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Agreed. There may also be an "edition war" component here: In 4E, there are specific maneuvers that allow you to force movement (like throwing someone across a room). I would generally find it less acceptable to add those kinds of details to other attacks in 4E for exactly the reason you say...

Interesting question. (1) I own two AD&D1 PHBs and two AD&D1 DMGs. (Purchased a second set while the first set was in storage. I have never actually played AD&D1.) (2) I won two D&D3 PHBs. (Used to own three, but I gave one away recently.) (3) I own two copies of Ghostbusters because I...

First, notice the switcheroo you pulled there. I suspect it's contributing to your misunderstanding. I'm not really seeing the contradiction. It's not like the only way to reach 20% of your HP is in one big encounter that costs you 80% of your hit points. You can also suffer slow attrition...

Speaking from experience, the success of this method depends heavily on the mechanics of the game. If the mechanics of the game are directly associated with the game world, then players can make decisions in the context of the game world and the GM can translate those decisions directly to...

I'm not sure you entirely understand what the word "guideline" means.

It really depends on the type of adventure. LOCATION-BASED adventures break down to a keyed map and inhabitants. The traditional way is to include both inhabitants and locations on the same key, but I actually break them up: There's the map, a key describing locations on the map, and then a...

In specific, Climate/Terrain had become something of an appendix. I don't mean that bibliographically; I mean that anatomically: Like an appendix, the Climate/Terrain entry for a monster had become a vestigial anomaly. See, that entry previously served the function of organizing creatures onto...

RA is less linear than it looks, particularly if you pick up RA: Reloaded. (And probably even moreso if you can wait for the new Pathfinder version coming down the pike.) Lots of side-levels and lots of routes that skip over levels. The real difficulty with RA, however, is that it doesn't have...

Looking at your posting history, it doesn't really surprise me that the only two options you can imagine are "GM preps a plot" and "random events". Fortunately, however, RPGs are not curtailed to such narrow horizons.

Recruitment of players seems like a red herring to me. Recruitment of DMs is the important part of growing an RPG. And what the 'net allows is the sustaining and transmission of memetic communities that would otherwise be too small and too dispersed in the real world. Would there be people...

This is something I suspect is often lost in an era when a TPK can "ruin" a GM's prepared plot.

Well, take the Schrodinger's Wound described in this thread for example: Your friend has just been hit by a troll and knocked to the ground. (Or did the troll actually miss him and he just threw himself backwards too vigorously in avoiding the blow?) Is he dying with blood pouring out...

Not really. First, it emerged from the combination of powerful abilities that have limited daily uses AND a limited scenario structure which allows the players to control the pace. (And this was probably exacerbated by "arms-race" table dynamics.) 4E still has daily powers, so the exact same...

Speaking as someone who likes immersion and versimilitude a lot, I'd disagree. If anything I think it heightens immersion by eradicating the normally lethargic and disconnected mode of interacting with mechanics (in which a 10 second combat round could take 10 minutes to resolve) and forces a...

And this, right here, sums up the whole thread: (1) If you prefer HP=verve then pre-4E and 4E equally serve your needs. (2) If you prefer HP=wounds then pre-4E serves your needs, but 4E doesn't. (3) If you are completely unable to understand the other person's POV (as you've admitted you are...

Yes. I'd agree that this strawman is full of straw. ... wait. What was the question again? (1) That precise scene? Maybe not. But it's almost trivial to get a scene very much like it. (2) But it actually can be modeled. In 3E, Luke has been out in the severe cold on patrol for while. If he's...

Page 6: "NOW BEGIN COUNTING SLOWLY TO 10, and the odds on that there will be a stampede up the stairs to get away." It seems to be fairly explicit that these counts are supposed to be out loud. And they do work very well when used as such.

This is true. Large chunks of 4E aren't roleplaying mechanics. You have to accept that mechanics like this have no association with the game world whatsoever. If you can do that, of course, the game works just fine. But I tend to have problems with this because I keep trying to run 4E as a...

That's a bit of a feedback loop between the rules a DM has available to them and the I was reading a blog recently that talked about (Grognardia? Alexandrian? Rients?) the fact that White Box D&D had very few rules for dungeon-crawling, but one of those rules was for torches being blown out by...

I'm actually really curious about DM screens. Particularly the newer style of printing on stock that resembles a boardgame. It's pretty trivial to do some googling and find a number of printers you can get quotes from. But I haven't had much luck in finding any printers advertising for products...