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Be sticking with Basic/OSE for the foreseeable future. Will also be trying out Pendragon, Alien RPG, and some other ‘built for purpose’ games.

Agree. And I’d add OSE and OSE Advanced as well. We went “back” to Basic and then onto OSE, and are sticking there. Strangely enough, engaging with and interacting with the ‘worldwide community’ has soured a lot at our table to 5e, so there can be good and bad. The latest rounds of doom and...

Quit 5th, went back to Basic (running two separate, concurrent campaigns in Greyhawk), ended up switching happily OSE Advanced for those campaigns, and that’s where we seem to be staying.

Except it doesn’t really avoid the tropes, IMO, because many of those tropes are universal. I grabbed the Chronicles way back when, and always am checking it out to see what species (probably races in the book) I could pull to make things “different” in my fantasy worlds, and there really isn’t...

This right here. And, as we experienced in our multi-year campaign before jettisoning 5e, the HP bloat on characters and monsters doesn't really help at all. I know its sort of apples and oranges, but an Ad&d ancient red dragon had 88 max hit points. A 5e ancient red has 546hp (average! 812...

I spend just as much time changing and modifying stuff made by “professional designers” as by folks I’ve met here, or from kickstarter, or from random things I’ve bought on Drivethru or DMsGuilid. Being a professional does not automatically mean its useful or good. I mean, look at half the...

I would likely purchase a product like you described if it was hitting my sweet spot for the type of campaign I'm running (i.e. low magic, medieval, more 'standard' dndish, etc.). I can always change an NPC's name, or motivation. I can always change a forest's name. I can always change the...

Yes, except for Second Wind (more hp), average HP+ Con per level, fighting style benefits, plus potentially Feats (if we’re counting weapon specialization). My F2/W14 had 114 hp in 5e. My Ad&d Wizard at 12th level had 44. It’s pretty significant. And, at least at our table, in Ad&d we didn’t...

Iirc, a 1e bugbear, by way of comparison did 2d4 or by weapon type, same as a PC’s weapon. Now, the bugbear does 2d8+2. Why? HP bloat. Then all of a sudden healing can’t keep pace. I wonder why. Monsters need more HP, PCs need to do more damage, monsters need to do more damage, everyone...

We talk about and remember the deaths, near deaths, Slicer Beetle attacks, and other super threatening events waay longer than the "wins" or the successes. I had a cleric survive a Slicer Beetle attack (in Ad&d) that lost him a hand, and we still talk about that 40 odd years later. They make...

I have a tendency to hold campaign/adventure info too close to the chest. I always hope my players will talk to NPC's, ask questions, make connections between things, etc., and so I've been called "stingy" with my info. I'm working on it, but I also don't want to have to telegraph everything...

I just wanted to clarify, are you saying "as long as the wizard's spell doesn't fail"? I think that's exactly the thing. A fighter's attack can fail. A thief's stealth check can fail. A thief's attack for sneak attack damage can fail. Why are spellcasters given this blanket protection...

Now, I haven't read every response in the thread, so it may have been covered, but where I think spellcasting (in general) falls down is that there is usually a zero opportunity cost to using that particular "main" ability: Fighter/Barbarian/Ranger - attack (main ability) - roll d20 =...

Poor wording on my part. But in my opinion, 5e is moving toward “this is how you play”. Sure, check with your DM about any house rules, but be sure to be ready to accuse them of limiting you as a player. Be sure to check with your DM about what species you can play, but be sure to be ready to...

The ironic thing about the bolded above, is that when you listen to interviews/watch game play with "game designers" whether RPG or TT, what you invariably see (in my experience) is that these "designers" who want you to "play a certain way", DON'T actually play that particular way at their own...

@FitzTheRuke and @kronovan agreed with both comments. I think they weren't ready for the number of students, and I don't know why she didn't do what you said, and break them up, and maybe have students run the game. They ended up eventually breaking it up into two groups (the mostly RP group...

My son's gradeschool offers "electives" over the course of its trimesters: things like Chess, Logic Puzzles, Theatre, Finance, Video Editing, Newspaper/letter publishing, including DnD. My son loved it, but didn't love that 17 other people also signed up for it. Made for less a "party"...

I have one player in my group since high school (40 years), who still plays, and still optimizes the heck out of everything. My son who is 13 doesn't care about optimization, and would rather get on with the story and creative descriptions of the action (i.e. the rules get in the way for him)...

Yes. I played in a 5e "campaign" (Dragon Queen/Storm King) for a couple of years and found it, meh. I ran a campaign for over a year set in the Moonshaes 500 years before the "current" timeline in the Realms, homebrew, stealing ideas and lore from various sources, pulling interesting monsters...

The Oracle was included in the Best of Dragon Vol V. (Initially in Dragon #53) Of course, if you go to a level one Oracle, they can only dowse for water, oil, or metals (15% chance) or do some Numerology (8% chance). Better wait till they're higher level....