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Just so. If you dont get time to spend experience that affects only your character, and the loss nearly all falls on you (moreso in Champions than in D&D, because levelling is not so dramatic, and PCs tend no to depend on one another quite so much). That's a fair decision to take in how you...

I think so. A short summary would be that you insist (on grounds of realism) that all characters either get training or spend a lot of effort on trial-and-error self-training to acquire a new class level that either: 1) gives them a new class, 2) gives them a new feat, 3) lets them purchase a...

4 squared is 16, not 32. Any reason why you doubled this (and then doubled again in the grant total)?

A shaman from a barbarian culture (bought as Sorceror), who gained a bonus feat for having the flaw 'does not believe his magic works', but who cast spells all the time anyway ("This won't work, but I don't have anything better to do"), and who wore nothing but a bearskin cloak and a thick layer...

That is an assumption aboutthe way the world works. It need not be true in every game world.

For me the issue is not that it is a social engagement, but that it is an agreement, a contract. It doesn't mmatter whom you made the contract with. What matters is teh price you have induced them to pay, and the requital you owe them for paying that price. You offer people, whether they be...

Sir Francis Walsingham was a courtier at the court of Queen Elizabeth I of England, who held various offices such as MP for Surrey, ambassador to France, and Secretary of State (a job he shared with Sir Thomas Smith). Secretly, he was the master of the English spy network, which operated both in...

"Scutage", or "shield-money".

There have from time to time been several different significances in various Western cultures. At one time in France it was illegal to have a middle name. People got around this by hyphenating several names into one and making the compound the first name. At one stage canon law allowed the...

Because it seems more realistic, I guess. Tell me: do you insist that characters display a desire to learn something outside their known fields and actively try to learn before acquiring a completely new ability through a choice of feat? Before learning a new skill withthe skill points their...

It is simply not up to you to decide what is the most important use of somebody else's time. Besides, just because you are picking up your kids doesn't mean that I have to be cooling my heels and awaiting your condescension. I could be doing some of my important stuff if only you were...

Sure it does. So do the things that other people give up to be there on time. If you have to pick your kid up at 5:30, and therefore can't make the game until 6:30, then agreeing to play at 6 is stealing half an hour of the life of all the other players. Sometimes circumstances do occur that...

You telepathic idea-thief, you! I have been trying for years to interest players in a campaign in which the PCs were secret agents in the service of Sir Francis Walsingham, with Dr John Dee in something of the role of 'Q'. But sadly too many of my usual players are Catholic, and they don't go...

Time to bend over and kiss it goodbye. These words are here to stay.

Well spotted!

Spot on. The same is true of arriving late. Sure, you may have important to do which is simply more valuable to you than gaming. But I don't think you have the right to force other people to give up their time to your priorities. I agree entirely. Which is why I am so ashamed that at the last...

There are ways to GM that require much less effort, you know. Back when I was running an adventure of some sort five sessions a week I could prep an adventure in fifteen minutes. Not using D&D, of course.

My usual, and best-developed campaign setting, Gehennum started out this way in 1988. I had an idea for a miniseries campaign based on a 'twisted' version of the standard fantasy trope "rescue the princess and win her hand in marriage". The original setting was conceived thus: "Jehannum is a...

I know it is. I also know that ENworld isn't a UseNet forum.

That's what I find, too. With a third of the spotlight time each, players are much more involved than with only one sixth of the spotlight time each. And any sort of plan is much more likely to require the attention and co-operation of the whole party. You don't so often have anyone's attention...