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I'll add: I'm unfond of critical hit systems in general, and while I'm not quite annoyed enough by the 3.5e version to reflexively apply a house rule to nerf them (or outright eliminate them), I am toying with a rule that all crit multipliers are reduced by 1 (and since most weapons have a 2x...

I don't want them to get crits on undead, but I do want them to get their class damage bonuses (favored enemy and sneak attack). Critical hits are a matter of luck but those class bonuses are a matter of character skill and knowledge. I want that that sort of character skill and knowledge to...

I voted "no apocalypse" but it somewhat depends on how one defines "apocalypse." Is medieval Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire "post apocalyptic"? In my old Etan campaign, I had some big in-world changes, including all the gods dying, when I changed over the system from AD&D to TFT and...

Players will fight tooth and nail against changes that force their PCs into being the subjects of attrition play. They will try very hard to have their PCs be at their best as often as possible. Some GMs will use the natural passage of time along with various time-pressure strategies as an...

Frequent-rest games being common is reality. My claim is that they're common because players prefer them to the offered alternatives - and if that's reality too, then that's also hard to fight.

Players will fight this tooth and nail - and they won't be wrong to do so. As a player I would fight it tooth and nail - or more likely just walk away from the table. There are good reasons why frequent rests and the five-minute-day have become a thing. It's in the players' interest to seek to...

I've been both, at various time in the past. My current campaign is one where I plan things out, but I can see myself going for the ad-lib side in a future game.

My first though was that maybe the players are (perhaps unconsciously) offering broken-shell characters with grim dark backgrounds as sacrificial offerings to the DM, with the prayer that the DM will go easy when it comes to inflicting grimdark horrors on the characters in course of play. My...

I don't think "modern" vs "classic" is a useful division. More useful IMHO is the idea of innovations in game mechanics that have been successful and have gotten copied. Critical hits and fumbles, popular even though I personally dislike them. Character Disadvantages Point-based character...

Yes. Modern bowstrings wear out too. I guess my point is that both modern and D&D-land bowstrings fail - but they very very rarely fail in a "cool" "dramatic" "'This will be so much fun! And you are a killjoy munchkin to disagree!'" break-in-combat-on-a-fumble way. Instead they fail in a dull...

Why do you insist on assuming that bow-using adventurers are incompetent bumblers who don't routinely keep their bowstrings waxed?

I did bowhunting at times, so the strings did get dragged out into the Great Outdoors with its cold and wet. I think my strings weren't really better off than the typical adventurer's - unless the DM runs a 'gotcha' game where the PCs are considered to neglect and abuse their gear by default...

In rooms one has been in many times before, yes. In an unfamiliar room where "how high is the ceiling here?" is a live question...

My real-world experience with bowstrings I made myself is that a string-snaps failure is less frequent than one per 10,000 arrows loosed. They do occur; they have happened to me a few times - but not at all often. By comparison, rolling three ones in a row on a d20 has a relatively high 1 in...

My experience with AD&D 1e was that it was an extremely rules-heavy system, so much so that practically everyone ignored most of those crunchy rules. That made it rules-light in practice, as it was played in most groups. But the rules-as-written were heavyweight ones. Although my mileage...

I'm a DM who likes crunchy rules. I consider 3.5e to be peak D&D, and I've happily played Champions 4e in the past. One thing that would be useful in a highly crunchy system is good set of simplified creation rules & stat blocks for monsters and nameless NPCs. I'd prefer such rules to err on...

It sounds like we're talking about two different things. You seem to be talking about the PCs choosing to avoid a combat to begin with, while I'm talking about the PCs choosing to withdraw & retreat from a combat after becoming engaged in it. The first is something the PCs can generally pull off...

I guess mileage varies. I've seen enough examples of elaborate and crippling spell-fumble systems over the years to disabuse me of the notion that DMs as a group are particularly inclined to screw over martials while giving other character types a pass. Not that I'm at all fond of any rule...

I find tracking damage taken by weapons (or other pieces of equipment) to be a huge pain in the ass. So I normally handwave any partial damage away; weapons are either whole or broken, with breaking a weapon normally requiring a deliberate effort.

Roughly a 0.5% or higher chance per attack roll.