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Every few years I decide this irks me too much as well. I introduce something to fix it, it goes great for the first few sessions, and then we just slowly slide back to "everyone can communicate" because it is so much easier. Getting people to role play is hard enough, tossing up more road...

Maybe to evolve this into a 5e discussion, we can debate the feasibility of a system that allows you to easily adjust the 'sweet spot' for wherever your given sweet spot happens to be. I think the trick to this would be to have stable base math and then make damage output the variable. Varying...

In my experience, people miss sessions for one of two reasons. The first reason is that something really did just come up. These are things like a kid getting sick, having concert tickets fall into your lap at the last minute, or a family emergency. No one really gets upset when these sort of...

I think that is part of the problem of 3e multiclassing. Included in Fighter 3 is the promise of Fighter 4 and the benefits it entails. You can think of this as the net present value of Fighter 3 is positive because of those future payouts. Perhaps no class shows this as clearly as the spell...

That sounds like a really good time for a crowd of an appropriate age. Dwarves can replace any alcohol described with a swill of a stout beer. It'll make the dwarf really clean up at this session, which feels fun. If you get stuck in the gelatinous cube, you can escape by taking a shot of...

Completely agree. When I started my 5e project a long while back I began with classes and as I progressed along stuff I liked started dictating to me stuff I didn't like. I ended up scrapping it and starting over with core principles in mind. The system was almost done before I ever really...

I think it depends on why you get together to play D&D (or any RPG). Some folks just like to participate in stories. I think for them, digital tabletops beat out skipping a game. Other folks like to spend time with friends. For them, the digital surface is pointless. Digital table tops aren't a...

I don't think his communication is unreasonable, but if your interpretation of his communication is accurate, his communication might be. I've played in campaigns before where losing a character and trying to get a new one integrated with the group was hard. Wanting to avoid that isn't...

Updated the original post, but here's the text. It has been a while but I figured I would update this thread to be a complete repository of the project. I put Runeward on hiatus until I see how 5e goes, but there is a mostly finished alpha draft available on the site. I am wrapping up some...

I actually believe that the core skill in GMing is the most important skill you could every possess. When I GM, what I am fundamentally doing is looking at an idea (an adventure) that I think is a great idea, and tailoring it real time to try and thread it through the various likes and dislikes...

The bog oak is just awesome. They are super expensive, but then how does one go about pricing a die that is thousands of years old? Again, awesome and congrats.

This entry and game design dealt with the use of trademarks for independent game designers. I think it would be helpful for a lot of amateur RPG publishers but since the industry forum is shut down it doesn't really have a home and I'm not sure it warrants its own thread. Hence, we'll just tack...

You should check out this unboxing of the game Knights and Glory (starts about 2:30). Somewhere the creator of the game mentioned that the gold coins were $0.12 each and I am imagining you can get them from TheGameCrafter. They sound like they have a good heft to them as they clink together but...

The idea that if a monster doesn't have a stat it is immune to attacks by that stat is really quite elegant and I'm jealous I didn't think of it. It is by far the best design I saw in this leak. Some of it I like, very little of it do I dislike, but in sum it doesn't inspire me as much as I...

Yeah, what's the deal here? Is this a new variant on article marketing where you power write an article and embed in it links to a site that pays you? And then a bot follows up to make sure it is top of page? I guess my question is, can anyone who is familiar with the book confirm the accuracy...

I absolutely agree with this. We want the players to succeed most times they get to act. Conversely, you can drop monsters to succeed a bit less often because they all sort of get rolled up into the DM's turn and so long as a couple of them succeed you got a good round. The next step, though...

My players were always fine with restrictions so long as they fell into one of two groups. The first was thematic restrictions. If they were all starting as kids that grew up in the same rural village, it was reasonable to limit races. If new characters were introduced later in the campaign...

Hey guys, I finally posted a PDF of all four factions, so you can play test the entire game. I also set up a little website to begin discussing strategy and design theory if anyone is interested. Website. scratch the line Quick start guide. http://dl.dropbox.com/u/64797465/scratchDTL.pdf Full...

This is in mostly due to our near simultaneous post of identical thoughts, but if you really like that game design philosophy perhaps you should check out my "shelved until we see what 5e holds" project over here. With a direct link to the PDF here. The entire thing was basically built on the...

Standard ranges, I'd put +5 at 1st level and +15 at 20th. Those are the bonuses for someone who is reasonably good at said action. An especially focused character might be +7 at 1st and +20 at 20th and then, of course, someone untrained might be more like +0 or +1 at 1st and +10ish at 20th...