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I don't care if it went well with pie, cake, brownies and cookies. It just didn't taste like ice cream to me. Also, the dude they got to draw the art on the cartons was out of control. Have you ever seen an ice cream scoop that large?

I've been hosting a monthly (or almost monthly) D&D game at a comic store in my neighborhood. The game is meant to be both an introduction to D&D for beginners, but also, hopefully, an enjoyable experience for seasoned players and a way to meet others who enjoy playing D&D and other RPGs in...

There are all sorts of rules that allow players to make NPCs do things. When you cast Suggestion on an NPC, aren't you making that NPC do something?

100%. The Criminal Contact feature doesn't exist so that the DM can say, "Oh, Steve, by the way, your criminal contact called." It exists so that Steve can say, "I'm a Criminal, so I have some sort of Criminal Contact in every city. Can I reach out to them and see if I can get some...

Backgrounds exist to aid the player in role-playing their character. They provide additional information beyond the character class that can help the player determine how their character fits in the world. They also contain some nominal crunch (a fluffy feature, tool proficiencies that often...

The "use a feature from another background" part of the rule can be a little goofy, because, obviously, some features adapt better than others. That being said, I think the reason for this is that designing an appropriate feature is something that a player could easily botch, even with the best...

Ha, well, I would say that we all have a bit to learn as DMs. I don't think I've ever played a game where the DM, no matter how good, didn't do something that I thought should have been done differently. So, I see it more as an invitation to growth than a condemnation of laziness. :)

If you don't play the way I do, you are absolutely unquestionably doing it wrong! Ha, nah, that's just me admitting that maybe I don't see the issue because of how we tend to play. The limitations of my perspective. I think there are a lot of abilities in D&D that can catch a DM off-guard and...

Interesting, I don't know that I would miss locks. On the other hand, if I had spent 11 levels picking locks everywhere I went, and suddenly everybody seemed to be leaving all their front doors open — maybe that would bother me. Fair. I guess, for me, I don't see not having to roll for...

Have you found that players of Rogues complain about Reliable Talent taking the fun out of the game for them? I disagree that the advice being given is to stop engaging Reliable Talent. Quite the opposite — continue giving Rogues the opportunities to use those skills, and where appropriate...

Another way to think about Reliable Talent is the options it opens up for your adventures. Reliable Talent allows your Rogue to do difficult, and potentially dangerous, things (depending on where their expertise and ability scores are distributed) without risk of killing the character. Instead...

Your definition of Bounded Accuracy — "every task can be failed" — seems very narrow. Bounded Accuracy is a somewhat vaguely stated design philosophy, and I don't know exactly what each developer has in mind when they say it, but for myself, I prefer it not to be, "everybody looks like a chump...

I think tier jumps have a way of calling the DM out on somewhat lazy adventure design. I remember in my first 5E campaign when my Sorcerer picked up Fireball. Up until that point, I did a lot of mook mobs. "Oh fine, you can take 4 goblins, but what about 10 goblins?" It worked. And then we hit...

In our home games, pretty much every character I make has a custom background. Sometimes it will just be a modified existing background — like switching the agrarian Folk Hero to have more of a fishing/trapping river people feel. Other times I'll just create a background from scratch to match a...

Ok, I think we have a very different approach to how we prep and run NPCs. I've never written dialog for NPCs — though I do sometimes talk to them in my head the day of a session — and I worry very little about their inventory and routines unless I am running a detailed investigative adventure...

Yay. Traps as puzzle and atmosphere are certainly the best — well telegraphed that encourage the players to find creative solutions to disarm or avoid. I love reading about traps that others have used in their adventures and campaigns to give me ideas. That being said, I'm not above using more...

Whether or not I name or assign motivation to an NPC in my notes has nothing to do with how much chatter time that NPC takes up at the table. My last adventure had detailed (2 sentence) notes for 3 NPCs, and then a list of names for a family. Most of the interaction between NPCs and player...

Assuming that these are open tables, where one can just show up and play without having to go through the process of finding and joining a group: For a particularly appealing one-shot with a good DM and a pleasant environment — $15+, depending on how appealing the one-shot/DM is. For a well-run...

My guess is that this model works best in cities where it is common to have lots of disposable cash while still living in a small apartment. I know plenty of people in New York pulling solid 6 figures but still living in 1-bedroom apartments with their partners or living with roommates.

I'm just responding to you, not necessarily disagreeing with you. There's always going to be resistance to spending money you don't "have to." I get that. I might spend $40 at a bar, but if they are charging a $5 cover on top, I'll pass and find another bar. On the other hand, if you are using...