Recent content by Umbran

My understanding is that there's a shortage of games. Period. The number of folks who are willing to run games is small compared to the number of folks who want to play games. I don't think there is an identifiable set of "best practices" for this. The people and situations vary too much...

Eh, no. If there's a problem it is in the mismatch - that you and the player want different things. But that doesn't mean that what either of you want, in and of itself, is a problem.

So, on the medical front... Meds are holding up, for now. The cat's not hiding, and is staying social, feels good enough to get on the bed herself, and so on, which is great. We've spoken with an oncologist, and have a game plan. We will be going with chemotherapy. Rather than speak in...

No, man. Making an Oreo taste like meat is the crime against humanity.

So, any hook is a great hook if everyone puts in a little work. Even the tavern one. While it has since been clarified, the original statement didn't speak to that work. If the original statement had been, "I prefer a fully fleshed out central origin for all the characters," we could have...

I find it the opposite. "You're all part of a Thieves' Guild" is right up there with "you all meet in a tavern" unless you put some solid work into the guild and its role in the world and its relationship to the PCs. Heck, even if everyone does start in the same guild, I'd want them to each...

One of my original 1e characters made it to lvl 18 (Elven Magic-User).

The "toggle BB code" switch is local to your browser, so the problem with not follow you between various devices if you hit it on one of them.

Yeah, but we took a picture... of an interstellar object... from orbit around Mars! That's just wild!

So, this one doesn't generalize well, calling for some individual work.... When my wife was playing a mad-science Victorian botanist in a Space: 1889 game, I just happened to run into a mug from Cognitive Surplus, with some cool art of poisonous plants on it. When that game ended, and we...

Not exactly a high bar, there.

Do. Not. Tempt. The. Timeline.

Hardly. You can't even work at McDonalds without touching computers these days.

Well, that's optimistic of you...