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You see it a lot more in Streaming and Actual Play communities. For example, Ashley Johnson of Critical Role fame is a lovely person and wonderful role player. But fans have asked many a time, both politely and impolitely, for her to learn her character better.

It's more that you could have always set the scene up ahead of time, properly telegraphing everything, right down to the adversaries waiting in the bushes, the gas trap in the hallway, and the stress draining nature of the Swamp of Sorrows. And you could always make those dangers as strong or...

The cake is absolutely, unequivocally, irrefutably A LIE!

When you're on the fringes like mid 40s, I find it usually comes down to how you were raised. Attentive and caring parents who might be overbearing but still technically engaged? Millennial. Aloof and absent parents who don't know where you are, and leave the key on the latch - be home before...

The more Daggerheart games I'm running, the more I'm coming to realize that Fear is a psychological currency to facilitate making crap up. I say this with kindness and humor. As a GM, I always have the power to make crap up in whatever form I think is both fair and fits the narrative, but the...

The only section I found somewhat problematic was Section 11.2, which essentially says "If we change the license, you have to accept the changes or you can't update your content." I doubt Darrington Press would ever change their license in an abusive or exploitative way within the tenure of the...

I've always loved the phrase "Optimizing your fun." Minimizing the things that are not fun, and maximizing the things that are!

I think Vetting is probably the best tool, or a probationary period - which is just Vetting more thoroughly. Just having the opportunity to test someone out and see if they would be a good fit before seriously integrating them into a group.

RPG Therapist would be a curious job. "Alright group. I understand there's been some problems with spotlight sharing, feeling like your voice is not heard during the decision making process, feeling like your party niche is being intruded upon, and feeling overshadowed. I'd like to start with...

Well, there's the real answer "They stop playing together" and then the adult answer, "They sit down and talk with this guy about it." And I wholeheartedly acknowledge that the real answer is what most people do, while absolutely suggesting that the adult answer is what more people should do. In...

I'm personally all over the place. Sometimes I see a really neat mechanic I would love to play and say, "Self, what kind of person would this mechanic create? Who would live like this, and what drove them to achieve this?" and work backwards from there. Sometimes I get a concept and say, "Self...

I defend the general idea because I count myself among their number. I've certainly made my fair share of mistakes, such as being overly ernest sharing rules and build ideas, but I've also made quite a bit of effort to share the spotlight and cheer on my friends at the table when I'm not in the...

I'm less interested in specific terminology than I am just making it clear that MOST optimizers are decent people who share the spotlight and usually keep their friends enjoyment at the table in mind. We've all been burned by people who have been both optimizers AND jerks, but I've been burned a...

The social contract among a lot of optimizers is to always try and share the spotlight and generally not be a big jerk. At least, this is true among any of us with a little empathy, which is thankfully most of us. We've all run across bad apples, just like we've all run across bad apple DMs who...

I ran Mage: the Ascension for many years and I also found it to be both an amazing RPG and a terrible one. I've always been a somewhat permissive ST, so the sheer amount of incredibly creative ideas my players would come up with to resolve problems was a great deal of fun to me. Some of them...

I definitely think Stress is supposed to power slightly stronger abilities, on the grounds that it's "easy" to get Hope, but somewhat harder to recover Stress, and you're always faced with the danger of running out of Stress. In that way, it feels like the Hope/Fear theme made manifest: Hope...

Absolutely phenomenal AAR! I really appreciate the time you took to write it, and explaining your decisions along the way.

With all the people wondering if CR will switch to Daggerheart, I actually feel like hiring Perkins and Crawford means they are NOT going to take such a big risk. In which case, we'll probably see both a 5E and a DH show being offered. I just hope the DH show shares flagship status with the 5E...

Also true of the more modern ones like VTR, WTF, MTAw, CTL, GTSE! The story is focused on their tragedy and pathos (for the most part), but they are quiet superpower games.

Daggerheart: They rolled nothing but Hope.