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I'd quibble and say that often it's player knowledge that the characters don't have - acting as a substitute for character knowledge that the players don't (and can't) have. And that this is a good thing. The characters are there, in the game world. The players have only a description, with a...

I say 'totally visible.' I presume that that players are also GMs of their own games, and even when they're not they should be treated as if they were. Also for reasons involving the avoidance of assumption clash and/or the isolation of players from their characters.

What would a mini-game that goes beyond skill checks look like? An expanded skill check system that tries to avoid turning into a mini-game might give the PC a set of skills or sub-skills to "try to get the guard to..." - the PC might try to persuade, intimidate, bribe, distract... The guard...

I think it's a hard problem, and that any game, and any group of players at a table, are going to have to pick an imperfect compromise. On the one hand, there's the desire to play a character who can do things that you can't (or at least can't do anywhere nearly as well), including social...

In my "Brotherhood of Rangers" game (3.5e D&D) I regularly throw in Star Trek (and other science fiction) references as 'Easter Eggs.' E.g. a spring surrounded by a circle of flowers of beautiful appearance and foul odor, with the inscription "Logic" above it. Or a stronghold where the supplies...

IME, in 'classic' (A)D&D games, progression was the main reward during the sucky low levels. Once PCs reached the levels that didn't suck so much, progression both slowed and became less important. (With "the levels that didn't suck so much" being defined differently by different groups.) Now...

I once sent (checks notes) 96 enemies at once at the PCs in my 3.5e 'Brotherhood of Rangers' game. One of the PCs charged forward to melee them, and it was glorious. Great fun was had by all present. It's not something I'd do every encounter, or even ever session - but it is something I'd...

Except that one GM's 'overinflation' is another GM's 'grudging, miserly increase.' Which is why different people are fans of different systems with different rates of increase.

The concept is not unreasonable. The problem people (including me) see is when experienced adventurers then go on to hunt Rodents of Unusual Size, rather than trolls or winter wolves or displacer beasts - opponents that just have bigger numbers, rather than opponents that are dangerously different.

I'm a GM who is willing to call for rolls for everything under the sun, and I'm also willing to extend DCs down to 5, 0, or even negative values. I want mechanics that give guidance to questions like "Is this task really easy enough that a fever-addled five-year-old could do it while sleeping?"...

I'm one of those who doesn't like it that way. I'm reasonably familiar with 3.5e and I haven't seen those dreaded mid-level characters with bonuses up in the 30s, 40s, or even higher. I can see how very high (20th level) characters will have bonuses in the 20s and even low 30s, but more than...

My first thought was for the old Flying Buffalo Citybooks series. I will say that Aaron Allston's Strike Force, mentioned in the original post, is worth at least a honorable mention. I'll also put down some of the D&D Mystara gazetteers as honorable mentions, in particular The Grand Duchy of...

One advantage of roll-high, at least in the "roll and add the character's modifier" version, is that the GM can keep the target number secret while letting the player make the roll. With a roll-low system, the GM generally has to make the roll himself if he wants secrecy with regard to the...

My character-death rule: When a character is at negative hit points (or the equivalent) but not yet past the 'death threshold,' then PC death is at the player's option (and NPC death is at the GM's option). The player may choose whether his character (a) dies at once, (b) lingers for a lesser...

The "Gods Born of Belief" shtick is older than Pratchett's Discworld or Gaiman's American Gods. It's also actually an attempt at being 'scientific' about it. The oldest story I know of that uses the concept is the short story "The New One," by Fredric Brown, first published in 1942. That said...

As a 1e player (and to some extent a pre-1e player) it was 'the only game in town.' As a 1e DM, I really wanted to house-rule the heck out of it (and when TFT came out, I immediately changed my campaign over to that system). OK, not literally the only game in town. I also played some 1st/2nd...

My first RPG memory was seeing the ads for the microgames Melee and Wizard (from Metagaming), and being frustrated because mail-order was not an option for me back then. My first D&D memory was playing a wizard for one session in the fall of 1978 as a college freshman; with the first AD&D...

Some abilities would be better (IMHO) if they weren't resources to be managed. In particular, I find that the need to resource-manage Rage uses per day cuts against immersion with a Barbarian character. So do my players - especially those who would enjoy playing a Barbarian, or who would find...

Bad link. Page Not Found. "This page doesn't seem to exist." Which I suppose is a form of meta-Weird.

1. Swashbuckling fantasy. 2. Medievaloid fantasy of either the High Fantasy or Swords and Sorcery style. 3. Superheroes. Was #2 in the past but has moved down a step over the years. 4. Space Opera I'm not a fan of Secret History stuff, and I really don't care for horror of any variety, or for...