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As seems often the case, I'll be an exception to this theory. As a player I dive deep into setting lore, but the concept of "playing out [an] entire campaign" is somewhat foreign as the campaigns I'd want to play in are those that have no pre-planned end point and that are, going in, intended...

Indeed. I've had this same discussion with at least one other poster here, around whether fun in the moment matters or whether hindsight taints the memories too much. To me, for the most part fun-in-the-moment is all that matters: I can think of one failed campaign I played in the mid-80s...

Ideally, magic is reliable unless you get interrupted while casting. On interruption, the Big Slot Machine fires up and who knows what - if anything - happens next. And I have an in-fiction rationale for why this is, if anyone cares: The other time the Big Slot Machine goes through its...

I don't use spell schools, and linking it to spell level - while a fine idea - adds another layer of complexity to the tables, along with more rolling....or means I need a diferent table for each spell level, which would get cumbersome real quick. :)

The latter, to me, isn't an issue. After a few lucrative adventures, adventurers always have the option of retiring and living well off the proceeds; and that they choose to keep adventuring is an intentional choice.

I have no problem with merchants and - more importantly - nobles being able to buy magic items. Adventurers won't (and IMO shouldn't) be the only market for such things. And I think it should be an in-character choice whether to eat well and not buy that last potion, or buy that last potion...

I'd posit more that you've been woefully unlucky. That said, if your preference for short ultra-fast-paced campaigns comes out in how you approach session 0 or session -1, there might be a bit of self-selection going on here; in that committed long-haul DMs might think your preferences and...

I'd look more to discussing how, given that they're in the Monster Manual, all Nobles must by definition be monsters... :)

He clarified later that his character was concerned that the door might be a Mimic. Or they're just trying to entertain the other players (I see this often). Or they're trying to spice up a dull moment due to, either in or out of character, boredom (I see this often too: in-character is might...

The way I have it, the only way you'd ever be able to summon a demon via casting Detect Magic would be to have your casting interrupted and then hit some very unlikely (and unlucky!) rolls on the surge table. That, and I've tried to make sure the odds of getting a major bad surge are vaguely...

Or we can just get a whole lot less hung up on missing a turn or ten, and accept it as a known aspect of the game - no matter what class or character we're playing at the time - that not everyone is going to be involved all the time.

Fair. I see wild magic as much more an arcane/Mage thing (and, if they must be casters, a Bard thing) than a divine/Cleric thing. Clerics have deities behind them making sure things work properly. Again fair, though I'd rather see those three classes concatenated into two (I've never really...

Having just one currency forces choices on what to spend it on. Having a different currency for each thing takes away that choice.

Better yet, "spell does something random". You gathered the magic but didn't release it in quite the way you intended, and who knows what happens now? Summon an angel? Or a demon? Heal everyone in the room? Kill someone in the room? Make flowers sprout out of someone's shield? Make...

Even though I 'like'd this post and agree with most of it, I take great issue with this piece. Why would I ever want to talk a player out of being, to use your term, 'lolrandom'? Those crazy out-of-nowhere actions are often where a lot of the unexpected fun comes from! I'm a big proponent of...

Exactly. People are (mis)taking "local" to mean "local to wherever the character happens to be at the time" rather than the more reasonable "local to where the character was a criminal before adventuring".

This last is where we disagree: the ravine is just as much a part of "the adventure" as is fighting the BBEG or sneaking past her gate guards. It's not pointless at all. Sure, the odds of something going wrong in that case are very low, but - and this is the important point - they are not...

Seems to me you didn't quite read what I wrote. :) To refresh your memory: it's a given they'll succeed at getting out of the ravine. The roll - just one roll for the whole party - serves as a guide to how easy/painless/quick that success was. If they roll particularly poorly on the party...

What would happen if all the spells were in one great big "bucket", as it were, for each level without division into spheres or schools? That's what I was getting at when thinking of wizards ending up with random and probably unique spell lists. ...and locks, and treasure chests, and...

Yeah, I think there's a bigger difference than that; and it's one of intent and the timing of said intent. If the specific intent before starting play is to tell or craft a story, play wil be quite different than if the specific intent is to just do stuff and only in hindsight see what (if any)...