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Oh, no I understood what you meant (I think, anyway). I was just expressing my position, because it seemed so at odds with the position you were describing (which isn't yours, I was already clear on that point). Yeah, if anyone thinks real Good can happen purely by happenstance...I have a...

But that wasn't what was said. What was said was that the GM decides what your alignment is. Which is a significant step beyond merely "the player's roleplaying".

Well I mean there are at least three reasons why it is neither basic nor uncontroversial. The GM can very easily be simply applying a ridiculous or illogical standard. I have seen this before. Folks who think you can only be "Good" if you bleed yourself dry for every unfortunate soul you meet...

I will not concede this. Not unless "most of the time" is so squishy it literally only means "anything that at least meets the bare minimum for plurality." Like that's the key thing here. I absolutely do think that professional designers deserve respect, and that there are a lot of people out...

Strange. At least for myself, I am quite the other way around. Being merely nice to someone doesn't make you good. To quote a certain carpenter's son, "And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that." Token acts of assistance, especially if...

I mean you literally said nobody can do better than the designers themselves. That means the published editions are the best they could possibly be--because everything published inherently outweighs anything done by people who aren't employed as designers. "Most of the time" is the fatal flaw...

Whether or not you are sold on it is not, IMO, the most relevant factor. Whether or not it is a feature that people expect of a game called "D&D" is a more relevant factor. Beyond that, though? I doubt I have much chance of swaying your position, but I think of it this way: Somewhere around...

This implies three things, none of which I consider to be true. Every edition of D&D has been designed perfectly correctly from the word go, so it isn't possible for anyone to improve upon what exists. People who get paid to design TTRPGs are necessarily more knowledgeable, skillful, and...

Except that's not what "archetypes" means in the 5e context. "Archetype", in the 5e context, means a branch within an "easily-identifyable [sic] class". So your "offer" here is, "Okay, here me out: We delete everything you're looking for, and replace it with something that has none of what...

For me, this is like saying that a Barbarian and a Fighter are thematically similar enough, just reflavor your Champion crits as "oh I was raging then." Like...I guess you can do that? But doing so makes it so "Barbarian" is literally nothing more than a nametag, which is deeply unsatisfying to...

Do you intend to address the issues that led Specialties to be abandoned in the first place? That is, the problem with them was that you hard-locked yourself into one and only one path and you did so at an extremely early point. But including a "build it yourself" Specialty functionally...

For my own answer to the question, as I have said before, I think 5e is missing somewhere between six and twelve classes (and I favor the higher end). That would allow us to more neatly focus each class. With a set of, say, 4-6 total subclasses for each class, we can have enough depth for folks...

On the next exciting episode of What Rules Will We Delete?!, Archetypes: A concept introduced by 5e specifically to simplify and streamline class design, with several added benefits so that other options could be removed instead, are now ON THE CHOPPING BLOCK. Because we all know...you can't...

This ignores the possibility that rules can help, by saying that unless rules are perfect defenses, they are useless. This is a perfect solution fallacy: since the solution isn't perfect, it is necessarily useless and should be ignored. Rules can do things like: Make it much more obvious when...

My assertion is that, all too often, they don't. Because the GM assumed that that was part of the "social contract" and thus beneath discussion, and the player couldn't have possibly known to ask, because nothing in the rules makes even a hint of the possibility, and the fluff text is fluid and...

Good Lord, this makes Mr. Finch's work even more vexing than it already was, and that's saying something. It means that it wasn't just pretentious garbage, it was actually self-congratulatory pretentious garbage the entire time, high on his own supply. I didn't think it would be possible to...

And yet I've never seen this. Not once. Your "Buddy GM" is a fiction you invented to make fun of others. It's extremely tiresome.

From experience: "seem" is unnecessary. That is, in fact, exactly what Bloodtide believes, and they pride themselves on being "cruel" to their players until only those who behave as you describe remain in the game. It has an extremely low retention rate and an extremely high rate of generating...

Given the kinds of negative consequences that come from treating bad people as if they were "nice" people, I'm not so sure about that last bit. I do agree that it is more complicated. But at least from where I'm standing, the simple solution is for the GM to have people that are more complex...

The single most frustrating thing about it is that most, not all but most, of the GMs who do this think they're being good GMs. Like they legitimately think that the thing they're doing is constructive and helpful, when it isn't. Most cases I've seen where a GM got a lightbulb moment about...