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Right. Reading these arguments, I think part of the problem is that different people mean different things when they say 'D&D'. If you mean a particular edition of the game and its rules, then the accusation of 'one-true-wayism' is nonsensical -- there is one true way, they wrote it down! You...

Thanks. That's very simple; but also nothing like D&D.

It strikes me that this kind of play probably works best with very, uh, distinct rules over who gets to have authority over what in the fiction (which I think you mention somewhere else). Or does the risk of success make failure all the sweeter? Maybe the OC crowd needs to learn to play like a...

It's kind of a minefield though, isn't it? How do I know what is or will be definitive about a character? Running a game for a player like this, I always felt I was walking on eggshells. I don't think, fundamentally, that you can accept emergent events (or other people having narrative authority...

Let's put aside the term 'degenerate', since it is a bit fraught (I meant it in the technical sense, but never mind). I think the key bit is in your last paragraph, on the role of uncertainty. Let me quote your example of play from the original post: First of all, this is great and really...

Interesting thread! First, the fly in the ointment: I have to agree with @Whizbang Dustyboots. This is probably my third time reading that essay, and every time I do, I like it less. For one thing, I'm no expert on the subject, but if you're going to talk about cultures, it seems important to...

I kind of want to see the '80s mimeograph!

Well, that answers my question! The whole idea of daily powers suggests that there were intended to be occasions when those powers weren't available, so I'm trying to get a handle on how and why.

Another week, another 7 horrible rooms. If/when I revise all this, I want to add some tone changes and more opportunities for social play. Not too much obviously, because despair and ruination is apparently core to my conception of a dungeon. But, making this journalling exercise actually work...

To get back to the OP: while I don't have a high opinion of 5e's encounter-building rules, I think the problems are a lot deeper, and probably insoluble without making big changes to the game. It's also tied to a lot of the issues that make 5e combat, in my years of experience, not very fun. In...

Oh, and here's my first week for the month: 1: Wound in the Earth An indescribable smell. Air thick with gloom, flies and rot. The ground is sticky black earth heaped with bones, paving stones, broken statues, roof tiles, broken weapons, tufts of hair or fur, and potshards. A widening chasm...

Yeah, I'm increasingly finding that I'm doing rooms in bursts of a few at a time, rather than daily. I'm trying to stick to weekly posts to maintain some kind of discipline (otherwise I know I'll forget completely). I think you've just got to go with whatever system works for you personally. As...

Yeah, it's kind of baffling to me that 4e went with (what looks like) attritional combat balance rather than encounter-based balance. Non-combat attrition seems like a common workaround.

I think you're giving yourself too little credit, and the game text too much. It's a common sentiment, though.

I think what you're saying is actually supporting my point. What you're describing is a bunch of game design you've done to make dungeons work.

Mostly, workable procedures for stuff like random encounters, plus time and resource tracking. I also think the cheap and plentiful magic tends to undermine most challenges that aren't straight combat. I've run dungeons in 5e, and it can be done, but it always felt like I was fighting the system.

What I don't like about dungeons is that many of them are just set dressing, not proper locations to explore. I don't think many dungeons I see these days are actually dungeons, functionally. For example, I don't think you can have a 'five-room dungeon', because there are no meaningful decisions...

Oh that's interesting. Thanks for your help! 4th completely passed me by at the time, but it seems like it did a lot of interesting things.

Thanks for the replies! Was there some expectation as to how often long rests were possible? Put another way, could you still have balanced fights if you only had one per day? I'm trying to understand what the norm was (if there was one). I know that your'e supposed to have several combats...

A question for people who are knowledgeable about 4th Ed., from one who isn't: how did attrition work in 4th, if at all? Were combats completely discrete set-pieces, or was there some expectation that you chain them together in order to grind down PCs' resources? If the latter: how did you...