Recent content by soviet

What were the chances that her sister would be in that bar? One in a million? Sounds very unrealistic to me. 😉

Can't you make exactly the same argument about e.g. IC discussions between the PCs? No chance of failure so you just skip over it?

Clearly we both have weak-ass permissive GMs!

I once got recognised in a foreign country by someone I'd never met, and who'd never met me, and we had no interaction on the day, but he knew my brother, saw the resemblance, then bumped into my parents (who also don't know him) when he was back home and said 'hey you look like soviet's...

I'm following two threads at the moment. This one is (lately) about how narrativism doesn't really exist and players of D&D 5e are just as empowered to drive the story. The other one is about how background traits in D&D 5e are terrible because they give players the ability to fiat content...

I appreciate the clarification!

Roleplaying is all about emoting while staying within the anticipated lines of the module and having the outcome of your actions and dice rolls subject to a veto by the GM.

Well, I don't think that 5e is unequivocal about anything. But aside from that, no, I think that the background traits themselves are a marker on the 'non-GM dominance' side of the ledger, albeit a fairly lonely one.

Yes, if it's rude to say that those who don't allow certain uses lack the imagination to think of a justification, it's also rude to say that those who do allow such uses have implausible/nonsensical gameworlds.

I'm not sure anyone thinks the abilities should always work. The issue is what that failure rate should be, and what the bar for reasonableness is. Personally I can almost always find a way to justify such abilities, or a way to play through the justification of such abilities. And I think the...

i enjoy IC conversations as well but ultimately in a trad game it's just colour. PCs aren't going to fight each other or break up the party because of what was said. Inter-PC relationships aren't going to meaningfully change, or have an impact on the direction of play. The conversation your...

Two people share an interest in birdwatching and post on a birdwatching forum. Person A says, these walks in the woods are great! The trees, the outdoors, the other people, wow! And if sometimes we see a cool bird, all the better. I love birdwatching. Person B says, I am just here for the...

Straight up I think the background traits are a great piece of design and I wish that WotC had built on them and published a whole lot more of them. I think they help solve the disparity between casters and non-casters by giving even martial characters a way of impacting the game that isn't...

It isn't necessarily that they have a global network of contacts. It's that 'game recognises game' and they can make those contacts.

If Marvel Comics were real, all superheroes would be absolute evil, the lowest of the low. Imagine fighting Doctor Doom in space with your genius level IQ and your billion dollar supertech and then quietly walking past homeless people and pro-democracy marches on the way back to your mansion.