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It's a lot easier to say "Wanna start a D&D game?" than "Wanna start a [any other TTRPG] game?" "What's [any other TTRPG]?" "It's D&D but ..." 5e is easy to learn, and I can at least try to add or change things to mold it into the game I want it to be. I wouldn't know where to begin making...

I was having trouble articulating what I felt was a true issue with 5e, and this post kind of answered it perfectly. 5e was designed to limit interesting choices. Think about it. What choices do you make when leveling up your character? Ignoring for the moment feats and multiclass, since...

Nope. Any shift of players from 5e to another system, or even from buying WotC books to 3rd party books, is a win for those players and for the hobby overall.

I agree, making it too complicated makes the system unapproachable. But not having any wrinkles built in puts it all on the shoulders of the DM to make the game mechanically interesting. If I am paying for a complete game, I shouldn't have to make up rules for everything. Tweaking something...

I want systems that interact with each other. Everything is disconnected in 5e and while that makes it very approachable, it makes it so the rules don't really support much more than the basics. "OK, your opponent is grappled. His movement speed is 0. But he wouldn't have moved anyway...

No. The OGL is the final straw, but the last year of garbage releases (naval setting with no ship to ship rules, mass combat setting with no mass combat rules, etc) had already soured me on D&D products.

I was purchasing every book on release whether I'd use it or not, I'm a sucker for fancy covers. I skipped Mordenkainen because of WotC's limited exclusivity BS, and then when Spelljammer was a dud I started giving my money to Paizo instead.

I've thought a lot about this too and reached some of the same conclusions you did. What finally pushed me to house rule it was actually trying to play as a low con arcane caster, a la Raistlin Majere. It turns out that most monsters won't 100-0 a level 1 character with 8 hp (which is about...

Matt has also shut down this kind of deus ex machina in the past, like when a certain player tried to get his father's army to deal with the thread instead of just playing Dungeons and Dragons.

In addition to the general non-choice blahness of the 5e weapons table, I think automatic proficiency is a huge problem. I'm looking specifically at Bards and Rogues here: "You haven't had extensive weapons training but don't worry, you can get an exception to use the mechanically strongest...

<snip> No.

I do not like the 5e wand implementation, where they are essentially free extra spell slots each day recharging infinitely. That said, I also don't like wands that no one ever uses because they might need them more later. My homebrew version of wands (and most other things that can spend a...

Artificer - delete it. Save it for the "Over-the-hill-wizard's Bucket of Ideas That Weren't Good Enough for the First Book" supplement. Barbarian - delete it and make it a subclass of fighter Bard - make it more like warlock than just "wizard that sings". I like the idea from OP of songs...

My campaign world suffered some horrible but nonspecific calamity in the past, with a few smallish countries spared immediate destruction, but the vast majority of the overland is an ash covered wasteland where nothing lives. The gnomes, in the face of this tragedy, flew their airships out to...

The I can't fix everything rule - I want my players to play as the characters they want. There are lots of illusionary choices in 5e character design, places where you're presented with a host of options but really only a couple are right and all the rest are wrong. I'm just one person and not...

Xanathar's, because at least most of the subclasses presented there could reasonably fit in the type of D&D game I want to play. Tasha's subclasses were clearly designed by a 5th grade class and edited by a 3rd grade class, neither of which had ever played D&D. As a DM, I would rather my...

I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Sometimes it's ok for one character to shine in a given challenge, instead of all the characters shining all the time. Sometimes the fighter can grapple the enemy while the rogue can dance in, hit hard, disengage, and get out, leaving only the...

Paladine 24 Branchala 3 Majere 17 Mishakal 21 Solinari 13 Gilean 20 Chislev 18 Reorx 14 Shinare 21 +1 = 22 Sirrion 20 Zivilyn 19 Lunitari 21 Takhisis 21 Hiddukel 9 Morgion 20 -2 = 18

Paladine 20 Branchala 20 Habbakuk 13 Kiri-Jolith 7 Majere 18 Mishakal 19 Solinari 20 Gilean 22 Chislev 20 Reorx 21 Shinare 20 +1 = 21 Sirrion 20 Zivilyn 20 Lunitari 19 Takhisis 23 Chemosh 15 Hiddukel 18 Morgion 20 -2 = 18 Sargonnas 16 Nuitari 13 I don't think Shinare's name is mentioned even...

What I want as a DM, and why I encourage floating ASIs, is a group of characters that fits the campaign. I don't want my players to select their race based on what best fits their class, I want them to select their race based on what best fits the setting first, and then on concept. If I don't...