Search results

There are other ways to say "no" than "you just can't". There's "sure, here's the astronomical penalty to your roll". Or "sure, roll a d20 and I'll tell you if you succeed or not". If you've really never seen a situation where a player and a DM disagreed about what's possible in the real...

On some level, yes. However, when a rule says you can do something, in my experience the DM won't prevent it, unless there's something specifically preventing it in the current situation. If a DM is constantly ignoring/modifying rules in order to limit player options(referring to game play...

There's more to it than unfairness and bias. Some people just find themselves in games where they and the DM don't agree on what they should be capable of. That doesn't neccessarily mean the DM is bad(or that the player is bad). They just have different expectations. Rules can help to solve...

Yes, that's accurate, as I mentioned. However, the presence of more rules allows the players to do more things without having to convince the DM to let them do it.

How do you figure that? The game explicitly told you to consult the DM when the rules don't cover something. Given the "rules light"(compared to modern D&D) nature of earlier versions of D&D, you were going to be consulting the DM alot, which basically amounts to asking him for permission to...

This is also what I think of when I think of oldschool D&D. Much of the game, in my experience, boiled down to convincing your dm to let you do things. This may be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on how closely your opinion on what you should be able to do matched your dm's opinion on...

I was going to disagree with you here. I don't think tabletop Dragon Age will have any effect whatsoever on WotC. When you brought a D&D video game into it though, I see your point. Whatever D&D game comes out this generation, it's going to be compared to Dragon Age. Unless Bioware or...

Tieflings and Dragonborn seem to have plenty of traction. In the case of Tieflings at least, the reason isn't mechanics as they've generally been considered subpar. While I don't really get Dragonborn, it's always been obvious to me that people will want to play them. Out of the 5 people in...

I definitely enjoy the "new" rogue role. The default playstyle of D&D features alot of combat, and it sucked being so sub-par at it.

See, there's a difference between sub-optimal and incompetent. "I want to play a wizard with high strength!" is sub-optimal, but I have no problem with it. "I want to play a wizard with low intelligence!" is incompetent, and annoys me greatly.

There's two types of characters I just can't stand to have in my group. First, and worst, is Kender. The silliness I can live with. What I can't live with is the blatant party disruption. When you are playing a kender, you basically have two options. 1: Cause endless party infighting by...

How important is magic to D&D? In my opinion, it should be no more important than skill and swordplay. Traditionally it was far more important, but fortunately that's changing. Martial and Magic are getting close to parity, but aren't quite there yet.

I don't think the "+5 longsword" is ever going to go away. It's too important to the style of D&D. People think of it as the game of killing things and -taking their stuff- for a reason. I do think, however, that by the time 5th edition rolls around(maybe sooner) we will start seeing "magic...

I disagree. Making rules accomplish what you want them to is primarily an exercise in mathematical analysis. Knowing how things work in reality is only useful when the goal is to make a realistic system. Not many games have this as their primary goal. On the other hand, if the designer had...

This is only a problem if the game designer didn't intend for spike chain wielding acrobats to be able to easily defeat AK-47 wielders. The problem isn't that it's unrealistic, it's that the person writing the rules doesn't understand the consequences of the rules he has created, and the effect...

While my knowledge of combat has grown over the years(though not to the point of most people posting in this thread), it hasn't affected my gaming very much. A game like D&D isn't really trying to accurately represent medieval swordplay and such. What it's trying to accurately represent is...

You know what the absolute worst rogue to have in your party is? A kender. To rp their character properly, they constantly have to be robbing their party members. What's worse, is they get to keep their good alignment while doing so. The rest of the group is expected to play along with their...

I play alot of rogues, so perhaps I can provide some answers. I've seen characters of all classes do this. It is -extremely- bad form to do it. Nothing ticks me off more than when people don't get their fair share of the loot. The only time I recall stealing from another player was when...

The more I think about it, the more I believe minor quests are the way to deal with this and other playstyle problems. Instead of bludgeoning them with time constraints and gauntlets of monsters, offer them an optional minor quest that has a time limit. Attach a minor(but noticeable) reward to...

Maybe make the capture/killing of a specific monster an important goal of the campaign, and make it so the monster knows the players are coming. If they take an extended rest, the monster flees the dungeon(or wherever they are). They'll have to try to track him down and catch him the next...