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It is a matter of taste, as I said. Fading Suns was one of my three worst RPG experience, the others being Hunter Planet and Immortal: Invisible War. Other people like it, some of them a lot. The OP might turn out to be one of its fans one day. But I certainly don't think it will scratch his...

This is a matter of taste, of course. I simply loathed Fading Suns, which in my opinion was not SF at all. It was fantasy, and very clichéd fantasy at that, in amateurish fancy dress. A fantasia of late mediaeval decadence with sci-fi trappings as convincing as painted cardboard.

What do you mean by "space opera"? In one sense, it is used to mean "sci-fi consisting of a thin veneer of spaceships and rayguns over stock characters, stock situations, and stock plots". In another it is used to mean "interstellar sci-fi more concerned with spaceships than planets, in which...

Universe is now available as a free download.

Odd. What is a heifer doing in a flock of sheep?

I ran a campaign once (not D&D: modern-day stuff) in which the PCs went on a protracted and very gruelling seven-part Mcguffin hunt, got put through the wringer, went mad, despaired etc. The international economy had collapsed, huge earthquakes had levelled LA and Tokyo. There was nuclear winter...

Quoted for truth. However, this doesn't mean that there isn't a common core of Old School Gaming, because we were all misinterpreting the same rules. And we were all in school.

William the Silent.

It depends why I think it is not working. If the players seem not to understand the rules, I cut some slack to give them time to get familiar. If the players don't know one another, I give them time to settle in. But if we can't get out of character creation without the rules blowing up in...

Did he leave? Not until the job was done. Did Galadriel leave? Not until the job was done. Did Glorfindel leave? No, he even got killed and walked back from the Afterlife. So you can't call Elrond a quitter—nor Galadriel, nor Legolas, nor even that stuffed shirt Celeborn, and most especially...

That's because the ones you got to talk to weren't going anywhere. You can't razz Elrond or Galadriel for running out, when they weren't running out.

Yep. LotR is not just a story in the setting, it is the story of the setting. "Ring down the curtain!…"

Sauron still wins if the Ring is lost. He's been doing fine for years with the Ring lost. What he's afraid of is that someone with "stature" will use it against him. If it had ever crossed his mind that anyone would try to destroy the most powerful and valuable object in existence he would have...

It's a good idea to draw the flying Názgûl off to the west first. I reckon Gandalf's plan was to send Strider and Boromir to Minas Tirith to distract Sauron's attention, then load the Ringbearer onto Gwaihir at the Rauros, fly straight to the Sammath Naur, and chuck the thing in before the...

The first campaign in my setting Gehennum centred on a struggle with a bad and unpopular (but not at first tyrannical) emperor over who should marry his daughter and inherit the throne. The emperor had his daughter kidnapped by pirates, offered ennoblement and an estate to whomsoever should...

http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/casque

"Jewes", not "Jews".

When it is spelled in the Mercian fashion ('dweomer') I diphthongise a short 'e' as in 'bet' to a rounded front 'o', to produce something like "DWAIR-mer" (take into account that my accent is non-rhotic, so both 'r's are silent). Same sound as at teh beginning of 'Eomer' and 'Eowyn'. But I...

1) These forms are archaic Modern English, dating from about the 16th Century. They aren't Middle English and they certainly aren't Old English. So they aren't (or are barely) mediaeval anyway. 2) Characters in my fantasy worlds don't speak Archaic Modern English, but their own languages...

Instead they have an extra feat to devote to something useful that the DEX-first monk wasted playing catch-up. And they still do more damage. If Tumble is that important, the Strength-first monk takes a feat that raises Trumble in the slot where the DEXy build got 'weapon finesse'. I...