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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 6585955" data-attributes="member: 996">13th Age, yes.  I've played it at conventions a few times, run it once.  It's a very D&D-like game, much as the authors stated was their intent.  It has a few cool little mechanics that you can easily lift for D&D, which also seems like part of the point.   It's a little amusing that 13A went full-bore into a couple of things that 5e intended to do but didn't carry through on, like being played 'TotM' by default, backgrounds determining skills, and even arbitrarily differentiating classes with mechanics, while not completely sacrificing encounter balance (through the heavy-handed rubric of quick rests after every encounter, full heal ups every 4th encounter, and campaign losses for deviating from the formula).Can't say I enjoy running it as quite much as 5e, and playing has definitely been hit or miss (even though I've played with DMs whom I know from past experience are very good).  But it hits the basics: clear, roughly balanced, playable.   It might not be easy to understand, but it's hard to deny.  Hobbyists do get very obsessive, 'fan' is just short for 'fanatic.'  People really care about this stuff. It's an issue, yes.  You can try to separate fact from emotion, but it's very difficult to keep it separate, both because you get sick of typing weasel-words, and because people just won't let you put anything in the 'fact' box if it challenges their preconceived notions.  The insistence that 'everything is subjective' comes up over and over again, to dismiss even the most solidly supported logic - let alone more tenuous supported ideas like the ones being brought up here. There are things that are clearly objective mechanics - the d20 core dice resolution mechanic is what it is, you can calculate average DPR for a certain fighter build, there's no arguing the number of slots a class gets at a certain level, etc - there are emotional reactions to them that can be positively contradictory, even from the same poster.  And then there are things about mechanics that are qualitative, not quantitative, but still not entirely subjective, yes.  And those get /very/ hard to discuss rationally.</blockquote>

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