Recent content by EzekielRaiden

I was...not a fan of ASF. It became a de facto yes/no, in that even a 1% chance to just lose your spells was Unacceptable, and it was riddled with exceptions and ways to work around it. I've actually found ways for a Bard to wear heavy armor and carry a shield, while having 0% ASF. It's a...

Absolutely. A major part of why such a benefit could work in a video game is that players almost always have FAR more HP than the hits they're expected to take, and it's VERY easy to keep throwing yourself at the same fight until you get through it with no errors. Neither of these statements...

Ironically, they should have paid more attention to MMOs to counter this exact problem. MMO designers have long been aware that pointless and drawn-out trash fights are a problem. You need to either be building up to something through them, or you need most fights to have something interesting...

A big gap remains. Your very phrasing shows it. With D&D, the mechanics are "in control." Sometimes via R0 or w/e, the DM overrides them if they push the fiction too far. But when "working normally," the fiction follows after the mechanics, esp. in combat and the like. Proper DW play should...

Likewise. Gatekeeping and tribalism have not done RPGs any favors.

Except that, as noted, it's often NOT in print. And where it is in print, different editions differ on what it actually is. That's literally half of my argument that you keep summarily ignoring.

Nope. I, and he, have laid out a logical argument for why the term "Rule 0" should be used in the more restricted sense, to promote clear discussion and avoid conflation of legitimately different actions ("infrequent rules override" vs "house-ruling" vs "kitbashing" etc.) There is no "twisting"...

Wait, so is rule 0 inside the system or not? If it's not inside the system, it's not a rule. That's literally what I said earlier that you quibbled about.

Okay, but how does that square with running an adventure path that has a defined sequence of events? Paizo and our own ENWorld have made bank on them. If you truly never know whether things can go in any new direction, adventure paths and first-to-max campaigns don't work. To some extent, you...

Okay so...since it's a lot easier to respond to this than pick apart the full posts etc. from earlier... What's your justification for this, beyond your bald assertion of it? Because it's pretty clear that at least some of the cited examples...and in particular, the image we see heading this...

Though I don't quite follow Aldarc's way of saying it, I have to agree with him that you seem to be looking at only the most superficial similarity and calling that equivalence. Rule 0 isn't, as far as I'm concerned, about inventing new rules. I would even go so far as to say that no...

The only (mostly) non-D&D game I know of that features halflings is FFXIV with its Lalafell. They're basically nothing like Tolkien's halflings other than size, though. I think the only reasons halflings and gnomes stick around are: Tradition. They've been around a long time, so people expect...

I find the inherent power imbalance of the DM role* is much more responsible than Rule 0, and that DMs have MANY more tools than just Rule 0 to deal with abusive or coercive players. Otherwise, we'd never even have started talking about RAW, and no DM ever would have gone online and asked, "is...

LEPIDUS: What manner o’ thing is your crocodile? ANTONY: It is shaped, sir, like itself, and it is as broad as it hath breadth. It is just so high as it is, and moves with its own organs. It lives by that which nourisheth it, and, the elements once out of it, it transmigrates. L: What color is...

A "setting" is a bit like "art"; we all agree that some things are examples, and some things aren't examples, but giving a hard-and-fast distinction is going to fail in both directions (false negatives and false positives). As a rough pattern, however, a "setting" will generally have some sense...