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I don't have a problem with non-D&D resolution systems. I've enjoyed a lot of them. It's mostly games from the last 10 years that require special dice (such as that newish Star Wars game) and similar contrivances (such as rolling red 'positive' dice and white 'negative' dice or some such). Even...

Dungeon Crawl Classic's funky dice. d5? d7? d27? Nope. Get over yourselves. Actually, any game that goes with an outlandish die mechanic or resolution system just for the sake of being different.

I'm generally very lenient about this sort of thing. Our group are gamers, but we're currently running like 6 different systems. Sometimes the minutia and options get a bit muddled. We also tend to play online where it can sometimes be difficult to interject in a timely fashion. Anything that...

'Encounters' should be thought of as any situation that drains resources (spells, ability usages, hp, HD) from the PCs. They need not be combat encounters, but can be traps, hazards or environmental effects. These don't necessarily generate xp for completion but can limit the party's adventuring...

Hit points are the easiest mechanic in the world. They are whatever you need them to be. You can narrate them as nicks and scratches or luck running out or entrails spewing forth to be put right with a mere cure light wounds. Whatever makes sense in the context of the attack and its results...

Always homebrew. I have played published settings, but I've no interest in them now. I'd rather have a weird, clumsy idiosyncratic setting which is totally unique to a single gaming group than run through a pre-fab adventure path that thousands of other people have done. Lots of people have...

We've had good success with 1/2 monster hp, but doubling the number of monsters in an encounter. It gives greater offensive potential to the monsters, but they drop quicker (so the pace of combat seems faster) and they still need to deal with positioning issues and are vulnerable to area...

Absolutely 100% give higher level characters more challenges to overcome. All the time. Period. Full stop. For encounters, opt for lots of easy to medium encounters that force the players to use up resources. To this add obstacles. Lots of obstacles. Locked doors. Wide chasms. Dense, thorny...

What's missing is that the sword is just a massively more useful close combat weapon than a mace/hammer smashy thing or axe choppy thing. You have more vectors of attacks and are dangerous at a greater range of distances. You can jab, use heavier blows, backhand your attacks, use it defensively...

I use standard passive checks for practically every skill check. It started as a rebuttal to games where the DM had us roll constantly and I realized I was asking for too many skill checks myself. It was adding nothing to the game, it made the PCs into Keystone Kop-like idiots when the...

Rules heavy, obviously. The combat chapter alone has a word count longer than a rules-lite system's entire set. Any system that has rules for the time it takes to put on armor is immediately disqualified from the rules-lite club.

What you're suggested in creating a randomized list of possible maneuvers/attacks that can be used it round. This would model the fluid tactical and situational changes in a fight and allow a fun diversity in options. In the Yahtzee example, a player would also be able to pick and choose dice...

I believe the design goal was to get a 1-20 level campaign in less than 6 months of games (something like 30 'standard' adventuring days). I think the idea was to keep the pace up, rapidly evolve the PCs and the challenges they face, and then wrap it up before players get bored or the group...

I haven't had a chance to check in on this thread in a while. Glad to see some hearty discussion on it. I would defend the creation of a INT-forward fighter class. It seems to me that an intelligent person would find a way to put that intelligence to use in combat and develop complementary...

This is a pretty good start for what you're after. It uses a design ethos that I really enjoy: an array of at-will options that are circumstantially beneficial or have a trade off in their use. This opens up different viable avenues for a player while encouraging them to dynamically change a...

One of our tangential groups was very much into the 5 Minute Workday back in the 3e era. They would constantly rest, either by fortifying their positions with spells or by retreating, resting and returning. It was way overkill for most of the challenges, which the DM ended up making tougher as...

I did this in my first 5e campaign, but only when the PCs took long rests in dungeons or other hazardous environments where attrition would rightfully take its toll. However, like others have pointed out, players tend to just compensate with more clerical healing. I didn't see where it had much...

I dunno: *Maybe I want a world with only ritual magic or a world where clerics don't exist but wizards have cleric spells or a world where cantrips don't exist or where magic exists but is incredibly dangerous to use. *Maybe I want a world with herbal healing or where every housewife has her...

Sure, you can certainly do this, but once you take out the majority of magic you're left with about 15% of the game. It's pretty thin, and that's the problem some of us have. I have no problem restricting content when running a campaign or a problem creating new content (classes, feats...

Totally agree on the in-encounter mini-statblocks. I will not run any WotC adventures because of it. Flipping between the encounter, the NPC statblock in the back of the adventure, as well as a couple of different monster statblocks on different pages in the MM, and potentially looking up spells...