Recent content by Variss

It sells a player matching service that directly pays GMs for creating content. They take a % of your per-session ticket costs and uses their algorithm to suggest players for you (as GM). As a player, it serves up listings of games (both free and paid) that match your interest.

I don't think I have ever read a gaming article that I have so thoroughly disagreed with more. Don't get me wrong, from the point of view of the originator of an IP sold to the public, I understand that motivation. But from a local table perspective it is almost entirely unrewarding, bordering...

Games that you run/design are the rare instances where your control is absolute. The GM is not beholden entirely to the rule set because of narrative power. If you find that you've underestimated the impact of a given item/power/influence, unlike the real world, you have the ability to alter the...

Not so much a bait-and-switch as a subversion of tropes. The heroes, doing heroic things, are being leveraged by the BBEG to undermine faith in the Gods. He wants them to win against the adversaries he pits them against. There were hints along the way, but it took until Tier III for them to...

This reminds me of the big summary posts that dominated the ancient EnWorld main page.

The amount of toxic in this thread alone justifies the existence of the X-Card. If these are the best and brightest responses, then I am absolutely certain that no gamers are capable of understanding social cues or responding in an adult manner to anything.

In addition to recent translations of the Odyssey, there is an amazing novel by Madeline Miller, titled Circe. It is a re-imagining of the myths, re-imagining them as links between other elements of the Odyssey, as well as the plays Medea, and the myths surrounding Crete (Theseus, Deadelus...

Minor Nitpick, Ars Magica's contemporary for wound systems should be Star Wars: The Role Playing Game (WEG) as both were 1987 releases. Vampire's first publication was four years later.

Shouldn't it be "Based on the highly popular novels of Andrzej Sapkowski, which were turned into an award winning video game series by CD Projekt Red." I mean credit where credit is due. The game stories draw from the established prose.

And again, rather than come up with something interesting for the Powers/Talents/Disciplines, they stay with the fractional accounting nonsense of Psi Points. Yes, it's a staple of the old system, but we can do so much better now. Even theming it like an amplified warlock's incantations set...

Before one goes tossing around nonsense terms like "RAW" with regard to a self-contradicting document such as the 5E rules, you might want to look through other spells as to how terms are used. "Sphere", "Hemisphere", "Dome", "Area" are used casually, often interchangeably, rather than...

I believe the design intent goes to your first theory. However, that's an aftershock of so many editions where the power curve is just ungraceful after 12th level. At this point in 5th Edition, I have DM'd or played in three campaigns going the full path to 20th level. Bounded Accuracy works...

I doubt there is any risk of a trademark/copyright fight over a word from Norse Mythology dating back to the expansion of the Roman Empire.

Leveraging that assessment on the Roll20 metrics, rather than on the sales of the game (preferably from a distributor point of view for accuracy) may indicate a failing of the medium, not the game. FFG's take on Star Wars requires a mechanic that is not easily implemented on Roll20 or Fantasy...

At this point, I'm pretty much done with both Crawford and Mearls. The number of self-contradictions, retcons, and disagreements between them borders on the Lucas-level of revision. As with most of their "sage" advice, it gets ignored, with a simple post-it reflecting my personal rulings. It's...