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    Dragonlance "The Women of Dragonlance" -- Larry Elmore's New Dragonlance Painting

    One of my favorite D&D related paintings of all time.
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    D&D General The History of 'Immersion' in RPGs

    Just to be clear, I'm not telling you what role you choose to play, nor that there is a single way to roleplay, nor which style of roleplay you (or anyone else) should play. Since there are so many ways to roleplay, when discussing how we roleplay, it's important to be on the same page about...
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    D&D General The History of 'Immersion' in RPGs

    We're not disagreeing on the definition of role playing. And no, I'm not changing the definition either. What can you do when playing a role? Make decisions and take actions. That's it. How do you determine what decisions/actions you take? By playing the role. If you are role-playing in a...
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    D&D General The History of 'Immersion' in RPGs

    We're saying the same thing. Roleplaying is making decisions/taking actions as that character. There is no one thing to what a character would do, but there's a much smaller number of things this character would do. Bilbo isn't just a hobbit, nor is he 'special.' He is just Bilbo, and all of...
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    D&D General The History of 'Immersion' in RPGs

    I suppose you could call those roles, but really they are components of the character you are role playing. That is, you make decisions as if you are a halfling cleric of Tymora who was born and lived in that world. If you then switch to making decisions based on things that are happening in...
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    D&D General The History of 'Immersion' in RPGs

    While I agree that people will approach how they play an RPG or how they "inhabit" their character differently, I do think it's important to clarify something regarding your categories. Roleplaying is literally playing a role. It doesn't require acting, which is a different skill that can be...
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    D&D General The History of 'Immersion' in RPGs

    It's the whole point, in my mind, and we caught onto that immediately back when I started in the late '70s. By then it was recognized as Role Playing Game. It's also probably the concept that informed my continued approach to DMing, "tell me what you want to do, and I'll let you know what...
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    D&D 5E Volo's Guide to Monsters Limited Edition

    It's not 'scalpers' setting the prices, it's the people bidding on them. I started mine with a $0.99 initial bid price. I will also point out that the book is still in print, it's just the limited edition cover that is selling at ridiculous prices. It's cool, but I had originally purchased them...
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    D&D 5E Volo's Guide to Monsters Limited Edition

    First, don't expect 6e any time soon. 5e is doing spectacularly well, and they really have set up the system to avoid another edition assuming this one does well (and it has). Having said that, many books from older editions still sell for premium prices, while others don't. While rarity plays a...
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    D&D 5E The Fall Of The Dwarves: What Races Do People Actually Play?

    Just a reminder that most players aren't as focused on the mechanics or mechanical advantages as might be implied by forums such as these.
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    Worlds of Design: How Long Should Your Rulebook Be?

    Our house rules are basically a rewrite of the 5e PHB/DMG/MM. Some changes are minor, some much more significant. Overall the ruleset is shorter than the current 5e books. Probably closer to the AD&D books, where the PHB was much shorter. The rules themselves are much less mechanically focused...
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    World of Design: The Lost Art of Making Things Up

    This ties into what I posted earlier as well, but there’s one thing that I want to add/clarify because I like your example of the Lego sets. The theory here is that the Lego sets (or in my example the development of the AP and mechanical focus of RPGs) decreases creativity. I don’t think they...
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    World of Design: The Lost Art of Making Things Up

    I think that from one perspective. Roleplaying gamers as a group often feel much less imaginative than they did back in the AD&D days. Obviously, this subjective opinion is heavily weighted to my preferences and experiences, and is particularly focused on DMs. To me the two things that have...
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    Dragon Reflections #34

    Don't know why it double-posted, don't see a way to delete it...
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    Dragon Reflections #34

    I agree. Furthermore, we really liked the approach dual classing took. Primarily from a story/narrative/role-playing perspective. First, it was switching classes. While you can do so within the context of the game regardless, this approach seemed to encourage changing from a character...
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    D&D 5E The Last Edition of D&D?

    I know this is an old thread but... A big driving factor is sales. As the game continues to sell strongly, there's little reason to make a drastic change like a new edition. The growth in this era is very different from the growth in the earlier eras. The closest analogy would be the OD&D to...
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    Worlds of Design: Medieval Travel & Scale

    Exactly, in part because most of the time horses or other animals were used to carry stuff (or pull stuff) rather than riding. Having animals also reduced actual travel time, because they needed to be rested, fed, and watered, and resting often meant relieving them of their burden as well...
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    Worlds of Design: The Lost Art of Running Away

    The PCs in my campaign run away quite a bit. I think the reasons are several: First, we play a less 'superheroic' campaign. And by that I mean that our version of 5e scales back the special abilities. We prefer the characters to be more grounded and more like the rest of the world. I've...
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    D&D 5E Concurrent initiative variant; Everybody declares/Everybody resolves [WAS Simultaneous Initiative]

    I'm not FormerlyHemlock, but I can tell you how we handle it. First, we separate movement from your turn. The players describe what they are going to do, and I do the same for the monsters. We then resolve attacks and actions in a logical order If there is a chance that somebody will finish...
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    D&D 5E Concurrent initiative variant; Everybody declares/Everybody resolves [WAS Simultaneous Initiative]

    I’m happy to participate, just remind me and I’ll send you a link to our rules. You can use our “no initiative” approach with or without our “no rounds” approach, and we have also completely separated movement from the turn equation as well after we realized that was nearly as big a problem for...
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