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While this is true...i have played in enough of these type games to realize that inevitably my players/groups will see through the illusion. What is worse is that (having seen this happen before) once they realize it is an illusion they never trust the GM again, and this is shown in what they...

This has always been my issue with superheroes stories. Many times a friggin gun is more useful than their powers. Yeah throwing flame is great, a gun will be as effective in most cases. It has always been the fatal flaw of most of these stories for me.

There are possibly 2 questions that are being asked and the answer depends on which questions... Question 1. "I really like 4E and I like LoTR. Can I do a LoTR campaign with 4E?" IMO the answer to this is YES (of course many FPRGs can do this, though some would really have some issues with...

Well the original version of Return of the King does have a Tiger Ninja destroying the ring while doing like 10 billion points of damage to Sauron with a shuriken. That didn't make it past the editor though...they were thinking about the movie rights and didn't have special effects adequate for...

Yeah i think setting is kind of a necessity for most people for it to be LoTR. But i also agree that you would really want to capture the feel, theme, mood etc. and have rules that help drive these issues. Additionally rules that allow what should appear to be very imbalanced characters to be...

Cinnabar would require some heavy modifications (like a new ruleset and setting and less well cinnabarness)

4E seems a really bad choice to emulate LoTRs. It could of course be forced to do it like many FRPGs but would not be a particularly good choice. 1E, 2E and 3E would also be pretty bad choices. I would probably use burning wheel though that is too magical really. MERP does a pretty fair job...

Freud is certainly NOT discredited. I am a neurochemist and do research in psychopharmacology so have a bit of expertise in this subject. While he was by no means accurate, his work was the basic foundation for psychotherapy which is still widely practiced (and according to clinical studies...

You could just have one class and one power and all the rest be flavoring ....i am totally kidding but there is something to be said about there being some blandness to just reflavoring everything. Sometimes people want their to be mechanical differences that align with flavor differences.

Yes it was worth it. That is kind of the essence of many indie games where conflict is conflict though not necessarily combat. I think your ideas were really good. I think even crafting could fit into this as long as you can turn it into a challenge, it just takes a little more morphing than...

I wanted to say this about 2 pages ago. This goes back to play games with rules (or house rules) that support the goals of the players/characters. In a game where killing things and taking their stuff is the goal then taking death off of the table (where the consequence is that this character...

In this case is death really 'death'. When i talk about death being on the table i really mean and ending to the character. If raise dead or resurrection or easy to come by (eg having high-level NPCs readily available) then death is much less well 'death.' now obviously D&D has mostly always...

For me (and my group in general). Whether death is on the table or not really depends on the game (campaign) that is being run. For a game that is centered around death-defying adventures, removing death as a potentially unwanted result would definitely cheapen the game and any outcomes. When...

My players generally love this. They can create the countries, areas, customs etc. It really makes them interested in teh world as they helped build it. My problem is getting them to stop

Very insightful post.

The Shadow of Yesterday has a point-based system. It is rules-light but has emergent complexity. The way it handles conflict resolution is really interesting in that players determine whether it is broad or granular. No grid or minis are required. Also the experience system (advancement) is...

I used to develop molecular diagnostics in oncology and had to explain to doctors what probabilities were given certain results of a test in relation to general disease prevalence. I realized pretty quickly that most people dont have a nice intuitive grasp of statistics and probability even...

I will say though that there is less granularity in terms of what such mechanics usually encompass vs combat mechanics. Basically combat tends to have detailed task resolution in most games. BW which has lots of crunchiness in the non-combat mechanics is many times not very granular. DOW of...

Many games do this (which i know you are aware of but easier to intro my thoughts this way). Where "loyal to allies", cooking, and spear-wielding can have similar potency in the game. In some of these games within combat "loyal to allies" and spear-wielding can have the same potency. Those...

I have always been at war with these two competing ideologies in the game: 1. You want to feel like your actions/decisions are meaningful - if no matter what all characters make it to the evil ritual to stop it regardless of past failures and situations then the idea that the choices i made are...