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This is interesting. Over the past few years, I've had exchanges on these board where some posters talk about verisimilitude not by reference to the fiction, but rather in terms of mechanics. That is, some mechanics are described as unrealistic or as lacking verisimilitude in themselves rather...

The last time I used a front door trap, the PCs got caught by it:

When the PCs entered the Forgotten Temple Complex, I rolled a 13 for the town event: Dimly lit portal. You pass an open shrine and see the Immortal within looking down upon you with impassive eyes. Leave a humble offering and ask the Immortal to forgive your transgressions. Appropriate...

The adventure site that I had written up, posted in my previous post upthread, turned out to be a bit of a disaster for the PCs. (Which is, perhaps, the way of Torchbearer.) Fea-bella filled two waterskins from the rivulet, and noticed the lint in the water. Then, the Ob 4 Dungeoneering check...

It took about eight months longer than anticipated to play our next session of Torchbearer 2e, but we finally got a session in yesterday. I thought we might have a staggered arrival of players to the session, and so yesterday morning I wrote up a little adventure site that I thought might be...

If the NPC Elf can stumble over this book in his youth, why can't the PCs? Why are only PCs obliged to adventure in order to find it?

I never said there was. I know the (Gygaxian) AD&D rules pretty well. What I said, which you quoted, is this: There is a clear process in classic D&D: the GM maps and keys a dungeon; the movement of the PCs through the dungeon is tracked on the map; what they see/hear/experience is narrated by...

In RQ, non-human creatures are statted in a way that parallels PC stats. But they aren't built via a parallel process (eg there is no analogue to 3E D&D's "creature type as class" - the only other RPG I can think of that tries to emulate that is HARP). In Classic Traveller, NPCs have stats and...

I agree with @hawkeyefan here. There is a clear process in classic D&D: the GM maps and keys a dungeon; the movement of the PCs through the dungeon is tracked on the map; what they see/hear/experience is narrated by the GM based on the key, with doors playing an especially important role in...

This is wrong about Gygax's AD&D, in multiple ways. For instance: In the MM, Elves are 1+1 HD. Nothing in the Elven PC build rules reflect this - in fact, PC Elves suffer a CON penalty. In the MM, Mountain Dwarves are 1+1 HD, whereas Hill Dwarves are 1 HD. Nothing in the PC build rules...

I think this issue of NPC and PC build and stats is an interesting one. D&D did not try to establish any sort of parallel or equivalence between NPCs/creatures, and PCs, until 3E D&D. Then in 4e D&D NPCs/creatures have the same sort of statistical expression as PCs, but don't parallel them in...

That reminds me a bit of MHRP: a player can spend a Plot Point to automatically succeed in destroying/disabling a trait that is rated no higher than the ability they're using.

I don't think there's much reason to think that WotC would increase its sales - perhaps not even in absolute terms, let alone after outlay - by publishing multiple, different versions of D&D. If I was a 5e designer I'd be pretty pleased with my work. Like anything done in the context of...

From WotC's point of view, why do they care that some of the people who play D&D are not as satisfied as they might, ideally, be? They are a large commercial operation. Their goal is sales. Satisfying RPGers is a means to that end, but given the seeming commercial success of 5e D&D, they seem to...

Reaction tables aren't (in my view) about reducing GM workload in generating content. They're an action resolution tool (if the players declare an action like *We greet the <NPCs>") or a framing/stakes tool (if the PCs are thrust into an encounter with some NPCs). Treasure tables, and random...

I haven't read Daggerheart, but I am inferring that experiences in Daggerheart are similar to the backgrounds in 13th Age: free descriptors that play a similar role, in resolution, to skill bonuses in 3E and onwards D&D. Have I got that right?

I think it's more than just this: it's also about increasing the proportion of play time spent on the stuff that matters to the participants. So it's like the RPG design analogue of editing a film (or, at least, some aspects of editing). Rolemaster is, for me at least, a striking illustration...

Good list! For these two, I think maybe Over the Edge (1992) is the modern beginning. A bit later, Maelstrom Storytelling (1998, from memory) and HeroWars (2000) use free-form descriptors as key tools for describing characters and situations. What's interesting (and here I gently touch on your...