Recent content by Paul Farquhar

You are using prior knowledge of the setting and adventure though. Did you check that the DM hasn't relocated the adventure to Greyhawk, Eberron or a homebrew setting? And yes, your character is "okay". Boring, but okay. Many players like to create more interesting characters by working with...

One does not simply take a helicopter...

Cagney’s (?) home life was strained though, whereas Barnaby’s family (both) is always happy and supportive. That’s the joke (if you have read the original author, you will know that they are intended as a send-up/deconstruction).

"But is it better than dancing with wolves?" -A. Ranger

...amongst their weapons are music, the power of friendship, and really big swords.

That is the shtick of Inspector Barnaby in Midsummer Murders: a police detective with a happy home life!? Radically different!

Joins the party , 8 fights per adventuring day. You need to use spell slots.

We have been using both systems along side each other for years before the new edition came out. They work fine in parallel, which is better depends entirely on the situation. You have to convert back to spell slots for anything that's going to be around for more than one fight.

I really don't understand what this thing with entire companies of dragonborn mercenaries is. There aren't enough dragonborn on the planet for every major city to have a company of dragonborn. They might have a couple of dragonborn mercs in town, and maybe one or two in other occupations, but...

Yeah, the only thing that's changed about the stat blocks is the layout. The Monsters work just fine with the updated rules.

The Eberron chapter from Vecna: EoR is an interesting setting-based stand alone story that I was able to get some real emotional beats out of. It's appallingly badly organised though.

Sure, but you could easily trim out the less popular ones. Just do FR, Eberron, Ravenloft and Dark Sun. Exandria is handled by the Critical Role crew now, and additional material for the MtG settings is available through the card game.

It undermines player agency if they intervene, and setting credibility if they don’t. You have to take gods off the stage so that the spotlight falls on the heroes.

The vast majority of human history is unknown to - everyone really. Most events pass by unremarked and unrecorded. And even when they are recorded, most people only know local stuff (and a lot of that is wrong). Even professional historians have specialisms and don’t know that much outside of...

You don’t have to build a whole world before you let players loose in it, you only need to know what’s over the next hill. And then you can get your feedback as you go along.