Recent content by GrimCo

Dean Winchester from Supernatural. Paladin trough and trough. Yeah, he swears, drinks and womanizes, but underneath all, he has strong moral compass, is willing to sacrifice himself for greater good, has that leader aura, has oath bound devotion to cause (hunting monsters and guarding humanity)...

For long campaigns - around 5 where i put pre Tasha/Xanathar 2014 5e. Just complex enough to have some player options, but not too much to be overwhelming. I don't mind complexity if it adds to game play fun, but i hate complexity that stems from badly written rules and horrible layout ( i'm...

There are couple of games that i like to play and run and never had need or want to house rule stuff. 7th sea 1ed, WoD (WW one), GURPS, Fate accelerated, Mythender, Houses of the bloodied, All flesh must be eaten, most rules light systems ( Window 1ed, Cairn 1ed, Knave, Mork Borg). Writing...

Same here. We are friend group first, gaming group second. One of the guys will soon become dad again, so he won't be playing with us for at least until end of the year since committing 3-4 hours during the weekend is big ask. Maybe he'll drop in for session here and there. But he is still...

My main group are also my closest and best friends. We are playing together since 2008. At one point in time, i got burnout from fantasy and D&D. I sat down with them, asked if we could switch to something else, even offered to run something else, just not D&D fantasy. Rest of the guys had blast...

It's not about telling someone to suck it up. It's fair warning. Maybe DM just wants to run R rated game for a change cause he/she is burned out on running PG 13 games. Maybe instead of usual big heroes out to do good and save the world campaign for the N-th time, DM wants to run game with 50...

As someone who runs mostly R rated games, i give fair warning during my campaign pitch. Specially if i run Dark Sun or Ravenloft. I don't go into gory details, not my jam, but i do include various themes that are potentially uncomfortable for some people, so anyone who has problems, can nope out...

Exactly. Sometimes DM has concept of campaign and that's only thing at that moment he is willing to run. There is limit to how much you can stretch something to fit into a game. If players aren't interested in that concept with it's inherent limits, they can decline to play. In same vein, if...

I'll answer only for myself. Last couple of years, i'm extremely picky about what i'm willing to run in D&D when it comes to longer campaigns. I pick player options i'm allowing in advance to fit my vision of the game world, theme and mood of the game, then i compile it into a short "sales"...

Yeah, that kind of behavior sucks. It's like giving kid a lolipop for a few licks then taking it away. IMHO, if you wanna exclude some options, tell it to player straight forward when you pitch campaign. So they know, even before they start thinking about what they will play, what limitations...

First thing that comes to mind is monsters with abilities that negate player agency. Now, there are few of them in MM. But homebrew one with innate dominate person that targets cha save, that one would be very nasty.

Of course. That's why i said try to find compromise. Key word is try. Sometimes, DM's and player's vision is so wide apart that there just isn't any compromise to be made. For example. that one campaign i mentioned. Only race was human, only classes were barbarian, non casting ranger and...

As a DM i banned races and classes for various reasons ranging from "i don't like them" to "doesn't fit my campaign". Most extreme was campaign with 1 race and only 3 classes available. I also run plenty of 3.5 games where anything published by wotc was allowed (races, classes, templates, feats...

Just to add a bit here. There is absolutely controller in football. Central midfielder is exactly that. Luka Modrić is best example of modern controller in football. He dictates pace of the game, where ball goes, pulls opposing players from their zones. Pure field control. Leader is more like...

Sure, you could play Druid as a healer in 3.x/PF1. But primary healer in those editions still was - cleric. Bards were crap healers, since they were not full casters (they only got 2 0lv spells at 1st level in 3.x, 1 slot of 1st lv in PF1 and they had very limited number of spells know, which...