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Control beats mid-range. Aggro beats control. Mid-range beats aggro. Paper-rock-scissors. (Combo mostly plays solitaire until one turn they declare they win and then explain for 5 minutes why). D&D combat is designed to play mid-range as a default. But control magic easily shuts it down and...

It's the same problem as Magic: The Gathering. It's often a better play to nullify your opponent than to defeat them quickly (unless you can do so faster than they can act). Shutting down an opponents opportunity to act is almost always the best (and most unfun) play. We want D&D combat to be...

I mean, why do we need the reanimator artificer, grave cleric, and undeath warlock, shadow sorcerer and oathbreaker paladin when the necromancer wizard already exists?

I feel that's more intentional than it first appears.

I wasn't asking theory, I was asking if anyone has done that yet. Outside of the Styrixhaven UA that failed. Is there a 5e offshoot with swappable subclasses?

Not sure if universal subclasses were as viable as we think (I know ToTV has uniform progression, do they allow swapping subclasses?) but I will agree the biggest loss was not making subclass progression better. So many classes effectively don't have subclasses because of how late they go on...

Sorry, but you're getting the "it depends". Moving from 2e to 3e was intuitive to me because much of what I had been house ruling into 2e was being added to 3e, and the stuff that wasn't looked interesting and in line with my expectations. I went to 4e because it promised to fix many of the...

I took the Krynn reference as a bit of a cheeky nod to the fact they know Dragonlance is the dragon knight setting and literally saying it inspired the idea, in fiction and out. But D&D lore is Serious Business™️ so people are going to be upset with a bit of an in-joke.

That's the DMs job. See also: the Day of Mourning (Eberron)

Time to pop my bottle of Schadenfreude Champagne*. So there was a pact between an amethyst great wyrm and his kin and the kingdom of Cormyr to become a defense force for Faerun. The pact is only a decade old (so NOT a retcon) and has moved the PDKs into a global presence on the board. A...

Per Reddit: all species references direct the reader to Monsters of the Multiverse. Edit: for species not in the PHB I mean.

I think the final piece is perhaps what sort of morality the world at large has. For example, Eredane (the setting of Midnight) is purely as Despair setting since Evil has totally won and good is permanently on the backfoot. You can fight battles and win against the forces of Darkness, but...

The one thing I tried to do in my musings was point out that hope and despair are trends, not absolutes. Good people fall to temptation; evil can be redeemed. Bad things happen to good people and vice versa. But, as the Good Reverend put it: "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends...

I think it fills a couple useful niches. Build around. The concept for some of these can be finished into longer adventures if the DM wishes. Back pocket: players decided to zig instead of zag? You could pull something like this out to keep the game running until you figure out what to do...

I think arguing about hobbit gentry is a clear signal of a setting of despair. 🤪

The former is always been my problem with zombie apocalypse stories. Assuming there is no way to end said apocalypse or enough people left to rebuild, the Walking Dead style world where you eke out survival amongst the ruins of civilization trying not to be eaten seems miserable. The latter...

That's kinda a good way to hammer down part of my dilemma. How much net empathy should the setting have? A hopeful setting would have generally high empathy, while a despairing world would have lower empathy. That's not to say individuals or even groups would be less empathetic, but that a harsh...

I mean, science-fiction's future can be five minutes from now, but it's always a little farther ahead than we were when we made it. Even if that Future is "what if we cloned dinosaurs" or "what if a zombie plague happens in Las Vegas (would it stay in Vegas?)". Its not all lazer guns and...

I've always looked at fantasy as the "how we got to this point" and sci-fi as "where do we go now" with a healthy dose of optimism (hope) or pessimism (despair). Fantasy+Optimism is the Golden Age trope, Fantasy+Pessimism is the Dark Age tropes. Sci-fi+optimism is futurism (Star Trek)...

I dunno. Go ask @Morrus