NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 8793631" data-attributes="member: 29398">Your first paragraph above makes the case perfectly for why the answer to the second shouuld be - as far as practical - yes.Gaps like the difference between Natural Spell and Toughness are exactly the sort of thing that, ideally, you pick up on and fix before they ever hit the table.  Or, second-best, you pick up on and fix the first time either one enters play.Almost 50 years in and the hobby's still chugging right along; and IMO this system-review piece has been a soft requirement since day one.IMO most if not all of the complaints about any system stem from the DM or GM not going over it first and instead blindly trusting the designers to have got it right.  And sometimes they do get it right, but you won't know that until you're alreayd playing; and if they got it wrong, by then it's too late.Ah.  Went right over my head.From 1e/OSR - roll-under-stat as a type of check, particularly for non-physical things e.g. remembering something or persuading someone.Benefits: greater granularity; every stat point becomes meaningful (not just the even numbers), any character can do it; and - meta - it keeps things interesting as rolling high isn't always beneficial.Drawback: doesn't work in systems like 3e where stats higher than 20 are fairly common.Incorrectly seen as drawback: disunification of rolling mechanics.That definition can apply to every RPG ever written. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />  The only variables are how big a variety of players and how big is the tent's coverage area.Yes, and IMO D&D ought to aim for this goal at least in a broad sense: instead of promoting a playstyle, be playstyle-neutral and support everyone.That's the problem with a big-tent system - it does include all those things, even though some might not like those inclusions.I mean, while you like dragonborn and warlords I've no use for either; but we should both still be able to reside in the same tent.The best word in the designer's lexicon is "optional". <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Down to the smallest detail, that's overkill.  Knowing it well enough to at least be able to red-flag possible headaches in play (or, if simple, fix them up front), yes; and that includes red-flagging and-or fixing things that might not work for your specific table.And (I hope) obviously, I'm speaking to and about experienced DMs here.  New DMs often have little choice but to go with what's in the books until they learn what works for them and what doesn't.</blockquote>

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