Recent content by zakael19

Empathy is the ability to perceive and understand the feelings of others. Empathic-altruism is the act of helping others because you understand that they're suffering. Empathy is correlated with pro-social behaviors because one part of that is understanding how others are affected by what you...

Actually, that tends not to be true? Empathy is about understanding somebody else's internal state and tends to be correlated with pro-social behavior; some studies suggest that the more power and status somebody has the less empathetic they are while those from lower social strata have...

Doesnt the 2024 DMG have verbiage literally about this and similar stupid BS? Just crib from that as a general "Power Recovery abilities trigger when facing a foe while in initiative. Don't be stupid."

Guess I'll just keep using Owlbear Rodeo for now then!

How'd you find that? That's fascinating, I was expecting you to go with the design or combat here and not scene framing! To me, the "continuous way" is far more gamey then scene framing techniques that narrative games have been emphasizing for a while; continuous style play is a very D&D-ism...

I definitely see most canon Settings of Despair as per OP not having a ton of space for PCs to fundamentally alter the path the place is on. At best you might hope to escape back to somewhere better or a temporary improvement of the status quo. Some examples that come to mind are Blade's Doskvol...

Whoa, definitely missed this when I was running a game of it haha. I don't think the context is quite the same as the latter which is more about how you want to cheer for characters by giving them opportunities to struggle? One interesting bit we'll get to later regarding characters is that...

The One Ring is pretty clear on how you’re fighting to keep the spark of hope alive until the King Returns & etc. You’re not going to defeat Sauron, but you can help ensure there’s a world to come after him.

Over the last year-ish I've been playing two games focused around community building/sustainment as the fulcrum of play: Stonetop and Songs for the Dusk. The latter is a post-post collapse/apocalyptic setting (Think: Destiny 2), but one where many of the institutions lean towards power-seeking /...

I've been using Owlbear Rodeo because I like the lighter the better and it's been working aight. Edit: the extension for DS! in it is now able to pull from the compendium for adversary profiles, but I haven’t tried that yet.

I’ve got my first one of the season thawing in the fridge to spatchcock later in the week. 99c/LB! Edit: it’s a super cheap tasty bird at those prices. Makes great sandwiches and finger food out of the oven, and I turn a bunch into better-then-chicken chili verde / turkey and dumpling soup /...

I think how games that look more at the wider mystical legend/fiction world do this sort of thing are really cool. Like how Beyond the Wall moves a lot of general purpose magic out into the Ritual section, makes them far more deliberate then quick in-combat cantrips and spells, and adds a longer...

Wait, you didnt see the game explicitly say you’re not supposed to spotlight one adversary on the same GM turn unless it has a specific feature? Leaders, or leader-style multi-activation abilities really help an encounter feel better IMO. With most Evasions and attack bonuses leading to...

Maybe we could move a lot of their utility into rituals or feats that allow them to use magic / arcana in place of other skills with a chance of failure, perhaps the former could be powered by Hit Dice.

FWIW, I would definitely treat minions as a single activation per their group-attack ability for that sort of purpose.