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What I want to see are combat systems that make it easy for the whole party to retreat and that provide a clear signal when it's time to do so. The usual PC ethos includes "no one gets left behind," which is a fine thing except for the way the usual combat rules combine with it to produce a...

I find that rules for ordinary weapons regularly breaking in use produce a stupid-silly game, not a fun one. I also have no problem at all with characters who specialize with a signature, iconic weapon. So in my games this is a bad solution looking to solve a non-problem. If there's a place...

A scratch, scruff, or bruise is bleeding. From Wikipedia: "A bruise, also known as a contusion, is a type of hematoma of tissue, the most common cause being capillaries damaged by trauma, causing localized bleeding that extravasates into the surrounding interstitial tissues."

Because if the weapon weren't poisoned, it would be a narrow miss, and simply putting poison on a weapon shouldn't make it more likely to inflict an actual contact hit as opposed to a narrow miss. It's a point where narrativism and simulationism come into conflict, and some of us prefer to come...

It's table-dependent as well as game-dependent and absolutely follows the "What are hit points" question. In a D&D-style hit-points and armor-class system, what I'd like, but don't think I could sell my players on, is a "hit" being an attack close enough to feel or otherwise sense. So it's a...

My answer of course is "it depends." Sometimes a setting conception will have a signature monster or small set of signature monsters and I'll shape the world around their existence. Other monsters, or monsters in a setting without signature monsters will be fit into the setting after the world...

"Being tested for quick-thinking isn't my idea of fun" is a legit point. The counterpoint is that too great a discontinuity between the amount of game-time and the amount of table-time that passes creates distortions that are also not fun. This is a big downside to game systems with very short...

I've always run focused homebrew settings, with "take the rule-set and supporting materials, and cut away everything that doesn't look like [setting]" I have a certain admiration for kitchen-sink campaigns and those who run them, while also being very aware of the downsides of those campaigns...

I see you as someone who would be better served by a system that just dropped inflationary hit points altogether. What advantage do they confer in your particular style of play? Me, I'm just as happy to nerf poison and downplay the need for multiple fiddly different damage types. Or at least to...

Hit points are whatever the GM can intuitively accept and get his players to intuitively accept. In D&D and most of its variants, it's a hash, largely because of the way the various healing spells work. The usual default seems to be treat them as proportional meat-points mixed with luck...

If a player in my game wants to roll dice to determine his character's reaction to an NPC, I consider that legit. That's the analogy I'd make to a GM rolling a random encounter. And the extension of that would be the player demanding that the GM roll a random encounter being analogous to the GM...

It depends on the campaign. My current Brotherhood of Rangers game is heavily scripted and without random encounters. In previous games I've used random encounters a fair bit - especially for encounters in cities and towns.

"Where did you get that sword?" is a question about a character's backstory (or history, if he got the sword during play). Character backstory is something on the border between the player's and the GM's areas of authority and responsibility, usually on the player's side of the line, but with...

It's completely understandable that if you don't like the genre, you won't like the genre as a TTRPG. (For me: Horror. I don't like horror as a genre in general, and if you want to run a horror RPG, then sorry, I can't make it. I have to vacuum the cat.) I also can understand liking the genre...

You might not want to use the system, but I'll suggest GURPS: Camelot, even if you just want background material, including notes on three different variants of "Arthurian fantasy." SJG still sells it as a PDF: GURPS Camelot

I would have said "The Fantasy Trip," except 1. That's already happened, and 2. I find I don't like any of the changes made in the new 'Legacy' edition. So I suppose my wish would be for the older 'Classic' edition to be reprinted, at least as a PDF.

That's a major point where I differ from you. I do want "being a PC" to be an exception in my game. I want PCs (along with certain select NPCs) to be "destined for greatness" with their success being baked in, rather than having them run the simulationist gauntlet to see whether or not they win...

It's also possible to have a mix where some of the lands in the setting have that segregation while others are more cosmopolitan. Also, unless you have easy interfertility in the setting, there's going to be pressure for at least some clumping of the different racial communities. (And if there...

"Slow advancement" has been mentioned earlier. My preferred xp award system, not just for 3.5e but also for other games that use experience points, is for end-of-session awards rather than "so many xp for defeating the orcs, so many xp for getting past the trap, so many xp for boiling the...

My experience is that it's important to be up-front about what is and isn't allowed in a given game. I'll write a campaign prospectus for a game I plan to run. If the deal is "no prestige classes" or "these travel/movement spells don't exist" then players who sign on for the game can accept...