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I should say, if I want more "game mechanical" detail on process, then I want something more like RuneQuest or The Fantasy Trip. It's the where and when and what kind of detail that is most telling.

There's a spectrum in how much role-playing and world-engaging people want, and just where and when. 4e combat has some rules that may get jarring in relation, but generally it's more concrete and precise than old TSR-D&D. It's got 5 foot squares for positioning instead of a 10' radius, for...

I reckon "tripping" would come under Overbearing (DMG p. 73). "This attack form aims at quickly taking the opponent to a prone position, incidentally inflicting damage, and allowing either a pummel or grappling follow-up attack. The attacker can have either or both hands otherwise employed..."...

Nope. I quoted selections from the DMG section in question, but you can read the whole thing for yourself. In your utterly bizarre personal house rules, that is. "Marshmallow bars"? Really? Gary sure liked puns, but he also liked common sense. I think you need some evidence for your claim...

Uh, no. Your "point", lumin, was that it supposedly did NOT vary in AD&D. Please tell us where to find this alleged "very specific" 1st ed. AD&D rule. I am curious just how much more specific it is than the range in 3.5.

AD&D DMG p. 12, SECONDARY SKILLS TABLE 05-10 Farmer 28-32 Husbandman (animal husbandry) 55-57 Teamster

I dunno what you think you think you have "shown" about picking pockets, but here are the facts about the factors involved. AD&D: thief level, thief race, thief dexterity, victim level 3.5: trained character level (skill points), trained character dexterity, armor check penalty, victim level...

It need not, but THE TIME TAKEN surely does. The variation in DCs in 3.5 is a factor of but 2. The variation in times in AD&D is a factor of 10. AD&D is 5 times as "free wheeled" in this case.

Thief functions are just what the rules define them to be. "Hear noise" is in fact, per the PHB, listening at doors. Not only can other characters do that, but they were doing it before the thief class existed. The base chances by race given at DMG page 60 range from as good as a 1st- or...

No, it does not. Where do you see "climbing rope" specified as an exclusive thief function? If you have reduced the thief's "climbing walls" to that, then I think you have handicapped the thief as well as all others. Wherefore "toe and hand holds", then? That your interpretation is thoroughly...

I presume that Wik's players are not bored. If everyone (not just the DM) is bored, then what's the point of carrying on the same way session after session? I find it pretty odd, though. Where is the interest? If there's no chance for surprises, if as a player I am effectively controlling both...

What constitutes it, my dear pemerton, is your claim that it really is not at all what the 4e designers put in the 4e rules books, but rather nothing more than just a GM's notes about ways to handle things that might happen. I have said very plainly that I have nothing against that. I have said...

I have been playing games for decades that involve all those features, without reducing them to "fail 3 tosses for whatever, it doesn't really matter what." So, you see, that is not actually a reason. My question, put more clearly, is What does the formalism add? What is the point of it? And...

Who said that I would be playing 4e if I just go about playing Traveller the way I have been since 1977? Only you and whatsisname -- not the designers of 4e! "Skill challenge" is not just a fatuous cutesy phrase for the hoary practice of having notes like, "gets misty eyed at mention of Saint...

I read the freaking rule book, the designers' own explanation of their intent, the plain instructions. Never mind all that, though. I've got no need for "something analogous to" whatever I actually find useful, when I can -- much more easily -- have what I actually find useful instead. Why...

Maybe you're thinking of 2e. 1st DMG, p. 63: The table of Loyalty Base Modifiers has 66 possible values, in 10 categories, if I have not erred in counting. These have largely to do with prior behavior toward the creature in question. Moreover, modified results of 25 or less include "or morale...

Well, it's only a "skill challenge" if enough bad rolls at the yard sale to get money to get ritual components mean that -- even if you eventually get the components, and imbue the components with magic, and imbue the item with the now-magical components, and seal the magic in the item -- a...

I'm not seeing that. A while ago, someone claimed that a particular 3e skill (I think it was Diplomacy) was effectively an at-will Charm Person. I looked it up in the rule books, and I saw nothing to that effect. The method in its essentials is just the same: You attempt something, and the DM...

That's not any rules set I want to play! I like games in which it generally takes fewer bursts from a Sten gun, or fewer droppings of half-tonne boulders, or fewer falls onto poisoned Punji stakes, or fewer trip-wired grenades, than punches with a cestus (which tends in turn to beat a bare...

No, it's not. It's the "4e skill challenge". Then we would not be using "4e skill challenges". Says who? And either it does or it does not. That depends on (A) the situation and (B) what they are doing and (C) usually a chance factor to represent the myriad imponderables that Von Clausewitz...