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I’m not going to respond point by point, but I have been generally thinking of something similar to this for a while, possibly with the added complexity of something like speed factors, not to the granularity of 1e, but in the “Immediate actions go first, then some system for things that take...

I have mixed feelings about Kelsey’s decision to use advantage to reflect skill bonuses in Shadowdark. Because while I appreciate the elegance of it, it takes away the reason I loved Advantage/Disadvantage in 5e in the first place, which is that one can do away with tons of fiddly “circumstance...

I think I would like Level Up if I were not pathologically opposed to making 5e (especially combat) more complex and tedious. I’ve mentioned this before, but I sword fight as a hobby, so most attempts to add complexity to combat moves just translates to “more unrealistic naughty word that bugs the...

You mean like Ned or Robb Stark, or John Snow; all of whom have multiple skills, are well-learned, persuasive, and can survive in the wilderness, track, sneak, ride, and are reasonably athletic? Or the many knights of Arthurian and other Chivalric romance who are almost always skilled woodsmen...

That's similar to the sort of thing that led to my thinking. There are a ton of (non-spellcasting) fighter heroes in fiction that clearly don't fit into the "Thief/Rogue" archetype. But they are still good at things like sneaking, scouting, and the like. If the Ranger has to be a spellcaster...

Actually, I think the bigger problem with 5e (and 2024 exacerbates it) is that there's only TWO classes in the game for people who don't want to play a "magic-user:" Fighter and Rogue (as long as you avoid the magical subclasses. Monks have Ki abilities and Barbarians have access to...

Boromir is clearly a fighter. It could be argued he’s an NPC, but he’s still a fighter. Jackson films notwithstanding, the heaviest armor in Middle-Earth is mail. And nobody in the Fellowship but Gimli (and Frodo) wears any until they get to Helm’s Deep. Boromir carries a shield. The fighter...

Agree to disagree. The game needed a way to resolve characters being good at things other than combat, and basing it entirely on attributes is overly simplistic. If a DM had a way to handle that, what they had done was homebrew a “skill system.”

Okay, so this may be a bit of a "hot take," but I've realized that part of the problem in fantasy RPGs in general, and D&D-adjacent games specifically, goes to what I think of as a somewhat silly trope: "Fighters" who are only good at, well, fighting. When you go back to OD&D, there were just...

Dream World: HBO produces this Baldur's Gate sequel series. Netflix produces a series set in the Dalelands. Either they do The Knights of Myth Drannor, or they do a series set in the current Realms about an entirely new group.

I find it interesting that Pathfinder 2e, Nimble and a few other games have figured out the sweet spot for actions in a single round is 3, with a scaling discouragement for trying to just attack or spell cast repeatedly. I think DC20's 4 is too many, and I think it's important that you have...

I think that there's already a ton of games vying for this general space, among which I would include both Vagabond and Nimble, but I've been working on a rules hack of my own that lives in exactly this spot. The devil is in the details, of course, and I know I won't be the first person to try it.

Based on the scale given, I voted 5. If D&D 5e and SWADE are a 6, and Shadowdark/OSR D&D is somewhere around 4, I want something between them. But to me, the devil is in the details of how you simplify.

As someone who still owns Mutants & Masterminds 2e, is there anything in 3e that people feel is dramatically improved? One of the things I always liked about M&M is that once bonuses passed +10, you replaced it with another d20. I always felt it kept things interesting and die rolls relevant.

I have always felt Half-Elves work best when you think of them as D&D's "Dunedain." They are descended from Elves, live longer than other Humans, and have certain "Elven" traits. In Tolkien's legendarium, Half-elves who have an Elven parent are given a choice, and that choice was granted to all...

DC20 by the Dungeon Coach certainly counts. There's a ton of rules hacks and other games out there that nominally share 5e's DNA, but it's debatable to call them "5e variants." Many of them adhere far more closely to the numerical values (bonuses and hit point wise) of either B/X, AD&D, or 3e...

Because "better" is subjective. I find streamlining to be what I think of as "modern." I don't (personally) like looking up tables. I don't like there being multiple resolution subsystems.Some people prefer dice mechanics to be tailored to particular situations. Some people would interpret...

I'd also say that you could freely pilfer things from most other OSR subsystems to work with Knave. For instance, I think Shadowdark's roll to cast magic system, and Luck/Deathbringer Dice and a subsystem like "Mighty Deeds of Arms" from Dungeon Crawl Classics would be natural add-ons to Knave...

For me, "Modern" game design means "streamlined" and not having different fiddly subsystems for everything. Do I have to look something up on a chart or table every time? That's not "modern." Do I use a different subsystem for resolving a particular category of task for a reason other than...

The TV show “Grimm” called its boar/pig-Wesen “Bauerschwein.” Do with that what you will.