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    The final word on DPR, feats and class balance

    The game is about guessing what your opponent will do. The player with the better intuition will have an advantage (yes, "perfect balance" must incorporate player skill into its effects in order to achieve perfect balance and parity between players; it's part of why it doesn't exist). In this...
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    The final word on DPR, feats and class balance

    The reason why it's not a solved game at that point is because D&D has something the other games we're drawing comparisons to does not: the DM is changing the scenario. (Note this is not an appeal to Rule 0, it's an explanation of why it's not a solved game.) Your hyper optimized setup can be...
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    The final word on DPR, feats and class balance

    My point, in making my comment, was actually, "There's no such thing as a perfectly balanced game," not, "the imbalances are what make it interesting." Although... you could make an argument for that in the sense of the closer a game with a finite set of moves or play space gets to being...
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    The final word on DPR, feats and class balance

    (Very, VERY late to the party, so sorry if someone caught this already.) Neither Chess nor Go are perfectly balanced games. First turn still has a hell of an advantage.
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    RPG Evolution: Do We Still Need "Race" in D&D?

    The problems with that (which is why it's a debate) are that that ethnicity is a social grouping often based on a nationality, so someone can be ethnically South African and genetically Caucasian. Nationality is just... not useful in the slightest (a disease, like sickle cell anemia, that...
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    RPG Evolution: Do We Still Need "Race" in D&D?

    (I'm trying to tease out a bit more detail because in potentially heated conversations, poor communication kills.) I didn't see where the first part came into play, can you elaborate? EDIT: Nevermind. I didn't see how far the thread had moved since then. =)
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    RPG Evolution: Do We Still Need "Race" in D&D?

    Oh... darn! I was hoping this was a real thing I had missed. Oh well. Thanks. :) (EDIT: Response was to Obryn. Got lost a bit in the thread.)
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    RPG Evolution: Do We Still Need "Race" in D&D?

    What book is this in? (I genuinely don't know.) :)
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    RPG Evolution: Do We Still Need "Race" in D&D?

    Agree. The differences are definitely much more minor than... whatever we want to call what D&D is calling race. But biological race applied to medicine is very much alive, and not in a eugenics/racial superiority way, but it in a way of understanding how genes tell us the story of where we've...
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    RPG Evolution: Do We Still Need "Race" in D&D?

    Hmm. I'm not sure I'd go quite so far as to say "race" is 100% a sociopolitical construct. There do seem to be some DNA-level differences that ignoring racial factors harms our understanding of the disease. For instance: sickle cell anemia. NOTE: This is in no way an endorsement of racial...
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    Xanathar's 18 Pages of What??

    Let's be honest... most of the experience game designers in prior editions wrote pretty awful crunch, occasionally sprinkled with delicious crunch. (There's more than once I can think of that I was hired by a company to write a 3.5 version of 3.0 crunch some designer more experienced than I...
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    Do We Still Need "Oriental Adventures"?

    That's because we lost our minds with regards to RPG stuff back in the 80s. (But much like being turned into a newt, overall... we got better.) :)
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    Musings on the "Lawful Jerk" Paladin

    Absolutely agree. I don't think our statements are mutually exclusive. :cool: As I said, in my experience, that's what led to the best/most memorable Paladins I've seen. My experience is hardly enough to make a generalized argument from, and I'd say both GM and Paladin-player have to want to...
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    Musings on the "Lawful Jerk" Paladin

    High Charisma, Low Int at its finest.
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    Musings on the "Lawful Jerk" Paladin

    (LTTP on this topic...) So, I think this is probably, in my experience, where the best paladins are forged. The ones the players really, really remember. Because being the only one who is unabashedly trying to be the good guy and having to muse through, "What is right here?" can often be very...
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    D&D 5E A problem with legendary actions

    Hobbit, Chapter 12: Smaug smelling Bilbo and looking for the hidden thief. That's something I'd lean on, somehow, in setting to evoke a monster's detect ability. (I agree with the rest of your points on legendary actions.)
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    What are your last three RPG purchases?

    - Zodiac Age for 5E and Pathfinder - Of Dreams and Magic - Xanathar's Guide to Everything
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    Paper Weight For Character Sheets

    Follow up: turns out I've been using 20 lb. Is 24 or 32 better (from anyone with experience)?
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    Paper Weight For Character Sheets

    The current standard printer paper I'm using doesn't last more than 2 or 3 sessions it seems like... so, obviously, I need thicker/better quality paper for character sheets. What do any of you (who still use character sheets) prefer for the weight of the paper? Any particular reason why?
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