Recent content by Paul Farquhar

The question I get asked most frequently is “how high is the ceiling?”, but things like “is there a drawer in the desk?” “What time is it?” and other environmental details get asked about quite often. Lore type questions tend not to come up much. My players are very good at setting aside...

Let’s break this down shall we: 1) email: people get hundreds of emails every day, so they have learned to ignore anything that doesn’t come from the boss saying “if I don’t have that report on my desk by 9am you’re fired!”; 2) reading: if reading was a good way for people to learn things they...

Because dating sites work so well…

Sure, the real world only manages to support one sentient species. Two is fantasy, ten is ridiculous, and fifty (snice most of the species in the Monster Manual are sentient) is D&D. But the only way it works is if you assume that most of those species are very very rare. There isn't room on the...

Frankly, that would be far too many for a supposedly human dominated setting. With the Goliaths and tieflings and dwarves, and halflings in the Towns, and goblins, and frost giants, you are making humans a minority species.

Which means both Goliaths and tieflings are significantly over-represented in terms of population averages. A couple of hundred dwarves at Kelvin’s Cairn as well. At 3, Dragonborn are about right, wouldn’t expect to encounter more than that. Elves are pretty underrepresented in terms of global...

No, but the population of the Ten Towns is even less than Phandelver, only a few hundred people in total. You cannot have significant populations of each of the ten PHB species. If there were even numbers of each that would work out at about 50 of each. But we know the majority population of the...

what is the population of the region around Phandelver? Maybe a thousand if you include the goblins? So you have a hundred Dragonborn, and a hundred tieflings, and a hundred aasimar, and a hundred gnomes and a hundred halflings, and a hundred orcs and a hundred elves and a hundred dwarves and a...

But the assumption is, the PCs are not from the Ten Towns. Everything is written from an outsider’s perspective. In fact, most of the people in the Ten Towns don’t come from the Ten Towns. The lore describes them as drifters and outcasts, and most of the named NPCs with any backstories came...

No they are a complete unknown to nearly everyone they meet whilst adventuring. That would be the Shire if you are a hobbit. You haven’t read Lord of the Rings, have you? There are exactly two halflings outside of the Shire - on the entire planet. And only one is actually a relative. And they...

That basically means your character can never leave home. Adventures don’t happen at home. Adventurers leave home to seek out adventure. That is what makes them not-commoners. It doesn’t matter what your species is, you are not going to be surrounded by your relatives whilst on an adventure...

Halflings don’t have any “deep connections” to Middle Earth either. The vast majority of people don’t know they exist, and they don’t appear in any of the histories until the affair with the Ring.

I would hope that they all have if they hope to run a successful business! I doubt it will directly feed into Dark Sun though. Possibly an unconscious influence.

I still don't understand. What do you want to be able to choose? In both the cases I mention, and in practically every other adventure ever, the PCs were a long way from home. They are not going to run into any relatives.

I really can’t understand why you think this matters. Last time I played an elf, in Witchlight, I encountered no other elves. This in no way impeded my ability to role play an elf. I used their long lifespan as a hook. Last time I played a dwarf, in an Eberron-set adventure, I encountered no...