Recent content by Unwise

In my games, if a magic issue prevents ships from being useful, then people have countered it to some extent, or nobody would invest in ships and associated things. Every expensive ship has built in runes that put out fires and stop teleportation on deck. There are ways around it, with some...

I had some large, but not threateningly giant snails kill two PCs in a way that could not be ressurected. I had been making a point of pointing out the snail all around a dungeon, how they were the size of dinner plates. PCs killed some easily, they were not a threat. They kept making jokes...

$7 for a plastic template for AoE spells from Temu. About $20 in resin to print some minis I found for free. That is it. A player bought me the PHB many years ago. I have not spent a dollar on D&D itself I don't think. Another player bought me Foundry once. Lifetime personal spending on D&D = $27

Once you leave medieval, you open up the question of where it stops. If people have firearms, do they have steam engines? If they do, do they have trains? If they do, do they have factories? Are we in the Victorian era now? If so, do we have lightbulbs in high-science areas? If you don't lay...

I ran a full campaign set in Qeynos. It was using Everquest 2 as the basis though. It lends itself really well to rediscovering the world. If the players don't know something, that is fine, as nobody else knows for sure anyway. My main takeaway is not to try and come up with rules for everything...

5e appears to have avoided the 4e clarification of having "interrupts" and "reactions", so we are left with no rulings of any of this that I can see. Personally I just look at the intent of the power, some reactions would be worthless if they did not work in a certain way. I think that the vast...

That feels like a matter of specifics and terminology though. Everything is still made up of these essential building blocks. The power to destroy one or all of those building block, to split something that had been thought to be indivisible, is a good basis for a nuke. It is not really relevant...

Why not just use a nuke? A spell that can split an atom, destroy a cornerstone of existence and make a huge explosion as a result. It is the cutting edge of arcane science and only a few mecha-mages are even aware of the possibility. These mad scientists are now in very high demand. Cold War...

I love it when players do this. It gives such a strong tie in to the campaign world and it shows that the players think of their PCs as fully fleshed out characters with motivations beyond making numbers on a character sheet go higher. I love it when PCs have motivations of their own. Really, it...

I'd lean towards running it in historical Call of Cthulhu or something similar. Something that lends itself to finding hidden lore and secrets and avoiding combat. "Scientific discovery leads to horrible realisation and otherworldly incursion" is a staple theme of that game. It helps that...

I thought of another death scenario I have not seen mentioned, though I might have missed it: TSR3 bribes a judge (Is that the TSR version with the extremely overt racist in it? I don't want to besmirch mere scammers/fools by confusing them with nazis) WOTC lose their legal case and the TSR3...

All we really need is for RPGs to go back to being something to feel ashamed of, the brunt of jokes and something you would never bring up in casual conversation. As an 80s kid, I am still shocked when younger people just randomly bring up D&D and ask others if they play. For D&D to fail it...

I like it, it is simple and to the point. Choosing an entire school of magic to add to your spell list makes themes like Oracle/Seer possible as a Warlock. I like the way it leans towards knowledge skills, with that book being better than others, but does not force people into that role. It...

I'm a little confused. What is the name of the sci-fi D&D game that was explicitly racist? (Not in a modern subtle, hasn't aged well way, euphemistic way, but in a WTH?! did I read that right? way) The one NuTSR/TSR3 folks were working on.

Bad Dragon and the Mighty Lance? That will certainly draw in a particular crowd. OK, maybe I am not the best at naming things. My Star Wars game is about smugglers on the Outer Rim trying to escape the Empire after a job goes wrong. It is called The Outer Rim Job.