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As the 3e to 3.5e jump was fairly similar, I wonder what the % was of people playing 3.5e just a year after its release?

Well, not quite. In my case, it's more that we (a fellow DM and I, in turns and stages) did the work to expand out the magic item table to include gobs of different weapons and - independently - gobs of properties and abilities to add to those weapons. The right-hand side of the main table on...

Because - and to repeat - it's immensely easier to take things out than to add them in. And sure: if it's not working for most, modify it such that it has a better chance of working and-or label it as optional. Knocking it out entirely isn't the answer, though, as there's going to be those as...

If the player has "Whetstone" listed on the character sheet, that's enough for me to assume said whetstone is being used at camp each night, or (even more likely) each morning while waiting for the casters to do their praying and studying. And if said player tells me the character is sharing...

I think the best (and only?) way to deal with UA is for the DM to go through it with a fine-tooth comb deciding what to keep, what to modify, and what to chuck. Cavalier is a great class but needs some tweaking to reel it in a bit. Acrobat is unsalvageable. Barbarian is pointless unless...

Saying D&D has arguably always been bad at dungeon crawling is, one has to think, a rather hot take. Oh, yes, and intentionally so. That pre-capitalist society was only seen at the low end. Those with wealth? Little change from then to now, if any. And old-school D&D with its emphasis on...

Voted 1e+UA as that's closest to the homebrew 1e-adjacent system we use.

Not for the first time, I have to note that it's light-years easier to houserule things out than to houserule them in. Take 1e. It had rules for weapon-vs-armour-type. Many tables houseruled those out; it was an easy change to make. Had those rules not been in the book, however, nobody would...

Which levels, having run that module for multiple parties of considerably lower level, all seem a bit high. Might be more accurate if the PCs were assumed to have very few or even no magic items, but even then nine 9th-level characters with no magic items would likely chew up that module and...

Theory was that those name-level characters would retire and if the campaign were to continue you'd then play their henches etc. or roll up something new instead. In other words, even though casters were designed out to 16th-18th the game had a soft cap at about 10th for what was expected to be...

Well, that and the game has always wanted to emulate either sword-and-sandal or knight in shining armour conceits, both of which have swords as their primary weapon. Ultimately true but not all DMs are willing to make that degree of change to the items list, even in spite of... ...this. If I...

Yes, the wizard would probably stand to make a great deal of money through inventing such an item. Uhhh...how? I don't think 5e Wish lets you do that, and earlier versions of Wish carried some heavy permanent casting costs e.g. loss of a Con point in 1e. Logically, artificers and wizards...

There's long-range hope for the old school yet, if the playerbase in that game is any indication!

This. And from running that type of campaign for ages I second Gygax's words fully: nothing is more important than keeping track of in-setting time. That is, if you didn't pick up next session right where you left off this one in terms of in-setting time (never did quite grok Gygax's idea that...

That alone probably removes most if not all contradiction issues; as those tended to rear their heads when later rules were added that hadn't been 100% vetted against what already existed. You say the DM is quite young (wonderful to hear!) - mind if I ask what the age range of the players is?

If there's an in-setting need for something, odds are pretty good some mage or other has designed and built one somewhere along the line. Endless Quiver would seem to qualify. Not sure the disagreement's as fundamental as all that. I'd venture to say that we'd agree that RPGs in aggregate can...

How about getting the players paraniod about the ceiling by describing how green and slimy it is and then putting the actual Green Slime on the floor for them to step in? :)

For me, and as others have noted, "modern" might broadly equate to what is now called narrativist. Player ability to change the setting, player permission required to kill a character, granular resolution skipped in favour of getting to the next scene, that sort of thing. One element not yet...

Are you using the RAW as written in 1979 or are you including UA and-or Dragon-article amendments and additions thereafter? I ask because one factor in the early 1980s that we don't see today is that Dragon came out every month and sometimes had new rules or Gygax's interpretations in it that...

My namesake character - a Fighter who's been fried by his own side far too many times over the years - keeps a wizard-slayer longsword on hand for exactly this reason. :)