Recent content by Keldryn

I can't really say if it's a good or bad thing in general, but I don't like it. Yeah, there's the issue of owning vs renting, but when it comes down to it, I want my TTRPGs to remain a mostly analog experience. I'm a software developer and spend all day on the computer, so the last thing I want...

I don't think I've played grappling as written in any edition of D&D other than 4e. The results aren't worth the effort and slowdown in play. It feels weird to me whenever "Fighter" isn't the first class entry. Yes. That came in AD&D 2e (although it first appeared in the Dragonlance...

The CS6 tables have been extremely entertaining ("A sorcerer tricks you into looking into a Mirror of Mischief"). There are a few entries that are a bit too specific to the City of Masks, but when the characters aren't there and someone rolls one of those, I'll either ask them to reroll, or I'll...

No... I've been using the carousing tables in CS6 for a few months, and there are only two entries out of 100 on each of the Benefits and Mishaps tables that affect luck tokens. I'd like to change to having new characters begin with a luck token (Beginner's Luck), but as I mentioned I...

My Eberron game last year used its own cosmology. I've only been running Shadowdark for the past year, which doesn't really have an explicitly described cosmology yet. There are references to a fey realm, Hell, the Dark Realms, the City of Brass, the River of Death, "outer planes," and the Void...

It's definitely a kitchen sink, but it feels much more coherent to me than most kitchen sink fantasy settings. The Known World from BECMI was always my favorite setting when I was younger (that's what I started with), but coherency is not its strong point. Grey Box FR was pretty fantastic as...

Actually, I have made a small number of rules tweaks or changes in my Shadowdark campaign: Character generation: roll 3d6 in order, reroll one stat of your choice (keep if higher). You may reroll the whole set if you don't have at least one at 14 or greater. You may also swap one pair of stats...

Eberron is probably my favorite published D&D setting. I like the dragon marks and the dragonmarked houses. I love the take on religions. I love how it presents a more modern take on fantasy, moving away from the pseudo-medievalisms. I like how it can accommodate everything in core D&D, but...

The best way to describe Shadowdark is that it is the essence of classic/old-school D&D re-imagined with modern design sensibilities. It plays best as an exploration-focused game in which resource management matters. This involves using the procedures provided by the game: tracking crawling...

I'm planning to run a session or two of Star Wars D6 for my regular group of players, as a change of pace from our Shadowdark game. Actually thinking of just using the 1st edition book, as the past year of running Shadowdark has really made me appreciate streamlined rules and speed of play. 2nd...

It would be highly dependent upon the era of play, but anytime post-ROTS until the fall of the Empire, Vader and the inquisitors will be hunting down any Force users who draw attention to themselves. This doesn't necessarily have to be directly witnessed by someone. "There has been an awakening...

There are only two sides, so the winner goes first, and the other side goes after. Counting down initiative started in 3e. In the DMG, it states that each side rolls a d6, the higher goes first, and each side begins their actions on the segment indicated on the other side's roll. Lower roll...

I've owned the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer for almost 25 years and I've never been able to read through it. Page after page of walls of text. I simply cannot get inspired to read it. Modern layout and evocative art would probably help considerably.

When classes just become more building blocks to mix and match, we essentially have a point-based system pretending it's still a class-based system. Except a point-based system would be a lot simpler and cleaner. I liked the concept of prestige classes as originally presented in the 3.0 DMG...

"AI bull" (his words, not mine) pretty much sums it up. My co-worker (we're both software developers) is really big on AI, and he'll always query Copilot or ChatGPT any time there's an error or bug. 9 times out of 10 it's completely off-base (and I figure it out on my own), but he won't stop...