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My vote was "consume." Of course my opinion was really a combination of the different elements, but I picked one that I thought was most important. I think the core rules should follow the "consume" model. Make it easy to reference and understand the material first and foremost. I could see a...

My current group doesn't have a problem with restrictions, but I've played with many, many people over the years for whom "restrictions" are a four-letter word. When I restrict something, it's usually to fit the theme of the campaign. In a recent campaign, I've disallowed PC druids and...

Pathfinder, and very satisfied with it. I play the occasional 1E game as well, and I'm giving some serious consideration to trying a BECMI game the next time I run a campaign. I'm not particularly interested in a new version of the game. Right now, my feeling is very much like it was circa...

Howdy N'raac. :) I just want to share with you a few of my thoughts. First off... My post didn't include everything you've attributed to me. I'm going to assume that your post got a bit mixed up and only address the points from my post. Second, we can endlessly argue back and forth about...

The attitude that there is or should be a way to "win" at a tabletop RPG is probably the single biggest thing that I just can't adapt to. The way I see it, you win if you have a cool story to tell after the session, regardless of what happens in the narrative or to your characters. I'd also say...

I can sum up my x.p. style in saying that players earn x.p. You have to do something to get it, it's not yours by merit of just showing up at the table. I reward participation and effort. I give out individual x.p. awards, generally based on what the characters actually do over the course of a...

I've actually been to Hillside Games... Once. When I was in Asheville for work last year, I stopped in there on a day off. The person working the counter was pretty rude and we actually had some words about it. I almost returned my purchases, but decided to just not visit there again. I've...

Howdy Fire! As far as players that detest mixed genres, I am one of "those guys," so let me share some of my thoughts on "the potential." My single biggest objection to playing such a game is, well... Gamers. They are a lot with diverse tastes and varying levels of maturity, and most of the...

I've been using canonfire's wiki for over a year now in my Pathfinder game set in Greyhawk. It's down now... Does anyone know of a good wiki-style site for Greyhawk?

I think that the house rules should be discussed with your players before play begins, and you should take their opinions into consideration. (Not necessarily do everything the way they want, but at least consider it.) I think that a game doesn't "belong" to the GM more than the players, and I...

One of the things I did in early 3E was use the "exploding dice" option presented in the Epic Level Handbook: a natural 20 wasn't an automatic hit and a natural 1 wasn't an automatic miss. If you rolled a 20, you rolled again and added 20 to the result (and if you rolled a 1, you rolled again...

I tend to view enemy resurrections as a chance to develop an adventure. How would an evil army react to their warlord's death? They'd probably side with the PCs to keep him from being resurrected--after all, the new evil warlord that seized command upon his death would have to fight him for...

First off, I reserve the right to veto or take back anything going on at the table when I GM. Gaming has to be fun for all the players, GM included. I don't believe that the GM should be "punished" for making mistakes any more than a player. The narrative and conduct of the game is not a...

Honestly, I don't know. I could deal with a Player's Handbook with a thousand pages, but I probably wouldn't want to. The Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook and the 20th Anniversary Edition Vampire: the Masquerade books are 500+ pages each. While I enjoy the fact that they're comprehensive, I don't...

I chose six because that's a typical size for my Pathfinder/D&D games. I usually try to get a group of six to eight, with the expectation that we'll be missing a player or two every week. I'll run with as few as three, but I really prefer five. If we have three or fewer, we usually play...

This is part of the cognitive dissonance I experience with the cleric's perceived function in the game versus their perceived function in the narrative structure of the setting. Many players want a healer when their hit point totals start dropping and many players don't want to play clerics...

There's the adept, which seems to fill the role of "primitive spellcaster." They do have some cure and protective spells and actually cast divine spells, but they also receive a familiar and have access to some spells with a traditionally arcane bent (invisibility, wall of fire, and the like)...

In my 1E homebrew games, the cleric class represents a specific order of crusaders within a religious hierarchy--sort of like the Knights Hospitaller, Knights Templar, or the Order of Saint Lazarus. They are adventurers, not "priests" per se, although they are ordained and fully capable of...

I don't know how much interest in the community there is for this, but it's the sort of thing that I'd love to see. I'd call my column an orc by any other name. The idea is to take some contentious/unloved element of the game and to put a re-skin spin on it, to make it palatable and appropriate...

I'm in the solidly neutral camp. For one thing, I already have a game that I enjoy, and I'm not going to "squee" at the announcement of "the new shiny." I don't necessarily enjoy something just because it is new. In fact... WotC is going to have a tough sell on me--my feeling was that 4E was...