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Well, for many groups it will take years to play through an entire adventure path. If the plot was too transparent, they'd realize what's going on way too early to have any fun plodding through another six full-length adventures before they finally get to do what they figured out months ago...

Yup, the big question here is why would anyone want to replace d20 with 3d6? Apart from that, doesn't GURPS use 3d6? Just play GURPS!

Dark Moon was actually inspired by the Battle Star Galactica board game. It basically removes the clutter to create a streamlined traitor game that plays quickly. A Study in Emerald is based on the short story of the same name by Neil Gaiman which posits a world that has been taken over by the...

Yup. I've bought a ton of dungeon tiles in the past, but with the exception of the Wilderness ones, they were waaay too fiddly to be of any use. My preferred method became quickly to use a few of them on top of one of the poster maps that came with D&D minis and the 4e adventure modules. That...

Ugh, not another alignment debate, please. To cut it short: Yup, D&D's alignment system is _really_ bad.

Yuck!

Yuck!

I agree about that one, at least. The Quidditch rules make very little sense. I doubt it could have survived as a popular sport. But I don't think there's more that needs to be extrapolated from her setting than from comparable novel series that have already been converted into RPGs. If...

I'm not sure why she would be opposed to a Harry Potter RPG, given that she doesn't appear to have a problem to grant licenses for board games: https://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeksearch.php?action=search&objecttype=boardgame&q=harry+potter&B1=Go

- 'Tales from the Loop' RPG (the first kickstarter I backed!) - 'Thirteen True Ways' and 'Eyes of the Stone Thief', both for the 13th Age RPG Nytmare: Why the necroing, if I may ask?

I've already made that switch. Similar to novels, I believe there are very few movies that are worth watching twice (or even more often), and I've never watched any bonus material twice (if at all).

Imho, there's several reasons why using die rolls for social encounters can be beneficial: 1) The die rolls never replace roleplaying, they supplement it. I've already mentioned that in my game players don't get to roll a die without first describing their actions. 2) It's also a question of...

Well, 1) in my game you don't get to roll a die unless you've described what you intend to do, and no, "I diplomate the shop-keeper" isn't sufficient. So, a die roll is never abstract. In fact, a good description of your actions may grant you a bonus on the roll, and a brilliant one may grant...

Maybe I'm misremembering. You're right that it's not purely abstract, some things like weapons and implants are tracked. But almost everything else is subsumed under 'lifestyle', iirc. Ars Magica also isn't purely abstract. You just don't count individual pennies. You do track expenses to...

"The One Ring" has pretty good rules for exploration; basically, every party member is assigned a particular role when traveling. "The Burning Wheel" has a "Duel of Wits" to determine the outcome of social conflicts. In Ars Magica there's an elaborate system to determine the winner of a debate...

I've seen this argument quite often, but I'm convinced it doesn't hold water. There's nothing inherently different about combat that it merits being treated different from any other activities in an RPG. In fact there are numerous RPG systems that have seamlessly integrated combat-relevant...

I've only seen this in DSA/TDE (Das Schwarze Auge / The Dark Eye) which has a Cooking skill. In this RPG it's actually rather useful since it's also used to prepare ingredients for potions and poultices.

I wouldn't have thought of considering encounters atoms (for the purpose of adventure design), but maybe it makes sense. I find it easier to identify atoms in RPG design: In a way they're indicated by the 'granularity' of the rules: Some types of actions are described in more detail than others...

Oh, my, sad news, indeed. She's one of my favorite authors, as well. She's also one of my favorite examples for my pet theory that sci-fi writers are usually the best fantasy writers, as well. Apart from the titles you already mentioned, I particularly liked 'The Dispossessed' because of its...

Wow, that definitely sounds awe[-]some[/-]ful!