AriochQ
Member

...f 3e and 4e merely express a desire to somewhat unify experience across multiple GMs. Generalized rules of Fate and Cortex+ and WoD express a technical innovation that simply reduced the need for rulings. The loaded word "trust" comes from a time when people were distressed by change, and should not be trusted to accurately depict the changes and the reasons behind them, or the resulting relationships between player and GM. So, yes, I'll agree that in OS games, the GM tends to make more rulings. I'm fine with that. It has nothing to do with trust. Ok, then how would you characterize it? The rules are designed in such a way that the GM/DM is no longer expected to perform tasks that in OS systems would have directly fallen on the DM/GM. Would that about cover it? Perhaps "expect" rather than "trust" is the better word to use. OS games expect the DM to create rules ad hoc throughout play whereas NS games often use more comprehensive rulesets. Note, I do disagree with AriochQ's characterization of rules light vs rules heavy. That's certainly not true. I mean, many NS games are only a couple of pages long. Or, even something like Savage Worlds, while hardly rules light, is far, far lighter than, say, AD&D. Old School games are rules absent, but, they are certainly not rules light.

Or could it be that they are calling for DMs because of the level of demand? Spoiler: it is. I think ONE factor is a lot of veteran DMs are turned off by the new AL system. Generally, there are lots of players wanting to play - especially new people. So, I think demand for DMs has increased because of both factors. Naturally, I have no hard data to back this up. However, the coordinators calling for DMs in my area say we have lots of new folks who want to play and a fair number of their regular DMs are giving it a pass. I suspect as AriochQ has mentioned, many veteran players are passing on it too. Clearly, I have one local impression. It may be very flawed and the new AL system may be wildly popular and doing wonders for growing the game. I have my doubts...

The DM AriochQ in the one campaign I actually play in has the players award inspiration to each other. Players award inspiration for excellent roleplay and it seems to work very well. I am thinking of using the same system in my campaigns, because it eliminates something for the DM and keeps inspiration in the game. He also allows the accumulation of inspiration, but we spend the points freely and it really does not present a problem.

Sorry, talk of whitewashing in a D&D movie is fundamentally ridiculous. As implied by AriochQ, what does it matter is a racially Mandarin Chinese plays a Oeridian or if a racial Thai does? There are no Mandarin Chinese, or any other real life races in D&D settings. Who's to say what is a better representation of someone from Calimshan or Waterdeep or any other fantasy setting? It's a fricking FANTASY setting.

It has been a very long time since I have played in a campaign. I'm nearly always on the other side of the screen. Last fall, an acquaintance of mine invited me to play in a 5th edition D&D campaign. I knew the other players, but had never played a game with them. I thought I would give it a try. At worst, I figured I could chalk it up as an experience that confirmed my view my natural position at the table was as a DM. The Dungeon Master AriochQ has done a really nice job with the campaign and I have enjoyed it very much. Having been on the other side of the screen for so many years, I endeavored to be the best player I could. Someone I would want at my table for every campaign. I have not always succeeded, but I thought we could share some tips on being a player who adds to everyone’s enjoyment of the game. Here are my thoughts: 1. Be Consistent: Make the agreed play time a priority. Show up on time. Bring all of your necessary materials. Be ready to play. 2. Be Flexible: Use a character concept that fits the DM’s campaign world vision. Play a character that lends itself to story hooks. Create PC obligations tied to the campaign world. Give the DM anchor posts to use if they wish to. Orphaned barbarians from wiped out villages are OK, but ask yourself: Is your PC background giving the DM something to work with? 3. Be Creative: Don’t be afraid to offer adventure ideas, but don’t be offended if the DM does not use t...

@AriochQ The point of backing this Kickstarter is bringing these creatures to the tabletop. The only way you are going to see any of these monsters for use in game is through Effincool Miniatures. For all of teh reasons that I have already covered, we just cant do what Reaper does. :-) That does not mean that I do not value everyones input on this project! thanks for taking the time to comment. I also would like to add, that if you pledge for $360.00 and this project unlocks all of the stretch goals, that works out to $6.00 a mini, and includes 2 dragons and several larger pieces. I know this is not near the value that Reaper is able to afford, but it is the best we can do.

AriochQ A puzzle spaced throughout different parts of the castle that require simultaneous interaction to open a vault door. Falling portcullises or even stone doors. Or mimics ;) A pit with water flowing thru it with multiple aqueduct tunnels the water flows thru. Before anyone makes checks to jump across clarify that the consequences of a low roll mean falling into the water and getting swept away...somewhere. A coffin or an iron maiden with a built in teleporter. Include with a monster that Shoves or causes forced movement. Gargoyles that grapple characters and fly off with them to perches throughout the castle. Valuable treasure in a dangerous place to lure treasure-hungry PCs away from the party. Naturally guarded by a trap separating them from the party (e.g. chute). Provide a side solo mission for a PC - if they accomplish it then the party (or just them) benefits. However, it requires them to go it alone due to (a) ethical differences with the party, (b) need for s...

First year I went, Mike Carr stopped by during my Fight in the Skies session, just to see how things were going. One of the fellow players in that session was Skip Williams. Last year I sat in on Dave Megarry's Dungeon! session, it didn't require any upgraded badge. It is much smaller than Gen Con, so you see 'industry legends' pretty often just walking around. Most of them are there to game, so there is a decent chance you could run into them during a session. Yeah, being a fraction of the size of GenCon and more OSR focused, I've heard, really appeals to me. I'm looking for old school tourney AD&D/OD&D type gaming. Plus some mini gaming. Well run?

An equally compelling, and possibly stronger, argument could be made for the opposite viewpoint. That we should use how the games were actually played, rather than intended. AD&D was rarely run 'as intended'. In 40 years, I have never run into a group that ran by the book initiative. Yet, most of the AD&D groups I have played with over the years had most of the OS characteristics I outlined in my earlier post. Ahhh, but if old schoolers are not embracing all the rules in advanced because they are arbitrary, fiddly and overly complicated, or because they just enjoy tinkering, and they are rejecting Gygax's philosophy, then are they technically embracing the game? They are using the game, but have heavily modified it to fit personal tastes. Usually those tastes fall under what is now considered Old School, but that is not Gygax's Advanced ruleset. 2 e continued the 1e philosophy, as written, not what most players were actually doing. Later 2e loosened up character rules with kit books and...

Not sure I agree with this. While I didn't have the broadest experience during the 1e/early 2e era, every table I played at was heavily house ruled. It was almost required given the complexity of the rules and relative lack of interaction with other gamers outside of conventions, college clubs, or Dragon Magazine. Oh yes, they were heavily house ruled, but if you read the rules in Advanced, house ruling is discouraged. Advanced falls under OS because of how most people played. In that sense, yes it's OS, but, that was not Gygax's intention. He believed he had given players all the tools they needed, so house ruling would be minimal to none. His goal was a player in Austin could move to Halifax, join a group, and have rules and advancement speed, etc. be pretty much the same as it was with his Austin group. This was the period when Gygax fought a lot with players who had their own ideas of how the game should be run. This was the time period where many of his articles in Dragon were con...

Not sure I agree with this. While I didn't have the broadest experience during the 1e/early 2e era, every table I played at was heavily house ruled. It was almost required given the complexity of the rules and relative lack of interaction with other gamers outside of conventions, college clubs, or Dragon Magazine. Many were also not explicitly house ruled due to the frequent incomprehensibility of 1E rules. I mean, did anyone actually run initiative the way 1E wrote it? Probably a few people, but not many. I have a PhD in a mathematical science and can't figure out what the hell EGG wanted me to do!

Not sure I agree with this. While I didn't have the broadest experience during the 1e/early 2e era, every table I played at was heavily house ruled. It was almost required given the complexity of the rules and relative lack of interaction with other gamers outside of conventions, college clubs, or Dragon Magazine. I think there are two things going on here. One is you have the system developing over time. The other is unified mechanics became more of an accepted concept after 2000. I still don't think unified systems are always better. I used to think that, but then when I went back to the earlier editions to play them, I noticed my games felt and ran very differently (in a very good way). There were lots of reasons for this. But basically I had struggled to run a proper Ravenloft campaign using 3E. It just never felt the same as it had when I ran it in high school. I chalked that up to nostalgia. Then, almost half seriously, I started a 2E Ravenloft campaign again. That instantly felt to m...

One thing the article did not do, which it should have, is to define what is meant by "Old School" and "New School". It is very difficult to carry on a conversation/debate when people take the terms to mean different things. All these comments relate to D&D. Including other games broadens the topic to such an extent that dialog becomes very difficult. It is my belief that OS equates from ODD to early 2e AD&D. NS is everything since. I am by no means the final word on the topic, but I believe, the following characteristics are the most agreed upon for each type: Old School- More Deadly Less story driven, more simulationist Rules light, rules are often missing or by DM fiat, rules are sometimes quirky Greater DM authority - Rulings not rules. The DM accesses the rules. High trust in DM by players. Not Balanced- 'asymetrical' game design. Classes, abilities, adventures, etc. do not worry so much about balance. Character actions - Concrete. Players observe and describe. Goals are often achi...

Most, if not all, of Lew's 'articles' have a "Get off my lawn!" feel to them. They do generate comments, but most tend to be in opposition to the point he is trying to make. I put 'article' in quotes because I generally expect a more non-biased viewpoint in this type of forum. IMHO, these type of posting would be more appropriate to a blog. That being said, it is entertaining to read the comments and they are, ironically, often more informative than the OP. ...and therefore, Rope Trick is a healing spell. :) Sorry, joke from another thread... I like Lew's articles specifically because they generate lively debate, not of the ever-present "Sharpshooter Feat is overpowered / Class X is underpowered" variety. This reads like it was written by someone who played 1ed D&D for about 10 years 30 years ago, then played 2 sessions of 4e about 5 years ago (DMed by a 14 year old GM who was running a game for the first time), then read a bunch of articles by people who had similar experi...

"Too much" is a phrase very relative to the campaign. I have DM'd, and played, in both magic rich and magic scarce D&D games and neither was a problem so long as it fit the campaign. Absolutely. In cases of high level characters having collected a ton of items, I find the action economy usually becomes the limiting factor. They may have a ton of options, but they can only do one thing per round. This is where having some economy actually helps. You may end up with a fair number of not fantastic items you want to move and are looking for something more interesting/useful as you outgrow what was cool gear when you're in mid-levels. In a long-running Greyhawk campaign I played in (from 1998-2007, off and on) we often had to deal with Kondratis, the City of Greyhawk Wizards' Guild Mage of Exchange. What a pain in the @$% he was, but he was also one of the few people who could move and/or find an item or spell. He was also a great quest giver as sometimes he knew about a place that might ...

This! It is almost as if they are attempting to coop all the quality GH material in the hopes that GH fans will somehow fall in love with FR. GH has a certain feel and FR has a different feel, they do both a disservice by mashing them together. I guess I can't really agree with this. I like GH fine, and I like FR fine, but within the limited scope of Princes and Tomb, you're in the hills and temples in the former, and the jungle and dungeon in the latter. Within the context of whatever "fantasy world" it takes place, it doesn't matter because it doesn't have much impact on the story. The only difference I would see is the deities a PC might worship, but that is still going to fall under the generic domains of Life, Death, War, Love, etc. Now, if one were running a full fledged open campaign or homebrew, then the feel of the game world would have a much stronger impact. Then again, I've never understood the Greyhawk/Realms love/hate thing. I like the Realms fine, but it's...

It has been many years, but I seem to recall Heinlein stating that to remain science fiction you extrapolate current science and are allowed to violate once scientific law. For example, a story with FTL would still be science fiction so long as the other details were grounded in reality. Star Wars, on the other hand, would fall into space fantasy since it violates numerous current scientific laws. Seems as good a definition as any. Here of course is where Star Trek rears it’s head, it is an extrapolation of future earth based science but then takes tangents into psychic powers, energy based life forms and of course Q. Is Q as an extra dimensional alien beyond human comprehension still sci fi Or is he a product of fantasy?

Spoiler: It isn't. My LFGS has fewer tables in season 8 than in season 7. It is due to a lack of players, not DM's. For the last three weeks we have had to combine two tables to meet 3 player minimum requirements. Imagine being a new player and walking into an AL game: Point buy PHB+1 ok, we are good so far oh, you don't get treasure...ever...you just get gold when you level ummm...ok... speaking of leveling, you level every 4 hours, or 8 later on so you out level any hardcover content pretty quick...but you can go slow...but you will still likely out level the content ummm...sure...sort of like the worst version of milestone ever Now you get it!...also, magic items are look but don't touch. If you want them, you just save up some points and them buy them. Nothing like the excitement of shopping for magic items, amiright? ummm...so I go through adventures but it doesn't really matter what I do since I level based on play time, don't get gold (or any other treasure) and have zer...

Too bad AL is being horribly managed by WotC. The recent season 8 changes are not at all welcoming to new players and many veteran AL players are becoming disgruntled. Perhaps they need to start paying attention before it bites them in the a$$. Agreed. I don't play any AL anymore so I've only heard about it second hand, but that second hand is loud about how they made things more restrictive and also killed money in ways that bork character development, plots in game that require funds, and consumables.

Too bad AL is being horribly managed by WotC. The recent season 8 changes are not at all welcoming to new players and many veteran AL players are becoming disgruntled. Perhaps they need to start paying attention before it bites them in the a$$. Agreed. I see a lot of AL events calling for DMs. I think the change in AL rules is a factor in this. New players want to find a game - AL is dropping the ball.

Inexperienced 'celebrity' players, pregenerated characters, PvP... This is starting to sound like a D&D version of "Battle of the Network Stars". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Network_Stars On one hand, BotNS was a quilty pleasure for me as a young kid. I got to see all my favorite actors doing stuff totally outside what I was used to seeing. On the other hand, this is nothing like BotNS, because that involved... y'know... activity. ;-)

Is there anyone actually looking forward to the D&D/MtG crossover?You bet! And it's long overdue, too. I'm just a bit sad they didn't just continue their series of free articles (Planeshift). It's a big advantage if they can reuse the extensive artwork that has been created for Magic. At least theoretically that means they can spend more resources on the actual development and design of the MtG settings. This is an approach that has been working extremely well for 'Fantasy Flight Games'.

Is there anyone actually looking forward to the D&D/MtG crossover? I am having a hard time even feigning interest. The MtG setting was always just a backdrop for a card game and there are a ton of other settings I would rather see converted to 5e. It just seems like a decision made by some Hasbro executive sitting in a boardroom "MtG is a game....D&D is a game..." It was something driven by James Wyatt, not an executive.

Is there anyone actually looking forward to the D&D/MtG crossover? Me! Heck, I'd look forward to any non-Forgotten Realms campaign setting. Ravnica in particular is neat. It's a city that spans an entire world, with plenty of colorful factions running things. It really pushes the limits of an "urban campaign setting," considering the entire world is one big city. I actually really admire the MtG worldbuilding department. They've came out with some crazy settings over the years. I've been thinking of converting Shards of Alara over to D&D 5e, just for fun.

Is there anyone actually looking forward to the D&D/MtG crossover? Myself as well. Played MtG in the late 90s, but never paid attention to the worlds. I'm happy to see some of the creativity in the background behind the game coming to life as a D&D setting.

Is there anyone actually looking forward to the D&D/MtG crossover? Yup. Me. I've never played M:tG, or even really seen it, but as a new setting for D&D this looks like fun.

Was there something you’d like to say? We told you WotC was not running it. Whats so funny. I don't get it. Read it as nervous laughter and it makes more sense. In the prior announcement he has multiple posts essentially stating that 'of course WotC is involved' and probably being a little to forceful going after those with dissenting opinions. Foot, meet mouth. I will only talk for myself. I don't excuse anyone's impoliteness but I find his reaction quite natural and easy to understand. To me it's incredibly naive to use a brand name unlicensed, and one that is wholly unsuited to the intended purpose at that. Having to make such a sudden course correction begs the question: what where they thinking? But again, maybe that's just me.