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That is ridiculously hyperbolic. If your players find an encounter too difficult there is no reason for it to "ruin a campaign" or even a session. They can retreat, or surrender, or be captured. Advice that "not all combat has to be to the death" is far more productive for the DMG. And is the...

I think people are largely unaware of how many encounters they have, and how many rounds of combat. And it clearly is going to vary depending on what kind of adventure (dungeon, wilderness, urban, political, horror, etc) is being played. Which in turn depends on what sort of adventures the group...

The biggest factor that determines the difficulty of an encounter is the skill of the players.

What does your gut tell you? Since 1st edition that has been the most reliable method.

In that it’s marketed to Stranger Things fans who may have never played D&D before. They couldn’t really say in small print “you must own the core rulebooks and have previous D&D experience in order to use this product” could they?

Serendipity. The game proved easier than the designers originally intended, and that was popular, so everyone kept quiet about it.

I would say that “easy mode” was the secret sauce that made 5e so attractive to casual gamers. They wouldn’t have taken up D&D if they were dying on a regular basis. Sure, hardcore gamers are going to grumble about it, but commercially they don’t really matter (and if they are really as...

Yeah, it doesn’t have the words starter set (or synonyms thereof) on the box, nor is it described that way in any of the official WotC marketing materials. I’m not sure why people are describing it as such. I would call it a boxed set media tie-in.

Lost interest in D&D mid 3e, looked briefly at 4e and bounced off, and was was completely unaware of anything D&D until I was reintroduced to 5e a couple of years in.

Sure, hindsight is wonderful, and making mistakes is normal. Admitting to them leads to growth. I was simply responding to someone who seems to think the original rules were perfect, and it’s all the players who have it wrong. As for the play test, it’s worth noting that very few current 5e...

Yes it is. And Mearls admits it himself in the original article.

Hit point totals are much higher in 5e than they were in 2e. 2e goblin would average 3.5 hp, so a 2e magic missile would most likely (75%) kill one. 5e goblin has 7 hp, so you would need to hit it with 2 missiles to have a fair (62.5%) chance of killing one, all three to be confident.

I associate the seelie with spring and summer, and emotions like passion, confidence, love, lust, jealousy and impulsiveness - not necessarily all positive. The unseelie I associate with autumn and winter, and emotions like depression, melancholy, uncertainty and mindfulness. The alien legal...

Yeah, BG3 lets the caster get away with shenanigans that a human DM would never allow! MM was good in BG1 and 2 too, for interrupting casters and getting rid of Mirror Images. I think the issue in 5e is that enemies are generally too easy to hit in 5e, especially as cover and dim lighting rules...

There is a dead phaerimm in RotFM. There were phaerimm in Myth Drannor in an earlier edition adventure - possibly 2nd edition boxed set?

The game is designed to emulate the prose. The prose is important to the game design. It’s far from irrelevant.

Is fun.

This. And 5e works fine if you don’t worry about balanced encounters.

If the fights are about expending resources, then the players cannot “lose” the individual fights. However, they can consume too many resources, as a consequence of bad rolls or whatever, which means the party will enter the final battle with no chance of winning. The solution is to focus on...

It had nothing whatsoever to do with resources (Beowulf didn’t use any). Beowulf did not fight the second monster because it didn’t appear until quite a while later. And that was because it was basically a sequel. one monster is enough for one story, having more monsters devalues all monsters.