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Loretober 4: Music "The Fool of Ovalmere Faire" is the tune played by over half of the music boxes crafted in the Principalities, north of the Kingdom of Vinland and the Meadborn River. It's a traditional aire, sometimes also known as "The Fool (or The King) of Bengate Bridge." And in the...

Loretober 3: Prophecy Lady Torishar of the House of Broktus had invited Master Seztrim of Ylide to her Doomsday Party. This was a daring and even scandalous move, not because Master Seztrim was a scaly lizardman with psi powers, but because he was a slave dealer. The men of the House could and...

Loretober 2: Nightlife Wednesday nights are Dart Nights at the Anvil and Barrel in the halfling village of Broadstump. In truth, darts are played there every night, but on nights other than Wednesdays they're played "for funsies." Wednesday night darts, on the other hand, are played for a pair...

Loretober 1: Old Gods Gwayb is the One Who Has Not Yet Been Born. Some say Gwayb is older than the world, and ought to be counted as a sixth among the Golden Ones who created the world. Others claim that Gwayb is an invention of the mad goblin poet Kiovort Egob-son. All concede that Gwayb's...

And I'm going to respond with an old USENET post. Not by me, but I agree with it. ==== RPGs and video games differ from most ordinary board games in that there doesn't have to be a loser. I think it's reasonable that they attract mindsets which aren't very interested in losing; and a lot of RPG...

And that's one reason why I used the Norse gods as an example: Idun's fruit, and what happened when they lost access to it, makes them a closer precedent to your idea. :)

Actually I see that as an example of a perfectly legit off-beat take on a Loretober theme. Any of the themes could be played straight, played mostly straight with an unusual detail or three, or played thoroughly twisted. And in Norse mythology the gods have to eat Idun's magic fruit to keep...

I'd use non-cresting/peaking waves or wavy lines for water on a dungeon scale, along with shading. Here's a crop from one of my maps where a water wells out of a, well, well, and flows off in a rapid stream, at the 1 square = 5 ft scale.

I'll suggest a second change: Villains is misspelled as 'Villans' And text form because some people find that handier: Loretober 1. Old Gods 2. Nightlife 3. Prophecy 4. Music 5. Psionics 6. Heroes 7. Villains 8. Myths & Legends 9. Occultism 10. Dragons 11. Nature 12. Cuisine 13. Weapons 14...

I have lots of worlds. Some are game worlds, and some are worlds for my read-only fiction. So I'm left uncertain as to how this Loretober is supposed to work. Can we put a spotlight on an old, well-established example in one of our worlds for the theme of a given day, or should all the themes...

It's a simulationist thing. If a rule produces incentives and results that cut against the vision of how things work in the game setting, then so much the worse for the rule. So if the GM and the players want a world where comrades are frequently left behind to die, because attempting to drag...

My point is that just as not every encounter has to be a combat encounter, not every camp has to be a survival-roll-required camp. I believe it's better, in fact, if most nights spent camping are not survival-roll-required, with the exceptions being uncommon, unusual, and memorable, and...

I'm your opposite number there. I run 3.5e when I run D&D and for me it's the sweet spot of the D&D editions, or at least can be made into one with heavy curating of the options and some judicious house rules. When 4e came out, I looked and said "Nope!" and likewise "Nope!" to PF, 5e, and 5e++...

The "pushover encounters are not fun" school of thought is common enough that you share it. It's also contradicted by my own experience, both with my players and as a player that pushover encounters very often are fun. Less so for the GM, but for the players? Fun! When they are less fun for...

Thoughts: The 3.0/3.5e Cleave feat was an attempt to reincarnate this in spirit. There's a common school of DM though that PCs should never ever encounter 1 hit die creatures after about 4th level, 'cause such encounters are "no challenge." Since they're no challenge, they're no fun - and if...

My thought is that the deed should be a test of character, rather than a serious test of ability, something to show that the PCs are acting in good faith. As for what the elven community looks like, you have a better idea of what you want than I do, but the place I'd start in working out the...

When it comes to sleeping in armor, there are those who want to emulate read-only fiction: "He stood up and cast open his long black cloak, and behold! he was clad in mail beneath, and girt with a long sword, great-hilted in a sheath of black and silver. ‘Thus have I walked, and thus now for...

I'm inclined to favor long lists of available stuff. But as many others have noted the stuff has to be useful. Also, there is a level-of-abstraction issue: Too little abstraction drowns the Fun, as the players and GM have to fiddle with all fiddly bits of (e.g.) socks, scarves, sweaters, etc...

I think of it as a philosophical difference. In crunchy RPGs the crunch mechanics are an integral part of the character and world descriptions. They're armatures, often hidden from the characters themselves, but still a real part of the characters. And because they're part of the characters'...