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I find the usage of Ability Scores and Modifiers to be awkward. Do we need two sets of numbers? Not really. Ability Scores don't matter outside of a few niche situations and the Modifier does most of the work. So drop the Scores, keep the Modifiers, and rejigger the rules where necessary and...

Legion from Mass Effect comes to mind. Not necessarily popular, but the Skroderiders and Tines from Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep (also the Spiders from a Deepness in the Sky) are all very alien in appearance but sympathetic in their feelings and motivations.

I wish I had a spray bottle so I could train my player to stop saying "can I search the room?", "can I talk to the blacksmith?", etc. Alas, we play online.

I've been using group initiative for my current campaign as well. We're only four sessions in but so far the results have been good. Makes bookkeeping an absolute breeze.

Self-inflicted red herrings. I don't whether I'm terrible at dropping obvious clues or my players just struggle with mysteries, but they will often come to downright strange interpretations of whatever is happening around them. To be fair, what's obvious to the DM is not always obvious to the...

The only official adventure I've ever ran is Lost Mine* of Phandelver. I liked it for the most part. I thought the initial introduction to Phandalin was awkward with all the side quests, and the best side adventures ended up being the ones I heavily modified (such as turning the encounter at...

While this may be a boring answer, but weapons have no negative impact on a Stealth check, only certain armors. You will move just as quietly with a bow and quiver as you will with darts or daggers. There are no secret mechanics at play that will mess you up.

I would love if the rules for combat worked like this. Using exact distances doesn't feel good in theater of the mind, as it imposes a grid regardless of one's intentions. Also I've found, as an American playing with Germans, that some players struggle with Imperial units. Having to convert...

I think D&D should have a core setting (that's not the Forgotten Realms) and lean into it more than it does with this edition. To me, all the lore presented in books like Volo's and Mordenkainen's is the fluffiest of fluff because it feels divorced from a real setting. The lore in these books is...

For my current campaign I posted a white list of the playable races a week before session zero. No one seemed to openly mind the restrictions. Dwarves, Elves, Humans, and Orcs only. Everything else either doesn't exist or is unplayable for any number of reasons (this is a homebrewed setting)...

I've never played in a AiME game but I have the pdfs and they're an absolute pleasure to read. The authors do a fantastic job of capturing the feeling of Middle-Earth while expanding it out in ways that don't feel out of place. I can only say good things about Mike Shea's work. Return of the...

Another day, another reminder of why I don't use twitter.

Speaking as a new player (I hate the term fan), the Forgotten Realms have been almost completely irrelevant to my enjoyment of D&D. I imagine other new players might say the same. Part of the problem for me is that the Forgotten Realms feels more like Marvel comics than it does Lord of the...

Does it really matter at your own table? The D&D police aren't going to arrest you for crimes against canon. WotC isn't going to wipe all non-canon media from existence. If WotC wants to clean up their own canon, they have that right. You also have the right to ignore it and do your own thing.

Ah, the Star Wars strategy of keeping what you like, jettisoning what you don't. I wonder if this as a sign that FR is getting a new setting book. Agree and disagree. "Canon" in an RPG is what the publishers have to internally hold themselves to. But naturally individuals playing that RPG will...

Hence why Runequest is still very much a niche game. Not to say the world of Glorantha doesn't take inspiration from real cultures, it very much does, but many of those cultures don't have the same broad familiarity that medieval Europe does for American audiences. Also it's fundamentally...

I think TPKs are simply a part of the game, and if it's a logical outcome then you should go for. TPKs can be a valuable learning experience for players, as it reminds them that they can't just waltz into every situation expecting it to somehow go their way. Losing should always be a...

I see WotC is beginning to take notes from Japanese merchandising.

While someone more well-versed in the setting can correct me, The Known World of Artesia operates on principles similar to what you're describing. In Artesia, when you die your soul descends into the Underworld where it is brought before the god Seedré to be judged. While Seedré makes the final...