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Well, that may be true for some, but it's not my reaction. I'm ignoring them because they are kickstarters. If a kickstarter product that I might be interested in otherwise is released later in the more traditional path, I'll check it out then. For me, "kickstarter" is roughly a synonym for...

Also in passing, 4E is very abstract. It's a highly abstract version of a lot of the same ground that 3E covers (albeit with notable missing pieces). What makes it seem less abstract is the long list of powers and items, and the fact that the abstractions are somewhat different than what went...

Just in case, maybe "good example" wasn't the best abbreviated term there. I meant it is a good example of bad coupling, where the better answer was to split them. :) As to why, it's not open and shut, but in general I would say that you can judge it by the results. Race and class mixed is an...

Abstractions are not simple, and are thus not diametrically opposed to complexity. Models tend towards more or less simplicity or complexity. Rather, abstractions are a way of handling complexity in a (game) model to make it manageable. The opposite of "abstract" is "concrete"--that is...

Sure. Some people that would be very interested in, say, new hard sci-fi themed projects would like to see all such projects, no matter how funded--while ignoring other stuff. Kickstarter is irrelevant to them, but heavy traffic in epic fantasy materials is a glut for them. OTOH, kickstarters...

It should be noted that the kind of thing Mustrum is discussing in his example is particularly susceptible to problems not from long-term resources in general, but daily resources in particular. You could, for example, make spells a week or even month resource, multiply the slots out to...

My comments have nothing whatsoever to do with WotC or other established companies who may not see kickstarter funds as a useful avenue. But for the record, I'm against "news glut" no matter what form it takes. It just so happens that kickstarter is the particular glut being discussed here. Data...

I'm sure that the odd couple of hundred people that I've run games for over the years have been somewhat self-selected to fit my style, and thus are suspect as a group. So when I consider a question like playing in voice, I think back to my college days where I had extended opportunities to...

Not everyone who wants to play in 1st person has trouble with the distinction, but the subset that basically insist that only 1st person play is "roleplaying" have a very constricted view of the hobby that is analogous to claiming that only novels written in the 1st person (or any similar...

My learning AD&D was kind of an accident of the times. Red Box, Blue Box, and then 1E were the first game books I got. By the time I learned that our group would have been happier with Runequest or Dragon Quest or the like, I was too invested in AD&D to switch. Money was tight. :D (We...

Mosty agree with this whole post, though I'd say that classic D&D can have a thematically rich play, even in the terms you use here. It is, however, a very odd theme, with a lots of strange twists and holes in it. Of this, I think, emerges the "D&D genre." :D It's funny, but you can play...

It's new. There are a lot of people involved, most of whom don't really know anything about each other. And then a lot of money is flying around. It will break somewhere, probably fairly soon. Now maybe that doesn't turn into a crash, exactly. It might be more of a Wild West thing, where...

Most important? That it achieves what it sets out to do, and plays well while doing it. That's kind of the minimum for me. After that, then I'll start worrying about whether what it does is something that I want to do more than some alternative fun. ;)

You'd think that, but I find in practice (both personal and professional) that a majority of people who tend to default to process thinking tend to avoid analysis of the process itself when trouble arises. There are many significant exceptions, of course, given the wide variance in people, but...

This. It's why as soon as OOTS hit it big, I immediately started ignoring all kickstarters as much as I could. (I did check out the Ogre one, since I respect Steve Jackson games as a business.) If I could set something that would hide all references to kickstarters, I would for now. Give it...

Besides what Hussar answered, it's also because in this discussion XP is not everything that affects the equation. It is an example of the kind of pervasive system issues (and "system" assumptions) that all push in one direction or another. Personally, I've found the XP part to be rather...

On the first, sure. I'm mainly looking at that part of it from the aspect of keeping the system simple and removing a bunch of fiddly decisions/accounting from the DM's plate. Obviously, there are some broad decisions to be made, such as strange circumstances turning challenge up or down...

On the rest of your post, yes. On this: Mostly. I'm saying that the group agrees to a social contract on risk/reward. Then the DM is responsible for broadly setting things up so that social contract is possible to happen in play, but the players are responsible for fine tuning play as it...

For now, I'm only going to answer this part and see if some of the other stuff comes into focus as a byproduct. Also, did you read my earlier post? There is no Task A and Task B with the chance for the party to pick to only do part of it. There is a set of tasks comprising an "adventure day"...

1E purported vision - Sword and Sorcery, with a side of LotR, at least at the beginning. Actual 1E results - Fantasy Vietnam with a dash of Monty Python. 2E purported vision - Fantasy Psychological Novel, but with kenders. Actual 2E results - Fantasy Good Morning Vietnam and Princess Bride...