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But would you not agree that addressing the uncertainty --- where play proceeds down one path or the other --- by having the players read into your performance of the liar/truth-teller is at least coming to the same "think they know or not know" decision point as if they made Sense Motive...

You're not wrong. To some degree I feel like my role as GM, even with the linear system, is to say "let me worry about that". Not that I'm trying to gatekeep their system mastery or anything, but at some point it all boils down to trust that I'm setting sensible DCs and picking the right...

Incidentally and just my opinion of course, but for me, trying to model the ends of the bell curve as described here, off the cuff, is where things fall over for me, despite liking the idea of bell curves, a lot. Having to quickly reverse engineer the "feel" of a 16 vs. 15 vs. 12 and then...

I like a simple universal check like a roll high d20 based on abilities because it's easy to resolve on the player side (unless you have a gazillion modifiers in the system): pick up die, roll die, add a couple numbers, higher is better. Savage Worlds' simple mechanic, different die based on...

AFAIK I never argued whether or not it was a "new game". It is a revision, which means that which is not the same as the previous thing. Conveying that difference (when relevant) is what's important. The label(s) in use don't as long as the point gets across.

I think you've lost the plot here. They are clearly not the same game or else there would not be a revision to talk about, and you admit the revision exists. What's a normal way to denote a revision? A ".X". Or a year. Or a whole new number, Or "Next". Who cares? This isn't a thing to get worked...

Heck I'll even call other games "D&D" depending on the audience. My wife doesn't care if I'm playing "D&D" or "13th Age" or "bss's Basement Nerd Times". But you're right, the label matters to those who care to distinguish, which is generally in the context of caring about the rules and/or...

Okay, what are we calling older-than-current-5e then? 4.999e?

This is a bewildering reading of the situation. The narrative can provide options or the player can go "well, I didn't like that character anyway", whether or not you find them agreeable or expedient or if they are expeessed as game rules has nothing to do with the fact that the options exist...

Even in character, it's entirely reasonable the majority of the time that the knowers and not-knowers are talking such that someone is able to explain what's going on to the rest, such that I don't think character secrets are a real thing (someone intentionally withholding information aside)...

Fair enough. It would be a huge surprise to me, even absent their strategy for D&D, to the point that I think it'd be a blunder, but I can't rule it out either.

"Rules as Data" isn't magic, at some point the program needs the development to understand each system's idioms, and for a live service it would need upkeep and other maintenance --- be it feature expectations or making sure 5.5e changes didn't break the 3e rules engine or whatever. Maintaining...

1: No. 2: A railroad is when there is only one (or very few) way(s) for the adventure to progress, and so it shall progress. It can happen because of a closed adventure design, where there is one line of set dominos and the whole material depends on the party taking a specific action or there's...

For me, it's a bit of the anxiety as above. It's less about my content and more just committing to being "on" rather than playing a board game. There's a lot of energy that gets spent being the one running the game. But the rest of it is worth it, so I do it. On the high level question, I...

The point of the FUD isn't to assert foregone truths, it's to allude to enough risk that you get what you want anyway. This conversation has me thinking about what actual good will measures would be, again, and my thought is that if WotC really wanted to make good with the community, they would...

Yeah, that's how FUD works. Until the point WotC actually took any action against a party for using the v1.0a license (which they never did, they never even finalized a license that suggested they could), and that action succeeded, they're just invoking fear by way of hypothetical lawsuits. That...

Right, that the OGL v1.0/v1.0a could --- would --- be revoked by a WotC decree was essentially them spreading FUD that got folks worked up. The aftermath is the result of that FUD.

For 13A 2E it's only ("only") 32 products, assuming their copyright notices are complete, a lot of which are owned by Fire Opal Media or Pelgrane Press, so that'd probably grease the skids if it got to that point. It is a lot to unravel, for sure, but if there is value in replacing the OGL with...

To describe my "off-ramp" idea a bit, since it's related to what you were and are saying: I think the most (universally) valuable ramification of releasing the 3.5 SRD as CC BY (or, IMO, ideally CC BY-SA) would be that it'd make possible a domino effect of letting 3.5 SRD-derived products...

For works that were benefiting from the OGL 1.0a, or were going to, the answer at the time was "nobody knows" and that was because of how WotC positioned their claim in terms of being able to no longer authorize that license. I think it was often but not universally believed that WotC probably...