Paul Farquhar's latest activity

This is a misunderstanding of history. There have always been people who played D&D X way and people who played it Y way*. But in the...

That's a different thing. a Basic hobgoblin was nothing like a 5e hobgoblin in terms of how much threat it represented. The 5e hobgoblin...

The starter set directly encourages changing DMs between each mini-adventure, and is aimed at training more people to be DMs. That's why...

In Basic hobgoblins averaged 5.5 hp, had one attack and no special abilities. It’s not really comparable. Experienced people layers will...

And from this, we might learn that while it might be important, design isn't everything.

This is a common sentiment when this topic comes up, but what it really reveals is the shallowness of the campaign in question, or the...

This is far from universal. The trick is to root the characters in the campaign world and to make the players actually care about what...

As an aside, 2e's The Complete Thief's Handbook listed "marbles" in the equipment section and described them as "a general term for...

I think that’s common element in horror. The audience knows they are safe, because they aren’t dumb enough to go up into the dark attic...

Someone’s Law: In real life, people do stupid things all the time. In fiction it’s bad writing.

The whole point of 1st edition is the players make the decisions. If you want someone else to do it you are playing it wrong.

Because Gygax, et al. weren't particularly good technical writers. Remember, the need to say thing in particular ways so they'd be...

It does work, so long as you remember that 1st edition rules are just guidelines. Which is how you should be playing anyway, otherwise...

Lead flattens if you stand on it, and has a rough pitted surface. I.e. people wouldn’t roll on lead balls. You would do better with...

Sure, there are a lot more anachronistic foodstuffs mentioned at the unexpected party in The Hobbit too. I tend to tailor what is being...