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I do it in Photoshop, because that's what I have. It's a pain to make the grid, but once you make the grid once, you're pretty much set forever.

Just to hedge my bets, I like the d20s that have "20" surrounded by, say, 2, 4, and 7, so that even if, yeah, it's weighted a bit to one side or the other, it's still going to roll "low" versus "high" about the right percentage of the time. I don't mind a die that's a bit less likely to roll a...

I'd be upset at the snarkiness if I hadn't actually had little diagrams sketched out with arrows and everything showing where each character was running to at any given time.

Ditto that. I'm running a Grim Tales game (low-magic and no magical equipment at the time). Two 10th-level (with max hp and 40-point buy) PCs fought a bunch of troglodyte zombies, several ghasts, and a trio of dire wolves. The zombies and ghasts were still harmless. The wolves were NASTY. They...

Here's what I was thinking of for a game that allowed danger AND heroism: Grim Tales Class bonus to AC goes away when you're flat-footed. People with Uncanny Dodge get the class bonus INSTEAD of their Dexterity. So if you're flat-footed, you're reeeeeally easy to hit. When you're flat-footed...

"From Another Time, Another Land" -- worst RPG ever. The product of a "designer" trolling the gutter of his own imagination and defending it as being realistic. Included such gems as randomized charts for the circumference of male PCs' reproductive organs and graphic rules for nonconsensual...

I was offended by the existence of that ad on this page. I'm not really interested in getting any more specific than that, because frankly, about half the time, it turns into something like, "But it's just ____. ____ is totally natural, and if you're offended by it, that says more about you than...

I don't like mounted combat, and I don't use it very often, either in games I'm running or in games in which I'm playing. Doesn't mean I think it should be cut -- it makes a lot of sense thematically, and I know that there are campaigns out there that probably use it a bunch. But for me...

I thought it was skirting the boundaries of what would be acceptable to post here on the forums. It was another moment where I cringed as I saw the page. I found it to be in bad taste, and I was offended. Not saying it should go away. Not threatening to take legal action / do something negative...

I don't see a problem with just continuing the rules for saves, BAB, hit points, and easily systemized abilities (Sneak Attack, Ranger Favored Enemies, other things that you can point to and say, "Every odd level" or "Every multiple of 5"). My only issue would be how spells get handled. I...

It's fair, provided that it's done... fairly. 1) If the PC can be removed from the story logically, I do so. (If it's a walking-around-town session, the PC can go off. If it's a dungeon, no.) IF THAT FAILS... 2) Out of combat, the PC is run by me in a safety-first, coolness-last fashion...

Except that we're not playing Tunnels & Trolls, Rolemaster, or anything else. We're playing D&D, and part of what we're paying for is, well, balance. I actually put that some options should be worse than the balanced norm, but none should be better. I chose this for two reasons: 1) Some...

Yes and no and yes. I went to a novel workshop (in which we had to have a completed novel) with Dean Wesley Smith, who has published about 80 novels (under his name and others). He prefaced all of his critique comments with something roughly like this: "I'm going to give you a critique. In a...

In the ideal-but-still-imperfect world, but DM will try to make a world that the players will like, and the players will give that world a chance even if it's not something that leaps out and grabs them with its coolness. And after a few sessions, if anyone still hates it, they'll say so, and...

It didn't derail the game I DM'd too badly, but then, I didn't have every bad guy use it, and people's saves were high enough that it didn't really get that many items. Also, apparently I ran an item-intensive game, so people were tossing each other their backup equipment as necessary. Nobody...

Regardless of level, I'd rather lose loot than my life. I know intellectually that yeah, I'm one Raise Dead or Resurrection away from returning, but if I'm any kind of roleplayer in a game with any kind of stakes, I'd rather lose my loot.

I'm a 'Merkin living in Alberta, so I currently represent the (single, at last count) "Celebrates American AND Canadian Thanksgiving" segment. My wife's family is up here because we didn't have the time or money to come down. We're hitting a Chinese food place tomorrow. It'll be fun. And we...

Then this is mostly a matter of semantics. Because, really, I don't need loot in a d20 Modern game, except occasionally more clips for whatever gun I'm using. :) That's because in d20 Modern, my ability to take down the big bad guy isn't (or shouldn't be) dependent upon whether I've got a +4...

In D&D, as it exists, it's at "Mostly" for me. It's not the only source of fun, but it's hard to have fun without it. Caveats: If you're playing d20 Modern or Grim Tales, you're not playing D&D. I'm talking about core-rules, by-the-book D&D. Treasure is the main way I get more powerful, for...

While I'm no fan of TPKs, I dislike the idea of having a dozen Listen checks. I've played games where the DM makes any task have a large number of checks associated with it. Past a certain point, you're almost definitely going to fail one of them. It's not fun, and I believe that it perverts the...