Recent content by Paul Farquhar

Aside from some shifters, D&D seems a bit shy of anthropomorphic dogs. Wolves are rather more common. Traveller’s vargr often seem to be more doglike than wolflike though. Chewbacca, of course, is an anthropomorphic dog, with fierce loyalty being top personality trait.

Indeed, since it plays it straight (rather than comedy hiding serious allegory, which is harder), although the obvious one is Narnia. But I have no problem with anthropomorphic animals in long term campaigns. My current campaign has two, along with a warforged and a gith (who replaced a zombie)...

This is why I hate video. I’m not going to devote 47m to something I could read in 10.

I don’t normally find it so, no. And that’s true even when I aim to make the audience uncomfortable.

You don’t need to “get it right”. Every table’s version of a setting is unique to that table. The point is to avoid the sense of exclusive ownership, and wasting time creating stuff that the players aren’t interested in.

But you can pick one off the peg, thus avoiding the proprietorial sense of DM ownership of the world. Even better if it’s something the players are familiar with from other media.

They should have gone after it years ago*. Late to the party as usual. *I think Stryxhaven made a half-hearted attempt to go in that direction.

Weird and dark is probably why this one is less well known, although the BBC did do an adaptation a long time ago with Tom Baker as Puddleglum. But I agree, this is suspiciously like D&D Underdark for a book series that was omitted from Appendix N. There is a lot of D&Dish plane hopping in...

Simon Armitage’s poems aren’t that bad!

Maybe you are exceptionally good at making it interesting. I can only speak from my personal experience (and ability).

I don’t create settings. I think it’s detrimental to the roll of dungeon master, and largely a waste of time making stuff that players aren’t interested in and don’t want to engage with. Did that when I was 12, more than enough. I’ve seen plenty of DMs get cross when the players don’t treat...

In my opinion, absolutely not. It’s not the DM’s game, it’s everyone’s game. The DM’s personal tastes are no more important than any other player’s. If the group were to take a vote and the majority decided they didn’t like tortles, that would be a good enough reason. If the DM has advertised...

The film is good, but genre mash up feels weird.

The Gorge is the mutant offspring of a RomCom and Doom.

Which is the cause of a lot of problems. A lot of DMs are too precious about their creations, and don’t want those irritating players messing it up. Hence all the ways they try to limit player freedom. Playgrounds are built for children to enjoy. If the designer starts designing it to amuse...