Recent content by Benjamin Olson

I think if it's something a new player, not knowing the rules, is likely to think their character should be able to try doing in these "try anything" games, it's really a lot better if there are general rules that cover it. It's just a huge turnoff if many reasonable asks are answered with "no...

It shouldn't break anything. I think having a major class ability be an extra feat right out the gate sort of robs the class of a prime opportunity to establish a distinct identity, but whatever, maybe it makes it the prime class for the player at the table who actually wanted to be playing a...

Okay, well that's almost true. What I'll come right out and say is that I didn't want any changes to anything that wasn't actually broken. I really would have been much happier if they just rewrote the corebooks to reflect late 5e design, fixed a few things that were generally seen as problems...

Yeah, hard disagree on everything there, because all the things you seem to have considered bugs in the 2014 version are to me either the selling features or non-issues. I knew how it worked, I never had trouble explaining to people how it worked, and because it worked differently than other...

5.5 is a series of marginal or obvious improvements alongside numerous arbitrary changes for change's sake with no clear guiding design principles. If you want to introduce elements of it that makes sense to me, but I think a group that already knows the rules for and owns the materials for...

I prefer to start "big, sprawling campaigns" at level 1, because those early levels are interesting in their own ways, they go by quickly anyway, and we might as well get the full zero to hero experience, and earn all our levels. But if its a more focused, shorter campaign I'd rather not have...

I hate juggling enemy and npc stat blocks, and most issues of game complexity for me are basically issues of whether the stat block is so complicated I actually need it at hand, or so simple it gives me no support for characters doing anything off-script.

These accounts are really not mutually exclusive, at least once you make allowances for the sort of simplifications involved in explaining something to an interviewer.

Clearly it can. I just don't think doing so makes a game simpler. When something people are likely going to want to try in their "you can try anything" games is made class specific (or other type of build specific) it seems to make things simpler, by limiting actions for everyone else and...

I voted 4, but not all complexity is built the same. Simplifications can lead to making system mastery harder. In 5e D&D, for an example I was just thinking about earlier today, disarming an opponent is an optional maneuver of Battlemaster Fighters, rather than something there is a general rule...

If there was a planned metaplot seeded in multiple books its a shame it didn't at least get a resolution, but I don't think it was a good idea in any case. Like if Chris Perkins was my DM and planted seeds for a future campaign through like five or six different campaigns, and we actually got to...

Right, because shopping and comparable mundane concerns are not a big part action-adventure movies in general. And that's fine for an RPG leaning into just being a movie. If you want the max cinematic version of Star Wars ttrpg I think I already mentioned the knock off Star Wars options for...

Very much agree. Star Wars has amazing production design and it's a core part of the franchise's appeal. People want specific weapons, spaceships, etc. And since a core part of that production design is being a run down, lived in, and kind of beat up galaxy where a lot of the machines a...

I don't know. What makes him so good?

Okay, well basically a lot of people buy them thinking a published campaign will make their DMing life easier, and ultimately feel like it has in fact been made harder by time they have unpacked a long and complicated WotC campaign, that often at least has parts that seem written more to be read...