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I somewhat disagree. Though neither is perfect, hit points make sense to a (pardon the pun) point as a measure of toughness and resilience and AC is as good an abstraction of defense as we're likely to get without it becoming umplayably complex. Agreed; but there's ways around these things -...

@kermit4karate - putting the "dark" in Shadowdark since 2025. :)

In all fairness I think your only option there is to just design something, run it out for your group, and see where it goes. That might provide the only data you get to analyze. And speaking from experience, it's way less work if you can first find a system that's vaguely sort of what you...

Well that would be nice, but... :) More seriously, listening to player response is not at all likely to give you a better overall game. Listening to forever-DM's responses might, if you can somehow sort them from the players, because it's usually in a DM's interests to have and maintain a...

Two things here: 1. Why not instead just get rid of a lot of those buffs entirely? Or, have it that no more than two buffs can be applied to any one target; if a third is applied, the earlier-cast of the existing two is immediately lost. 2. IMO nearly all spells other than malleable illusions...

IMO the legend-mythic piece should either be an optional add-on or an entirely separate - but compatible - game.

Sure. So design for 1 or 2 fights a day and make the attrition model span somewhat longer than a day. Partial recovery per long rest rather than full, stuff like that, forcing a near-constant choice between continuing on at less than full or - perhaps at risk - resting up longer. Maybe make...

Plus a full and complete section (or whole book?) on worldbuilding from scratch.

Having run that sort of system for 25 years and played in it for over 40, I can tell you it's good to great at low levels and flat-out broken at high. Say a 1st-level spell costs 1 point to cast; a 2nd takes 2, a 3rd takes 3. Simple, right? But once you get into 4th and higher, does it stay...

Indeed. However, IMO it's the designers' job to do exactly that for 6e, as 5e has - despite the best attempts of many a DM - simply gone way too far toward "go easy on the characters". Maybe this is because of doing some of the design by public survey. Players are almost inevitably going to...

Agreed, as long as they produce to-6e conversion guides for each prior edition.

Yes, in that it halves the potential granularity. Better to find a way to make odd numbered stats mean something - roll-under in 2e was good this way - or stagger the bonuses/penalties on a U-curve rather than have them linear at every two stat pips.

I'd say it's more a catch-all term intended to include undead, constructs, and the like which aren't "killed" on losing their one hit point as they're not alive to begin with. Having to say "killed or destroyed" every time would get awkward.

Given that the purpose of game terminology is in large part to describe the in-world reality in ways that make sense to us, such an insistence doesn't seem bizarre at all. The terminology serves the in-world reality, not the other way around.

It does, however, magically become a much more popular game if it's called Dungeons and Dragons, which immediately expands the potential player pool for said heartbreaker.

Which means we disagree, as I think it could work as the basis* on which 6e is built. * - or a basis; I'd be quite happy with 6e splitting in two, with an old-school version (my basis) and a new-school version (someone else's basis).

In the session just finished an hour ago, the party got back to a town we haven't visited in several in-game months; those in-game months took probably two real-world years to play through (this game sails every second week; I'm a player). Last time here, the party's lead character commissioned...

Or make the refills incomplete. You don't get all your hit points back next morning, just 10% of your maximum. You don't get all your spells back, just 2x your level in slots or something. Rope Trick needs its duration greatly reduced; I like it as a short-term hiding place but not as a...

They might have come later in a splatbook somewhere but core 5e doesn't have any rules-based means of destroying magic items that I know of. I'm not sure if 4e did either; I don't remember any.

Except there isn't any real attrition of either spell slots or hit points: you get them all back every morning. Water, food, arrows, etc. don't automatically replenish every morning; you have to track and manage their use over the longer term unless you can resupply in the field somehow.