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Haha. Good suggestions up there. I rarely sit when DMing, except recently since I broke my toe. Once I'm back on my feet, I'll be ... back on my feet. I do have the MCDM playtest rules. Here's my concern about the "off turn reactions" concept of modern design. Remember that we recently...

I decided to create a new thread for the topic. But as you can see from the title, it did not go well. In fact, I would describe it as one of the most heartbreaking sessions I've ever run based on how the players tore into me after the game. Y'all, I feel completely defeated by this hobby...

I’ve long struggled trying to find the “perfect” system for my group, as evidenced in my Post-Mortems about various 5E campaigns, Savage Worlds Holler, the recent 8-month campaign in 4E, and a series of indie one-shots including Dread, Monster of the Week, and Alice is Missing. Finally, I...

I just wrapped up an 8 month 4E campaign, and I'm not eager to go back to that (you can read more at my Post-mortem thread). I also recently played very non-combat focused games (Dread, Monster of the Week, Call of Cthulhu, and Alice is Missing). 5e very much leans to combat-focused. The...

So what you're saying, game design is basically on the DM because the team couldn't be bothered to figure out a workable solution? In which case, why are we even playing this game? Why don't I just pull anything out of the Monster Manual and say "well, there's your fight?" Why don't I just tell...

He is not paying his designers more than $150K. Wizards is also not paying their designers $150K. Please stop comparing apples to grapefruit. So you're telling me that a small studio can afford to pay better than a multi-billion dollar entertainment conglomerate that operates the world's...

Heck, even I can say I have two writing credits. I'm hardly an established designer. Compare WotC's pay to Matt Coville's staff, and you'll see the discrepancy. WotC is paying worse than TSR era design, even including inflation. They use freelancers, give them little freedom in the design...

I have a former coworker who actually used to do layout for WotC in the 3rd edition era. How she ended up in a small town in Kentucky, I'm not sure. I'm not upset with her or the custodian who still cleans the offices. But, you know, I'd rather support companies that pay their employees better...

It's very hard to avoid Microsoft or Google if you're going to use a computer or cellphone. D&D is easier. Just my opinion.

Goodness. I still won't buy VW because of the whole "1940s Germany" thing. Also, won't eat Chik-fil-A. And wish I could boycott my local grocery store (Kroger) because of their trying to create a monopoly to inflate prices. So I think we've discovered that I'm very sensitive to such things.

There seem to be a couple different questions asked. Do my feelings about WotC/Hasbro make me... dislike the brand of D&D and supporting them financially? Yes dislike playing officially branded, current products of D&D? Yeah, a bit. I don't want to encourage the purchase of new material...

It's discouraging to me to see that 65% of respondents are cool with what we've seen from WotC/Hasbro.

Are we talking about CR as a function of 8+ encounters per day? The monster design in the Monster Manual itself doesn't even work.

And monster design is all over the place. You can have them very overpowered (Kobold Press) or amazingly weak (Odyssey of the Dragonlords). Largely because in 10 years designers and DMs never got guidelines for monster creation. (Or a functional magic item economy, ideas of how to award items, a...

Point taken. Was just kinda hoping, you know, that 2024 would work better. It's possible that the monsters will be balanced differently to make them more of a challenge. I can check back in 2025.

Can be a big deal. Especially when your monster has one big attack. With bounded accuracy and attack bonuses basically stuck, that's a -5. Pretty much an auto fail - when I can barely hit PCs as is, and the damage is already so low that the monsters are barely challenging at all. How about...

The party also gets multiple attacks. And another mastery is worse. Free trip. Everyone in the party gets attacks with advantage. Attacks of opportunity when the creature stands. Gets knocked down again. Rinse, repeat. At the very least weapon mastery should require a resource like an action...

Oh dear Lord. Weapon mastery makes the game so much worse. You hit a monster with a weapon with sap, and it's got disadvantage on its next attack? Monsters will never hit again.

As a forever DM, whatever new toys given to players is lost to me, except for whatever new bookkeeping I'll have to do and whatever I'll have to do to balance it. What I'd want is very simple: functional DM tools and streamlined, dynamic monsters.

Not intending to be snarky at all, but writing completely in earnest... Is 2024 improved at all? I've heard of completely broken spells, combinations that don't work, all discovered within hours of getting the book. I've heard "worse than 2014" from reviewers ... several of them. I've heard it...