Recent content by zakael19

Why would the GM do this? One of the principles is to not undermine success. There’s also an awful lot of fairly soft moves the GM can do, and tons of ways to spend fear that aren’t “screw the players” but “add drama/excitement.” The one time the GM is supposed to spend Fear to seize the...

Not the least because there are so many types of creativity to exercise. The table which emphasizes player-creativity in selling problem solving ideas to the "impartial referee" GM in dungeon crawling play is going to be focusing on a very different overall agenda then the one who is emphasizing...

Is this a replacement for Experiences? How are you constructing this?

I think that considering the why and how of what makes creative hobbies sing to us (or not) in service of understanding our opinions and reactions to certain games and perhaps alternatives is an inherently good thing. It's not even necessarily particularly deep introspection, I don't seem...

FWIW, this is an optional rule 2014 5e and I’m assuming 2024 as well under “alternate ability scores” or whatever.

I remember when I was running a game for entirely new players/friends in the middle of the 2020 “everybody’s online” period they kept asking if they could do things like disarm people, capture them, generally stunt / do genre appropriate actions. Even later, “can I see/move to/blah blah” was...

IMO any system with multiple resources opens the aperture to some really good play, FITD being my favorite example. About the only style of horror I think DH simply won’t handle is one where powerlessness/fragility is the core mechanism. I don’t know why you wouldn’t want to consider what a...

As @Campbell noted, you can run something that looks like mysteries very well in a fiction-first game using a set of procedures I don't think DH would struggle to support. If you can do it in FITD (Bump in the Dark is a "better in basically every way" version of Monster of the Week, using a...

Wasn’t there an entire thread or side tangent of a thread about 2024 DMG complaining about the idea of communication tools being presented in the book?

Gotta do the Korean way: a wrapped pack of bananas in different stages of ripeness so that each day you get a perfectly ready one!

When I do stuff like this in most games I run right now, it’s a “pay a cost to resist or succumb” type situation. Blades gives me Stress And Resolve Threats as a mechanic - the first to power through the second. In Stonetop, if I drag the character’s doubts and fears out via something (asking...

About halfway through the first pass of my thoughts on some modern(ish, going for pre-smartphone) urban fantasy stuff. Working on guidance to reflavor abilities to urban neon magic, thinking about some other reworks of the ancestries besides just “yeah those are fae.”

That's great.

Sure, I just think phases fit the cinematic/dramatic bit well! Leaders get to do that via their reinforcements and large scale activations to be an absolute pain.

I mean take a look at the Ogre. You have to spend a Fear to spotlight, but when you do you can attack all targets in range. You deal direct damage (no armor). Spend a stress to grab anything nearby and huck it at all targets roughly in front of the ogre with Far. Any time they mark 2 hp, they...