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I've not had a lot of bad DMs, but I did have some very bad experiences with a few DMs. The guy I mentioned wasn't very long lasting, I dipped out after a few sessions. But I did have a DM who I felt was a close friend for a long time and who ended up being emotionally manipulative (in all areas...

This guy (played briefly in college with him) claimed he was a very old school DM. One of his favorite tricks was to cripple a PC if they got too powerful. And by powerful, it usually meant they could stand up to his amazing NPCs who were supposed to be awesome and powerful. He targeted...

Spellbooks are the #1 reason I prefer sorcerers to wizards. I've had bad experiences with DMs intentionally targeting spellbooks. I literally saw one DM in 3e ban sorcerer because he thought they were too powerful because he couldn't destroy their spellbook/take away their spells. (You can also...

Wizards laugh until they encounter bookworms and watch their spellbook end up pulp. (Although, most of the time it was failed fireball saves or sudden dunks in water that caused spellbook ruination.)

How so? "This weapon is your life." isn't just a D&D sentiment. I would hate to lose my father's sword regardless of whether it was a regular longsword or Excalibur. People become attached to their stuff, be it the character OR the sword the character uses. Ditto for those sweet named items...

I was considering the opposite where magical gear is less impactful or that attuning allowed you to reconjure important gear, but you do you.

I actually think it's counterintuitive, but it highlights a problem with D&D: Magic items eat way too much of the power budget of a character. That is true regardless of if they are accounted for in the math (3e or 4e) or just allowed to supercede it (AD&D and 5e). Raise Dead is a just a bunch...

I once had a fellow player quip he'd rather his PC died than lose his gear. Death could be reversed with a diamond and spell; getting magic items back was impossible. (This was a high level campaign that started 2e and ended 3e, pertaining to both editions equally).

Gary, and AD&D by contrast, is especially punitive when it comes to characters. The reason I figured the demons and devils didn't appear in the 81 set was originally due to scope. They were supposed to be high level foes and B/X has a cap of around 10th(?) level, so if they had opted to keep...

It should be noted the RC language (which appears in the All New Black Box as well) was probably an attempt to remove the BADD elements of from Basic to make it more kid friendly. Basic has almost no planar stuff until you get to the Immortals level, no Gods (with Immortals filling a semi...

D&D got out of the business of supplements for supplements. Maybe if 6e has One Setting to Rule Them All, they can release a religion book that dives into it's pantheon. But not while D&D is supporting seven different settings at once.

Basic D&D uses the Moorcock vision of Law having a good tint and Chaos being evil tinted, but I actually like your idea where two clerics of Law could have widely different interpretations of what Law is and both be right enough to cast clerical magic. Then again, l love religious schisms...

For what setting? The world books discuss various deities for Dragonlance, Eberron, Realms and Exandria, and the GH deities get a name drop in the DMG. Most other settings have either no religion (Athas) or no fixed ones (Planescape, Ravenloft, Spelljammer). The only setting that religion is a...

A thought as I was typing my last comment. Basic D&D (BECMI/Rules Cyclopedia) clerics do not serve Gods. They serve a belief system that is most often their alignment (Law, Chaos or Neutrality). Immortals (Basics answer to the a Gods) do have churches but clerics are not assumed to be connected...

I think you could do that IF D&D had a default setting (like Pathfinder) where you could add Mage Orders, Bard Colleges, Fighter Companies, Ranger Lodges, Thieves Guilds, and the like. But D&D has to remain suitably generic that you can support post-apocalyptic, pulp-noir, gothic horror, Tolkien...

To be a little honest, it's still annoying that two classes get class-exclusive languages (thieves cant and Druidic) which implies a connection with a group large enough to have a secret language to learn. Luckily, neither class requires you to remain a member in good standing in a thieves guild...

Some sorcerers still get their power from bloodlines, but many now are just exposed to rare phenomenon and get power. Aberrant sorcery assumes you were exposed to weird magic, not that grandad was a mind flayer. Ah the old fighter "hidden class feature": you suck so badly there is nothing to...

Super compatible actually. There is little conceptual daylight between a sorcerer and a warlock. The difference being that a sorcerer is exposed to a source of magic and a warlock seeks out someone to teach them. Yet one is bound to an entity and the other walks Scott free. As to the others...

You know, I miss those alchemical items like sunrods and tindertwigs. I should bring them back...

Explain to me what the sorcerer sacrifices for his cool superpowers? What does the monk sacrifice? The bard or the barbarian? Why does the ranger get a free pass, but the paladin doesn't?