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I do, however, identify with Actual Cannibal Shia LaBoeuf.

Yes, that's literally what I meant. But those differences have to be qualitative, not just numerical. A system with tiers should always be presenting as moving characters into the next tier as an "opt-in", so that framing the game into a new power structure is a deliberate choice. The...

You can have a level-based system and a tier system together. 5e has what I would call a real "tier system" (not the Tier 1-4 nomenclature commonly used in 5e discussion). The real tiers are the "1-20" tier, and then 21+ tier. Level 20 is what an actual endgame for a tier system should look...

Yea, I would generally view it as: Street-level (a group of Stormtroopers is to be avoided, planned around, or ambushed) Jedi Padawan/Competent Soldier level (a group of Stormtroopers is a threat to be dealt with) Jedi Knight level (a group of Stormtroopers is an environmental hazard blocking...

Sure. I just want the system to set the expectation that "this is the end of the road for power gains", not that "you could have gotten even stronger, but you just didn't." It's like in D&D, I want gods to be something that transcends normal power progression. Gods aren't just level 40...

Right. Having a non-human perspective is certainly possible, but its utility is in telling a story that reflects somehow on our shared human condition. You can tell a story about elvish immortality, but that story exists to hold up a mirror to our own human desire to understand death, memory...

I don't feel it is. I'd rather do a Blades-like system than a system with the progression chopped down.

I agree here. To me, the salient point is that different ancestries in our fantasy game aren't supposed to be explorations of science and taxonomy; they're supposed to avenues for storytelling. And the amount of stories we can tell about creatures that share none of our (humanity's) emotional...

To me, that's a perfect example of why you need different games. If I'm running a gritty street-level game like Andor, and we meet a Sith Lord or a Jedi Master, I don't want the system telling the players "Don't worry, in a couple levels you'll be able to go toe-to-toe with this guy." That...

I've been an advocate for this for a while. If you follow bog-standard 5e XP granting practices, you'll usually level up after about 2-3 long rests worth of encounters anyway. Most long rest oriented classes still have plenty of short rest and at will resources. The only real change I do is...

To be fair, that sounds like something like a venture capitalist harvesting “youthful blood” transfusions from transients would say. :)

Here's the core challenge of the rest model. The game, as designed, is based on challenging the party through resource attrition. If you waste resources on encounters 1-3, then encounters 4+ become riskier and more likely to lead to a loss. This incentivizes the players to rest often to...

Harder, certainly. But Pendragon did it back in the mid 80s, so certainly not impossible.

I didn't think of Cosmere, but that would also be an excellent fit. Variations on the common tropes as classes, and use talent trees to fit to the specific concept.

I like that. I would prefer to leave the worldbuilding assumptions in the hands of the specific group, not the game as a whole. Mixed heritage can be carried by narration, reskinning, and mechanical weight in whatever ratio the player deems best for their concept.

I think that's an interesting question. Does the presence of the half-elf/half-orc give tacit permission for the players to assume other mixed heritage individuals exist, or does it create a mental restriction (if those other mixed heritages did exist, they would be detailed?) In my own...

Just my general impression over the years. As a broad generality, gamers who are interested in a media property like books that give a fair amount of specificity about the property. It doesn't have to be incredibly detailed; even if you were using a PbtA chassis for a Star Wars game, I think...

My take is probably 1% of people who have watched and enjoyed Star Wars have looked up on stuff on Wookieepedia, and maybe 1.5% of Star Wars watchers have played a TTRPG, and that the Venn diagram between those two groups has a pretty large overlap.

Well yea, any direction a game would take is going to suppose a generalization about what kinds of game the fan base likes. That's just an unfortunate consequence of making decisions! I feel like what you mean is that my generalization is in the wrong direction compared to your generalization. :)

My gut feeling is that a Star Wars game should lean in a neotrad direction. Creating a specific character concept is really important in a Star Wars game, and people into Star Wars are also people for whom details generally matter. They want a carbine to feel different from a blaster pistol in...