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Lego Sandbox is sandbox. Open is improv. I'll only add a few nuances. The buffet is broad and not every group partakes of every possible option.

I think a great book was Arbiter of Worlds. It covered the essentials of what a DM wanting to run an old school sandbox campaign should know. I am in the fairly big design camp up front camp. (At least by modern standards).

I have to confess that I consume rules systems like potato chips. I don't play everything I read. I do like to see how different people do things.

I got value from it but not as much as Ptolus. I'm never bound to what is put there as a DM but I like having something there when I don't want to make it myself. I do my own creations this way myself. I'm already good on creating theme and flavor. I tend to need details fleshed out.

I like a map, which is why to me Ptolus has no equal, but I thought Sharn added a lot of good info that could be useful.

I believe Star Fleet Battles paid the Star Trek people something for what they do. Whether a license or just a one time payment, I don't know. It's not just a game looking like Star Trek and getting away with it. I think the situation is akin to the situation that allowed Never Say Never...

I think every edition has it's flaws and strengths. I played the first four editions. 1e: General Playstyle was a strength but mechanics were pretty much spaghetti. 2e: Lots of worlds and supplements but lots of garbage in the mix. Also rules were not spaghetti but maybe lasagna. 3e: Lots of...

This could have been written by me. The prospectus is perhaps the most important first step in any campaign. Even if you are following only the official rules, your interpretations should be listed if there is any debate. I haven't been as lucky but I weaned my players away from that way of...

Daggerheart is not my style of game but I'm not surprised Perkins has ended up there.

I think an easier and better way of handling the vast number of races in the D&D world would have been to say that alignment assigned to that race is it's typical expression and that this does not determine any individuals viewpoint. This had been my viewpoint in 1988. I never thought all orcs...

I ran a several long 1e campaigns and one that transitions to 2e. I was in college during that time so my game tailed off a bit. I played some after graduation. When 3e came along, I played another long campaign. For me a long campaign is at least three years but mine were much longer. I...

I went to Gen Con that year as I knew 3e was coming out. I'd been following it on Eric Noah's board which is part of this boards history. I went to a playtest session and ran into Monte Cook. For whatever reason at the time I had not paid attention to the authors so I didn't know him from...

I think Green Ronin did "Book of the Righteous" which I consider one of the best third party supplements of all time. 3e was a big third party era. A lot of it was dreck. But there are some jewels.

It would be helpful to me if you defined all those things you mentioned.

Thanks for the detailed explanation. Honestly. I guess in that sense I'm not truly OSR though I played during the early days. The playstyle and feel was always more important than the mechanics. I did like that 1e had no dissociative mechanics that I could discern but that is about the...

I prefer a variety of spells and some variability but I think we are on track to solve the same problem. I don't want fixed healing any more than I want fixed damage. The vagaries of life have to matter.

I do like the idea of each character at each level have some sort of healing die number that gets rolled in spell formulas. Cure light wounds does roll healing dice once but maybe sure serious does it 3x. At 1st level healing dice might just be the dice you rolled. As a short term figure, I...

I think there are things we loved about old school D&D and with all of the game design ideas that have come since it makes perfect sense to create a D&D from those elements. I've long thought I'm going to do this one day. Maybe I will publish mine. Maybe I'll just use it in my games. I...

I didn't want an amped up 3e. I wanted a more relaxed version of 3e.

Why would we really care anyway? If I didn't enjoy Gary's style of play I sure wouldn't care that he enjoyed it. I also think we can know "playstyle" without being aware of the rules mechanics. It seems obvious to me that Gary ran a pretty tough campaign at least early on. I think I'm an...