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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Aldarc" data-source="post: 8315940" data-attributes="member: 5142">Honestly, I think that 5e's flexibility is more a reflection of its market position privilege than any real inherent quality or design of the game. For example, people said much the same thing about 3e D&D and the d20 system when it was the market leader. Is 3e really more flexible than earlier iterations of D&D? That's of course highly debateable, but the great flexibility of 3e was a talking point about 15-20 years ago. And people were saying the same about 2e and 1e before that. What's the most flexible system? I bet 9 out of 10 times it will be the person's preferred system, and that may very well be their flavor of the month system.But is 5e's skill resolution system really all that flexible even for a d20 game? There are a number of people and threads here where people have complained about the barebones skill system, its vagueries, and its amorphous GM advice on running skill checks. I don't think we should confuse its intentional underdesign as being indicative of any actual flexible design. Pick a number for the skill DC is hardly novel or unique to 5e or D&D. Rulings not rules, IMHO, is not so much about "flexibility" as it is about off-loading the design and play process from the designers to the GM. And sometimes the "flexibility" that some people profess about 5e flirts dangerously with the Oberoni Fallacy.Moreover, there are so many d20-based games that have easier or quicker resolution systems than 5e. Black Hack? A simple roll-under your ability score system. Shadow of the Demon Lord? If you're doing what amounts to an ability check, you just have to beat a 10. There are also no skills or proficiencies to slow down the play,* though banes and boons do. If one were playing the Cypher System, the failure/success of the test is resolved on the die roll itself, and you just have to beat the Target Number set by the GM.* Yes, these things slow down the play. We can pretend that everyone has these pre-calculated and added together with their ability modifier, but we all know that's not true. Nearly every table has at least once player who has to be reminded to add these things together.But the Cypher System also mostly has free-form skills. Is that more or less flexible than D&D 5e's skill list? Seems that way to me. SotDL: You get a boon to ability checks based on your profession/background. That seems more flexible than D&D 5e.What is the actual intrinsic quality of 5e D&D that somehow makes it magically more flexible than indie games that isn't fundamentally either an implict ad populum argument or one that just begs the question regarding 5e's "flexibility"?</blockquote>

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