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I probably should have reported this as a thinly-veiled attempt to start an edition war, but then I remembered how "spiky-haired, emo-kid bastard lovechild of Dragonball and Mad Max/Junkyard Wars" is a great description of Dark Sun (or maybe Planescape?), TSR-era settings that I hold very dear...

Honestly? If I was on the D&D design team, and some WotC manager came into the room yelling "make the best RPG ever!" I'd quit on the spot. Can't you be just a little specific? Ask 100 gamers what the "best RPG" is and you get 400 answers. And worse? "The best D&D ever" isn't better. D&D has...

A good example for reflavoring comes from the Feng Shui RPG. There is a spell called "Blast", which is pretty much a template for all straightforward "I attack the darkness" type spells. It has a fixed attack roll and damage, and everything else is flavored by the player. You can shoot...

Variety is the spice of life. I've had sessions that were entirely interaction, and sessions that were entirely combat. Either is fine. As a player, I want the DM to offer both interaction and combat, and make both engaging and fun. Then I'm fine with any percentage between them.

Assimilate When you reach out and touch your opponent, tendrils emerge from your hands and assimilate the enemy like a Borg. Attack: as melee touch attack + z condition. I definitely want a strict separation between rules text and in-world description. First of all, it's faster if you need to...

Really, you had hundreds of ways to prepare for this in advance or solve it on the spot... (1) Not make it a problem. So there is a 1-1 session while the group waits. It happens. (2) Not rely on the trade-in item as the only way. Ok, so he shows up to pick up item 2 without item 1. You're not...

1) Within the D&D family ("d20 games") The D&D family is HUGE by now... 2) Quick(ish) learning curve from 4E Most d20 systems are fairly complex once you dig into them, because they're derived from the rather fiddly, system mastery happy D&D 3.0. Some derivates, like Fantasy Craft, heap even...

If I understood Mike Mearls at the PAX panel correctly, he said that they want to make the game easier to understand for new players and DMs. And frankly, with D&Ds brand name and market share, it's the most likely first contact for any new player. It better be open to newcomers to make sure...

DMing style and the game rules are separate elements of an RPG. You can DM every game Hackmaster style - even Spirit of the Century. The question is rather whether the game advocates that style or not. As in pro wrestling, there are two types of Hackmaster fans - those who think this is how an...

I'm not particularly married to hit points. Come back with a better mechanic, and we'll talk. The issue I have with the alternatives is that none is that simple. With hit points, you just add up your damage, and when the damage is more than X, you're out of the fight. I've yet to see an...

"Raw Muscle" should have been a 3E/4E skill. I guess in 5E it could be handled as a class/background bonus to strength checks. There are a lot of things Fighters should be good at outside of combat: keeping watch (Perception), keeping their armor and weapons in shape (Craft), climbing...

The inofficial "List of things that always get suggested for any new edition of D&D, but never implemented" (outside of Unearthed Arcana), looks something like... 1. Classless system / point buy 2. Limit to 4 classes 3. Limit to 4 races / race as class again 4. 7th ability score (any) 5. Armor...

StreamOfTheSky: It's an interesting idea, but it's not D&D 5E. If you want to build it into an RPG, which I think you should, you should market it as a new system, not a version of D&D.

I think the answer is to consider game elements on their own merits, not by the year / edition they were introduced. OD&D: Simple core. 5E needs a basic box that contains about as much stuff as the original white box. AD&D: multiclassing. There is something dead simple about the concept of...

If I understand correctly, 5E core rules won't require battlegrid and miniatures. (Is this confirmed?) If there is no battlemat, the position of PCs and monsters isn't as fixed, so there won't be attacks of opportunity. (At least not in the current form) I'd say Opportunity Attacks are a prime...

I'm in the playtest so I have to be careful not to spoil the surprises. Besides, the current playtest version and the final product may be quite different. What I can say is that the PR blurb does describe the system quite well. If you look at everything Jonathan Tweet and Rob Heinsoo have...

Who said you need to be consistently evil? That's the great part - good has to be consistently good, and will get in great trouble for evil acts, while evil will often commit "good" acts to further its evil agenda. After all, how else do you keep a positive reputation in public? How else do you...

Here is a tale from my all evil campaign... I once DMed an all dark elf campaign, and one PC decided to steal an item that belonged to the house. Too bad, he also had the "slave" disadvantage, while several other PCs were nobles of said house. They promptly caught and executed him. Obviously...

D&D 3.5 is a fine game, but it requires deep system mastery on the side of the GM that matches your most tactical-minded player. As a DM who is still learning the ropes and finding his style, it's not the best system to run. What you describe can happen too easily. Ask yourself: Do I really...

To make a long story short, point-buy systems have been around since the early 80ies. They have clear advantages over class/level systems, but specific drawbacks too. Point buy variants of D&D have existed since the 1980ies too, but never really caught on. So yeah, if you want to make a D&D...