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Another "table? what table?" reporting in. We play in a living room. Typically whoever's running the game sits on a cushion at the coffee table, facing the big L-shaped sectional sofa. Books and notes tend to be piled to either side of the GM, and dice tend to be rolled on the coffee table...

Everything's verbal in our group, with an occasional Cheesy GM Map(TM) scrawled on a piece of paper or on a whiteboard. There are a lot of reasons for this. No one wants to buy a battlemat or miniatures, for one thing. No one wants to have to draw an area to scale on a battlemat. Most of us...

Then you're just weird, because Arcane Sight does absolutely NOTHING against Hide, as you can see from its description. ;) Me, I'd say that Arcane Sight lets you see the aura of the invisible guy, so you know he's there. I'd still give the invisible guy concealment, though, because Arcane...

Always a good idea; and if you're going to do this, go all-out and have a pre-game briefing, too. Seriously, if you're going to do an adventure where you plan on challenging the usual habits and assumptions of the players and hope to provide them with the opportunity to try doing different...

You're not, but it's a weird situation. The 3.0 DMG listed Bracers of Health in the table of wondrous items, but only an Amulet of Health in the text descriptions of wondrous items. Then the 3.0 DMG Errata came out, and it advised you to change all instances of "Amulet of Health" to "Bracers...

Hm. I seem to remember a little of this attitude in the game I played back in high school (AD&D2e with oodles of house rules, being played by adolescent boys); like Henry said, the rules back then really did leave magic users with a very limited number of spells and not much for them to do once...

Only by total concealment, which prevents the spellcaster from seeing the target and therefore makes it impossible to cast Magic Missile at them. Anything less than total concealment, and it automatically hits (subject to the Shield spell, spell resistance, Globes of Invulnerability, and/or a...

You know, I'm trying to picture a human-sized metal statue weighing about 5,000lbs, moving 20' per round, unable to run, with no Climb speed and no ranks at all in Climb (just what, a +11 strength modifier?), doing anything Jackie-Chan style. ;) I suppose it could still climb up one or two...

Speaking of X2, anyone who hasn't seen it yet has to go and read this hilarious story over on RPGNet from a group which converted the stats in the module and left all the other cheesy, old-school, thoroughly inexplicable things about it intact. -- well worth it ryan

Meh. I get enough of that kind of impersonal interaction with other people at work and out in public. Given the choice (and there's always a choice), I'd rather spend my leisure time having fun with people I know and like and actually want to have in my life, y'know? It's not that gaming with...

Staff of Many Splinters Eyes of Dyslexia Hat of This Guy Amulet of Innkeeper Annoyance Saddle of Soreness Bucknard's Everfull Diaper Cloak of Nakedness (if you're naked, it covers you; if you're not, it eats your clothes and leaves you naked except for the cloak) Wings of Falling Unbroken Chain...

I'm just continually amazed at people who actually use the polymorph spells and shapechange in their games. Last time we played D&D, I played a wizard, and I came to the conclusion two minutes after finding a spellbook with polymorph self in it that actually casting those spells is such a...

No one in our group cares who rolls what for whom, really. Hell, we have one player who routinely asks someone else to roll dice for her, rather than risk her own poor dice karma (or fish the appropriate die out of her bag). ...and actually, as strategies go, it seems to work for her. She's...

There seems to be no concrete ruling, so I think it's down to a poll. Or your own best judgement. You can guess which one of those options I'd recommend; it's your game, you know the situation and the characters involved, and you're the one who'll have to listen to the whining if you tell the...

Wow, they ARE a pain in the butt. My reaction would probably be to start making fun of them and their characters for being big, whiny babies. Though there are three things which I think are reasonable complaints that you're just overreacting to: That first one is dead-on accurate: if you're...

Overused in what way? Making an individual mansion for each party member? ;) Magnificent Mansion never struck me as the kind of spell you cast more than once a day anyway. It's kind of cool that the sorceror opted to make it one of her known spells, considering the other options she had at...

The one that's made the most recent addition to our repertoire is "I'm not here to help you." Or, if we're feeling like being more obscure, "You must not have seen my business card." [One of our players introduced us to the cancelled but surprisingly not terrible series "Miracles" (a much...

Graphic violence tends to be tolerated in small doses; it gets weird if someone lingers over it, spending several minutes describing a particularly gory act. There's something distinctly off-putting about that. Also, on a personal level, I hate describing torture scenes; so much so that I try...

The first, only, and most important entry on my universal permaban list is: Lone wolf characters. These are the ones who have no real past, no real future, no interest in the other PCs, no common interests with the other PCs, no intention of being friends with or working with the other PCs...

I've noticed that, too. All dwarves are now a bunch of short Scottish Vikings with axe fetishes. It's weird. Our group uses a mixture of the three dialogue styles. We paraphrase and synopsize conversations with NPCs that aren't particularly interesting, or ones we can't justify spending...