mearls's latest activity

I think that's the key. Adoption isn't as important as having the option to adopt. If someone runs the game using the core rulebooks...

The idea that players will optimize the fun out of a game is an old one. For a TTRPG, the design challenge comes in finding ways to give...

Interesting that the Civilization games came up in this conversation. Turn-based 4X strategy games for desktop PCs would not seem to...

That's a cool idea! I love this idea for promoting creative play. I could see an ultrafast creature that you can't target until you...

For ten years I struggled a lot with this stuff and then Doom points from Tales of the Valiant came out. I renamed them "dreadful...

Just have to echo that this is perhaps the most elegant expression of the tension this old-school DM finds himself in with new-school...

In looking at 5.5 and playing it, there have been some adjustments to the math. I think it the spreadsheet balance is consistent, but...

In a lot of ways, the job of a game designer works like this: Guess Get it wrong Adjust And you keep doing that until you are more...

Heh took your advice about playing older D&D during playtest. We switched back to 2E and clones. Pre 3E creatures are class...

Wow, that is the most elegant expression I've ever seen of the core tension in 5e. Having played a lot of AD&D and B/X (via OSE) in the...

The Dying Earth RPG has social combat and little to no physical combat. You all play rascals, con artists, and criminals who use social...

I'll second Call of Cthulu. It's the game you play when you want a bit of 1920s Earth history with your RPG.

We'll see if his hot take stands up to a few rounds of Suggestion and Modify Memory.

For folks who don't like the new lore, it's a small part of the book. Outside of the PDK entry, it's not (from what I have read so far)...

It's kind of interesting that they settled on the thing that 5e Eberron did to give Dwarves a hook in the setting, "we fight aberrations".