Recent content by SableWyvern

Ten or fifteen years ago, I installed Ubuntu on a laptop. I ended up breaking it after a few months (constantly playing around with settings) and went back to Windows. About 18 months ago I suddenly realised I was getting no value from Windows or MS Office generally, but I was getting less and...

If a rando off the street is interested in playing at all, why would they only want to play D&D? Does, "rando off the street" actually mean, "An existing D&D fan sourced from a D&D community"? If the rando knows basically nothing about TTRPGs, there is no reason for them to insist they only...

There is no reason to include a section in the rules about how to deal with sexual content if the game is meant to be about raising pets and exploring the world with them and is not, by design, intended to include sexual themes. Certainly, if the IP holder considers their material G-rated and...

Over the past decade, I've hunted down most of the box sets for the awesome maps. I had no interest in AD&D back in the day, and it's only relatively recently that I discovered how good many of the 2e settings were. Al Qadim is definitely up there as one of my favourites, and I have plans to run...

That's never occurred to me in 40-odd years of gaming, so I can't agree it's inevitable. In my experience, players who turn up less often simply don't have characters who are driving the campaign forward and whose opinions are essential, nor would such a player in my group have an expectation...

I think one of the absolute biggest factors in a successful game is establishing clear, shared expectations. Before every campaign, I go out of my way to ensure my players understand my vision for the upcoming game, the general style and mood I'm aiming for and the like. I don't have a formal...

Everybody who joins my group is someone I already know outside gaming, or someone another member of the group knows outside of gaming. If you are invited to join us, someone in the group has already determined that they get along with you and you're probably a good fit for the group as a whole...

Unfortunately, I no longer have my copy. No clue what happened to it, but it got a decent amount of use back in 1986. My second purchase was MERP, the following year.

I'd say it's impossible to come up with a meaningful definition of what GURPS RAW means, that a substantial number of people will actually agree on. That being the case, saying you run GURPS RAW is, to me, a pretty meaningless statement. At most, you could pick up a specific campaign, that...

As far as I'm concerned, every game is a tool kit, to be tweaked and changed as much or as little as I need, in order to provide me the results that suit the use I've decided to put it to. I don't have the time or inclination to set aside time to run "practice" games using RAW to run a game that...

It's just not that complicated. You already know you don't like it, and talking about it isn't going to change that. Conversely, while I talk at length with my players about what an upcoming campaign will be like, we have never needed to have an extended conversation about "power dynamics"...

These are some of the things I do for my group: Host. Provide beer and espresso coffee. Clean up. Prep and run games, offering 20 - 25 sessions (6-8 hours per session) per year consistently for the past two-and-a-half decades. Run campaigns lasting years, maintaining coherency, tying things...

In my games, the things I decide are canon tend to be important. The things game authors, publishers and the like decide are canon hold no special weight or importance.