But these games weren't published by "the general public". They were published by people in our hobby. Just people in our hobby who had somehow missed out on every game ever made since the publication of AD&D or AD&D2. I mean I know my general level of obsessive "I gotta know" is unusual, but I submit so is their degree of active avoidance of even basic human curiosity.

Not everyone "in our hobby" is actually deep into it like us, nor do non-D&D games have multi-million-dollar marketing machines so people outside of the inner circle actually understand that these games exist. And remember, this was before it was common knowledge that EVERYTHING has a community online. They might well have honestly thought that if it's not advertised, it doesn't exist, and therefore their game was totally the first competition for D&D EVAR (when it absolutely wasn't).

I'm not sure how you could be in the '90s, walk into a game store to get your AD&D books, and not see at the very least the White Wolf books and Call of Cthulhu. And quite possibly a bunch of other smaller-press books. Even comic shops in the early to mid '90s had more variety and selection in RPGs than modern game shops¹ tend to have.

So there's "not being obsessed" and then there's "must be wearing some very heavy blinders". And the people who published those AD&D fixes in the '90s had to have been wearing blinders with pinholes in them.

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¹ In my Summer 2024 trip across Canada I made a point of visiting many game shops and they were shockingly almost all board games with a few minor D&D selections; like not even the core rules of D&D. Ottawa and Calgary were the only two places that had respectable RPG selections in some shops; Fandom II in Ottawa and the Sentry Box in Calgary. In the late '80s and early '90s even a cow town like Regina, Sasksatchewan had three game shops with decent RPG selection.

A couple years ago at a bar I was talking to a guy, and he mentioned he'd started playing DND. I went, "oh cool. Which edition?"

He said, "what?". He didn't know there were other editions. He didn't know there were other RPGs. I think about this a lot and try to remember a lot of people aren't really deep in the hobby. They show up once a week to play a game with their friends, and that's about where it stops. Which is fine. Totally valid way to spend your leisure time. But very different than where I went.

Well there's d&d and advanced d&d.. At least that's how I remember it.

As I said, it sounds like my personal hell. I do not believe the average person is good at making up rules, and thus many bad outcomes are more likely.

If the other people are proposing bad rules, it's probably some combination of

• Play with the bad rule and am annoyed
• Try to convince them to change the rule, and that's not fun
• Don't realize it's a bad rule until it has unwanted consequences

I really don't want the game to grind to a halt because we realized mid session that the interaction of rules is making Bob super effective, and now we need to untangle this in a way that Bob won't feel attacked and Alice won't feel useless.

If I just wanted to fool around with some friends, and we wanted to do an RPG, Fate is right there. It even encourages you to build on top of it.

I think you... Don't get it. You're coming at this as a "My competitive ranked TTRPG where I play only optimal builds and make optimal actions won't benefit from loose rules"

Literally sitting down at a table with some beer and pretzels and just improv gaming is fun as hell. Not all the time but to shake things up? Sounds great.

This has nothing to do with builds. Fate, the game I said I'd play, doesn't really have builds.

This is all about not wanting to have to spend a lot of time arguing with people, or playing a game I don't like. Those are the two most likely outcomes. People will propose bad rules, and we either argue or I suck it up. There are so many common ideas in RPGs that I really don't enjoy, but are popular nonetheless. I don't want to stop the game and argue that "save or die" kind of sucks, and if we kill Alex's character now like that a. they're probably going to be unhappy just look at their face and b. what are they going to do the rest of the night?

(Or I'll propose rules that won't achieve the desired goals very well, because I'm also not such a good designer I can nail things on the first try)

Maybe with some hypothetical spherical frictionless group of players that are all on the same page about rules and design it would be fun. But that doesn't seem to exist in the real world. We live in a world where people go "Let's use D&D for a game of political intrigue! Wait, why does the fighter barely have anything to do and gets bad results on every check he does make? Why weren't they scared when the antagonist pulled a knife on them??"

Yeah, no you don't get it.

arguing with people, or playing a game I don't like

...yeah so if you're the kind of player who argues and fights at the table. Maybe stick to structured games with clearly defined rules.

People will propose bad rules, and we either argue or I suck it up

Again, people do this when 'friends' want to just play a goofy made up game over some carbs

Let's use D&D for a game of political intrigue!

Again....this isn't your scenario. I don't know what to tell you. You're conflating taking game systems and adding other mechanics to it and just goofing around and making it up as you go.

It's okay to say "I need a game with explicit structure and rules". That's fine too, but maybe don't argue with your players though.

…yeah so if you’re the kind of player who argues and fights at the table. Maybe stick to structured games with clearly defined rules.

You ignored the "or play a game I don't like" part. That is what this process is extremely likely to create. Go look at the blog post again. Go look at those rules.

Furthermore, the process described in the blog post is

When a rule is needed, everyone at the table quickly discusses what the gameplay should feel like and what rule(s) would support that. If a majority of players agree on the rule (voting is necessary only if there is dissent)

Arguing is built right into the process! Someone proposes a rule, and you talk about it. And you know what I don't want to do? Discuss the merits of rules mid-session. Especially large systems like "how does magic work?" or "can you change someone's mind?". That sounds awful. It's one thing to do a quick "Do you think Alex can climb a ladder with this 'Broken Arm' consequence?" discussion in Fate. It's a whole other thing to invent aspects whole cloth, and then try to integrate them with whatever else people came up with this week.

Or, if I pass on discussing why (for example) dropping your sword on a low roll is going to have weird effects, then I end up playing a game with rules I don't like. Why would I want that? What don't you get about this? Do I need to make you a flow chart?

System doesnt know how to handle something
|
|-- Propose a new rule
    |- is the rule good?  --> yes --> oh that is surprising. carry on
         | no
         |
      discuss  <-- the void of wasted time
         |
         | - were they convinced? --> yes --> go back to 'propose a new rule'
                      |
                      |-- no --> keep discussing? -- yes --> well this sucks
                                             |-- no --> give up --------^

Ironically, the game I mentioned as an example of what I do like (Fate) is very light weight. But not so light weight that it doesn't exist, and I have to deal with Brian trying to introduce hit locations mid session, again.

You seem to be imagining this like perfectly spherical frictionless group of players that are all super chill, on the same page about everything, and happy to just do whatever. I'm imagining what has been more typical in my experience, which is not that.

Again…this isn’t your scenario. I don’t know what to tell you. You’re conflating taking game systems and adding other mechanics to it and just goofing around and making it up as you go.

The blog post is about building a game system! Look at all the weird rules they made up! This whole blog post is about taking game systems (ie: rules people know from other games) and smushing them together! Anyone doing this process is going to start with some baseline system(s) in their head. Even if it's just "let's rock paper scissors for it" or "flip a coin". It is in fact taking game game systems and adding other mechanics to it.

They certainly had fun, but as I said that sounds like my personal hell.

It’s okay to say “I need a game with explicit structure and rules”. That’s fine too, but maybe don’t argue with your players though.

Arguing is built into the process described into the blog post. Unless you're splitting hairs and saying "argue" isn't the same as "discuss".