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You seem to have covered the bases. In my opinion, you're thinking about this the wrong way though. If you think about events in the way you've framed it above, nothing will ever seem very interesting (at least ... not to me). An adventure is essentially a short story. You need motivations and...

Even Starcraft's balance only works in strictly controlled competitive environment designed to foster that balance. You can't just play Starcraft on a random map and have a balanced game. I don't think that's a realistic model for D&D design.

It sounds like your desires as a GM are not lining up with what your players want from the game. It's not wrong to want to run a game that's more RP focused, but it's also not wrong to want to play a game that focuses on overcoming tactical challenges.

To be honest, I never really felt like it was the DM holding things up in 4E. Monsters have 1-3 abilities, occasionally a rider effect or conditional effect. The big slowdown is players, and in particular out of turn actions by players (which slow down everyone else's action resolution) as well...

I rarely enjoy D&D at higher levels, not because of poor support, but because the assumption is that high levels equate to comic-book levels of overpowered nonsense. I prefer games where characters have more comprehensible needs, desires, and motivations. D&D's default game rules quickly have...

I liked 4E's basic model of everyone being allowed one breather per combat, and specific characters having a little extra to spread around. The idea is fundamentally sound, it provides interest in combat without making it a death spiral. However I felt in 4E that players quickly accumulated too...

I'd generally prefer it if something like the Far Realm wasn't treated canonically, aside from hinting at it. Even hinting at it should be done through unreliable sources -- In other words, the only references you should find to something like the Far Realm are in the mad writings of a character...

It's not terribly surprising that gaming has an unusually high percentage of people who wish to escape into fantasy. That's the draw of gaming for many, and particularly for those with serious problems elsewhere in their lives. It also happens that gaming is a somewhat frowned upon subculture...

What I wouldn't mind seeing in 5E is a kind of template form for presenting a campaign (or campaign setting). The sort of thing that you can pass out to players as a pre-campaign template to give them a good idea of what to expect from a campaign. e.g. Are there any class or race restrictions...

I actually discovered the stats to the Lady of Pain scribbled in to an ancient Planescape boxed set that I found in an abandoned attic. I would be willing to transcribe this information for you for a small fee, so you can achieve elder-godhood.

Well I don't want to get too much into this but you continue to assert this as if it were fact and I don't feel like you've really demonstrated that it's the case. D&D doesn't have rules for a clean & jerk or any other extraordinary but unsustainable effort, but it's pretty clear those guys...

I don't see that the numbers in the game need to correspond with any real world measurements of Strength, Dexterity, etc, the numbers themselves provide differentiation without reference to the setting. Therefore I'm fine with ability scores being within a certain defined range if it improves...

That's a real example from my table, by the way. And no, the character 8 points below the other is the defender, not the spellcaster sitting in the back. There's no reason for these two characters to vary this much in narrative terms, just a consequence of system design that is too complex and...

What's there not to get when you've got a player with +10 to hit at the same table as the guy with a +2 to hit? A monster with AC 21 might be even odds to hit for the first guy, but is pretty unfair to the second. I don't see any way to resolve this situation except having the monster have...

5 range in my opinion. (Whether that's +0 to +5 or +5 to +10 doesn't matter.) There's no reason to inflate the numbers excessively, that's one of the big problems I have with 4E in general. If you get more than 5 away, it gets to the point where either one person automatically succeeds...

The XP value for magic items is an idea I thought up on the spot, so it's entirely possible it has problems. Although frankly I don't see players expecting 50% of the XP value for selling a magic item if it has no gold cost. Most people, in my experience, do not assume XP can change hands...

I feel like Wizards' business model with the whole D&D Insider subscription model is actually more at fault than in which book an item is placed. The assumption is that anything you can build in the Character Generator is legal, even if it's not DM-approved. I've seen on many occasions players...

Exactly what I want. (Wish I could XP.) It's simple and straightforward and allows DMs to choose what they want to do within their campaign, or even to change things up in the middle of the campaign without having to do massive amounts of work.

My early D&D gaming experiences never involved characters getting beyond 4th-5th level due to the mortality in earlier editions ... So I suppose that depends on whether you consider that "the lowest-level" or not. It was certainly never the case that everyone had magic weapons and armor. You...

Wish I could grant some more experience. I don't totally agree with the idea of taking morality out of the question when dealing with monsters. I like the option of it being there ... as an exception to the rule. But it's certainly okay for most characters to have no qualms about killing...