Search results

Both D&D and RL have rent-seekers on top who promote only the sorts of diversity that don't threaten (and in fact help to distract us from) the economic injustices that benefit them. If you think the race-class restrictions in the 1e PHB were draconian try reading the rules for publishing your...

We're talking about class-race restrictions here... There's nothing "wild" or fantasy genre-expanding about removing these restrictions. It's just grid-filling. It's lazy design really. I would rather have the traditional restrictions but also more race-specific classes, like Elven Bladesingers...

I wouldn't call it "very niche" when Dark Souls III was the 30th best-selling game of 2016. I wouldn't say all games should be like DS, but I think it will be influential given its critical and commercial success. Also I think something like jumping into multiplayer Battlefield 1 is actually...

I think fairness is more important than empathy. In fact I think it's a common mistake for DMs to be too empathetic. They assume that a player isn't enjoying the game if they exhibit any frustration, but of course that's not necessarily true; sometimes the most compelling games are very...

I like island/peninsula ambiguity. You can send the PCs to "Monster Island" but tell them not to worry, it's just a name.

Are you having a stroke or something? I've only posted about this twice in the entire thread. If you want a response from me, chill out for a bit and make your point in a less inflammatory way. If you don't want a response, please post without quoting me so I'm not notified.

Does mainstream culture really "normalize" heterosexuality per se? Or is it more precisely monogamous pair bonding? If it's the latter, normalizing gay relationships without propaganda is a challenge because gay men by and large are not monogamous. About half of gay couples are openly...

Maybe that goes down in certain neighborhoods of US cities but that would be outrageous behavior here. If I saw that the first thing I would think is the guy is mentally ill. In fact I think it's illegal...ah, it is if he follows her or if she feels unsafe as a result of the catcalling.

I have no problem with the depiction of gay characters in D&D, but I'd prefer if they were a bit more realistic. Gay relationships are far more likely to be non-monogamous, so it's a bit odd when gays seems always to show up as these very devoted, idyllic traditional couples. I guess that's the...

@Tony Vargas my comment was more prescriptive than descriptive: I think those two styles of dungeon work the best. You can mix the styles of course, but bringing in some features of the older style without the other supporting elements usually makes the feature you're bringing in feel...

I think there are two functional dungeon paradigms: old-style and new-style. Old-style - 1 square = 10 feet - 35-50+ rooms per level - 1/3 to 1/2 rooms are empty, 1/4 to 1/3 semi-random content, 1/4 to 1/3 special content - Players are expected to map - Time is tracked in turns - Random...

Relatively few people play AD&D by the rules, which is why it's such an underrated game. If you don't fight the game that it wants to be and accept it as a (pre-Rogue) roguelike dungeoncrawler rather than escapist fantasy sim, it's very fun. The character gen lottery leavens the sting of...

This is going way beyond D&D, but about the verb "other", since it appeared earlier in the thread: To me this is a debasement of the original concept from phenomenological philosophy. Some philosophers in fact consider radical Otherness the foundation of the ethical relation ("ethics precedes...

I think in a discussion where tuxedoraptor and Obryn can freely express their desire for those with different elfgame preferences to be rendered infertile with a blunt instrument, those who want to say something to the effect of "screw you, SJW" probably feel free to do so. I certainly don't...

I think you're on the right track there. Whether mundane areas are desirable depends on the overall theme of the dungeon, whether it's more of a realistic fortress/lair or "mythic underworld". But realism is not an excuse to be boring: if they're included, there should be something interesting...

Obryn you've shown your true colours by XPing this. It's one thing for a new account to drive-by troll a thread with a crazy rant. It's more disturbing when a long-time and typically reasonable poster discloses how hateful they really are by agreeing with it.

The fact that you can't simulate everything doesn't imply that you have to justify everything you do simulate. If it's good to properly simulate something, but you can only reasonably simulate one more thing, then you should simulate a thing even if it's just a random choice between the...

The 1976 results are not meaningfully different. We're talking about strength maximums, not modifiers, so I thought strongest vs. strongest would be the most pertinent comparison. You must be comparing the 75kg men (i.e. less than 75kg) with the 75kg+ women (i.e. 75kg and over). Obviously that's...

That's not even close to true. The strongest male weightlifter at the 1980 World Weightlifting Championship totalled 440kg; the strongest female weightlifter at the 2015 World Weightlifting Championship totalled 333kg. The difference between male and female athletes in the strength sports is...

The DM should be able to run a published adventure off the page with no prep. I have done this successfully with some adventures (both short and long, dungeon crawl and scene-based), and struggled to do this with others, so I think it's a totally valid and doable design goal. Of course the...