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Ancestry was used by the upper classes of Europe to justify their power over the lower classes; 'good breeding'. They're just descendants of barbarian chiefs and bandit lords, and inherited what their ancestors took by theft and murder. So they tried to dress it up with theories that justified...

It's the same word. How would that not be a reminder? Race as currently used in fantasy RPGs is used to represent distinct biological lifeforms with functional differences from each other. Race in historical terms (which is the origin of the term in fantasy RPGs, from tolkein) was used to...

You need to re-read the post you're replying to. The poster said that a) they have gamed with good people, b) they have also experienced vile gamers and c) they said most gamers are white. Please LordNightWinter, where did the post make a biased claim against whites? Where did they express...

You really don't see what gaming would gain by dispensing with a term still used today to create oppressive stereotypes and justify the arbitrary oppression of them? And that the people that were stereotyped still, today, have less than proportional representation among the gamer demographic...

I agree that gaming is escapism. However, if we use the term race, then gaming ISN'T escapism for people who are stereotyped according to the social construct that is race because it could be one more f'ing reminder of the real world. Just like D&D moved on from gender/sex attribute penalties...

What I used in my house rules was "Peoples", as in different kinds of.

5e lacks what B/X and other old school systems have which are guidelines for this kind of exploratory activity - such as searching takes 1 turn (10 minutes) per 10' area. Further, there's almost always some kind of time pressure because (varies by edition and circumstance) random encounters are...

Not 1e nor OD&D. Many might have used something as a house rule, but most old school versions did not actually have stat checks. There's also a HUGE difference between a tool for the DM adjudication (the ability to call for a stat check) and the player expectation of using an ability on a...

I think they haven't expanded on Magic Item Creation because they are attempting something of a "Hippocratic Oath" ('first, do no harm') in regards to crunch in this edition. (Not saying they are successful, but I think it is pretty clear that they are being cautious.) They've left magic item...

What I think Mearls is referring to, especially in regards to Joseph Campbell, is the concept of the "mythic underworld" as discussed in Philotomy's musings: AD&D and OD&D are a rules fit with the mythic underworld due to the rules being under the control of the Dungeon Master. Remember, even...

By that I mean they spike their doors before a long rest in the dungeon. "What does a CIA agent always pack for a trip? A doorstop. When you lock yourself into your hotel room at night, slip the doorstop under the door to keep intruders from being able to force the door open. The doorstop is...

I think the key to answering this question is what the OP means by a dungeon crawl? 4e is excellent for set piece encounters. WotC looked at how people were playing 3.x, saw that most of the session time was spent on encounters, and then engineered 4e around that. So if you think of a dungeon...

One thing to consider is that Down Time is a choice. Have they earned good will and have no enemies that would plot against them or advance their plot during Downtime? If they don't maybe they have earned a reward. Or they've dealt the bad guy's plans a blow and the bad guy's plot won't go...

In Foxit reader, I can't access the link to your encumbrance rules. Here are my house rules for resting and encumbrance.

Not quite the same. I've been able to convince my friends to play the game more the way I'd like to play it. As I read this, your choice is: 1. play with the people you like but not the way you'd like to play 2. play with the people you like but ask them to play a different game 3. find other...

I'm a long time runner of 1E and other OSR systems. I hate to ask (because it sounds condescending) but have you played/DMed high level casters in 3.x or 5e? Sure, 1E doesn't have the Concentration mechanic, but here are limiting factors to spellcaster power in 1E that 3.x did away with: 1...

Things I really liked and thought were helpful: The terrain chances for an encounter map - featureless encounters are boring, give us stuff to interact with. Journeys are an important part of adventure stories, but there is very little support on making them interesting. Material like this is...

Things I really liked and thought were helpful: The terrain chances for an encounter map - featureless encounters are boring, give us stuff to interact with. Journeys are an important part of adventure stories, but there is very little support on making them interesting. Material like this is...

We're very different DMs. A couple of months ago I wrote a blog post on how random encounters changed the trajectory of my campaign. Just like the players, as a DM I enjoy the suspense of finding out what happens and the challenge of reacting to an unexpected obstacle. Here: Random...

We're very different DMs. A couple of months ago I wrote a blog post on how random encounters changed the trajectory of my campaign. Just like the players, as a DM I enjoy the suspense of finding out what happens and the challenge of reacting to an unexpected obstacle. Here: Random...