traits and we use different terminology for them: munchkins and rules lawyers come to mind. We could use a term for the...

I never said they shouldn't exist in D&D, I merely commented that the mental imagery clashed. I would include rabbitfolk (and mousefolk, catfolk, tortoisefolk, and all their animalistic ilk), but not in a standard D&D game of knights, wizards, and dragons.

Absolutely. I'd like to see a much greater emphasis on skills and specializations within D&D rather than combat doodads. Backgrounds, for example, are my number one favorite addition to D&D, and not for the skill proficiencies. The little roleplaying benefit is exactly the kind of mechanic I...

Agreed. But having more methods of numerical tweaking and number-crunching and character sheet statistics creates a game that emphasizes those aspects of gameplay. It's a feedback loop. I like my games with a bit o' crunch, mind you, but it can become the focus of the game very quickly.

Catholicism is not problematic.