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See post above. If your vision is too limited to allow 10 species and 12 classes (even if they aren't the exact ones in the PHB) then your vision is too limited for me.

These days, it's principle. In my experience, it's never just one option cut, and it starts the spiral of ever increasing limits. So my take is that if your vision is so limited that you can't find a replacement in your setting for an option that doesn't work in you setting, chances are you are...

I find that it mostly breeds resentment. "Here is a whole book of options you can't use!" The DM says with delight. That's not to say every option is equally valid (I would not allow Dragonmarks in a non-Eberron game), but if you can't find room in your world to accommodate the 10 species and 12...

My golden rule is "as many options as are in the PHB." If your setting doesn't 1:1 replace any removed options, I walk. I don't care if you're the next coming of Tolkien; if you remove Dragonborn you better be replacing them with some other option I can play.

Yeah, it's the mirror to DM entitlement and neither should be part of the larger culture, but I feel a small part of it is a course correction from decades of the DMs Master Plan trumping player autonomy.

Gryphon Hill might be the origin of many Ravenloft setting tropes, but it doesn't really work in the modern concept of Ravenloft. There is no way to get Strahd and Azalin into Modent the way Ravenloft is structured now. You'd basically need a conjunction like event rather than the "Dracula in...

It also assumes that the DM was willing to provide that benevolence. A DM was certainly under not obligation to provide cool stuff, and it is my experience that more often than not the opposite was true and the DM used the rules to bludgeon players into submission rather than provide carrots for...

I don't think people were saying it was the norm, but I think its fair to say that is was more common in decades past and there was a fair amount of bad DM advice that helped support it far longer than it needed to be. Some DMs figured it out for themselves and improved. Some DMs who were bad...

Challenge accepted!

I've been open about at least two DMs I've known who I would categorize as adversarial. One was a long-time friend who was very manipulative and used the role of DM as a way to exert power over the group and another I briefly played with who was the proverbial killer DM. Both took advantage of...

It was also a rejection of The Hickman Revolution style of story focused play and embrace of The Dungeon as a duel of whits between DM and player. While it wasn't explicitly adversarial, it was keen on recreating the elements necessary for that type of adversarial element to thrive. But yes...

And yet Gary is taken as The Word when it comes to how D&D should be played. The OSR started as "D&D as Gary intended". We had a whole blow up last summer about a book suggesting he was a little bit sexist and how what tarnished the legacy of Gygax. So I am not surprised that his flawed ideas on...

At the risk of turning this into a tech flame war, I 100% believe that.

I want to believe you. I'm sure the silent majority of players are completely normal people having completely normal fun. But I'm of the opinion that a lot of the advice that floated though the community for a while was not made by or for those normal people. They were made by people who either...

I think you are trying to redefine what is being discussed. Adversarial is not a play style. You are describing old school dungeon hack where the DM is taking on the primary role of challenging the players, but within the boundaries of fairness. The DM gives the players no favor, but isn't...

Or what

It certainly was more wide spread than the community was willing to admit. And a phenomenon not limited to D&D. The worst GM I've ever heard of (second hand) was Vampire Storyteller. Absolute killer DM who loved using antediluvians and werewolves to absolutely shred PCs.

Imagine how 1e clerics felt; they went 20 levels without any mechanics to differentiate them from clerics of other deities!

My dude, warforged are right there!

People make that reference as if it's a gotcha. TMNT was a small indie comic when tortles first appeared. Their popularity exploded with the cartoon and toy line (1988). Further, tortles were a Mystara race and part of Basic until that line was ended. Outside of Red Steel and the ill fated...