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True that. That's why I take it with a grain of salt when some old-timer talks about their gritty, Combat-as-war, "We rolled 3d6 straight down and we liked it!", "You modern kids are spoiled", "We were totally immersed-not like now when its all focused on the stats", "I know the one true way...

This is very hard to describe, because I feel like we've all been trained really well to ignore/accept it or we're just really accustomed to it. it (take your pick.) I remember introducing new players way back in the late 70's and 80's and HP were always one of those things that gave people...

Yup. But this is (apparently) one of those areas where different groups ran with different subsets of rules back in the day. It makes me very skeptical of the confidence with which people talk of "how things were" back in the day.

Assuming we're restricting ourselves to D&D-like games here. I would lean towards what Fate Accelerated (and maybe Marvel Heroic?) call "Approaches" rather than traditional attributes. By default, FAE uses Forceful, Clever, Quick, Flashy, Sneaky, and Careful. (They are often re-named to be more...

I find myself liking this kind of "mode"-style attributes more and more as time goes on. Fate Accelerated calls its batch "Approaches" (Forceful, Sneaky, Quick, Careful, Flashy, and Clever). I was skeptical at first, but have run FAE a few times and see the value in the method.

Just for clarity's sake. I'm not seeking simulation, either. I'm just seeking a coherent, interesting narrative (preferably with a light mechanical overhead as well). I haven't played in your games, but in every other D&D game I've played in, DMs will casually describe a hit...and then that...

All I can say is that years (decades now) of debate and argument and multiple DMs running them different ways would argue otherwise.

No. At least no more than calling it the "story" (as you just did) or the "gameworld" (which seems to common parlance, IME.) Its a term we use when talking about the game or gameplay. Refusing to acknowledge that we will be creating a fictional narrative while we play the game seems delusional...

Hit points have never been treated consistently. All you have to do is look at how, even in the early editions, a high-level fighter who was only down half his hit points and not really injured significantly at all might require a cure critical wound or similar higher magic to heal. Meanwhile...

Getting a Fate point isn't (necessarily, anyway) about the character doing something suboptimally. It can simply be that some complication happens in the fiction. I've run Fate a lot more than I've played it, so FWIW: As either GM or Player, Fate has always felt more solidly connected with the...

Lately I've been wondering if AC, HP, and proficiency/"to hit" shouldn't all be capped or relatively static like Dungeon World. Somebody just recently kitbashed a version they called "homebrew world" and it looks very nice.

I thought it was Dro'w.

A lot of DMs I knew diluted XP for the presence of hirelings, often giving them half shares. That drastically cut down on the hirelings expenditures.

I gotta think the only relevant "need" for a new edition will be if sales start to flag, and I see no signs of that. WotC seems to be shepherding that part of this edition carefully. Lessons learned, I guess. At some point, sure. Even at this slow and careful release schedule, cruft will...

I see this in my group all the time. Shoot, I do it with Charisma type things myself. In this case, I have no qualms about mentioning that while the players may be engineers, the characters aren't. Since we switch GM duties, its easy to ask if they would mind if my next character invented...

I think this is very true. I tend to personally lean in that direction, but I just do not see it in the 4e ABC1 books. I still recall my shock reading you folks' posts about playing 4e that way.

It seems to be for us pendants online. My observations of casual players like my kids' groups is that: A) they won't play so much that it matters and B) they won't stick so closely to the rules that it matters, anyway And those folks far outnumber the people who even know what the edition...

I'll disagree a little bit here.* Not that there isn't a point here, 4e is mechanically much less of a mechanical outlier than is commonly presumed, IMO. Personally, I never quite understood the objection to AEDU powers, recharging, etc. But I would highlight one substantive difference as...

QFT The HP mechanic only works at all because people are so familiar with it. Once you get people to skip all their completely rational objections when they first play an rpg, it sticks forever. A sort of mass willful delusion. What I don't understand is why so many games stick with it as a...

I haven't run into all of these, but I've noticed a few. No experience, yet, but this seems to be a realm that D&D perpetually finds difficult. My current group is just cresting into 8th. I'm seriously considering converting the game to Fate in a few levels, because D&D play is so weak at...