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Agree with Manbearcat. The unpredictability in any version of D&D (or Fantasy Hero or GURPS or Runequest or any number of games) when I run it is nearly always in the way I run it and/or set up the encounters. 4E is notable in that I got to that point sooner than I did with some of the other...

I prefer both. I prefer that the hodge-podge be mostly kept for tradition, but that there be notes about which ones typically go together and/or are simply other names for what is already there. The same applies to weapons. I don't care if the stats are all that historically accurate, since...

For tactics, I suggest two mutually exclusive options, that the group can pick from: 4E-style tactical options, as you have listed. Options to violate "table-talk" rules and/or give modifiers to more general things. For the latter, the idea is that "tactics" is some kind of player activity...

My guess is that most "positive" views of imbalance are based on the idea of unpredictability by clouding the parameters, rather than any particular interest in balance or imbalance, per se. This complexity by obfuscation. Sure, you've got to have a certain minimum complication of parameters...

I agree with that. However, I think once they start down that road, they never stop in time. For example, that is where all the "compound names" come from. In fairness, I have a more poetic sensibility about such things, which is difficult to pull off in a game. I enjoy evocative story...

My objection to the game designer going hard on marrying mechanics to story is that 90% of the time, I'm utterly unimpressed with the story half of the marriage. That is, I think good game designers have, on the whole, been pretty lousy story tellers, and vice versa. It's one of the reasons...

I believe that this has been the best progression historically when applying spell points to D&D spell levels. However, like all spell point systems it can break down across wide power levels, which is certainly present in D&D magic, from cantrips to wish. A potential compromise solution...

Ooh, ooh, I've got this one! :D Easy -- for some reason the imbalance isn't exploited, and thus isn't actually felt. Or, they like the imbalance being exploited. It's more exciting in part, because you might screw it up. (That's sort of like the ancient Chinese curse, "May you live in...

I'm of two minds on this. In theory, I can see that kind of design working well. In practice, though, more often it has been something like, "Well, we've got this very particular concept of a druid in mind. So we'll have this unique thing they can do. Then we'll put a bunch of mostly...

No reason why there can't be a "generalist layer" of common spells for all wizards, and then the traditions build on top of that. Same thing would also be true with clerics and domains, though with different spells. Then you don't get into that jumping through a bunch of hoops to explain how...

Think we'll get a first experimental draft of the multi-class rules soon, but maybe not in the very next update. Within the next two updates, say, unless they simply can't get it to work. Of all the classes, I'd predict paladin next. I can see ranger getting included with it or put off for a...

I needed an example, then. Because I'm explicitly talking about strategic stuff. The contention in the OP is that the wizard gets to do things like floating disk and rope trick and charm. Then the rogue gets to open locks and disarm traps and scout. That is, a bit of interaction pillar...

Another option to help address this problem would be an Encumbrance system that worked just a little harder at game play and a little less at simulation. (And it's not as if any of the previous systems have been poor on this issue. So we are talking a slight shift.) To wit, imagine a simple...

Not only that, but "use CS for Deadly Strike" all the time is not a bad strategy for a player who doesn't want to think about it, or is tired tonight, or had one too many beers earlier. It might not be optimum, but using all the CS options has the distinct potential to allow a fighter player to...

Yes. I might have been a bit more forceful in my previous post than I intended. I don't see making death rare as a necessary component, but one example of the kind of thing that makes it necessary for the GM to use various techniques to compensate, lest the game falter into "almost whole party...

Could be. But your statement makes me wonder in turn if that effect comes from a change in the fantasy fiction the typical fans are consuming? I don't read widely enough in the latest stuff to say, since I don't care for about 80% of it. What I have read, sampling, is enough to convince me...

I've never heard anyone say that they would go back to the 3E bard or ranger, either, though I might have missed the handful who did say it. There was a reason why everyone and his brother took a crack at alternate versions of those classes. It got so bad there for awhile that I begin to think...

Players getting upset about non-death stuff in D&D is directly (but not fully) related to how easy it is to come back from the dead in D&D. Let's see which one many players would prefer: Your character encounters a rust monster which destroys a key item. Then he has some goblins steal...

Measured against perfection, 4E math was and still is lacking. Measured against 3E, it's easier for a DM with some mathematical clue to work around the issues in 4E than 3E--at any equivalent point in their development. What makes this not so obvious, however, is that the 3E issues for the...

Well, here's a modest idea: How about instead of trying to massage the single classes to make each combination work somehow, we start with how we want the multi-class combos be, then back fill from there? For example, you've got a fighter, and you've got a wizard. Then you've got a...