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I've been halfway good friends with a number of game designers over the years, going all the way back to Steve Perrin in the late 70's. Unless you hit one of the occasional egomaniacs, they're usually good people to talk about games to because they tend to think about them in depth more than most.

I can accept that. What I won't accept is that the problems with players are of the same scale as the ones with GMs. As I've noted before, if I only played with GMs I never expected to make bad decisions, I'd never have played at all.

It can regulate movement that, say, archers or crossbowmen get what feels like an appropriate number of shots against those closing up. That's always been its big virtue; it allows avoidance of special interrupt mechanics while not making people feel like they're standing around while someone...

Not everyone feels that way, and where they draw a line varies considerably. Nope. But you aren't everyone, and I have every reason to believe a lot of people will tolerate a lot more, because I've seen them do it. I'm unconvinced. Edit: You may be talking about one poster I wasn't, since...

I think you seriously underestimate what players will put up with if they have limited options when to play. A set of house rules has to be massively off-putting before that will get a lot of players to jump ship. Its a little less true in the age of VTT play, but not everyone can or is...

I think that's a big assume. In some cases the person talking about it may not have thought about all the workarounds. When talking to a non-GM, its more likely to be applicable than "I solved this with this house rule." Probably. What I'm suggesting is that not all those three are created...

Given I've expressed that position multiple times in this thread... But in this particular context, it almost doesn't matter; the point was that getting into houserules as a discussion of problem areas isn't the all purpose power tool; its mostly only relevant to GMs, and not always even then...

In which case there's no intrinsic reason you can't do that with houserules players suggest, either.

Bluntly, so what? That's exactly the reason I'm saying houserules aren't a useful answer to everyone. I've explained this more than once, so either engage with it or stop responding to me. Acting like I haven't explained my position is ridiculous.

It depends on two factors: 1. What are the PCs going to be doing? If they're going to be doing a lot of things involving countering powerful entities, they need to be to some degree, powerful enough to make that work. 2. How much combat are they going to be in? If they're going to be in a...

And when I have evidence the majority of GMs are good at that, I'll consider it more of an answer.

Well, to tell the truth, neither is stealth in most versions I've seen. I'm not going to speak specifically about 5e because I don't know it well enough to, but it'd have been a nearly hopeless process in the three versions I know at all well (OD&D, 3e and 4e) because of a combination of...

I think the problem is some other games that still feature violence don't derive much of their approach from Westerns or Manifest Destiny. The derive it from particular types of fiction. I suppose you could argue those types of fiction might derive from those, but at least some of them...

Though you can run into the straight-line problem with hexes even when not indoors, but some of those can come up with either; both fractional hexes and squares are kind of a pain in the behind.

On the other hand I've seen GMs get an idea of a houserule that seemed good on paper, but created serious problems in play because they didn't see all the implications and interactions. They may be somewhat less likely to be tunnel-visioned to their own fun (note, however, the "may") but they...

Come on, man, I've explained that multiple times: because players don't get to just declare houserules. Heck, under a few situations, even GMs may not get to.

Sometimes it won't. It depends on the specific problem area. Its most useful when its addressing a special case that applies to a character concept one has, where if there's another way to get there, that's the thing to do. This isn't a great solution to that one, but its a functional one...

There's an argument there, but I think that'd be more about the focus on action-adventure fiction as a basis in general, not why violence is so prevelant. Some other forms of fiction are more difficult for group play, which probably doesn't help, but its hard to say what it would be like if...

There are distinctly advantages to hexes, not the least of which making some movement issues massively easier. I probably played a good half dozen hex based RPGs in the 80's, and on the whole found I was okay with them all. Its just that its not an unmixed virtue.

I didn't mean the Western as the genre, but as in "RPGs created in Europe and most of the Americas". I was contrasting it with some Asian RPGs I've heard of that are focused on things like sports.