This argument just dismisses all criticism of the rules and implies that the “game” portion of the role-playing game is irrelevant. By that logic, the design of D&D 5e (and every single rule and mechanic in it) is no better or worse than any other game, including stuff like F.A.T.A.L.

If the rules don’t matter, why bother? Why buy books, learn a whole system, and go through the effort of trying to use a specific RPG instead of just doing free form role-play?

If they do matter, then they can and will impact the quality of your experience in positive and negative ways. They can be well designed, easy to understand, and effective at serving their purpose, or they can be poorly designed, incomplete, confusing or nonfunctional.

Sure, you can ignore rules when you don’t want to follow them, and you can do your own thing and homebrew it if you like. You can also ignore the ending of a book and write your own headcanon, that doesn’t mean that there isn’t any point in criticizing bad writing.

To put this another way, why have rule books and a character sheet with all those numbers on it? Why not just flip a coin whenever you want uncertainty about an outcome? Would a game with only that mechanic be just as effective as D&D at providing the type of experience that D&D is trying to create? If not, then why not? What makes the big complicated mess of rules that is D&D better than my single rule RPG?

First character: A brooding loner with a tragic backstory, full of obvious parallels to my own life.

Second character: Yes these mechanics I’m combining are wildly mismatched, but my backstory explains it all.

Third character: A centaur that I play as a cab driver. Work in references to Taxi Driver, Cash Cab, Fake Taxi, etc. 100% dedication to the bit at all costs.

Fourth character: Mysterious backstory and ominous foreshadowing throughout the campaign, all leading up to the moment in the final session when I unleash the pun that the entire character was built around.

“Oh it’s baaaaaaad luck to be you…”

I see Hugo has continued to develop his skills.

“Are you sure you want to do that?” - You were until they asked. The tone and emphasis varies depending on whether its something that might be risky (even if the gm knows it will pay off) vs when it’s something the character would obviously know not to do.

“You can try” - One of three possible responses to any question starting with “can I…”, the other two being “that’s not how that works” and “not if you want to continue playing with the rest of us.”

“That is weird, isn’t it?” - Something doesn’t add up. Is it a plot hole? Did the gm make a mistake? No, of course not, there’s just more going on here than you know. Be sure to also use it when there really is something they don’t know, as well as when they are just making wrong (but not game disrupting) assumptions. Say it often, knowingly, and with just a hint of smug satisfaction.

Wait, I’ve seen this one before.

For our last campaign, I made a big spreadsheet with all of our inventories. It tracked ammo and consumables, carry weight, and value. It also tracked how each character was doing compared to expected wealth by level, which had been starting to become an issue, as the GM wasn’t paying close attention when generating loot and many rewards were really only useful to some characters buy not others. I even added wishlists for things we wanted to save up for or create.

Then I added a page for tracking spells known / prepared / used, which could populate any available spells and abilities on a shortlist. Not only did this help stop one player from basically forgetting that spells are limited, it also made the most complicated character I’ve ever played into viable option, as he had full access to 4 spell lists and several powers chosen from three different classes, plus two specializations (each of which granted two more abilities automatically and gave access to even more powers to choose from) all of which had to be adjustable on the fly, because he could respec it all on a daily basis.

Then came the quest tracker and NPC index. No more forgotten plotlines or missing NPCs.

Then the kingdom building page, because we had a kingdom to run and that gets complicated. And an additional page for each settlement.

Then there was the calendar, because we’re not using some boring earth calendar, and the GM wasn’t going to make one himself. He refused to figure out some fantasy calendar that he isn’t familiar with, so he told me to change the names on the real calendar. So I renamed all the months… and all the numbers. All the numbers, with no overlap, meaning each month counted 1 to 30ish in a different way… So whenever we checked the sheet it would remind us that it is currently Jantober Seconst, Apruary Firg, or Juch Firstandthefirious. Every time a new day rolled around he would read the date, die a little inside, and then we’d all laugh.

In a way, the inventory became as much a game as the game itself. Plus, I showed it to my boss and got a promotion. True story.

Having two or more sets of dice in different colors allows you to roll more things at once while still being able to differentiate between rolls. This can make the game move signicantly faster.

Having a few extra dice bags that each contain two or more sets of dice means that you’re ready for new players who don’t have dice of their own.

Now remember that that there are many games out there, and they don’t all use the same dice. Better get several bags of dice for each game.

And that’s why I’ve got a sack of 120 d12s here.