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Last night, we were continuing the Cave of Chaos with characters updated to 2nd level and from the most recent playtest. Since the characters were new to the group, they decide to go tangle the kobolds as an easy warm up (and because they hadn't hit that side of the caves yet). At one point...

I think this aspect of 4E is optional but poorly called out. I've said before that nothing stops a group from playng 4E exactly like Hero, in that powers are reskinned, but only at the time the character pick them--where upon the skin is locked and will now have an effect on the play. That would...

You are correct. I don't know what goes on in your head. With some sleep, I thought of a better, more correct way to say it: Some of your statements and questions are characteristic to me of patterns that have been in people whom I have later learned, once I got to know them better, to have...

Only if it is a two-way street, and not always even then. I'd like you to go rate all the topics from 2009 and see how that worked out in practice. (Not really. I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.) :p

First bit, no I mean something more like a person is unhappy with the nature or frequency of criticals happening on a natural 20--as this sometimes leads to results that they don't like. So the DM fudges die rolls or introduces some kind of damage resistance or includes enough healing to...

That will depend, of course, on what you want to do with the system. Like I've said before, I can solve the most balance objections I have to 3E/3.5 by simply excluding all full casters (or making them multiclass every third level, which amounts to turning them into bards), and then stopping...

Underman, My view is that on some of these questions being explored here, there is no substitute for experience. And in my case (and a at least a couple or more of the others here), our experience has taught us that the process-sim mindset is often (though not always) the default mindset...

I'll bite. I make the same reservations on answers that you made on the questions, so I don't think this really reduces to concise answers without losing meaning. :) That may be the intention in some cases. I think the primary purpose is usually to model a world as "directly" as possible. The...

Yes and no. The Oberoni fallacy only really applies to embedded rules, if it is to have any usefulness. People can always find a monster or feat or something they don't care for. I think what trips people up in 4E on this particular question is illustrated by a comparison with 1E psionics: If...

That's the trade off I mentioned earlier, with fidelity to process competing with mechanics simple enough to fade into the background. I think a lot of us have had reactions basically like yours, and thought something along the lines of, "Hey, it's too much fidelity to process sim that's...

I think the MRQ II solution is a decent compromise on this. You do the usual RQ thing of checking off skills as you use them meaningfully, but then at advancement time (out of game, after the adventure), you only get to pick a handful of these to advance. (The way this number is modified by...

Despite, or maybe in addition to, my general agreement with Kid Snide on the out of combat aspect, I do think the out of combat healing shouldn't automatically be maximized, either. To me, this part pretty much screams for a dial. To keep it simple for higher level play, I'd just say that...

One of my acid tests for multiclassing that isn't flawed: It doesn't matter what order you do the classes in, a Fighter/Rogue 3/3 is the same mechanical basis whether the character went F,F,F,R,R,R or opposite or R,F,R,F,R,F or any other combination. It's not the same character in the story...

I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that a big part of the difference is timing of when the elements are considered. That is, even a complex build done before play starts, and reconciled into a single number (i.e. a particular skill check) is not considered an impediment to immersion, because it...

@Manbearcat , my contention since the infamous "essay" was written was that the author went to a great deal of trouble to obscure the definitions and meanings, so that the inherent contradictions in presenting a rant as a "theory" would not be so obvious. This became very apparent early, when...

I think various objections to the vegetable/sweet analogy have mostly been answered. Let me add that, like all analogies, it breaks down when pushed too far--not least because in a broader sense D&D is more "main course" than either vegetable or dessert. I used vegetable talking about the...

They'll never do what I would like, especially with what we've seen thus far. I'd like 1E/2E style multiclassing, but not fixed at 1st level and without the exponential XP tables. Instead, I'd do it as any character can pick up a level in any class they want, any time they want, which progresses...

I like a bit of good process-simulation play from time to time. It's very much a minority preference as a percentage of my play, but when you want it, nothing else really matches. I simply can't imagine using any version of D&D to scratch that itch. Sure, 3E caters to it noticably more than...

Predates both by quite a bit. Basically, there was a strong push to deny that what I'm calling "deep immersion" was even possible, and that the ones making such claims were edging up to or even leaping whole hog into psychological disfunction. Given that people with real psychological issues...

One of the first published set of such rules was Arms Law, which later grew into Role Master. It was written because AD&D was not a process-sim, but rather in order to turn D&D combat into a process-sim. Arms Law was cheap, readily accessible, and most people knew about it. It was...