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This can vary widely. When I was running Blades in the Dark, after the first session I did literally zero prep. I'd turn up to the session with absolutely no idea what would happen that night. Typically, I do a lot more than that, but often a significant proportion of it is pre-campaign prep --...

6 - 8 hours every second week, all year. Mythras early, Ascendent for most of the year, Rolemaster for the past couple of months. Voted 60+.

Yeah, the part of the OP that didn't really match my experience is the idea the a Setting of Despair generally defaults to the notion that long term change for the better is impossible. Even if that is true in the source fiction for a particular genre, it's not typically the way I'd run an RPG...

This is the first thing that came to mind for me. Not sure if it still gets much use today (it just occurred to me, it's a Rolf Harris song, which means many people would probably rather let it fade into obscurity). This one isn't as well known, but I recall it from my primary school days.

I didn't say anything about a slight; I'm saying your thesis is wrong.

Your thesis sounds very much like you are, indeed, wanting to argue against folks' lived experiences. If I may speak for myself, "the intimacy of experience" is absolutely not "a powerful element in my ongoing love of the genre" -- at least, not unless you define "intimacy of experience"...

Digging a bit deeper, it appears that the StartPlaying defines a "cozy" RPG as one designed "specifically for mental health healing". 50% of respondents playing or having played a "cozy" RPG still sounds a bit high to me, but depending on where they sourced their respondants, it's very...

I wouldn't be at all surprised by a large number of people saying games are good for their mental health. The part that surprised me was that a large number of people (50%, even) are saying they've participated in games specifically arranged for that purpose. I'll be running a Mythras Glorantha...

How is trauma being defined here? 75% of participants saying they're using roleplaying to deal with trauma sounds like a huge number, to me. Similarly, one third have played in a game that specifically arranged to assist with mental health? Ah, OK, now that I've looked at the actual results...

Oh, yeah, I also have the full set of *Without Number games, which I pick up in the knowledge there's likely to be something I can take from them to use in other stuff. I've used various world building and magic item creation rules from Worlds Without Number to support other fantasy games. I...

I haven't played in either recently, but I found Kalamar more interesting than Greyhawk generally. Frandor's Keep (for Hackmaster) is an excellent starting location with vague similarities to Keep on the Borderlands. Kalamar feels like a cohesive whole to me, whereas Greyhawk feel a bit like a...

As some specific examples, I purchased pretty much every single Al Qadim boxed set, along with the Dark Sun OBS and Ivory Triangle boxed sets, plus a bunch of POD 2e Planescape books in order to develop Mythras conversions (Dark Sun and Al Qadim basically done, while Planescape is still in very...

I thought you said this was for 1e AD&D? ;)

Yes I would. Why? Because I prefer the mechanics of the system I'm using as my baseline rules to the system associated with the setting or supplement. Or, alternatively, why not?

If they're being generated by me, then most likely by the allocation of AC, HD and few other key values, and certainly not by following the normal, full character generation procedure. Why generate a bunch of stats you don't need? One of the reasons I ceased to enjoy 3.x D&D and it's close...

I don't know what was edited either. Maybe I'm also reading it too harshly, but it did initially come across to me as, "Oh, you don't generally like spicy food all that much? So does that mean you only like bland food?"

Only if you assume all choices are binary, and intentionally pick silly things to be the opposites to the things you like. If you don't like spicy food, you must prefer bland food. If you don't like exceeding the speed limit while driving, you must prefer driving as slow as possible. If you...

To me, a reaction roll is something I rely on to guide my behaviour when it's not clear how an NPC will react. While it may result in complications, the purpose of the roll isn't to introduce complications, it's simply to abrogate some of the responsibility for NPC attitude to the dice. I can...

It's certainly not my intention to be making such a claim. I think my very last paragraph there is possibly the most important. Note that, the participants' decisions actually drive play in both situations -- I'm not saying this responsibility is completely offloaded to the mechanics. It would...

I would be very hesitant to allow for a broad generalisation that traditional mechanics hamper play in the way you describe, but have no issues with the idea that they can or do for some groups. That said, it also occurs to me that one of the reasons this has never really been an issue for me...