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#1 Avatars I agree that an RPG has as a core concept the idea of a role -- "avatar" is a more clear testament of this. Adding the word "pure" in front of that seems overly restrictive, given the link explaining what the OP means by "pure" and the statement "if it dies/is destroyed, the player...

"Be Excellent to One Another" is the reference quote. Although I'm a Christian, I prefer it to the golden rule "do to others as you would have them due to you" as it asks you to go beyond equality. But yes, I'm lucky enough to play with people who are willing to compromise for the fun of all...

A somewhat tangential note here: Politically, I think that for small groups (maybe up to about 12 people) anarchy is the best organization; things are decided by consensus and hard rules should be very rare. If one person is against something, it does depend on how strong their feelings are...

Uhh .. no, not saying that at all. I think you might be confusing characters and players here. Sorry if this seems a bit pedantic or basic, but here goes: What I said was "no-one -- GM or player -- gets to run a character that the players would prefer not to have around". This is a statement...

Here are some quotes from this thread (if you cannot access) "My rule of thumb is that a DMPC is there because the DM wants them there. An NPC is there because the players do." "DMPC is a pejorative for an NPC with the party who the DM is trying to get a heroic player experience out of." "DMPCs...

I've played so many years that it's not impossible I have -- but I honestly can't think of one. In general if there's a player decision to be made, I float it at the end of a session, so I have time to prep based on what the players decide. So in the above cases, I'd tell the players that if...

"The party has no choice but to incorporate the GMPC, just like it does any other PC" I think you run a very different game than I then, which may explain my confusion. In my games, no-one -- GM or player -- gets to run a character that the players would prefer not to have around. Our goal is to...

I guess it seems odd to me to work out how you DON'T have GMPCs. Do the players just never make relationships, or is there some kind of artificial game-thing they do? If they need a skill and someone joins them to help, do they then just forget they needed the skill and ditch the guy? I mean...

Not with you on this one. In fact, it's really only D&D v2-3 for which this seems the case. D&D4E was hugely complex, but that wasn't what caused a new edition to come out. 5E doesn't seem -- to me -- to be getting a lot more complexity. Outside of D&D we see long-running lines like Call of...

Yes, absolutely. I agree with @overgeeked that 3-5 works best, but if you have 6 and need to play with that many, I'd just go with it and expect things to be a littler easier. Also agree with the ease of converting older scenarios. I don't even keep mine sorted by edition -- there's too little...

I know the classic view of CoC is that everyone dies in the end as the world is destroyed, but that's because it's fun to do that at one-shots in conventions! Actual campaigns aren't like that at all. I've run several, and they overwhelming are about the heroes facing barely understandable...

Because in PF2 only some enemies/classes get OAs, it means that characters that can get information about the enemy effectively are more useful in combat — once you know an opponent doesn’t have an AO, your movement is free. PF2‘s three action economy also encourages movement; I play a pretty...

This certainly could be the case. I understand you believe that if PF2 had been more of a 5E clone it would have been better in some sense. But for a lot of people, they play PF2 because it is different from 5E. I certainly do! Given that most people appear to disagree with you, and that you...

Just had another chat with my GM and I believe I overstated the ease with which we succeeded. He reminded me that people have been knocked unconscious, several times, and that although no encounter looked close to a TPK, a fight with a bear was, in his opinion, very nasty, and did down two...

I talked to our GM about this and had a bit of a think. From the GM point of view, he has been running encounters as-is mostly, but has upped the difficulty level occasionally and added extra elements. For example (mild EC spoiler), while running a series of rolling combats in a tower, there was...

I can't help thinking that this thread is crossing across some barrier into parallel universes. We're just about to finish book one and we had nothing even close to a dangerous situation. Not quite a cake walk, but we haven't had a single death saving throw yet even -- not sure anyone has...

The goal of a campaign is for everyone to have fun. It's not a contract, it's not adversarial, and it's not going to work if you treat it as such. Compromising so that everyone can enjoy the result is just normal behavior -- nothing game-specific about it. Yo talk it over and decide what will...

This is a great insight, Aldarc. I thought a bit about my experience with different game systems, and yes, it rings true. I then started wandering if the difference was due to difference in players versus the system itself. I'm leaning to the latter, because I play a range of systems including...

No, PF2 is just plain more dangerous! I think everyone is in agreement on that. In other systems I regularly make adjustments to add challenge to my players. In PF2 my GM almost never needed to do that. A lot depends on the type of characters people want to play. In PF2 if you play a fairly...

Gotcha. PF2 is a bit different as spell casters are not capable for he extremes of damage they could in PF1 / 3x. So in PF2 if the goblins are a moderate threat, a fireball will just end up with 3 goblins maybe at ⅓ hit points. However I'm not sure that even in 4E that fireballs are a one-shot...