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As a GM, it isn't my character, but it is my wain. Maybe fixing the wain it is an easy repair within the ability of someone with a Mental score of 15 but no special wainwright skill or fixing-things talent. Maybe it isn't. It's my call as GM, either to how the brokenness of the wain maps to...

Not a god, and not of dodging, but there is the mythological example of the Buddha, who Did Not Get Hit by all the attacks that the armies of the demon-god Mara threw at him. I'm not so confident about saying "never" when it comes to PCs, as I don't always expect players to "color inside the...

So what happens when the God of Archery shoots an arrow at the God of Dodging Ranged Attacks? I want mechanics that don't pack it in when the absurdly difficult meets the ridiculously capable. Or when the absurdly easy meets the ridiculously inept. That's why I prefer inflationary numbers...

It's a matter of taste. Unlimited recasting of certain cantrips are something I came up with independently in 3.5e, before learning that Pathfinder 1e and later D&D editions did something similar. For me it solved an annoyance by letting spell-casters feel more magical with only a very small...

I started back in 1978, and (A)D&D always had magic too powerful for my tastes. Not magic that was too common, but magic that was too powerful. "D&D doesn't have wizards. Instead it has artillery pieces disguised as wizards." The attempted balancing factor of sharply limiting the number of...

I'm on the "want to roll dice" side, but that means I want mechanics that don't pack it in when the absurdly difficult meets the ridiculously capable. Or when the absurdly easy meets the ridiculously inept. (Roll 'lockpicking' to open the lock with its intended key - when the figure attempting...

As an early rebel against Old School way back when Old School was still new, let me put in my two cents: Cent 1: New School isn't necessarily narrativist; it can just as easily be simulationist. Cent 2: I'll agree with (1) "Characters are special," (4) "Death is Not the Only Fail state," and...

A different version. Specifically 3.5e (with a certain amount of curation and house rules, of course - but that would be true of any system, D&D or otherwise). I started just before/at the start of 1e: The 1e PHB and MM had come out, but the DMG hadn't yet, and most of the games were pre-1e...

It's totally totally setting dependent. One can ring all sorts of variations on "what are humans?" One setting can have humans as "the mongrel race" - a human is someone who is descended from non-human ancestors of more than one sort. Another can have humans as "the base race" with non-human...

Maybe so, but limited and subjective as my experience may be, I've still encountered many more GMs who say "Players want more challenge, and it's my job to give it to them!" than players who say "We want more challenge, and it's the GM's job to give that to us!" In fact, I've only encountered...

"Run the game you'd like to play in" is what I try for too - and if Cerebrim wouldn't like the games I try to run, that's another piece of evidence for the shortcomings of that position.

Players really want to bring their characters back to full hit points after each encounter. When I'm a player, I want my PC back to full hit points after each encounter. To paraphrase Dickens, if a DM wants the party to regularly have encounters when they're down on hit points, "Then the DM is...

3.x did lack advice in How To Run A Game where the PCs were poor - or flush with gear. Although I'm another GM who is generous with stats and allowing "take a bonus feat in lieu of a class feature," and I still had to help a player tune and power up his character. Then again, I consider...

It's sometimes said that the first N GOR novels aren't too bad, but become horrid after that point. (Where N is a small integer, with different speakers giving different values for N.)

The "bleeding out" or "death saving throw" rules: If a player-character is reduced to zero hit points or less (but not negative enough for instant death) then the player decides if and when the character dies. (And the GM does likewise in the case of NPCs). The character may die at once, linger...

I have a love-hate reaction to John Norman's GOR novels. Some bits I find really hot, while other bits stomp on my ick and squick buttons. (The GOR novels can be considered Extruded Fantasy Product "Now with spicy BDSM flavoring!" but I prefer to think of them as the written equivalent of...

The best lawyer joke I've heard was told to me by a lawyer: "The trouble with lawyer jokes is that lawyers don't think they're funny, and non-lawyers don't think they're jokes."

I was a "The Golden Age of Science Fiction is Fourteen" teenager, and a "Gemini & Apollo Space Program" kid before then. TeeVee shows and movies tended to bounce off without leaving much impression. Printed Text for the Win!

In my very old Etan campaign the three biggest towns/cities are Glygorf (5000), Robono (15,000), and Sal-Hy (25,000). These numbers don't include the outlying suburban manors/estates/villages which add quite a bit to the populations. There probably are a few larger cities in "off the map" areas...

Not fancy or exotic, just "ooh shiny!"