Quote from: Phillip;770034The second is thoroughly old fashioned, inasmuch as stuff that's TOTALLY IGNORED in old rules sets can nowadays take up many pages.

"Can I make horseshoes?" in early-edition Boot Hill was like, "Sure. Meanwhile, other folks are forming a posse to go after the Winston gang."

A lot of "new-school" stuff is lessons that are re-learned by people that came into the hobby during/through the heavy railroading/adventure path mindset.

Quote from: Phillip;770034The third is needlessly jarring. Why not just give the information, if it is at that point so little a game -- never mind an rp game -- that player strategy is irrelevant? What purpose is being served by your query? I see no point to it but dragging out something there's no reason to make more complicated.

Yeah, I kinda agree there.  I'm not sure of where that's a Fate thing, either.

Quote from: Bill;770018I don't know how it will feel in play, but it does seem an interesting way to handle group skill rolls. It looks to me as an attempt to deal with say, '10 pc's all make perception rolls can't really fail'

That's a really good example because it shows how the rule could work sometimes and not work sometimes. Fundamentally the rule says: if you can choose who rolls, only have your single best person roll.

But in an active search of an area, maybe you don't have time for one person to do everything. Still, finding what you're looking for is a matter of the person assigned to zone X succeeding on their roll. If I did this totally abstractly I'd pick one person at random and make them roll. In effect the chance of success is the average of the abilities. Which isn't the same chance as the group action RAW.

In a passive search (think moving cautiously while avoiding booby traps) you have no choice but to include everyone. But to what extent do extra eyes help the group and to what extent do extra bodies (springers of traps, distracters of eyes) hurt the group?

Quote from: Phillip;770034The third is needlessly jarring. Why not just give the information, if it is at that point so little a game -- never mind an rp game -- that player strategy is irrelevant? What purpose is being served by your query? I see no point to it but dragging out something there's no reason to make more complicated.

That's the ... point.

Sometimes people get sucked into a mechanistic trap of 'well, it's kind of relevant and cool that X statue is linked to Y religious symbol. I guess I have to make everyone have a knowledge (religion) check. Probably 1-3 people will succeed.'

OOOR... just go fuck it, and say 'Joe and Beth realize that the statue has religious significance...'

As Robiswrong points out, a lot of this is to help people who have been playing with big mechanical simulation kinda approaches to remember (or learn) that hey, they don't have to do it that way for everything.

If these points seem really obvious or not a problem for you... great! You go on being awesome.

Just, you know, not everyone is as awesome and enlightened.

I include my thoughts on inspiration in this play report from last night's demonstrations:  http://vengersatanis.blogspot.com/2014/07/d-5e-starter-set-success.html

For those who don't want to bother with clicking or reading the entire blog post, here's an excerpt...

QuoteInspiration, in conjunction with all the background elements, is awesome... a godsend.  It made roleplaying (wanting to speak in character and develop relationships, as well as, reasons for engaging in particular activities) easier.  If you think about it, roleplaying a character in front of strangers can be awkward or even nerve-wracking for introverts (about 50% of the table).  Inspiration as a game mechanic makes it less weird because now there's an in-game reason for mentioning your character's delusions of becoming king one day or asking socially inept questions around the campfire (So... how often do you masturbate?).  I've roleplayed with enough strangers and noobs in my life to know that the roleplaying that took place last night just does not happen with prior editions of D&D, Pathfinder, or 90% of the tabletop RPGs out there.  Even V:tM could do with something like inspiration!

VS

Quote from: Will;770013I'd love to see that for everything... maybe with some sort of, oh, fractal system.

One of my complaints about the last few editions of D&D is that the degree of detail/involvement of combat is pretty rigidly set, while everything else is mostly handwaved.

I'm not seeing a big change to that in 5e, despite commentary about 'modularity.'

Some of the microlite stuff, maybe...

what you speak about is the balancing of the game.  Each iteration of the game has been balanced around a different part of the game.  0D&D was balanced around the idea of exploration.  AD&D was balanced around the idea of the Campaign.  You are correct that as the game was recreate, Combat more and more became where the roles were balanced.  
It is the meta reason I want bolt-on modules, that change the balancing points.

I'm really hoping for good ability to tweak magic item balance (I hate +1 swords, I want sword of the gyre, which lets you spin past enemies. Or swords that make you really thin on command. Or...)

Also hoping for a good skill challenge system for lots of other stuff when desired.