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Perhaps, but keeping those inconstencies down to a dull roar is still IMO a worthy goal to strive for. :) It varies. Some parties IME will go that far, not committing until they know exactly what they're up against. Others just throw caution to the wind and go flying in without a care in the...

Which is kind of the point: the hobbits - particularly in LotR - are the zero-to-hero people we follow all the way through, and on their journeys they meet and interact with a bunch of other big-time already-high-level characters (who would probably be the dreaded "overpowered DMPCs" were it an...

Didn't 3e have something similar, where if you didn't have ranks in a skill you couldn't even try to use that skill?

I think this is the root of the problem: it's a faulty design goal. Instead, the goal should have been to just design the monsters and foes as they are and with their intrinsic mechanics locked in, and if the characters can at some point easily take them out then so be it, and if not then so be...

You see a feature where I see a bug. "Contextual challenges" do two bad things: they play hell with in-fiction consistency, and they serve to steepen the game's power curve which is already more than steep enough. Consistency says the challenge is what it is, regardless of who or what is...

A somewhat hyperbolic take, that. The rules are malleable but once that process is done, they're still rules; only (ideally) better ones. Nobody worth their salt is changing things on a whim. WotC doesn't need to send out the Pinkerton's. Why? Because the underlying designs of all three of...

Same here. The only PC I've ever seen use darts was (and still is) a Fighter, who specialized in them and then eventually got herself a Girdle of Giant Strength. Gatling gun for the win. And at 7th level they take the other one.

I find that somewhat surprising. We've used the proficiency system forever, and still do. This is also a new one. In the fiction, why would someone just starting out not be trained in everything they could do (i.e. have all their proficiencies filled)? Allowing some trade in magic items...

And that's just how I prefer it. I must be lucky, then, as my copy is still nicely in one piece after 40 years and a fair bit of use. Method V was a dumb idea, and pretty much ignored on sight round here (as were various other things in UA - you really needed to go through the book with a...

Late 2e, it's worth noting, was already sailing under the WotC banner. I don't remember (as I'd stopped paying attention to 2e by then) how much of that stuff came out before the WotC takeover and how much was after. Another thing to consider was that by the time TSR packed it in the whole...

That would be me. 1e can fairly easily be de-crunched somewhat without destroying it. I know I really don't like the whole "character build" side of the game that all three WotC editions promote.

Is there anywhere a price guide for 3e-era books and modules similar to what acaeum.com does for 1e?

That's the old-school ethos for you, Gygax's best efforts notwithstanding: the rules as written are merely an adjustable framework and not necessarily even complete, that you then adjust (ideally, locking in your adjustments as you go!) to make the game your own. The rules designers are...

There may have been a save or Dex check involved, I don't remember. Or, they may have been surprised by the trap (they'd for sure have got a surprise roll) in which case they'd have been sitting ducks. I do, in terms of in-fiction consistency. Truth be told, I have the same problem with...

I always (mis)read this as the fighter getting up to one attack against each opponent in these cases, which put a limit on it based on how many foes the fighter could reach. Thus, a 10th-level fighter surrounded by 6 commoners would only get 6 attacks, one per foe. Then again, this is one of...

I never bought Races and Classes (but did look it over in the store) but still have my copy of Worlds and Monsters. And while on looking at R+C I was highly unimpressed, what I saw in W+M really had me enthused*. And then 4e actual came out, and my enthusiasm evaporated further with every word...

Things like that happen at about the same odds and frequency as if the player was there. If my character had been played in a manner inconsistent with established patterns I'd have good cause to be unhappy even if nothing untoward came of it. Bad luck, however, is bad luck whether I happen to...

That, and the ability to use TSR-like formatting, stat blocks, etc. without worrying about what lines are being crossed. It always seems to me that the OSR games that hew close to any version of TSR-era D&D might be on thin legal ice, as they're using the d20 OGL which technically only applies...

The problem there is that the more you fine-tune the playstyle, processes, and purpose(s) you're aiming for, the smaller your potential audience and player-base becomes. The quoted post is a good example: Wildsea works for you but doesn't work for @Willie the Duck and thus, of the sample size...

Removing that iterative probability issue entirely would make combats very dull and boring: they'd all have to be cakewalks for the PCs. The moment you make combats a legitimate threat, even if that threat is minor, iterative probability is sooner or later going to have its say. I'm fine with...