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By that I meant that they are nevertheless consistent with the story and the setting, but I may just be arguing about a definition of "coherence" that doesn't agree with yours, rather than disagreeing about the premise of your OP. I get what you mean about setting and story being separate and...

I don’t know, many of the things listed strongly support the themes of LotR, at least the departure and fading of the « great », the rise of the « small », and what happens when they’re confronted to power, whether it’s one they have or one they must oppose. The weakest creatures finding the...

Hehe, who doesn’t like defining the flavours of player butts! ;)

Eh, one on my original systems had a spinner as « dice resolution ». It was for a Labyrinth (as in the movie) one-shot rpg. If there was a doubt that a PC’s action could fail, you’d spin the wheel. Get the primary in your stat and you’d fail. Get a secondary and you succeed with setback. Add a...

Here are the broad strokes I'm going for when tinkering with rules and settings. Some of it is subjective but as far as the complexity of game rules, consider D&D 5e verging on the "too complex" side of things. The game should be fair and offer comparable options between player-characters, but...

But sometimes the question useful to whom, or powerful in the hand of who? An economy solely based on setting is bad system design, but economy solely based on the needs of adventurers is bad world design.

I'm throwing this here if you're willing to homebrew or use homebrew content. It's a subclass I've made for a homebrew setting a few years back (so ignore the Vegepygmy stuff). It looked balanced at the time, and was one of the few classes that actually got playtested. The "cast any one spell...

Still, between the Diablo series, the Elder Scrolls series, the Fallout series, the Final Fantasy series, the XCOM series, the various Baldur’s Gate/Neverwinter/Planescape D&D games, WOW/Overwatch, the Mass Effect series, Cyberpunk 2077, all of which have variations of class/level/increasing...

While i never played it, i read the (unlicensed) Twilight Imperium RPG from ‘90-something a few years ago. I don’t remember much other than thinking « yeah, the reviews were right. It’s crap ». But despite the disappointing result, I’d hardly call that the worse game ever.

Concept is sound and worthwhile IMO (without being overtly magical at that!) but implementation was very meh. It was part of the first set of new subclasses published after initial release and they were very timid about power creep back then (a valid sentiment). I’d like to see how they would...

Personally, I liked the way it was. Same damage, same strength, same of almost everything for the same contribution as a small-sized adventurer; that was a satisfactory trade-off for lack of « realism » as far as I’m concerned. yes, they are smaller, therefore not as much mass, therefore not as...

My equipment/encumbrance variant is very similar. 3 levels of encumbrance based on light/medium/heavy. Worked very well for us. Yours looks just as good.

I wonder if any game actively supports that. Paranoia certainly encourages it but I don't know it well enough to tell if the rules supports it beyond the "extra life" clones. What "slapstick" requires is tough characters and the ability to be a threat regardless whether you have a bomb or a...

Which skills do you see missing from 5e? I know I’m missing a gather information type skill, or some kind of courtesy/intrigue/etiquette or other « function well in society » that isn’t Persuasion or Deception.

interesting idea, Unless I missed something, this removes the Dex contribution to AC, which I’m still debating whether I love or hate.

But otherwise, I tend to agree with the OP. Even if some play styles are less supported by rules, D&D allows for a wide variety of play styles. The only thing it doesn’t do is give players the ability to affect/change the narrative without going through their characters first, whereas some...

5e has the whole personality/ideal/bond/flaw thing, whereas older editions had alignment (or gave it more importance). They might be underwhelming character tools but they are there as a supported aspect of character-driven play. So, points for trying?

I've got three boxes full of stuff that's been sitting in my basement for so long I don't remember what's in there... Some Mutant&Mastermind, various 3e book, some Rolemaster. There's got to be many more. One such box I keep as "works of art/collectables", things I thought were well done or...

I like to say that a TTRPG’s character sheet is like a CV. If it doesn’t appeal to me or intrigue me at first sight, that RPG has failed the test. That’s the earliest step where I bouce off a game. Then I look at the art. It doesn’t need to be breathtakingly amazing (though it helps), but it...

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