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Yes. As I said in a previous post, I have extensive experience running the game at high levels (10-15, with 3-4 full casters, no less), and shield becomes very powerful when combined with good dex + AC-boosting items or abilities. It's not game-breaking, but it is noticeable, especially in...

This fireball discussion is a good example of why the 4e approach is superior. A short, clear, evocative description lets everyone know what the thing does, and helps the DM with making rulings. No two tables are going to agree on the degree of movie logic vs. verisimilitude they want in the...

This is odd, because, to me, the possibility of something that seems like 'a little bit of flavour' becoming important is a central part of what makes RPGs interesting. Otherwise I'm just playing a board game while making sound effects. I sympathise with the ranger player, but this sort of thing...

I think there are games that can look like your second example, but I don't think it's a 'narrative' vs. 'trad' affair. Ironsworn and apocalypse world don't play like this, in my experience. On the other hand, Stat Trek Adventures (which I think is fundamentally 'trad') has a bunch of...

I think the one good point that's been made in shield's defence is that its utility varies a lot based on how many encounters are being run per day. Against this, I would say: (1) this is true of casters in general, and so not specific to shield; and (2) that players can choose to use shield...

My experience with this back in the day was that it was too fiddly to actually use much in play. In practice, XP rewards were pretty arbitrary. Effectively, we just used milestone leveling with extra steps. Regarding 'combat as a fail-state', I have to agree with Celebrim. I think it can be...

Personally, I like that shield is a reaction. I hate buffing spells on principle (extra bookeeping in exchange for mushy modifiers), whereas the the reaction feels a lot more dynamic in play. At high levels, any well-optimised spellcaster build is stacking multiple AC bonuses and can easily...

Based on extensive actual play at higher levels, I think shield is extremely powerful, especially on characters with good dexterity and/or protective items as well (which they generally do have). The typical scenario in which it's a problem is when a full caster is out of position and attacked...

It strikes me that just having the broader social context effect rolls (which seems to be kind of what HeroQuest does?) would be a big thing. Couple that with some open-ended ability for the general mood or common sense to be shifted -- by events, or people's actions -- and you might get what...

I think we've got some wires crossed, because I've never mentioned FG or the PHB. I just advanced the very mild idea that there's official material that isn't suited in all settings, and that I think it's the job of a setting book to make clear what is and isn't.

Picking up on the 'worldbuilding by subtraction' point: I think one of the most useful things any setting book (or any RPG) can do is establish a certain aesthetic and tone, and that necessarily involves implicit or explicit constraint. As a DM, a setting that doesn't tell players what kinds of...

I'd put it more like theorise -> practice-> analyse -> repeat, at least for me. You can't analyse your success (or failure) without articulating your aims. This is also kind of how game design generally works, interestingly enough. I think 5e's popularity hinging on the quality of its prose is...

According to an interview with one of the creators I once listened to, the only reason Dark Sun got made was that someone at TSR asked a room full of their staff who wanted to make a new setting. After stony silence from a room of burnt-out employees, the two newest hires put up their hands...

No curry pizza on this list. What is this garbage? Also, real Greek pizza is three types of cheese, none of which is feta, plus whole rashers of bacon.

Sure, but, for example: what if my group has bought into the adventure hook, but come up with a solution to a problem that undermines the adventure script? Sure, but then we're back at the Tower of Babel. Different solutions can imply very different outcomes, and new DMs aren't equipped to...

I take your point about 'playing the adventure', but, where do they teach that expectation and how to navigate it at the table? It's one thing when you're going into a dungeon -- we all understand where the adventure is. One you're dealing with apparently open adventures that nonetheless have a...

Here's a question: if a new DM only needs to run the adventure they're given (and I agree that a good adventure covers a multitude of sins), what happens when the players do something the adventure writers hadn't accounted for? My (cynical, perhaps) view is that, the way the game is currently...

The 'black box' (Denning edition) was also my first RPG. I think if you go back and look at it now, you might be surprised by how good it is as an introduction to the game. I think the bigger problem is that we were just kids and learning something as complex as D&D (even Basic) was a tall order...

I can't tell you what WotC will do, but I agree some good domain rules would be useful in my current high-level game. It seems like the official stronghold stuff is designed as a money sink rather than something that's actually useful.

This is a useful but problematic analogy. If you do language immersion, you are learning the language as it is spoken by a community of speakers. Generally, the worst thing that can happen is that you learn an unfashionable dialect and people make fun of you. If you learn to DM by doing, the...