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It's a fair question, certainly. If the players like centaurs, is it possible to integrate centaurs in an interesting way? Integration of some kind is always possible, but getting it done well is less certain, even if it isn't that difficult most times. But yes, there is an interesting...

Well, consider this: The players are naturally othered from the setting. The don't know anything about the world unless told. They can't see anything unless you go out of your way to describe it. They have no background in what the setting contains. Hence, being an outsider is a more natural...

Why? Genuinely. Why? Why is that bad? Why is it good that every hero actually be 100% solo material? Why is it good to be five completely individual people who just coincidentally happen to adventure in the same place at the same time?

I did restrain myself from including an option to the tune of "Characters do not reach level 4 because they usually die first." Because, other than with Hussar's group, that has in fact been my experience with nearly every 5e game I've played. Reaching level 4 was very rare outside of the group...

Okay, this is something I can work with. It immediately invites a follow-up question: Why do people want to play a cooperative game that expects teamwork...by playing whatever they want with zero consideration of their friends and what they're doing? Because that, that very specific thing, is...

The gnoll inclusion there is quite interesting. It might be helpful to iterate on that. That is, consider a party of 5 where three of them are all the same thing, e.g.: Dragonborn Tiefling Genasi Goliath etc. And consider which, if any, cause this effect for you. That could be used to figure...

I fully do so as well. My problem comes in when the rules as intended directly and unavoidably conflict with the rules as written. By which I mean, the rules were written trying to make P happen, and instead they directly cause P to not happen. Like the designers openly pursued a goal and then...

Okay. Do you agree that games are designed for one or more purposes, that is, that there are wiser choices and less wise choices, and the designer chooses which things are given incentives and which things are given disincentives? So, for example, a hockey player wants to get the puck into the...

Do you disagree that D&D is and has been presented as, played as, and seen as a teamwork-based game for, at the very least, the entirety of the new millennium thus far?

Perhaps so. Personally, I just...naturally take a detail-oriented approach and attempt to respond to claims as they are made. When possible, I strive to capture the whole of each point, and when I fail to do so, I attempt to make up for it. Then... Shouldn't the design be to make basic...

This would seem, to me, to be just a more robust, detailed way of saying what I had said. But perhaps I should present that as a question: If you realized, on session 3, that your players have simply moved in different directions and speeds compared to your expectations, would you truly try to...

Which I just...don't understand. D&D is a team game. It has been since at least 2e, probably earlier. The rules are not designed for, as some on here term it, "character vs character" combat. The vast majority of groups do not particularly well-tolerate that particular kind of conflict...

My notion, at least when I formulated the answer, was that the number of sessions is 100% completely irrelevant for someone who gives that answer. The one, and only, consideration--for someone who gives that answer--is the XP total, and nothing else about how the XP was acquired matters. If it...

I am given to understand that a typical session for nearly all people who play is no more than 5 hours and no less than 2 hours, typically 3-4, with some wiggle room (e.g. if you end on a nice note at 3:45, you're not going to force 15 more minutes of play; if you are 90% done with a combat...

If we were about to hit 2016, I could absolutely buy this. The system has been out for over a decade. 5.5e--so-called "D&D 5e (2024)"--isn't so different from 5.0, "D&D 5e (2014)", that we are talking about people being terribly unfamiliar with the system, unaware of what could possibly be...

Er...no? If something is objectively, unequivocally insanely good ("absolutely stunning"), such that you get lots of gameplay value out of it, players are GOING to do that thing. That's....literally the thing behind the well-known "players will optimize the fun out of your game" maxim. Because...

I will agree not to continue engaging with you on this. Beyond this post, I won't respond to you further in the thread, unless you explicitly invite otherwise.

I would offer a slight correction: This "have to be top-tier" thing only applies in one direction, namely, the spellcaster picking up martial ability. Even then, different implementations handle it differently. The Blade Warlock basically has to invest half their character resources into it, a...

And yet, in 4e, the exact opposite was true. Ruthless personal optimization was significantly less efficient than teamwork and team optimization--to the point that there were several well-known team-synergy strategies, such as the Radiant Mafia. If players aren't willing to do it, maybe one...

And I just completely do not see that, at all, to even the tiniest degree. Show me the numbers, then I'll buy it.