Olgar Shiverstone
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Here we are @BluSponge , @Olgar Shiverstone , @Quickleaf , and anyone else interested, of course. That took significantly more time and effort than I expected (or wanted) to expend...but I think it all worked out fairly well. Naturally, a single set of eyes other than mine will notice some obvious mistakes/problems/inconsistencies (and thank you for that). I think there are tings in the progession chart that I had wrong/renamed or forgot to include...but it's all in the descriptions. Look forward to hearing any thoughts or comments, of course, but probably best to leave them in my Ranger Rehash thread in the Homebrews sub-forum so as not to derail this thread with this business any further. Have at ye!

...whatever group they are leading at the time, be it their adventuring group, a company, or a whole army). Doing so either allows all members of the group to recover hit points equivalent to the Warlord’s Wisdom or Charisma modifier times ½ the allies level (minimum of 1), or free all members of the group from non-magical fear (the Frightened condition), or reduce any effects due to exhaustion by one level. The group must be within hearing range of the Warlord, and only affects members not at 0 hit points. Command Actions (in-work) Individual tactics or maneuvers - based on Battlemaster maneuvers, 4E Warlord powers, etc. @fuindordm @Tony Vargas @GMforPowergamers @Hussar @cbwjm @epithet @MoonSong(Kaiilurker) @bert1000 EzekielRaiden @Manbearcat @Uchawi @Ashkelon @Eric V @pemerton @Jester Canuck @Bluenose @Minigiant @I'm A Banana @aramis erak @Warbringer @Leatherhead @ehren37 @Winterthorn @TheHobgoblin @Neonchameleon @Obryn @Imaro @nomotog @Ashrym @The_Gneech @Remathilis @Olgar Shiverstone @Sacrosanct @Gimul @Twiggly the Gnome @CapnZapp @MechaPilot @kerbarian @Psikerlord# @jgsugden @DEFCON 1

I think ultimately I have to agree with @Olgar Shiverstone. If there's not an "active" Trek RPG system at the moment, it's because there's not a game company out there that sees it as being able to produce a decent ROI. The REASONS game companies view it that way may be some, all, or none of the reasons covered in this thread. If I were to hazard a guess, I'd say the two most likely reasons are highly intertwined---legal/licensing, and then determining which of the Trek series are relevant to be included in the system. Even if you have a license for the entire property, and not just for say, Next Generation, what kind of game to make out of it? Do you try and make it a "fully canonical," kitchen-sink system where every flavor of Trek is represented in some way? Or do you only focus on the Kirk/Spock era, or the Picard era, etc.? Either way, you're kind of setting yourself up for fan dissatisfaction. If it's kitchen sink, the die hards of one era or another may feel their favorite piece of the canon is underrepresented. If you focus on jus...

...oup definitely struggled with this when playing a Star Wars Saga campaign. Space combat was fun for the pilot and sort of for the gunners but boring for the rest of us. My character manned a couple of support positions (I think engineering and communications) and my turns boiled down to a single skill check. We discussed the situation with the GM and he tried spicing things up by having other stuff happen on the ship while the combat occurred. The trouble was that every space combat then had to be plagued with something else (e.g., intruders on board, damage in the ship to fix, etc.), which made for a cumbersome narrative. Maybe you could give the support roles a way to hinder the enemy. The enemies get a bonus while they are able to communicate with each other. The communications officer can jam their communications or hack into some remote functions of their ship. But it would need to have its own minigame so it would be more interesting than a series of skill checks. Maybe Olgar Shiverstone 's card game would well work for this. FASA gave that a good shot back in the 1980s with their Star Trek RPG, but I feel they fell short. How did the FASA Star Trek fall short to you? I bought a copy of it a while ago because I heard good things about the space combat but it's wall of text poor readability discouraged me from reading just a bit of it.

Flipping is the bane of modules. . . It was VERY difficult. a format that is CLEAR, CONCISE and CONSISTENT. Heard, understood, and acknowledged. This is going at the top my my design board. Olgar Shiverstone: yes, I'm pretty sure the Delve was it. And you're right, it was all about combat. But I'm not sure that it can't be used in other ways as well. . . What if every encounter has its own page or two-page spread, all immediately relevant information is guaranteed (reprinted) to be on one of those pages, and all secondary information is referenced with a page number? 2. I'd like to go a step further, actually, and give each bit of information an "element number," so you can not only find your page quickly, but you can find what you need on that page (this paragraph would be element #2). In addition, an element number could facilitate some cross referencing. For example: 3. Gilladian. This ENworld member contributed to the Adventure Module Format thread in December, after Olgar Shiverstone (p.2 e.6), and submitted the Clear, Concise, Consistent rule (p.2 e.9). Carries a quarterstaff and spell book (contains the Clear and Consistent spells).

Olgar Shiverstone (and others feeling this adventure is a railroad), I'm curious what you thought of Neuroglyph's recent review of Hoard of the Dragon Queen? Overall, the adventure arc is designed to be quite sandbox-y, or more aptly, a series of mini-sandboxes right from the first episode. Wolfgang made mention of the fact that as designers who have played D&D through multiple editions, they “were drawn toward an older style of play” for Hoard of the Dragon Queen, where not every encounter is fought, but some are resolved through trickery, negotiation, or simply avoided altogether. Read more here: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?358765-4-out-of-5-rating-for-Hoard-of-the-Dragon-Queen Because it looks like we are getting vastly different reviews on the same dang product. Some folks say its a railroad, others that it's a sandbox!

That's about the extent of the information you get for PCs in Prince Valiant. http://www.creativemountaingames.com/2011/07/prince-valiant-storytelling-game-1989.html Thank you for the link, great summary and story. Our group would have definitely enjoyed that. While that is unquestionably roleplaying I would argue that it is not D&D or at least it doesn not reflect the essence of D&D. I do not need a bunch of rule books to run that sort of game, I just need a bit of a story & player buy in. From this I gather that for you a bunch of rule books reflect the essence of D&D, or at least you seem to imply this from the quote above. I think I'd rather prefer @Olgar Shiverstone's sig, being a quote from WizarDru "The Soul of D&D? It's rolling a natural 20 when you're down to 3 hit points and the cleric's on the floor and you're staring that sunnavabitch bugbear right in his bloodshot eye and holding the line just long enough to let the wizard unleash a fireball at the guards who are on their way, because they're all that stands between you, the Foozle and Glory." - WizarDru The reason I am able to run a game like the one I have described is because of my experience as a DM and reading the bunch of rule books you reflect as the essence of D&D. A DM determines the level of difficulty for many tasks in every edition - which is exactly what I was doing for each one of the pillars. Determining if the task was easy, medium, hard..etc based on the situation in the narrative. So I'd argue what we played was and is D&D. We will have to just agree to continue arguing :p I do not find these have the longevity of games that engage on multiple levels though. P...

...ism. <snip breakdown> I think the only way the perception of those things come together is if the GM suspends 1 (secretly) when required to attain 3, and suspends some or all of (a) or (c) in 2 as required to maintain the overall illusion of the three agendas working in harmony (rather than the total discord that inevitably emerges as they push against each other).Looks right to me! Also, LostSoul, I've probably been guilty of being that GM on occasions in the past - especially in my early RM days - as I haven't known properly how to keep all my balls in the air! Illusionism is somewat derogatory; I prefer protagonism. Basically it is the same thing, but openly declared; <snip> The Paizo adventure paths, and specifically the players guides that come with them, are very much in this vein, so I think it can be said to be pretty mainstream.I think you are correct that it is pretty mainstream. I think that mainstream-ness may be what informs your post upthread (and also Olgar Shiverstone) saying that a good RPG should do all 4 playstyles at once. I guess my question is, in what sense is this sort of play really giving you wargaming or realism-sim? If the GM manipulates action resolution to produce the plot-appropriate outcomes, where is the wargaming? And how is the game being run as a sim? Those aren't rhetorical questions, they're genuine. But they're also sceptical to this limited extent: that when I've seen, or played under, GMs running this sort of game, it plays out pretty much as Pulsipher describes in his article: player skill and choice is subordinated to the GM's priorities. But I'm sure I haven't seen everything there is to see under the sun!

Oh yeah? In my campaign everyone starts the game with a death save, laying in a ditch covered with a tarp. I do it Traveller style. They might not even live through character creation! Edit: Olgar Shiverstone beat me to this on page 8... :-)

This is something I've realized in 10+ years of gaming (damn I've gotten old!) If the dice had gone the other way, the player might have died, the party might have died...the campaign might have ended as an unremarkable exercise. But the fact that it didn't....makes it a tale that your group will probably tell from years to come. Over time, I've had both experiences. I have had characters just go down due to the bad rolls, forever forgotten. And at the time it sucks. But ultimately, it is worth it! It is worth having those risky moments, it is worth having characters die in obscurity, so that there are times when scenes and characters become immortal in a gaming groups mind. This comes back to WizarDru's "Soul of D&D" quote, which I love, and apparently so does Olgar Shiverstone: "The Soul of D&D? It's rolling a natural 20 when you're down to 3 hit points and the cleric's on the floor and you're staring that sunnavabitch bugbear right in his bloodshot eye and holding the line just long enough to let the wizard unleash a fireball at the guards who are on their way, because they're all that stands between you, the Foozle and Glory." - WizarDru

... mean? That you end up tipping your hand as DM too early? But on the other hand the pre-generated content is often too "long", or too "strictly", or does not fit my group good enough. Join the club? ;) Pretty much every DM I know tweaks other people's modules for the reasons you give. As I'm not the best storywriter I was thinking about if some of you out there has some concepts, ideas, methods on how to build good adventures. Before we go much further, could you really clarify what you mean by "not the best story writer"? Folks have all kinds of ideas about what 'Story' means in regards to RPGs, so it would be good to get a better sense of where you're coming from first. And one last thing: I'm quite good at improvising and using instant ideas at the table. My weak spot are the planning before the sessions. You sound like the kind of DM who'd do really well with a one-page adventure flowchart in front of you, and not much else needed. But that's just a hunch. Also, Olgar Shiverstone has good advice, heed it.

howandwhy99 It's been a while since I've played, and I am re-reading the Rules Cyclopedia, but I don't recall the rule you're referring to that sounds a lot like an opportunity attack. Could you clarify that? What I do recall is that spellcasting is ruined if the caster is hit in combat. So maybe the missile/magic/melee phases are to allow spellcasters to get off their spells in the event of an initiative tie? Olgar Shiverstone Well, the way BD&D works is that if one side wins initiative (a straight opposed d6 roll), then that side takes all of their phases at the same time. Side #1 gets their missile, magic, and melee phase BEFORE side #2. So your theory about it being to let mages get off their spells is, at least from what I'm reading on Rules Cyclopedia page 102, appears to be mostly incorrect. The *only* time that it seems that mages are favored this way (spells first) is when initiative is tied and both sides go simultaneously. My understanding, in that case, is side #1 and side #2's archers go first, then both sides casters go, and lastly both sides melee combatants go. Do I have that wrong?

I think that was very interesting, informative, and a must watch. I especially love pointing out that they told you to buy hex maps. I also loved that bit, partly because I very recently bought a copy of Outdoor Survival just to see what these notorious hex maps were all about. (I was quite disappointed.) I really enjoyed the video as a whole and I'd like to echo Olgar Shiverstone's suggestion to mattcolville to include a BECMI or B/X character as part of the series. That rules system is different enough to be worth covering.

Reproduction should be defined in the game. I mean, the monsters got here somehow, right? I'm okay with creatures being magically transformed and then reproducing with those now newly compatible. But the rules should have a definite design. Gold Dragons transform into humans, sleep around, and 9 months later (maybe years?) out pops a 1/2 human 1/2 dragon baby. That makes me think of the miniseries "V" more than anything else, but that dragon thing has been around awhile in D&D. I also tend to agree with Olgar Shiverstone that Alter Self is far too low level a spell for these potential results. But perhaps Alter Self could be limited to Humanoids only? That actually makes a good bit of sense given all the inbreeding between races in D&D.

I suggest checking this article out (in addition to the reference from Olgar Shiverstone above). As far as I understand it, the relative distances of the space stations and the Hubble were unrealistically close. A jet pack would not be able to navigate those distances effectively. The fire extinguisher trick probably wouldn't work. Also, Kowalski would not have been pulling her because there is (ironically) no gravity to pull him, so once his initial movement was stopped, he would have come back easily. No reason to dump him; you can't be a dead weight if you have no weight. There's also a lot of dramatic conceit. It's awfully convenient that everything goes wrong at just the time it does, that the fuel runs out just as they reach the ISS, that the fire starts just when it does, that the pod lands in water, but right next to a shore with a nice calm sandy beach. Like all dramatic conceits, these things could happen, and real people have had similarly absurd coincidences, but after a few of these strung in a row there is a bit of eye-rolling from my seat. And then there ...

I have to agree with Olgar Shiverstone. Soldiers are people first, equipment only after the fact. A good soldier can succeed even barehanded when facing an untrained and scared opponent with superior equipment. Don't get me wrong. On any stereotypical gaming board it would be rare to have anyone deny the importance of good training in strategy and tactics. But I would be more willing to agree to the difference being about the combat wear worn - At least if you posted the other side as in, say, a Mobile Suit Gundam.

Totally parroting what pemerton said. Back when I ran Planescape the PCs had to revive the god Osiris who'd been cut up into bits by the god Set. Their task was to recover the various organs/body parts for Isis so a spell could be cast to revive Osiris. Just what each organ/body part was I played around with. I think the heart of Osiris was the high priestess of Isis, so there was the question "what happens to her when we revive him?" And then the skull of Osiris was a mimir (an actual talking skull). I also incorporated a lot of Egyptian mythology about death into the whole thing. Olgar Shiverstone Awesome :) scott2978 With your scenario, the biggest stumbling block I see is "why the hell would we do this Corellon?!?" I don't think you've yet given a convincing enough reason. I mean, drow are gathering to assault the surface; most players are going to go "Oh yeah? Let's get all our good allies together and kick their asses back to the darkness!" Why is Lolth needed? What can she do that another deity could not to stop the mounting invasion? Also, I'd imagine other Seldarine (and good deities in general) wouldn't be too keen on Lolth's resurrection...of course, neither would Kiaransalee or Selvetarm. So in addition to the great advice above, I'd expect part of the PCs' quest would be getting support (or at least non-interference agreements) from the Seldarine / good temples.

To add on to what Olgar Shiverstone said, the Arms and Equipment Guide does provide some guidance for restricting weapons by Age (Stone, Bronze, etc).

That is basically the Essentials Fighter. That's pretty much exactly what they did in this packet. Are you two sure about this? The way I understood Olgar Shiverstone idea, is that it is rounde-based i.e. very similar to the previous MDD of 5e, and quite different from EF and 5e current packets which both work encounter-based. Then they opened them up so every class could take them, but the Fighter still gets more of them than anyone else. They're now called "Martial Feats." IMHO this is a controversial design decision. It's very similar to the 3e Fighter, everybody gets a little bit of fighter's stuff, but the fighter gets more. We all know how that idea led the fighter class to become poorly attractive on its own. Now it remains to be seen if the other stuff the 5e gets will be enough to avoid that problem, but IMHO the original round-based and fighter-only MDD + Maneuvers were surely able to guarantee to avoid that problem.

Hopeful, but trailers are misleading (lookin' at you, Rogue One). You didn't like Rogue One? I adored it. So did my kids. Probably the best Star Wars movie to date, IMO.

It's not written in elvish in the books. I mostly agree with that, except that I'm willing to entertain the idea that it could have been written in Elvish even though it was recited in Westron so that the gathered peoples could all understand it.

Mice & Mystics? I know it's kind of an RPG-boardgame-minis game dungeon crawl crossover. This. I'd love to see the setting get a full RPG treatment. I love Mice & Mystics!

8th level cleric? Dude, Gandalf was a fifth-level magic user. It was in Dragon so you know it's true. That was a fantastic bit of satire.

Nah. It's mostly 'cause Old Spice is implying gamers are smelly, and need to throw on some perfume to cover it up and render them more smelly. It's perfume. That's what they sell - stuff to make you smell nice. They advertise at lots of demographics; they're not telling them all they smell bad! They're saying with Old Spice you'll smell awesome. Just in this case, they had a Pathfinder fan in the ads team who thought it would be fun to do a Pathfinder-themed ad.

Nah. It's mostly 'cause Old Spice is implying gamers are smelly, and need to throw on some perfume to cover it up and render them more smelly. I never felt that implied at all when I read the class. I thought it was just a goofy way to combine their interesting commercials with an interesting fantasy character. Maybe the 'nerds stink' is really stuck in our heads. I know I have certainly experienced it more than once, so that is where our minds jump to first? Not sure. Speculation. I didn't find it offensive I guess. Looked fun to play in a less than serious campaign at the right table.

Nah. It's mostly 'cause Old Spice is implying gamers are smelly, and need to throw on some perfume to cover it up and render them more smelly. No funk > perfumed funk > acrid raw funk from convention floor It’s a matter of degrees. ;)

Just as soon as I figure out what a Mok is.It's a Wookiee

Episode 9 opening crawl: Luke Skywalker is dead. Han Solo is dead. Princess Leia is dead. Chewbacca's still around, sure, but since when did he have any useful dialog ... WWWRRAAAAGGGHHHH!!!!!

Episode 9 opening crawl: Luke Skywalker is dead. Han Solo is dead. Princess Leia is dead. Chewbacca's still around, sure, but since when did he have any useful dialog ... Well... Episode VI's alternate crawl could be: Obi-Wan and Amidala are dead. Yoda is dying. Anakin is evil. All your heroes from the original trilogy and Clone Wars are gone. Here's a whiny farmboy, a con artist, and a princess in denial of her potential as a Jedi...

Wipe them out. All of them. You forgot the Muhahahahahaha, you know its mandatory on a post such as this.

Happy non-specific winter solstice festival! Summer Solstice here:) I'm feasting on fresh strawberries, garden salads, mussels and cray

Goal: Rebuild the Resistance/Republic, beat back the First Order, restore peace and justice to the Old New Republic (tm). How do you do it? The decapitation strike against the Republic's current-capital planet sets off a squabble for power among everybody who was on the other rotating-capital planets. This however is overwhelmed by the fact that individuals from all across the Galaxy are volunteering their services. The rise of this wave of volunteers tracks nicely with spread of news of SK Base's destruction. The First Order cannot believe what is happening; they think the Republic "called out the National Guard." (But this is so slow and cumbersome it looks more like rallying a feudal militia.) Smart strategy for FO would be to pick a fight with the first volunteers who arrive nearby - so as not to get overwhelmed by a tsunami - and broadcast widely the fate they met at FO's hands. Ideally, most of the enthusiastic volunteers will just give up and go home; the ones who don't can be dealt...

So ... like it or not, we have The Last Jedi. Where to from here for Episode IX? I have this sense that the series has written itself into a box at this point that it will be hard to get out of (or ... gasp ... requires more than one movie). So the state of the universe appears to be: (1) There are about 20 people left in the Resistance, all loaded on the Millennium Falcon. Fleet, fighters, transports ... gone. (2) The Republic's capital is dead, and their entire military is destroyed. (3) The First Order is taking over, though we don't actually see it, and it doesn't seem like they have that much with which to take over the galaxy. (4) The Resistance's allies have not come to their aid. (5) We have one untrained Force User against a trained-but-unstable Kylo (and presumably the Knights of Ren). Goal: Rebuild the Resistance/Republic, beat back the First Order, restore peace and justice to the Old New Republic (tm). How do you do it? 92254 This is an option - (I saw ...

Goal: Rebuild the Resistance/Republic, beat back the First Order, restore peace and justice to the Old New Republic (tm). How do you do it? This could be a fun exercise. My first thought is that if you want me to predict what is going to happen in the next movie I just need to imagine where it LOOKS like it is going and just assume it'll do the opposite of that, given the history in this movie. What it looks like it going to happen is that the movie picks up years later. During that time, Rey has been reading her stolen Jedi books and is now much more powerful in the Force and has found a small group of Jedi to train. She has built herself a lightsaber staff of some sort. The Resistance has been making guerrilla style hit and run attacks on the First Order, each attack they've made has grown their legend. They've convinced hundreds of new people to join their cause. They are just about ready to make a final strike against the First Order. They have to worry about Kylo Red, however, who has also...

So ... like it or not, we have The Last Jedi. Where to from here for Episode IX? I have this sense that the series has written itself into a box at this point that it will be hard to get out of (or ... gasp ... requires more than one movie). So the state of the universe appears to be: (1) There are about 20 people left in the Resistance, all loaded on the Millennium Falcon. Fleet, fighters, transports ... gone. (2) The Republic's capital is dead, and their entire military is destroyed. (3) The First Order is taking over, though we don't actually see it, and it doesn't seem like they have that much with which to take over the galaxy. (4) The Resistance's allies have not come to their aid. (5) We have one untrained Force User against a trained-but-unstable Kylo (and presumably the Knights of Ren). Goal: Rebuild the Resistance/Republic, beat back the First Order, restore peace and justice to the Old New Republic (tm). How do you do it? As force ghosts can still use lightning...

Sure there is. C3PO was mistake by the Ewoks as their god, so we know they exist in the galaxy.I'd forgotten that it is against C3-PO's programming to impersonate a deity. Thanks for reminding me. That said, the term "Godspeed" still rubs me the wrong way. It just doesn't feel like something someone in the GFFA would say. He also calls for a medic.That too. [Although I thought he was calling for a medpack the first time I saw it.] I agree. Looking a Snoke during the movie, he looks burned and scarred. He also has mannerisms and uses phrases very similar to one Palpatine, so I thought perhaps he could be the Emperor who survived his fall into the reactor. He may even have gone to the far regions to recover.I don't think Snoke is Palpatine. For one thing, Snoke is taller, and he is described in multiple places as being an alien, meaning he's not human. Yes, that could be obfuscation, but still ... I'm fairly certain he is someone different. I also am not convinced that his "injuries" are wound...

Oh, I get it. But staying out there at that distance for that long, then flying back, just broke my suspension of disbelief. If instead, she'd just caught herself on the edge of the bridge, clawing her way back, then used the Force to get the rest of the way -- dramatic, you're not sure if she makes it or not -- I'd have been cheering. But the flying nun act was just lazy and dumb. There's a similar scene in one of the Wraith Squadron books, and it's much, much better done. Yeah, that whole scene *looked* terrible ... but, c'mon, this is Carrie Fisher we're talking about here. She probably thought it was hilarious. I wouldn't be at all surprised if she agreed to it (or even suggested it) as a way of giving diehard fans the middle finger or something. I'm trying to be as gracious as I can but I was actually bored watching this movie. And this is coming from someone who really enjoyed TFA and Rogue One. I can't be entertained by heroes who don't undergo any kind of real change or new ...

Oh, I get it. But staying out there at that distance for that long, then flying back, just broke my suspension of disbelief. If instead, she'd just caught herself on the edge of the bridge, clawing her way back, then used the Force to get the rest of the way -- dramatic, you're not sure if she makes it or not -- I'd have been cheering. But the flying nun act was just lazy and dumb. There's a similar scene in one of the Wraith Squadron books, and it's much, much better done. Re: suspension of disbelief, I’m just saying, the entire scene is realistic if you ignore the non existence of Force Powers. She wasnt out there any longer than a normal person could hold their breath, the physics checks out, etc. maybe her opening her eyes would have been a problem, but even then we know Jedi can do that from Clone Wars, first season, with PLo Koon and Ashoka. IMO, the scene didn’t need to be gripping. It did exactly what it meant to do, and it did it well. Yeah, that whole scene *looked* terri...

We see Luke's X-Wing under water at Ach-to. If he's grown from ESB, he can pull it out of the water. Don't show it without a payoff -- because if you're just doing that, you have to answer the question of how Luke got there in the first place without an Astromech (since canonically that's how an X-wing's hyperspace calculations get done). I know in the D6 SW game, where a lot of canon originates, there is a Force Power for Hyperspace Navigation. Not saying that's what Luke used, but maybe.