So do I -- my original comment was a half-joke. Medieval/early modern 'police' forces actually were brutal, arbitrary and often corrupt so I think setting them up as antagonists to the PCs would be entirely appropriate.
The Chinese live in a totalitarian state run by the same party that a few decades ago tried to violently purge many aspects of traditional Chinese culture from their society, and today carefully curates the information diet of its citizens. I wouldn't assume Chinese game designers would be good...
I'm sure they treat high-profile diversity hires like Orion in a discriminatory manner. It's simply too dangerous for other WotC employees to openly challenge and criticize their ideas. Imagine if Orion had called out specific people -- there would be a mob calling for them to be fired. So their...
Immediately checking reaction for every random encounter is too kind, IMO. I do sometimes check Morale immediately for the monsters, if they're obviously far outclassed by the PCs.
If the PCs win initiative, and choose to parley, then I'll check Reaction.
They don't make any concrete claims like that.
It sounds like their coworkers didn't like their work, but instead of criticizing it openly they passive-aggressively ignored it, which led to anxiety and self doubt for this person.
I think your standard template should be three sections:
1) First impressions (including hostile creatures in the room, if any)
2) Notes for handling how the players can interact with things or examine them in detail
3) Supplemental information for the DM
This follows the natural rhythm for...
I don't find it obvious that positive stereotypes are harmful. IIRC the original 'stereotype threat' study found that priming Asian students with propaganda about Asians being inherently good at math improved their scores on a standardized math test.
Anyway I'm not calling for "open season" on...
My Google must not be working properly. AFAICT it is, in fact, contested whether East Asians count as people of color.
It's relevant to the question of whether white Americans are actually "punching down" in deracinating and recombining elements of East Asian cultures for fantasy RP material...
Gratifying. I had a new player who praised our game's pace. Apparently it's hard to find a nice, quick game on Roll20 where everyone is paying attention, not dozing off at their keyboards.
This made me think (not for the first time) that running a game is like riding a bicycle - speed...
For a death save I've been using "roll over your negative HP on your HD to survive". So if a Fighter is reduced to -3 HP, they have to roll 4+ on d8. A Thief or Magic-User would have to roll 4 on d4.
This roll is made after the battle is over (or whenever the other PCs have a chance to crowd...