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<Double post>

It is not quite that simple. There are some things prescribed. The players need to prepare a form according to quite strict rules and bring them to that activity. However how these forms are used later in the activity is indeed prescribed by suggestions rather than rules. Some suggestions are...

I am so happy you brought this up just now, as reading over the posts since last I logged in I realise that this is indeed what appear to be the key. I would say D&D is and positions itself as a game engine, but not Unity. They position themselves as RPGMaker. RPGMaker is a hugely popular...

Yes, I got the impression that was the meaning you put in the word "engaged", and fully agree that is a problem. What I tried to show was a type of player I still find consistent with what @Clint_L described while I assume you agree did not match what you had in mind when you thought you...

No doubt, but I guess you might not folow the encounter encounter boss formula either? The reason I brought up that is that it not only is almost everywhere in computer games it is also from what I have seen extremely common in published adventures for table top RPGs. As such it was intended to...

(The fact that they had to change due to popular demand to me make it seem like your claim they did attrition "very well" might be personal preference based? ;) ) What did you feel worked well? From what you say I guess the way it worked was that it put a diverse set of challenges in the first...

I read what you replied to a bit differently. While I agree players disengaged in that they don't care is a failure mode, players disengaging in that they for a period do not contribute do not need to be so. I as a player (and indeed to some extent DM) often prefer to just kick back and watch...

I think the big issue here is that D&D adventuring day attrition was (likely) never designed for the modern encounter, encounter, boss fight, end of day structure at all. It is a remant of the system designed for the encounter, encounter, encounter, boss, loot, encounter, encounter end of day...

No D&D version  require ad-hoc game-design. It require however a lot of judgement calls with regard to what should be the outcome of various situations. Many people by their own preference decide they want to make rules for themselves to help them make such judgement calls, or as a medium to...

It is hardly a D&D evolution, rather the stagnant core principle. Knowing then history is useful for understanding the role. D&D didnt arise from wargames in general, it arose from a very particular branch of wargaming based on the free kriegspiel philosophy. The first Kriegspeil (a german...

https://norwegianstyle.wordpress.com/2007/12/30/storyboard/ As for your distinction between creative and skill expression - i agree that they are different dimentions, but I still fail to see why they should be in conflict. After all, isnt great art usually considered an extraordinary feat of...

I think I see what you are gettig at, but I think I still have to strongly disagree with the generality of this claim. I can agree that if you have a scenario where a player can decide between wining and story, then there is clearly at odds. And this might in essence very often be the case for...

I think a key part to D&Ds apeal and longlivity is that it can provide a very wide range of completely different experiencesm all that can be considered "game". Dixit, Pictionary, Yatzee, Pool, Trivial Pursuit, MTG, and ASL are all clearly games, even though each are providing incredibly...

I am not sure what you think look like attritional combat balance? My impression is more like they tried to acheive encounter based combat balance along with attritional balance for an adventuring day, without fully succeeding (at least in communicating how such a play style would look like)

I want to amplify a point @Red Castle made. When it come to attrition, losing surges (or using dailies) as part of events/skill challenges appeared to be the clearest way to incorporate that into the game. Combats are too heavy to work well for a style of play that try to give attrition trough...

I agreed with not wanting that class in my game. One of the things I find atractive with shadowdark vs for instance DCC is that there are as far as I can see nothing that prevents low death game ala typical 5ed, while much better cattering for high death game than 5ed for those into that. The...

I feel one issue here is that there are so many things that is called "Prewritten adventures". A location based death trap dungeon like tomb of horror provide something very different than an epic coherent campaign like War of the burning sky, and very different from this again we have low prep...

Main issue I see with shadowdark with regard to the stated objectives, is the limited character options. On the other hand in a D&D (adjencient) context, options without reading rules in advance tend to be problematic.

I think the big learning between Gary's time and our is the discovery that RPG as a medium is strong enough to support suspense without relying on time pressure. This might be most easily seen in computer RPGs, where time constraints has been almost completely abolished. Just interacting with...

This again hints to me that Gygax really tried to make the alternative rules in the original D&D box inconvenient on purpose in order to drive chainmail sales. After all the main system used ascending AC, and why would he consider ascending AC for AD&D first edition, if he wasn't aware of...