Recent content by Gimby

You can argue quite well that this is essentially already what goes on - the PC is hit by a sword, which will normally kill or maim someone. The GM rolls and determines how many hit points it'll cost the PC to not be killed or maimed (this is termed a "damage" roll). If the PC can't afford the...

In the same way that overland travel, time spend socialising and so on do not happen in initiative order, we just recognise that the combat engine does not handle all scenarios. Some things just don't need to be handled mechanically via the combat engine and can be handled purely through...

Yes, absolutely - and that narratively powerful entities would often still be modeled with a single hitpoint Oh, my 1st level commoner arms are testament to that and giving Her Ladyship medicines. I certainly wasn't in danger of my life though.

Which patron mechanics specifically?

Right, the alternative way to look at this is that most things should be minions and that having hit points is the unusual factor. Take tabletop Warhammer (including 40k) Most entities have a single Wound and are taken out with a single solid hit. A genetically engineered super-solider has 2...

I'm interested - let's say I come up with a new class, in which I splice the Sorcerer's narrative (which is barely linked to it's mechanics, generally) to the Warlock's mechanics (which is barely linked to it's narrative, generally). Would this suffice for your needs? Is there anything...

While I think your overall point is fine, it's worth considering confounding factors with this - a typical MMO player will probably be spending most of their play time in non-group content and the tank and healer roles are really only needed for group content. Leveling, farming and so on are...

I think it could be done with 3e era psionics, something like this

I think that's basically the point - a TPK doesn't have to kill a campaign - there are lots of plausible outs for this that let a game keep going, but in @EzekielRaiden 's experience, TPKS do kill campaigns. I'll attest to that too - I've seen it happen. I've also seen it not happen after a...

Generally true, but it's still often worth thinking about how you could have done things better.

The general case of this appears to be pretty straight forward - we are having fun with friends, but some mistake leads to us having less fun than we could have had - a frustrating diversion on a road trip where we don't come away with a funny story would be a simple example. For an RPG...

Could you give an example of one of these? I'd be very interested in a worked example of the kind of thing that handles this well

Right - Dawn Treader could be fairly easily recontextualised as a series of modules chained together within a wider campaign arc, where those modules don't have a lot to do with each other in detail but are brought together in theme.

Right - I had an example from another thread about this Let's say we're playing 5e and the rule is that characters can move stealthily, with the DC being determined by the passive perception of any relevant NPCs. Consider a PC attempting to sneak up on an NPC that is standing facing away from...

"Balancing encounters a touch" by adding additional foes is exactly "spawning in" enemies. If it's being done to "balance" the encounter, it's almost definitionally to keep the game interesting (a trivial encounter would be found by most groups I expect as not interesting - a somewhat...