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Re: cantrips I don't like them too. I think rarity of magic makes it, well, more magical. Wizards should spend most of the fights smacking people with a staff and occasionally unleash potent spells that completely change the situation, as opposed to casting weaksauce cantrips

Honestly, at most PbtA games I scream "what the hell are you doing?!" and I'm famously a big fan of the Apocalypse World. It's very, very rarely I see a PbtA game that seems to understand how the engine works, and what it's good at. Night Witches, Undying, Urban Shadows, Monsterhearts, Monster...

I mean it as in both (or more) systems are supposed to be played by the same audience in sequential order. Like, D&D 5e isn't a continuation of D&D 4e (which isn't a continuation of 3e). WotC doesn't seem to view them as a one holistic work. Unlike how, say, you are presumed to have watched A...

What it says on the tin. Do you know any examples of subsequent games that don't intend to replace the previous, but to exist alongside it, with the timeline shifted forward? The only example I can think of is Call of Cthulhu vs Delta Green, but even that is kind of more spin off territory than...

Then within a discussion of tabletop games, such a definition is useless, it describes nothing. Time has no relation to quality, or even substance of the mechanics -- in every era, there were wildly different game systems (and interpretations of the same game systems). What's there even to...

I would pick very unknown but amazing Unofficial Elder Scrolls RPG, loosely based on Dark Heresy 40k RPG. Why: There is a lot of runway for progression, and it's possible to slowly grow strong characters. There always will be some talent, or skill point, or elite advancement to look forward...

I'm proposing a definition of what "modern" (or, rather, "modernization") means in a thread about finding a definition of "modern". My definition: To modernize a rule is to make it strictly, unambiguously better without changing it's purpose or approach. To reword it for better clarity, to...

I think you are misunderstanding me: what I'm saying is other way around. Better = modern. Modern [X] is better than Old [X], because if it wasn't just strictly better [X], it'd be [Y] (maybe related to or inspired by [X], but still something else)

Broadly I think it's something to be avoided, if possible. If something can be modeled within the existing general rules, creating a bespoke rule is added complexity for dubious benefit (again, assuming it is possible to model with general rules) Although, I'd say having a wildly different...

Round one: two PCs down

I'm not terribly familiar with AD&D, so, yeah, sure! Quite often good ideas are old, and then get replaced by bad ideas, and return back might feel like a breath of fresh air. Although, as a whole, isn't AD&D famous for having a lot of barely connected subsystems that all function differently?

I'm kind of drawing blanks trying to remember a degrees of success system that has, well, consequences or costs associated with it. Degrees of success are mostly either used to tiebreak opposed rolls or add damage on attacks, but not for "yes, but:" kind of resolution.

"Creating a fun game" is creating aimlessly, I think. That's not a meaningful goal. And there are a lot of examples of individual mechanics that just... are there for some reason, and don't seem to serve any design purpose. Yes, this is obviously a speculation: maybe there was a specific...

I think a good example of stinky ancient mechanic vs shiny modern mechanic is Divine Smite in 5e vs Divine Smite in 5.5e The former is a bespoke mechanic that is working similarly, but differently from all others -- it works mostly like a spell, but not quite. The latter is just a spell, fully...

I think "modernity" of mechanics is mostly about presentation: how the rules are laid out in the rulebook, whether there are keywords, pictograms and shorthands to condense and formalize language, is there a dedicated tracker on character sheet, etc. Kind of how old Magic cards have paragraphs...

Handwritten character sheets work better

(lance, which is a heavy spear, also works for both this feat and for GWM)