Recent content by Hriston

I think it's pretty well established anecdotally that an author, in a non-RPG context, can be surprised, in the process of writing, by what their character(s) do(es), so I don't think that's what's at stake here. I think it's more about mechanics vs player having (some) authorship over the...

I'm not @pemerton either, but, to quote Vincent Baker, it's "things that no vigorous creative agreement would ever create" -- "outcomes that upset every single person at the table." It's "things that if you hadn't agreed to abide by the rules' results, you would reject." I hope that helps.

Assuming a best case scenario of five easy encounters preceding the final encounter, I'd be comfortable with CR 3. Eta: Not that I have a CR limit for a single creature. I reduce number of creatures to fit within the daily XP budget, but I don't go below one no matter what the creature's CR is...

Bernard Lafayette, civil rights pioneer who joined Freedom Rides and fought for voting rights in the Jim Crow South, has died at the age of 85.

Yanar Mohammed, prominent Iraqi human rights defender and feminist advocate, was killed in an armed attack on her home in Baghdad Monday.

He is falsehood (Old Persian drauga), "the Lie" of which Darius the Great speaks in the Behistun Inscription. In Asiatic Mythology (Hackin, J. et al.), one of the sources sited in "Appendix 4" of Deities and Demigods, author Clément Huart calls him (it?) the "principle druj" which he seems to...

3. Describe the ambusher beginning their attack, which starts combat and "surprises" those combatants who were unaware. Then everyone rolls Initiative (surprised creatures with disadvantage). Anyone whose Initiative is higher than the ambusher's has time to take their turn before the ambusher's...

Terrin - Team Fusion Terrin takes note of the statue's appearance and responds to Shade-9's question. "I have no such ability," he says.

Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, known as “El Mencho”, Mexico's most wanted drug lord, was killed by Mexican security forces on Sunday in the town of Tapalpa, in Jalisco state.

My party is first level and has just emerged from an eight hour dungeon crawl. Their choices are to seek shelter in the nearby abandoned castle where a family of wild boars awaits in the courtyard, camp in the wilderness and risk a random encounter with ogres, or head to a village a short...

I wasn't directly attempting to answer your question because I'm not really interested in limiting the roleplaying choices of players based on ability scores, but I was interested in what you said about prohibiting "participation in some aspect of the game" and that "finding and proposing...

Okay, well, for you, what ability does a character depend on to explore the setting, and what is the minimum score needed to do so?

It was meant to address this question from the post to which you were responding: Since you prioritize exploration of the setting over more challenge-oriented play (focusing on exploration of situation), I was suggesting an expectation might exist that PCs with low Wisdom would be considered...

I think the expectation in RPGs that individual players are the ones who get to play their particular characters is pretty much universal. This is probably why force often gets labeled as railroading.

Well yeah, the basis of calling the use of force railroading is that table expectations are such that it's perceived as a violation by the player whose character is on the receiving end. I don't know if that means "they just get to", but it does mean there's a general understanding that force is...