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It's a simulationist thing. If a rule produces incentives and results that cut against the vision of how things work in the game setting, then so much the worse for the rule. So if the GM and the players want a world where comrades are frequently left behind to die, because attempting to drag...

My point is that just as not every encounter has to be a combat encounter, not every camp has to be a survival-roll-required camp. I believe it's better, in fact, if most nights spent camping are not survival-roll-required, with the exceptions being uncommon, unusual, and memorable, and...

I'm your opposite number there. I run 3.5e when I run D&D and for me it's the sweet spot of the D&D editions, or at least can be made into one with heavy curating of the options and some judicious house rules. When 4e came out, I looked and said "Nope!" and likewise "Nope!" to PF, 5e, and 5e++...

The "pushover encounters are not fun" school of thought is common enough that you share it. It's also contradicted by my own experience, both with my players and as a player that pushover encounters very often are fun. Less so for the GM, but for the players? Fun! When they are less fun for...

Thoughts: The 3.0/3.5e Cleave feat was an attempt to reincarnate this in spirit. There's a common school of DM though that PCs should never ever encounter 1 hit die creatures after about 4th level, 'cause such encounters are "no challenge." Since they're no challenge, they're no fun - and if...

My thought is that the deed should be a test of character, rather than a serious test of ability, something to show that the PCs are acting in good faith. As for what the elven community looks like, you have a better idea of what you want than I do, but the place I'd start in working out the...

When it comes to sleeping in armor, there are those who want to emulate read-only fiction: "He stood up and cast open his long black cloak, and behold! he was clad in mail beneath, and girt with a long sword, great-hilted in a sheath of black and silver. ‘Thus have I walked, and thus now for...

I'm inclined to favor long lists of available stuff. But as many others have noted the stuff has to be useful. Also, there is a level-of-abstraction issue: Too little abstraction drowns the Fun, as the players and GM have to fiddle with all fiddly bits of (e.g.) socks, scarves, sweaters, etc...

I think of it as a philosophical difference. In crunchy RPGs the crunch mechanics are an integral part of the character and world descriptions. They're armatures, often hidden from the characters themselves, but still a real part of the characters. And because they're part of the characters'...

I voted "other" because I have given up on D&D editions beyond 3.5e. Not my humanoids, not my hippodrome. On a world-building level, either could be justified. IIRC the old BECMI rules disallowed them, or at least didn't include them as standard. The 1e, 2e, and 3.x rules did. So either could...

I prefer Rote spells, because Dynamic spells are a PITA both to deploy and to adjudicate in the heat of play. Because of this there's a tendency to take a successful Dynamic spell and reuse it, transforming it into a Rote spell over time. Characters in magic-using fantasy campaigns tend to...

People don't always agree on known problems, and even when they do, they often don't agree about why it's a problem. Some house rules are very common and well known (and often become "official" rules in later editions). But most are obscure and hard to find, even with the internet and on-line...

As a GM, it isn't my character, but it is my wain. Maybe fixing the wain it is an easy repair within the ability of someone with a Mental score of 15 but no special wainwright skill or fixing-things talent. Maybe it isn't. It's my call as GM, either to how the brokenness of the wain maps to...

Not a god, and not of dodging, but there is the mythological example of the Buddha, who Did Not Get Hit by all the attacks that the armies of the demon-god Mara threw at him. I'm not so confident about saying "never" when it comes to PCs, as I don't always expect players to "color inside the...

So what happens when the God of Archery shoots an arrow at the God of Dodging Ranged Attacks? I want mechanics that don't pack it in when the absurdly difficult meets the ridiculously capable. Or when the absurdly easy meets the ridiculously inept. That's why I prefer inflationary numbers...

It's a matter of taste. Unlimited recasting of certain cantrips are something I came up with independently in 3.5e, before learning that Pathfinder 1e and later D&D editions did something similar. For me it solved an annoyance by letting spell-casters feel more magical with only a very small...

I started back in 1978, and (A)D&D always had magic too powerful for my tastes. Not magic that was too common, but magic that was too powerful. "D&D doesn't have wizards. Instead it has artillery pieces disguised as wizards." The attempted balancing factor of sharply limiting the number of...

I'm on the "want to roll dice" side, but that means I want mechanics that don't pack it in when the absurdly difficult meets the ridiculously capable. Or when the absurdly easy meets the ridiculously inept. (Roll 'lockpicking' to open the lock with its intended key - when the figure attempting...

As an early rebel against Old School way back when Old School was still new, let me put in my two cents: Cent 1: New School isn't necessarily narrativist; it can just as easily be simulationist. Cent 2: I'll agree with (1) "Characters are special," (4) "Death is Not the Only Fail state," and...

A different version. Specifically 3.5e (with a certain amount of curation and house rules, of course - but that would be true of any system, D&D or otherwise). I started just before/at the start of 1e: The 1e PHB and MM had come out, but the DMG hadn't yet, and most of the games were pre-1e...