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The "book writing" metaphor is right on the money and is neither rude nor anything except good advice for newbie DMs who don't know exactly what they're doing and try to railroad adventures with the best intentions. It refers not most of the time, but *all* of the time to stuff like: DM: You...

My experience with the "Do something interesting and get XP" plan has been that is sounds really good in theory, falls apart in practice. Starts out really good, but by the time your players are on their 6th or 7th interesting-thing description to get XP you start to see eye-rolling and a...

Certain people who are in position of authority don't get to take the position of "just sharing opinion", since their opinion is viewed as more informed than most, and the sharing of it can have significant impact on people's opinions and behavior. For someone like Chris Pramas to be "just...

I LOVE your fix #2. Consider it yoinked :)

We (all of my group and myself) had the exact same complaint. Solution: make everybody do maximum damage on every hit, double-max damage on a critical hit. Worked like a charm let me tell you. 4e monsters have SO many hit points doing this actually makes it feel like real combat again. I would...

Without wanting to sound disparaging of the DMG, since I think it's a fantastic book and guide, it does include a few "bungles" in which it tries to give specific rules for specific situations when the normal skill check rules are best. The whole "Listening through doors" section is one such...

This is a weird issue because a decent portion of people report that every fight in 4e takes them two-plus hours to wrap up even after it's clear who won, while another decent portion of people report that combats are always fast and furious and finish nicely for them, while yet another decent...

Yes, you can do either, or you can do both. Depends on the group. For my group there are basically three modes of playing, adventuring/combat, shopping, and skill-using mini-games for everything else. (Hm maybe that's a better word for what I'm looking for... skill mini-games... seems like it...

Yep, this is exactly what I am getting at, the dynamic of the situation itself gives birth to the structure of the rolling and the actual consequences of the dice within the scene. But you see how the system doesn't make any differentiation between the "success = more reward" type challenge and...

I can absolutely, totally recommend #51.5 The Sinister Secret of Whiterock as one of the best dungeon crawls I have ever played, and one of several modules that made Harley Stroh my top adventure writer (the only name that would actually make me stop and look at an adventure just because of who...

Hm, interesting, I guess everybody's experience is different... can't generalize and so on... and I'm sure if I hung around the WotC CharOp boards more I would have a different view of what 'online' is about, but I like it over here more (the black background is nice :) ).

Ha, I would agree 100% with this, very well said. We fight combats and explore dungeons and adventures and then tell stories about what happened in those adventures... as opposed to talking out a story and putting it on hold every once in a while to have a combat about something inside of it...

I can't quite put my finger on it, but there's some sort of disconnect between what goes on online and what actually happens in "real world" D&D... when I'm reading ENWorld I'm constantly bombarded with how much more awesome stories and roleplaying and getting into character are and how...

Thanks, I'm glad it was interesting to you, though it doesn't seem to have generated much a response... probably cause it's not very controversial or anything.. I just think we'd would be better off if we realized that there are many equally good ways to do complex group skill stuff, and that...

LOL, well I only started DMing a year ago when 4e came out. I have no experience with 3e or any other system and I am pretty happy running my game sessions as little more than a tabletop version of Final Fantasy Tactics. I also leave almost every session with a feeling of "Man I could have done...

So, as a newbie DM I've been running and experimenting with what I've been calling "skill challenges" for a while now. Over time I've watched people's confusion and frustration with this part of 4e wax and wane, and the definition of what really is a skill challenge define itself more and more...

Look at this. It's a marble. Just a glass marble. People bid $4,350 on it. Guy didn't sell it. He wants $9,000 for it. Realistic? You betcha. Stuff like this goes on every day. That's the thing with the people who cry foul with D&D's supposed economic system, about how the buying or selling...

Heh, meanwhile my group and I played last night with max damage and loved it. Granted, we didn't go up against any solos... mostly 'equal number of equal level enemies of two or three different roles' type of encounters. The system worked like a charm... fast, swingy, exciting at every moment...

Well, you do have a party of level 3's fighting level 1 monsters. I've been doing some playthroughs of some combats to prepare for my sunday game and I've found the max-damage thing makes lower-level monsters into a step above minions (something which I personally find to be appropriate)...

Actually, if you're looking for the most simplicity without the squirliness of double damage, why don't you just do: normal hits are max damage, critical hits are max damage plus max "critical-triggered" damage, including high-crits and whathaveyou. Seems the best of both worlds for what you want :)