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Although the smaller ones occasionally show up, I haven't seen one of the larger ones for sale since 2007. I'd recommend picking up the Deluxe City Map PDF and contacting a local company that does banner printing. You can get a map that's even larger for much less than the collector's prices...

Interesting. I'm increasingly coming to the conclusion that social checks are most useful when (a) they're resolving specific goals and (b) they're binary (or, at most, give a narrow range of flavored binary results -- exceptional success, success, failure, exceptional failure, for example)...

That's a feature, not a bug: The system creates a 19 point range of DCs for which success is doubtful-but-possible. If the DC is below that range, success is automatic. If the DC is above that range, success is impossible. If your total modifier is +0, that range goes from DC 2 to DC 20. If...

I think this is the key philosophical question: Is the world one in which certain types of creatures are innately evil? If so, and these qualify, then kill 'em all. If not, then the children are innocents. (And the answer should be equally obvious.)

If your players have a billion gp, then the wizard isn't the source of your problem.

Probably. But wargames suffered a similar problem: As their original customers became veterans, the products and games they wanted assumed a form which actually made it more and more difficult to attract new players to the hobby. It was natural for the veteran players to want what they wanted...

You're like the guy saying, "$4 lattes every day is a trivial cost." But $1500 per year here and $1500 per year there and suddenly you're talking about real money. Let's put some numbers on this. Let's very conservatively estimate that the group only encounters 4 locks per level. That 80 locks...

'81 and '82 is when the shift starts, though, so that's unsurprising. In fact, I'd argue that you can trace the shift in design methodology at TSR almost precisely to module B3: The original version of module B3 was an open-ended megadungeon and wilderness exploration that the DM was explicitly...

Player: "I dust the murder weapon for prints, then I run the prints through the national criminal database." GM: YOU HAVE RUINED THIS SCENARIO! THE ONLY SOLUTION IS TO BAN FINGERPRINTING! It sounds nice in theory, but if you're casting knock scrolls every time you come to a locked door or...

I doubt the Wii caused a significant number of people to "leave the fold". The Wii was extraordinarily successful at bringing new people into the console market. It created a new base. Notably (and this really can't be repeated enough) this was not true of most early D&D players. The huge...

When I read that in the specific context of 4E, what I see is: "Since significant chunks of 4E aren't roleplaying mechanics, if you want to have roleplaying you'll need to pull it into the game through sheer force of will." Which is true. And which is exactly what most of the 4E games I've...

Open Gaming Table In the process of changing my gaming life. It's true that we have less time as we get older. It's also true, however, that the types of campaigns we prep and the way we schedule our games has changed over time. The modern form suggested by most games and adventure products is...

When even the DMG tells you that it's not necessary to play strictly and exclusively by the "baseline assumptions", though, how relevant is that? With that being said... DannyA is claiming that: (a) The group was facing encounters 4 levels above their pay grade; (b) Those encounters were...

The big ones: - Scry and Die - Polymorph - Diplomacy Smaller tweaks: - Unless a class has Int as a prime requisite, the minimum number of skill points per level should be 4 + Int. (Getting rid of the Int bonus to skills entirely and going from a base of 5 skill points per level and scaling up...

Check out Legends & Labyrinths when it comes out of beta and becomes available for general sale again. The streamlined monster and hazard creation is worth it even if you don't do anything else with the game. Re: The original question. I have a vain hope that 5E will be what 4E should have...

Whenever I read descriptions of what you do with 4E, it sounds like a lovely kitbash. And I'm glad it works for you. But, unlike an actual story game, there is nothing mechanical in the game that results in PCs pushing their character goals or the GM building encounters to the players' thematic...

I'm sorry that it frustrates you. But, ultimately, the question I had to answer for myself was: Why, when playing 4th Edition, do I so frequently feel as if I'm playing Arkham Horror instead of Call of Cthulhu? And the answer essentially boiled down to the types of mechanics used in the game...

I'm not Bryon. And I would tend to categorize 4th Edition as being "too much boardgame in an RPG" rather than trying to claim that it's not a roleplaying game. But for me it really does boil down to associated and dissociated mechanics: When you're using mechanics which are associated with the...

I just read a blog post about this a few days ago. Quick sum up: (1) There will always be people who choose to stay behind when a product updates. That's true whether it's an RPG or an operating system or a word processor. (2) The interesting question is why OD&D to AD&D and AD&D2 to D&D3...

I think the important word in the subject is "default". I default to "yes" and it takes some reason for me to make it into a "no". This seems preferable to me than defaulting to "no" and needing to find some reason for a "yes". If for no other reason than the fact that the player asking for it...