Recent content by talien

Oh I agree it's for new players -- brand new players. As I mentioned in the hilarious example listed after that point, you can also make characters at high speed -- but when making the character, the person doing it didn't actually know what a plasmoid was, or thought to ask if that made sense...

Yes, my fastest is two hours. Saying that out loud... "hey guys, learn to play D&D! For the first two hours, we're going to show you how dice work and 12 different classes plus 10 species and 16 backgrounds. And wait til you geto the spells!" Funny (and true) story. For a one-shot one of the...

I want to double-click on this: Now that there's 2014 vs. 2024, you can be "right and wrong." You can have the wrong info, or believe you have the info right, and actually not have the info that's appropriate for the current game. What happens if the info is wrong? This can happen occasionally...

You make a really good point. In some ways it's because "reading content" vs. "just in time content" requires different formats. I'd add one more: it's fine for a PLAYER to have "just their view of the rules." It is not nearly as fine for a DM. Digital content tends to serve up only the pieces...

The problem is just D&D is DENSE. Most of the tactical RPGs are (I can't even imagine teaching Pathfinder). The amount of rules I consult that are "oh, that never came up before." It's less so with 5.5E, but still massive. Each class is its own set of rules. 12 classes, plus every species...

Despite hours spent scrolling through digital tools and PDFs, the nuances of the new system felt slippery, like trying to catch smoke with my hands. It wasn't until I brought the game back to the physical table—specifically during my weekly sessions at the local library—that the culprit revealed...

The campaign I'm running is less Deadwood and more The Crucible with religious dwarven ironworkers and human farmers. But my players joke that since they only just turned third level after five months they'll have aged years by the time they hit double digits in levels. This is a feature, not a...

Yes, although now PCs on my Discord channel are planning ahead for their "vacation". To your point, this may be more my concern than the players, but I think they're starting to see the benefits.

I'm discovering 5.5E is about as compatible with 5E as 3.5E was about as compatible with 3E. Which is to say DM can handwave the differences between monsters for the most part, spells work drastically different in subtle but important ways, and the classes between the two editions are different...

The opinion that perhaps matters the most for publishers is DriveThruRPG. If they create a new category that will be seismic, but show no signs of doing so. There's 5E-compatible or there isn't, not 5E-2014 vs. 5E-2024.

What's interesting is that I settled on 5.5E: RPG Evolution: Change is Coming And started branding all my products such. Near as I could tell? That was the wrong call. Everyone seems to be calling the edition 2024. "DnD 2024" (score of 78): Explore - Google Trends "DnD 5.5" (score of 45)...

The downtime rules (if you're familiar with them) help a lot. I sort of glossed over this but i think Tasha's has them and the 2014 DMG did (but not so much 2024? it gets muddled). Just as villains just sort of "hold off invading for a week" the PCs similarly seem to blip in and out, so giving...

Picture courtesy of Pixabay. In traditional D&D campaigns, the world is often a frozen tableau that only springs to life when specific players sit down at the table. If a player misses a week, we hand-wave their absence or pretend they were a silent ghost in the background. However, my weekly...