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I’ve had similar experiences and conclusions, myself. It seems the end result from my days of playing 3e was cutting off the highs and lows and leaving the end result a lot of “mediocre.” The old hands knew what to nip/tuck to make things great, but the new DMs frequently got bogged down with...

Does this make you all LESS worried or MORE worried? ;-) Seriously, passing the torch is awesome. Great to hear it. I suspect so -- it's the retraining of old habits that can always make a task difficult. In the case of new games such as Pathfinder and 5e, all across the board, designers are...

Simply put, advantage or disadvantage is a state imposed on a d20 check -- you either have advantage, disadvantage, or neither and it's a single die throw. If you have advantage, roll a d20 twice for the check, and take the better number (and then add any other modifiers). If you have...

Another good info source on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bu9ZIFjJIX4 Cody from the "Taking 20" Youtube channel answered this same question in a pretty informative way - it's what I've been pointing people to every time I've seen this question ever since.

The Editor of this game content is mad -- MAD, I tell you! :) Thanks, Tom! (And Robert, Jay, Kara, et. al. of course.) I've never felt the strong need for Warlord in my D&D play, but it does look like a pretty well put-together class, and looks like it follows the bard for inspiration (no pun...

I’m fine with them remaining separate - mainly because one can be good at one and suck at the other. I can be quite persuasive, partly just by being polite and disrespectful, but I can’t scare anyone for crap if my life depended on it. I could even see a case for persuasion and deception, but...

Funny thing -- our groups have been using Milestones for close to twenty years now, back when 3e unified the XP tables, well before it made an appearance by that name in 4e.

Using the standard array and the "default" equipment given for each class and background, you can make a 5e level 1 character in approximately 10 minutes. I can't think of getting any faster while still maintaining a sense of meaningful choice about your character. For some, the existing...

If you want an example of a world without an open gaming license, look back historically to TSR (owner of D&D prior to Wizards of the Coast) and their positions on D&D compatible content in the early and mid-1990s -- it was an environment where they insisted that anything that included even...

...and admittedly, Robilar was played as evil alignment, as well, exploiting everyone he could -- but that's kind of the point; so many of the anecdotes I've heard from Mordenkainen, Tenser, Erac's Cousin, etc. were pretty self-centered ones, ones often in which they weren't even adventuring...

Not to monopolize the thread, but I just got struck with an example from a CR session yesterday -- Light SPOILER: One character, a monk, was grappled by a powerful creature that emerged from a ruin. A second creature emerged right after this, intent on some of the more vulnerable members of the...

I will say, in defense of Lewpuls' point, I do see far less tactical thought than was evident back in the old days - it's why I loved that dungeon survival article from him so much thirty-five years ago. It had great points about: 1) Brainstorming multiple uses for spells (a fun pastime) 2)...

I made similar points in my comments on part 1; I think there's room for both, but it's important for ALL GMs, not just old schoolers, to be aware to set the tone of the game and game system before even session 1 of your gaming, because I don't think the newer crop of players are a small fringe...

I can't say I've ever seen a player use an action surge outside of combat, either, but Mistwell's example of getting one last try to catch someone from falling would be a compelling instance. It's just that for anyone who has action surge, it's not often remembered in out of combat situations -...

I do have a question here -- if this is true, then how is it that all the old school stories of exploits from the 1970s involve individual characters and their exploits -- Robilar, Mordenkainen, Tenser, Erac's Cousin, rather than the groups that they were in as a whole? Contrast this with the...

I'm not clear from where you're getting the reasoning of "they add but don't subtract," because I'm missing it from the PH. Instead, it says Illusion spells "...deceive the senses or minds of others. They cause people to see things that are not there, to miss things that are there..." "miss...

A lot of the reasoning for extremely limited illusion school spells I first saw back in the AD&D days, when due to lack of clearly defined boundaries, illusions ran roughshod over DMs' games because players would argue all sorts of insane abilities for illusions. The backlash seems to be a...

It depends on whether you were using that very abusive Unearthed Arcana system, where you rolled 9d6 (keep the best three) for your INT, etc. Most of the time, our groups used the ones from the DMG, most often either 3d6 12 times (keep best six scores) or 4d6 for each score, drop lowest.

I have to agree -- in 1e, sleep was keyed to hit dice (which never change) instead of to hit points (which constantly change), meaning in D&D5 you can whittle a foe into sleep territory. Get them down to their last 20 or 30 hit points, and you can end the fight early. Not to mention, darts were...

Crazier than serial killers killing whole towns, aliens coming down to look for magic crystals, or demon-possessions? My personal favorite back in the 1970s (God I'm old) was "SOAP", which was written specifically to spoof the soaps of the time. My favorite was the Catholic Priest's...