Recent content by EzekielRaiden

How? There are GM-less TTRPGs. There are TTRPGs with no randomness at all. There are TTRPGs with no classes or races. There are TTRPGs which do not use numerical attributes. There are TTRPGs which aren't even about characters. TTRPGs are at least as different as vans, trucks, and sports cars...

That rather goes without saying. Personally, I think it means we need to go back to the 4e Ritual model. Convert most pure-utility spells into Rituals. Let all full-casters cast a certain number of Rituals instantly each day. Non-casters who acquire Ritual Casting thus need more time, or have...

Some skills are system-agnostic. Some are not. D&D 3e, for example, outright requires the GM to constantly re-balance its structure because it doesn't work outside of a narrow level range (roughly level 7-8 is when the breakdown becomes apparent, and roughly 11-13 is where it goes fully off the...

Except that a car isn't anywhere near as specific a thing. A car, by its design, does essentially the same things as any other car. There are tiny, tiny differences, like which specific movements the combination switch does, or whatever--but all cars drive. If you live in even a slightly...

Sure, sure. I've just seen far too many people whose stance is "I've never played anything but D&D, D&D is the best and only game for me, I won't even look at other games" when, y'know, that's a pretty strident stance with zero experiential reference for comparison.

I see it as being like cuisine. I know Italian cuisine pretty well. Not like, infinitely well, but if someone tells me they're making an Italian dish, I kinda know what to expect--even though two Italian dishes can contain almost no ingredients in common, I know the shape of it. If I'm told an...

Who said "no" GMs? I, Hussar, Umbran, and others have simply said that there are far more players than GMs. I'm fairly confident the ratio is somewhere around 10:1 or worse, based on the number of gamers-seeking-GMs. If there really were as you say a ratio in the other direction, five GMs for...

The 4e DMG has an extensive section about player personality types and ways the GM can help keep folks engaged, and also problem behaviors to look out for and address before they become major issues.

Conversely, I've had exactly the same experience as Hussar, despite being significantly younger and living in a different country. GMs always--consistently--fall far short of the number of players seeking one. Across several different websites, I've seen easily ten times as many gamers seeking a...

Perhaps that's so. I can say that at least one cover led me aright, though, simply because it had an outright dragon-ish person, and there was in fact a dragonborn-esque race printed within. Super interesting mechanics if you're into the race-as-class thing (and dragon-people). Found out about...

My stance on that will always be that I won't yuck someone else's yum, but if there are other things that would excite them just as much, I'd prefer they consider those other things first. If they have their heart set on it though, more power to them--and I'll be sure to stay at least one...

I dislike wild magic, but if someone else in the group loves it, I won't speak that dislike aloud. I find it generally tedious, disruptive, and uninteresting: it takes up far too much time to add far too little excitement and far too much chance of extreme consequences (meaning, any chance at...

Then unless-and-until you give up some of the design assumptions that go into D&D, you will always run into the "overboard" problem. Guaranteed. This principle is precisely what causes the 3rd edition "overboard" phenomenon.

Of these, math is the only one I fully disagree with, and that mostly because math allows at very best only a very small degree of wiggle room, generally in the space of rapid estimation. In almost all other contexts, the purpose of math is to be either absolutely correct, or to be as close as...

Three reasons, one already mentioned: adults are overwhelmingly more likely to be the target audience of the ads that inspired you. The second is that, in general, a child attempting a difficult thing is almost certainly going to do so with some kind of mentor. It's not absolutely guaranteed...