Recent content by Ruin Explorer

I think the three seasons of foreshadowing was probably enough.

Only one? Haha. Oh my god there are so many. Let's just do three for now. Triangle Agency is top of my list as "I'd like to play" (don't really want to run, sounds hard!) This is one is easy, haven't presented it to the players, am trying to convince the other guy who DMs to run it lol. SWADE...

That's not actually completely impossible, it's just incredibly rare. I went to school with a kid whose mother was Japanese, and whose father was Welsh, and he had precisely and exactly those features aside from a "copper" skin tone (but I wonder what your source is for that - she's consistently...

I mean, but presumably you do know he's described as having relatively darker skin than we'd consider "white"? And dark hair and initially dark eyes? Or is this one of these "Rue"-type situations where some part of the audience hears "tan skin" or "brown skin" and just thinks he's a white with a...

Some cats and dogs can understand the threat of future action, understand the vague concept of "guilt" (as in future punishment for a thing, and how you should avoid being detected doing it), and so on. Monkeys take items from people and barter them back, even refusing "low" prices for them (in...

Oh there is though. And this is something I've seen reliably across virtually every DM I've ever played D&D with, and the same occurs in actual plays I read/watch/listen to as well. D&D DMs reliably treat spells far better than skills in practice - simply because the utility ones don't involve...

Zardnaar's analyses tend to be very focused on combat capability (not just whiteroom DPR, broader than that) rather than utility and flexibility, so definitely bear that in mind when reading them. I don't think that makes them valueless at all, but anyone's analysis is going to come from a...

I don't think that's actually true in my experience. I mean, we all have our own experiences, right, but in D&D, there's a key and vital difference between Rogue skill checks and spells, and that's that spells always succeed. So when the chips are down, and you really need to succeed, you use a...

This is a very interesting perspective. I don't know if I fully agree, but thank you for sharing it. Interesting that Monks aren't on the list! Would you say they're sufficiently improved in 2024/5.5 or would you never have had an issue with them?

I feel like an update of Oriental Adventures is 100% possible if they do three things: 1) Make damn sure it isn't called Oriental Adventures. 2) Make it about Japanese mythology specifically (including cutting or redoing any elements which aren't present in Japanese myth, but that's not very...

But it hasn't. That's my point. D&D hasn't ever "stuck to" that aesthetic. As I showed at some length, that aesthetic was essentially abandoned in 2E. So this wouldn't be "sticking to" an aesthetic, this would be completely abandoning the last 30+ years of aesthetic in favour of reverting to...

What's truly astonishing to me is that D&D still doesn't have a dog-person or wolf-person race. Like, at all. We've got multiple brands of cat-person and bird person, arguably two brands of cow-person, countless other anthro races, but no playable dog/wolf-people? I'm not objecting here - it's...

I profoundly hope you're busting my (space)balls here.

I often say "You can’t fight in here gentlemen, this is the war room!". But I have never watched Doctor Strangelove (I know, I know...) and I'm not even entirely sure what the plot is beyond that it's satire, involves nuclear weapons and maybe eventually a dude is riding a nuclear bomb whilst...

Given that they made Gith into Aberrations, when they share basically no characteristics with other Aberrations, just some history, it seems like they really should. (Honestly the refusal to dual-type species and monsters in 5E mystifies the hell out of me - you can just do it, and it doesn't...