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I agree it's on the DM to try and even out the influence level. Doing it all yourself and presenting it as a fait-accompli for post-hoc discussion (usually during or in place of a session) is a very simple and straightforward means of doing so. I know players who very intentionally ignore...

Story loss is at most a soft-loss condition, in that it doesn't mechanically affect the character's ability to do what it does nor does it mechanically affect the player's ability to play the character as desired. Hard-loss conditions bring about one or both of these effects either temporarily...

Yeah, that's bad DMing in more ways than one.

Sorting out what came with what level has been a headache since 3e; I see that, along with a lot of other character complexity added during the WotC era, as a bug rather than a feature. There's no reason why level drain can't work with milestone levelling: the drained character is simply a...

Fair enough. It's a bit much, though, to expect them both to work at once. :)

More common IME is where players have varying levels of opportunity to weigh in and-or the DM gives more weight to the opinions and preferences of one player than to those of another. The player who sees the DM three times a week over beers outside the game, or is a co-worker with or spouse of...

I can't remember ever intentionally targeting spellbooks, but if they happen to be in the blast zone then so be it. :) That said, usually spellbooks are in a backpack. For things like AoE damage we give the backpack a save first, and if it makes it then everything inside is considered to have...

Hey, Monks gotta have their day in the sun sometime!

I've had players who'd rather see their characters die than lose a level, even though both conditions are reversible in the game (though both do leave permanent aftereffects: death-revival leaves you down a Con point and restoration is never perfect). And yes, the greedier players howl when...

I'm fine with wearing a magic robe-cloak-cape over armour and having them both function. But if you're wearing more than one magic robe-cloak-cape together, the way I rule is that only the outermost one's enchantments work.

To me a robe and a cloak (and a cape) are the same thing - a long garment worn over the shoulders outside all other clothing.

It would certainly winnow out a lot of casuals. Jury's out on whether that's a good or bad thing, but I'd lean toward bad. Were I to try this here I'm 95% sure I know what the result would be. Two of my players would do it. A third might reluctantly do it with some nagging. The...

Modern D&D only has death as a hard-loss condition. TSR-era D&D offered a host of other options. :) Level drain was a good one: a loss condition that didn't end the game (unless you lost more levels than you had, of course, but that's pretty rare). Item destruction is another such.

Changing the PC-playable species options from what's in the PH is a houserule all day long.

I'm fine with players suggesting houserules as long as I retain veto rights. I don't want to say 'incapable' as that's a bit too absolute, but IME such discussions often ended up as unresolved arguments where the DM had to make the final call anyway. We tend to be a somewhat stubborn bunch. :)...

Indeed, but there's still the basic instinct to not lose. Loss conditions include character death, level drain, petrification, item or gear destruction, stat loss, and so forth. Which means, were I to take a (hypothetical) proposal to the players that would result in more item and gear...

Your #1 is sound but the other 9 largely leave me somewhere between lukewarm and ice cold. Design for 10 levels but leave it open-ended, with a great big caveat that going beyond 10th means you're on your own as the system may or may not continue to function properly, with the likelihood of...

U Can't Touch This (reworded) is the theme song of one of my wife's heavy Fighters, whose AC is somewhere in the -8 or -9 range.

I'd make the same ruling. Same reason you can't wear two suits of magic armour and have them both function.

I also remember there being a cap at -10 by RAW. I've always ignored it, but then anything better is very rare anyway. The best AC I've ever seen on a PC was, I think, -12 (-10 plus Boots of Speed in the right situation).