Recent content by Thomas Shey

Since I just mentioned it--between Runequest II and III, they changed what the Size characteristic meant in terms of baselines (humans in I and II averaged around 10 in general; in III male humans (and most PC females) averaged 13 (since both games were back in the random-gen days, the first was...

The problem is, even outside the D&D sphere, how different two things called "editons" are varies immensely. Heck, they can vary considerably even within the same line (contrast the differences between Runequest I and II, and between II and III).

I'll also go as far as to suggest that to many people the flaws are possibly different but not necessarily worse than most human artists (including some who work regularly) have (Rob Liefeld doesn't seem to have spent a lot of time lacking for work) . So is it more a case that there's an actual...

While I understand the concern, I'm not sure people playing humans they're trying to evoke other cultures with do much better routinely, so...

Its not impossible for an adventurer to still land within the range of more or less "normal" things their species does, depending on the range of such things in a first place. My character in a limited-run PF2e campaign some years ago started his life off as a professional mercenary, had a wife...

That might be true, but where that line is is going to be in the eye of the beholder. I know people sometimes swear that D&D 4e wasn't D&D, but to me, it seemed to have all the defining features of that system other than fire-and-forget spells. I don't think serious reverse compability is...

You know that's almost the definition of a trade-off, right?

It isn't practicality because you aren't compelled to do it out of, well, practical factors (that tends to be things like "who lives close enough" or "who has a place we can play" at least for people who still want to play in person). And yes, I've done it; there was a player I GMed for for...

I have to point out that hard-line distinction doesn't apply to how people described them even 40 years ago, though, so I don't think you can specifically point at WOTC there. As noted, most BRP games have been fairly compatible with prior versions, but if they made significant changes they...

Its just easier for AI to do things that involve shuffling digital structures than physical ones, so that's what you're seeing first.

Well, I suspect this is effectively true, not in a broad sense, but in a "I don't want to play with people who have those preferences" sense. I suspect that applies to most people given some value of "set of preferences", this particular objection seems to be aimed at a rather large group and...

It isn't even always tech workers. My wife is the manager of a sales support department of her company, and during COVID a number of her staff moved out of state since they were doing work from home anyway; even though the department rule is now in-office-three-days-a-week some of them got...

Do you have some evidence, at least outside the D&D-adjacent sphere, that anyone else cares what they call an edition? I can't say the two most recent games I bought that were second editions called themselves anything but that; even Talislanta, which didn't continue the numeric progression...

I'll point out Umbran referenced that in the second sentence you quoted.

Because you want to play with specific people, perhaps for themselves, perhaps because you know they'll bring things to the game that curating them out would lose you. Even in the VTT days you don't have an infinite pool to access, and getting people who don't want things you might prefer not...