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Because I don't assume that everything Wizards does is automatically bad just because they're Wizards, and I have yet to see a convincing argument for why this specific incident was a big deal. "BUT PINKERTONS" ain't it. Their thuggery in the Gilded Age is no more relevant today than their work...

We in the D&D community have developed a seriously warped idea of what level of change constitutes an "edition." In any other form of publishing, or even any other TTRPG, there would be no question that 2E, 3.5, and 1D&D were new editions. 3.0, 4E, and 5E were not editions, they were total...

The jury is still out. Literally. There's a class-action suit pending right now over the use of artists' work without permission. Note that the suit is not just about the training process; the plaintiffs claim it is possible to get Stable Diffusion-type generators to actually reproduce their...

Ehh, not really. Forum discussions are widely used to train language models; they provide a gargantuan supply of conversational text. If you sit down to study natural language processing, the first exercise generally involves downloading a bunch of Reddit. And how many "independent" forum sites...

You are correct. Per the Silmarillion, dragons appeared during the First Age and played a significant part in the war of the Elves and Morgoth (Glaurung in particular caused a lot of tragedy); but winged dragons were not seen until the very end of War of Wrath, when Morgoth unleashed them in the...

Another way to do it would be to do max damage, then roll on a crit table for a "special effect." That slows things down a lot, though, especially in 5E. There are just too many attacks flying around; nat 20s are fairly routine. I've seen even more implementations of critical hits than fumbles...

I have seen many implementations of crit fumble rules. They all resulted in slapstick combats where fighters came out looking like idiots. (And, as others have noted, multiple attacks make high-level fighters look dumber than low-level ones.) Hard pass from me. As for critical hits, I think a...

I definitely think psions should have innate, always-usable abilities that cost nothing. Telekinesis to let you move unattended objects and strike with them (for a fixed amount of damage). Telepathy to let you sense conscious creatures and communicate with them. Et cetera. These should be...

This makes a lot of sense when you think about it. A slash or thrust using only the arm muscles is extremely weak; a fighter learns to deliver blows with the strength of their whole body -- driving off the legs and pivoting the torso. And you can't pivot left and right simultaneously*. The...

So far, what we have seen looks about on the level of the 1E --> 2E transition IMO. If 1E and 2E were distinct editions, then so is this.

From the attack on Laketown: "The black arrow sped straight from the string, straight for the hollow by the left breast where the foreleg was flung wide." Smaug has a "foreleg" which is situated near his chest. If he were on the ground, this could conceivably refer to a wing being used as a...

Hard disagree on the feat. That bonus action shove is amazing for a caster. Unless you're a cleric with spiritual weapon up, you're not using your bonus action for anything else most turns, and the ability to run away from a melee foe without provoking is huge. It's even better for your allies...

This is literally Tolkien-style half-elves. Elrond and his brother Elros were given a choice to be effectively "human" (thus mortal) or "elven" (thus bound to the world forever). Elrond chose the elf rules; Elros chose the human rules, becoming the first King of Numenor. Personally, I see this...

My immediate response is "Meh." I'm not super interested in an attempt to wring another trilogy out of the existing storyline, though I'm open to being convinced. I'd rather see something in a completely different time period, like the Old Republic setting and the war between the Jedi and the...

Out of these, I have used beholders, black puddings, and mariliths. And I will be introducing carrion crawlers and mind flayers in the campaign I started last night. Possibly displacer beasts at some point, too. (Probably not intellect devourers, though. Some of my players know enough about...

Normally I am one of the first to assume that the words "NFT" and "blockchain" signal "scam incoming," and I still think that's the most likely explanation... but I can see a real, useful, non-criminal application for blockchain technology here, which is somewhat mind-boggling. I didn't think...

I'm no expert on copyright law, but I'm damn sure copyright lasts longer than three years. There appears to be a three-year statute of limitations on copyright infringement, but that still puts WotC on the hook for every Monster Manual they've sold in the last three years. And then there's D&D...

Looks like the trademark registration is in the process of being canceled, as of February 23.

I don't agree with all of these ideas, but I love the goal of giving the classes more variety in their casting mechanics.

Going strictly by the book: In scenario 1), the effect is not a spell and therefore cannot be ended by dispel magic. (Although dispel magic can target "magical effects," it doesn't actually remove anything but spells.) In scenario 2), the spell is cast at its base level. For instance, if a...