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Heh, yes. Pretty sure the answer there is no. No idea. I don't think so. Thought provoking doesn't need to be a train wreck. My feeling is that the articles that generate a lot of discussion are ones that are provocative in some way. For instance, the Mike Mearls on 4E article generated...

Oh certainly, you don't need mechanics. As I said "a skilled DM". ;) IMO Vancian casting is one of the biggest sources of pacing issues in D&D. It more than anything contributes to the "five minute workday". It's really challenging to have D&D not have a frequent rest cycle that is very driven...

As much as I tend to disagree with them, those articles drive traffic every time they go up.

I don't think Lewpuls would consider co-op as a "game" due to it lacking a versus component. That would be, in his terminology as I recall it a "puzzle." I'm still not sure how he squares the circle of "military squad" style play and "group success" for "versus" in a game like D&D unless the...

Both types can be really fun, especially when the game is built with mechanics that support that particular kind of play. For example, Star Trek Adventures (STA) by Modiphius is definitely a "new school" game in that it's really oriented around story. There's minimal PC advancement and it's...

Indeed it did. "Treasure drops" are very old. Murder hobo play is also very old. In many respects, this is exactly what Ye Olde Claffick Dungeonne was. It's not even weird: A lot of the source material of the more low fantasy variety, such as Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser and Conan is often...

Yes, and I think you can have what I consider my favorite campaign style, which is a hybrid of the two: The game takes place in a framework created by the DM in which the PCs can make meaningful choices. It's got the character-based story aspects of "New School" but lots of meaningful player...

I played a good bit of it at one point, but the game got more and more complicated over time, pointlessly so in my view. I felt like it wanted to top 3.5 for its rules density. I'm starting as a player in a 5E campaign that's got a lot of the Exalted feel to it. During our Session 0, the DM, an...

They seem to work fairly well in many circumstances, although they can get kind of ludicrous, such as when dealing with falling. As annoying as they are, in many cases the cure is worse than the disease---the bookkeeping that comes with keeping track of bleeding or various persistent conditions...

My hypothesis was that many of those books weren't really designed to be played, but to be purchased and read. I'm pretty sure I didn't play 75% of the books I bought over the years. I got the most mileage out of D&D stuff but bought a whole lot of White Wolf and other games as well. Sometimes...

I've played the old Star Wars D20 Revised with it and ran my own 3.5 with tons of Unearthed Arcana D&D game with it, as well as Armor as damage reduction and level based AC. I ran this game from 2004 to 2007 so we had plenty of time to get a feel for the issues. One difficulty is to figure out...

Certainly, but that implicitly favors systems that have everything all defined and therefore makes something focused more on "story loss" seem not real. A lot of more "new school" games are much more focused on story loss. I think is often one reason that arguments like this start and...

Just because something isn't easily quantifiable doesn't mean it's not worth considering. Yes it's still there. However, D&D has a never really had much of a mechanism for effects like maiming in a consistent way, though.

100%, that happened to a lot of folks. I know I dropped away from really hardcore dungeon crawl fairly quickly myself. A little of that goes a long way. I'll throw it in there once in a while, especially to evoke a certain feel, but I'd really rather have cool fights, interesting RP moments, and...

My analogy was to pornography or cinematic sex scenes, anyway, which aren't at all like the real thing. Or, if you don't want to go there, courtroom dramas versus real courtrooms. People who freak out at video game comparisons need to chill. They're valid comparison points. It's really...

Exactly! I don't think it's very hard to make 5E be much more Game of Thrones: Making most magic not within the reach of the PCs, eliminating most sources of fast healing that generate actual (as opposed to temporary) hit points, and having most of the NPCs in the world be fairly low level are...

Fortunately the sakes are a lot lower.

Well you can count on WotC taking the most inclusive position that makes them look as good as possible, whatever that is. ;)

Old Skool "killer dungeon" type D&D could be hella fun. I started playing in the early '80s when the transition started. Modules before Dragonlance were much less story based but Dragonlance (and maybe a few other things, but definitely it) really pushed much more towards "RPGs as story" where...

Or, if you want your new SAT analogy of the day: Critical Role : real RPG play :: pr0n : real sex :p