Recent content by kevtar

I categorically disagree with Matney's claim that "...not pledging is telling the industry that you are happy with the status quo." Mr. Matney, my decision not to fund the kickstarter is because, while I am dissatisfied with the 'status quo,' I have not been adequately persuaded by your company...

Our group has used Skype a lot for players who have moved away but still wanted to catch a game now and then. Our group likes to use minis, so we hung the webcam over the table. The player on Skype had a bird's-eye view of the minis and map and it worked pretty well. There really wasn't any...

Based on recent events, such as the open playtest, cancellation of VTT, online tool support (Adventure tools/Character builder), 1st edition and 3.5 edition reprints, interaction with players, and news from articles like "legend & lore" and "The DM Experience (I think that's what Chris Perkins'...

I've pretty much dropped out of the play test and talk about D&DNext (this is my first post in a long time), and part of that has come from a "saturation point" with the play test and all that goes with it. However, there are other factors that are influencing my involvement as well. I don't...

I don't totally agree with these assumptions. Here's my take (and this is just brainstorming here): The ranger is... mobile (for lack of a better word). Rangers have no permanent base, they patrol vast areas and territories (including rural and urban areas). Rangers may tarry a while in one...

Thank you for your cogent and perfectly reasonable analysis. Now, tell me more about your regenerative traits and susceptibility to fire...

About us My family and I recently moved to the Kingdom of Tonga, a small group of islands in the South Pacific. With the move came a SHORTAGE of opportunities to play D&D. My son and I were going crazy. Luckily, my wife and daughter decided to alleviate our suffering, and have started playing...

That was my initial reaction as well, I mean, it's called intoxication after all (: However, my interpretation of the rule is that dwarves can get drunk, they just can't die from drinking. They can drink themselves into oblivion - maybe even with the off-chance that there might be a large...

I was reading through the "Caves of Chaos" (haven't been able to playtest it yet) and I noticed that the rats carry a disease (I believe that feature is called pestilence). Then I say the effect: 1d6. That puzzled me. "Pestilence" causes an immediate 1d6 with no lingering effects? I hope that...

We've been playing 1e AD&D for the past few months and the topic of item creation has just recently surfaced. The DMG provides some general guidelines for item creation and then warns against letting players create items, lol (at least until higher level). I want magic items to be specific with...

Immediate interrupts... why did it have to be immediate interrupts? I enjoyed the article with the exception of interrupts (sigh). I really don't like immediate interrupts and I'm skeptical that making them more "automatic" will make them less intrusive, and even more skeptical that having...

Every time WotC mentioned defining the "essence" of D&D and trying to determine what things "feel like D&D," I've thought about an approach to qualitative research called "Phenomenology." In this approach, the researcher describes the meaning for several individuals of their lived experiences of...

To be fair, a 4e-sized book of 300+ pages of coated text paper and spiral binding is a FAR cry from the 2e fullsized 3-ring binder of 200-300 pages of non-reinforced offset. That thing was a behemoth, the rings couldn't bear the weight and "leaked" pages when they separated and all sorts of...

I've always enjoyed D&D books. Now that D&Dnext is in the works, I started thinking about what kind of a book I would want to use with the new edition. I love the size of the 4e Essentials books. They are easy to handle and are portable. I had my copies spiral bound which made them even easier...

Curse you. I read your post and thought, "eh... whatever" - but then I went back. I looked at it again, and then left it alone - but then I came back. Every time I returned, it was there. Staring at me... "I dare you." I have no will to resist it.