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Please point to where I said one should only listen to optimizers.

I don't see the relevance of that distinction. It's still a balance issue that has been a bee in people's bonnets for ages and ages. People constantly complain about it, years later, despite it being such a tiny influence. My point was simply that if such a small thing became such a long-term...

Alright. I don't believe people struggled so badly picking their character stuff in something like 4e, 13A, or similar games, to make that so radically different that the "oh, uh, sorry...you've...made a character that sucks at everything" issues that 3e had, and 5e retains, albeit to a lesser...

[Citation needed.] By which I mean: You believe that's what gets people playing. I've experienced, over nearly three decades, that the things that get people playing have nothing whatsoever to do with any of that. It's the idea of a fantastical adventure with friends, of being part of a grand...

Just like silvery barbs was ignored and forgotten in a month or two?

I mean, is anyone really surprised that this is probably at best minimally tested and almost certainly ripe for abuse?

This isn't true. You can have unified design, and also have modular design. Like...modularity can be actually significantly enhanced by having a clear, clean, unified core with consistent interactions/linkages. Having a consistent fundamental system makes it easier to add on local exceptions...

Did you notice that not one of those things is participating? Because I have been very clear about this being about gameplay and participation. Becoming part of the audience is, by definition, not participation. You even used that very phrase in that very line! Your first, allegedly "best"...

This was one of my favorite ideas for how to integrate Dragonborn into Greyhawk. A time-displaced colony ship crashes in a somewhat isolated mountainous area not strongly claimed by any nation. The ship can still generate power and is keeping most of the dragonborn in cryonic suspension pending...

I don't think even attention span is required to be invoked. It's simply true that folks want to feel like they're spontaneously enacting an epic tale of adventure with rising and falling action, decent pacing, and a conclusion that feels at least reasonably solid. The idea that 100% of the...

I have not so much noticed a drift as a return. A new D&D always starts from a pretty pure "Standard D&D Setting" point: faux-European, pseudo-medieval (basically "pop history"/"pop sociology" version of medieval Europe), schizotech (15th century armor and 12th century social structures and...

But doesn't this undercut your own argument? Expertise is worse than your claim of the +10 over 20 levels being a problem, because that's +12 over 20 levels. More to the point though, the defense I mentioned is that I think you're incorrect about the conclusion "all it did was push the numbers...

And? You still have training in addition to that. You're acting like it somehow replaces things. No. Which is neither particularly bounded (given you can easily achieve bonuses of +20 with a modicum of effort) nor all that much about accuracy. Like that's literally the problem people are...

What if we designed a game such that those two motives lead to the same outcomes? Designed it so that trying to keep your character alive (while, I assume, accomplishing their goals) is entertaining the audience--namely, the other players and the GM. It's quite doable. D&D just balks at...

Ahh, victim-blaming. A classic. "It's your fault for getting bored when you literally cannot participate with the game!" And notice, I said twenty-minute intervals. Not two-minute ones. It's almost like that's an enormous difference! Er...no? Like literally not, even if you don't use an...

I disagree, but I should try to sleep. If you care for a more full defense of that scaling, I can present it later.

So...a +7 bonus (level 14-15 is mid-level) is now "wildly scaling"? But 5e's stuff doesn't "wildly scale". Kinda strange how that works...

Precisely because I am a fan of both, I have made a conscious effort to keep them minimal. Moreso dragons than dungeons, since I am a mega mega fan of dragons and just generally kind of like dungeons. That doesn't mean I don't use them. I do. But I have put in the effort to make any dragon that...

Was it pointless? Was it really? Because it seems to me that we're running into the precise problems caused by having a system that does not scale properly. Saving throws simply don't grow, and that was one of the only criticisms you'd ever hear of 5e in its first like five years. Maybe the...

Therefore we should spend not one penny on making things easier, more approachable, or more pick-up-and-go for GMs. What a wonderful sentiment.