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I think it's all too common case of people mostly correctly identifying their feelings, but being atrociously bad at determining their causes. Dungeon crawling allows for skill expression. A better player consistently wins, while worse players consistently lose, but the root of it isn't in some...

Yeah I've re-read spell description. Welp. I'd still say being able to use abilities that rely on sight (which, iirc, is most of spells in 5e) is a reasonable upside, even without removing adv/disadv on attacks. After all, Invisibility is also a level 2 spell, and thus a resource of similar...

As a tangent, realistically, I don't know about that. I'm not a big girlie (an average man is probably stronger than me, and an average adventurer absolutely is), but a flanged mace is a lot of weight at the end of a pretty long lever, and it'd be pretty hard for me to not inflict a lethal...

I can see it being played (and even intended) that way: seeing an invisible creature is better than, well, not seeing it, but hitting or defending against Predator-esque shimmering target is still hard.

What if it comes at the cost of greater connection to the fiction when taken holistically? I gave a grid movement example upthread, where trying to make an individual mechanic "make sense" in-universe lead to experience at large lose any tangible connection in terms of decision making to fencing.

It's not particularly uncommon to model miscellaneous threats differently from the main one in exercises. I recently was helping my friend organize security training (maybe I finally should take some of the lessons to life, but hey) where blue team was defending against an organized attack from...

No, they can pick and choose from a limited set of random options. As the crudest example, you level up and roll for 3 random classes. Maybe on a big table, maybe on three smaller ones like martial/arcane/divine. Pick one, gain a level in that class. It would force players to seek some...

Oh for sure. I wouldn't imagine players being particularly happy. It can easily be very clumsy. Randomizing how much progression you get is frustration city, but I'm thinking more about horizontal (or even orthogonal, as in, solving a different problem) options Within the existing dnd...

I feel like RPGs are basically synonymous with asinine layouting and even more asinine wording, and while they should be rightfully criticized for term-like words that are never defined anywhere, hanging up on them is an exercise in navel gazing.

Are we seriously discussing the narrative implications of using "destroy" to mean "remove from play"? Am I understanding this correctly?

Tangential to the railroading, but RE: zero to hero Yes, it's not exactly common to see such power progression (or, frankly, much power progression at all) outside of RPGs. Is that a bad thing? Raising a character from nothing to your desired build is, like, fun. I'd say an interesting area of...

What if taking a step back and neglecting such harmony on a level of a specific rule reveals harmony when evaluated in the context of other rules? Let's say there was a rule tying movement to attacks: to strike into specific cells, you have to move in a specific way, along X axis, or Y axis, or...

Is there an inherent value in creating one-to-one (or even approximation thereof) relation between the rules and the fiction? All design is compromises, sometimes you have to have a specific rule that doesn't make in-universe sense on its own but is a part of a larger model congruent with the...

I consider important forces in the region -- be it factions, individuals, natural phenomena, whatever. Then, I consider how they can be hurt in a broad sense -- like a megacorp can eat financial damages, but might be hurt by reputational ones; a hot rock band can be annihilated by their frontman...

For a silly little semantic tangent for fun, where does mind control start? Sure, just directly replacing their thoughts with yours is mind control. Is, say, creating an illusory fake object that only a specific person can see can see mind control? You are manipulating their perception of...

To which extent, though? Jedi mind tricks, sure, but it can be worse. Would you prefer being necromancer's thrall to death? What if your body (that everyone else perceives as you) was to do abhorrent or humiliating things? What if you were forced to watch it, helpless, unable even to scream?

Good, evil, bleh. Above everything else, mind control is hot.

The idea is to not give any necessary details, and focus on miscellaneous things until the last mic-drop line. Technique works by making players zone out, paint a pretty but ultimately meaningless picture in their minds (that will never need to be repeated -- there's no point, nobody gives a...

I see, this makes sense. Now I wonder about, say, a mecha game where all the descriptions are aggressively condensed and even directly translated into mechanics: "Terrain difficulty 3, two hostile Scout-class mechs spotted"

I think setting up the mood is very important, kind of like there's a reason Warhammer people generally play with nicely painted miniatures and not bottlecaps, even if the main gameplay experience is exactly the same (often better, because critical information is easier to see) And how do you...