Recent content by Basic Expert

I agree, but then you are left with the general "line of sight" restriction for spells, which would disallow you to move it to a place you cannot see.

Per the teleportation keyword description: "If the destination space of your teleportation is occupied by another creature or blocked by a solid obstacle, you instead appear in the nearest unoccupied space of your choice." By a strict interpretation of the rules, you cannot teleport Cloud of...

I believe line of sight is the intended limitation. A reading of the rules could allow teleportation to unseen spaces, but I wouldn't allow it to an area unfamiliar to the caster, even if they could reasonably deduce it was there (i.e. teleport it into a room they've never seen into). The spell...

Alas, players are indeed the weak link in many a great game. GM: You guys can go anywhere and do anything you want! Players: Uh, okay, we look for the nearest guest giver... Players will ALWAYS wait for you to tell them what to do--unless it's something you WANT them to do. In that case, they...

I always make my own settings, but the published ones that I've responded most to are (in no particular order): 1. Primeval Thule 2. Birthright 3. Brancalonia

No, but the GM that says, 'only Tortlemen' certainly is. They would have my undying respect.

Ehh, the GM gets to say what the world is. Full stop. They might decide to collaborate or negotiate on details, but they remain the final arbiter. I LOVE it if a GM gives me a curated list of options. It shows that they've put some thought in their campaign and have a vision of their world...

I am much more familiar with Moldvay Basic than Mentzer Basic, but my first gaming experience was with the dungeon in back of the Mentzer book. That's the game where the clerics used lightsabers since they weren't technically "edged weapons" and we had a whole session where we wandered around...

Offense leads to a win condition. Defense does not. Thus, in the player mindset offense > defense. Sure, there are outliers and situations where that is not the case, but how much information do players have to make that calculation during the combat? Building towards DPR is also much easier to...

We play over VTT (Roll20) exclusively and I use art assets as backdrops instead of battlemaps a lot of the time. I'll have tokens or pics of important NPCs or monsters. This all helps to convey information quicker and more precisely, especially since playing online starts with a pretty steep...

Presumably, in the situation of a Strength check to open a door, the consequences of the individual forcing the first check is that the party then must decide to invest additional time and effort (collectively) to try to force it open with a group roll. Each party member taking part in the door...

I have a large collection or pulp games but I don't think I've played any of them. I'm more likely to crib pulp material for other games/genres. My Star Wars is very pulpy, filled with racing the Empire to ancient Sith temples on remote planets and stuff like that. However, games I DO want to...

I haven't played in game stores and don't spend much time there, but my impression from looking at schedule boards that it's almost all D&D 5E with a much smaller subset of Pathfinder and OSR. Maybe the odd Starfinder game. D&D and or some variant of D&D. I think it's a self-fulfilling cycle...

I think any of the changes above would work. You just need numbers that aren't too high or aren't too low. It doesn't much matter how you get there. I also wouldn't listen to the naysayers. If this project interests you, do it! If it doesn't work, it doesn't work, but you won't know unless you...

Which is why I love designing games (dozens at this point) and happily haven't published a single one of them. Game design = yes! Game publishing = no!