Search results

Halflings. Nothing says "We ripped off our ideas from a fantasy novel" like halflings. They don't fill an interesting niche, they don't reflect any archetype, they don't add any flavor. They're just small, sneaky people. Bleh.

Hear, hear. Mixed-gender groups produce more interesting games and more interesting characters, as far as I've ever seen. It doesn't sound like you have serious problems on the horizon, and I don't think you need to worry about hypotheticals. Also, I just asked my wife what she thinks. We've...

Adding anybody new to your group will probably change the atmosphere - I've ruined a few games myself by not fitting in and not wanting to (Abe and Cale's dull dungeon crawl, I'm looking at you). Unless all of your friends are friends with all of your other friends, things shift whenever you get...

Thanks. I'm baffled that they didn't do this somewhere. 4 pages in the back of the MM or the DMG would have been enough space for a basic matrix listing the "normal" statistics for critters by type and level, plus a long list of fun abilities that can scale by level. The system's mechanically...

Yep. But too much of the book is filled with various monster builds and their fiddly little powers. Give me more flavor text and a master list of cool abilities (maybe with a couple charts of level-based modifiers), and I'd be happy.

I thought the 4E MM did an okay job with fluff - the Lore entries are pretty neat. But "okay" isn't "good enough." I want more flavor and less numbers in a monster book. I can attach any set of numbers I want to any monster description I like when I'm GMing; I don't need a whole book of that...

Castle Falkenstein would be a great choice for a group that likes a mechanics-lite game. Depending on your backstory needs, you might end up ignoring their alternate Europe backstory with its Seelie Court and occasional dragon wandering about. But the gameplay is solid and moves very fast, and...

It's on topic to me, since I'm one of the "my ideal setting ought to make sense" people. As a player, I see my character as a star of the story, and I want them to stand on a cool-looking stage and work with a well-written script. A setting that's just a bunch of fantasy tropes and cool ideas...

No Tolkien-inspired races. I love LOTR with a fierce and burning love, but I'm sick of people playing hobbits and dwarves and mincing elves. Other races are acceptable, but the setting should be human-dominated. Nations, ethnicities, religions, and cultures matter. Groups who have power use...

Just to parse out my meanings: 1) Kids are a hassle. Yes, they're wonderful and adorable, and they make your life so much better in ways that non-parents can't understand, and etc etc etc. They also make a mess in the bathroom, need to be driven everywhere, etc etc etc. That latter part is a...

Make no mistake, kids are a hassle, even and especially when they're yours. Including them in your roleplaying can bog it down, and in our case leads to more simplified stories about more kid-friendly topics. That's why we have a no-kids campaign. But there are rewards to letting them be...

One addition - if you have older kids, they'll want to play. If you're like us, you'll let them some of the time. It's a great experience for the kids. It also changes the dynamics at the table. My kids are 15 and 12, and they expect different things out of a game session than my 30-something...

I'm also a homebrew guy - I write my own stuff as a GM, and I avoid games set in premade worlds. I'd rather see a GM's personal take on things, even if it's not professional quality, than see them rehash someone else's creation. But if it were available, I'd buy Al-Qadim for the sheer joy of...

Hm. That's not how I read it. I thought he was saying "It happened this way this time, because of these factors, and these factors made it likely that it would happen the way it did happen." It didn't read like a deterministic book to me. Which doesn't have much to do with roleplaying, except...

Great book, great resource. In the same vein, the book 1491 by Charles Mann is a handy one for world-building. It looks at how the Americas grew and changed in the time before Europeans and their diseases showed up. It works as a setting bible for low-metal games, and it also gives some neat...

I don't allow alignments in games I run. Well, you can write it on your character sheet, but I'm never going to ask you about it. They don't have much mechanical use in the game, and they don't line up with the settings I use, so alignments subtract more than they add to my games.

As in inveterate worldbuilder, I hereby call for this kind of inquiry. This kind of thing serves my needs. Seriously, CSL's idea is really interesting to me. It's a great way to build a campaign that has lots of elements players will recognize, but that presents them in a new way. Sure, it's...

*shrug* I want both. I think it's great that the PHB devotes space to roleplaying. It says a lot of the right things, and even occasionally mentions that this is your game to play your way. That's good. However, I also want Bob McFighter to have Profession (sailor) or something like it. If I've...

That's one of the best house rules I've ever seen. It provides a small but tangible reward to players who've put some thought into their character, it's not likely to overpower the rest of the game, and it has a built-in drawback to curtail abuse. Plus it's modular, so it's easy to drop into...

It's got an arbitrary class system that channels you toward a predetermined play style. It's got a robust, innovative combat system. It's got too many kinds of elves, and ripoff hobbits. It's got a wide array of unique monsters with neat powers. It assumes you're going on dungeon crawls. It...