Recent content by Edgar Ironpelt

Thank you. That looks like it works without the artifacts I see with ICODE tags. It was also one of those "That was obvious - after someone pointed it out to me" things.

Yes, and I was trying to ask if there was some way other than using the in-line code tags. And my post got munged by the forum software. It turns out there are [ icode ] tags as well as [ code ] tags here. This is italic and this is *starred*. Using the icode tags wrapped around the *starred*...

Well my personal definition of simulation is pretty much is the "simulationist" corner of the Threefold, as worked out in rec.games.frp.advocacy back in the day. Because I was there and helped (in a minor way) to create the Threefold. From the faq "simulationist": is the style which values...

It depends on what the players care about. It depends on the style of play that the players are looking for. Players of a simulationist bent want setting lore that's solid world-building and that they can hook their PC into, to make their PCs part of that world, as opposed to characters who...

It corresponds to the character forming a good-enough memory of the venue to be able to draw a map afterwards. I can draw sketch-maps, from memory, of a venue I've visited. I can draw sketch-maps from the description the GM is giving me right now. Drawing sketch-maps from the memory of a...

My preference is to show the on-graph-paper maps to the players, but if they want to draw their own, they have to use plain paper. I have an old essay cum rant that touches on this: Why Game Masters Should Give Players Exact Distances The usual argument, in a rpg, against giving players exact...

I voted Monster Manual, in large part because it was both my first AD&D purchase and one of my first RPG purchases of any sort. The DMG is interesting, but not my fave - and it also had the downside of my having had to wait for it to be published, after I already had the MM and PHB. (I'm not...

Is there any way to escape star (*) characters so that they show up as stars, rather than being 'helpfully' transformed into italic or bold BB markup? Other than surrounding them with ?

I prefer a system where character skill is more important than player skill, and where the player-skill element is more a matter of skill in manipulating the crunchy mechanics than in having real-world skill in the task the character is attempting. But I'm aware of the imperfect trade-offs and...

I can confirm that. I was there as one of the impure Simulationist GMs. And there were arguments about whether or not randomizers could improve fidelity to the game world's own internal logic and causality. I contributed to some of them, on the side of "Yes, they can." There was a consensus...

As you say: "That's one philosophy, but not mine." Or rather there's another trade-off. Yes it's nice when player cleverness aligns with what the character would do, and when players can make choices for their character's actions at a more detailed and less abstract level. But this is often not...

Hiding the tell in the "blahs" has its own drawbacks. Among other things it tests player-skill instead of character-skill. As a player who is playing (and who spent the character-resources to have) a highly noticing character, I'd want the reward of my character being highly noticing. As a GM...

Overall, I use traps very sparingly. They're a hassle for NPCs & monsters to set up, so they won't without believing they have a good reason to, and they're a hassle for me as a GM, so I won't go looking for reasons why the NPCs & monsters might set them up. Also, my NPCs and monsters mostly...

What do you mean by "tells"? They might be signs that "everyone sees automatically, the GM shouldn't require a roll." They might be signs that "characters with good perception scores may spot, even if not actively looking." They might be signs that "only characters who actively look for them...

I prefer to ban them completely. If you need an auto success/fail rule to hit/miss, that's the rules and the dice telling you that the GM should just hand out a "don't bother rolling the dice" result. Right now I'm leaving criticals in place for my 3.5e game where I'm trying to keep the house...