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Burroughs, Edgar Rice 8 Dunsany, Lord 8 Lieber, Fritz 9+1=10 Tolkien, J.R.R. 9-2=7 Zelazny, Roger 8

Burroughs, Edgar Rice 15 Carter, Lin 12 Dunsany, Lord 15 Leiber, Fritz 17+1=18 Merritt, A. 12 Offutt, Andrew J. 14 Pratt, Fletcher 6 St. Clair, Margaret 8 Tolkien, J.R.R. 10-2=8 Wellman, Manley Wade 14 Williamson, Jack 14 Zelazny, Roger 18

Bellairs, John 11 Burroughs, Edgar Rice 18 Carter, Lin 14 de Camp & Pratt 7 Dunsany, Lord 17 Fox, Gardner 1 Leiber, Fritz 17+1=18 Merritt, A. 16 Offutt, Andrew J. 14 Pratt, Fletcher 12 St. Clair, Margaret 12 Tolkien, J.R.R. 14-2=12 Wellman, Manley Wade 14 Williamson, Jack 16 Zelazny, Roger 17

Yeah, good point. I have to say, it would be pretty impressive if, despite my best efforts, my boy John Ronald managed to fight his way to the end.

Bellairs, John 11 Burroughs, Edgar Rice 17 Carter, Lin 14 de Camp & Pratt 11 Dunsany, Lord 17 Fox, Gardner 13 Leiber, Fritz 18+1=19 Merritt, A. 18 Offutt, Andrew J. 14 Pratt, Fletcher 12 St. Clair, Margaret 14 Tolkien, J.R.R. 7-2=5 Wellman, Manley Wade 14 Williamson, Jack 18 Zelazny, Roger 17...

Yeah, you're right about inspiration. That's why I noted that 'D&D borrows a lot from Tolkien'. The influence is clear; the Balor in the 5e Monster Manual has a sword and flaming whip just like LotR's Balrog. Maybe I'm just being contrarian, but it seems to me like the Tolkien influences are...

I'm downvoting Tolkien because Gary Gygax consistently (militantly?) argued that D&D's foundational inspiration came from other sources. D&D borrows a lot from Tolkien, but I think the idea that 'killing monsters and looting their gold is a path to personal advancement and world influence' (as...

Bellairs, John 13 Burroughs, Edgar Rice 19 Carter, Lin 14 de Camp & Pratt 15 Dunsany, Lord 17 Fox, Gardner 15 Leiber, Fritz 19+1=20 Merritt, A. 18 Offutt, Andrew J. 14 Pratt, Fletcher 12 St. Clair, Margaret 15 Tolkien, J.R.R. 15-2=13 Weinbaum, Stanley 4 Wellman, Manley Wade 16 Williamson, Jack...

Strongly agree! Though I don't doubt that a machine learning algorithm could identify the optimal moves of any permutation of creatures and PCs if it included complete information. Things like AlphaGo, that do this sort of thing, already exist. The d20datascience article clearly lacks a lot of...

So, I may have misunderstood but, as far as I can tell, they just simulated a bunch of random draws, regressed the outcome of said draws on 6 variables, and then used a machine learning tool to optimize the simulations (they are pretty vague about all of this). Those 6 variables are AC, HP...

Bellairs, John 19 Brackett, Leigh 4 Brown, Frederic 12 Burroughs, Edgar Rice 24 Carter, Lin 18 de Camp & Pratt 19 Dunsany, Lord 21 Fox, Gardner 19 Lanier, Sterling 18 Leiber, Fritz 23 Merritt, A. 18 Moorcock, Michael 15+1=16 Norton, Andre 16 Offutt, Andrew J. 16 Pratt, Fletcher 18 St. Clair...

I think the rest system is alright, but I see two problems with it. 1.) Long rests don't cost anything mechanically. Getting most or all of your resources back on a short rest should be an advantage. Unfortunately, without some work on the DM's part to make long rests more circumstantially...

Baldur's Gate 27-2=25 Baldur's Gate II 19+1=20 I have fond memories of steamrolling through wilderness areas with 6 archers, but the greater volume of high-quality writing and, especially, the character interactions in BG2 made it a lot more rewarding for me.

Baldur's Gate 26 Baldur's Gate II 22+1=23 Best "chosen one" arc in fiction Eye of the Beholder Series 11 Neverwinter Nights 12 Neverwinter Nights II 16 Planescape: Torment 4-2=2 Great game, but time's up

Baldur's Gate 25 Baldur's Gate II 25 Eye of the Beholder Series 14 Icewind Dale 7--because it's full of tedious thinly veiled excuses to kill hundreds of monsters that are just minding their own business, and then at the end of dragon's eye they try to gut punch the player that it was all for...

Sounds like its a good ruleset if the main issue with it is managing player expectations. Also, thanks.

Would you mind elaborating on your thoughts about magic? How do you find that it doesn't work well? I am interested in running a low magic game* and, after pouring through the forums, have consistently seen AiME pointed to as the best example of low magic rules. Having read the AiME player's...

I like this a lot. I think I'll try it out. Thank you all for the comments/suggestions.

Good question. I don't think I stated my goals very clearly in the first post. There are two goals. The first goal is to generate PCs with novel ability scores. I would like to have fewer PCs with good scores in all their important abilities but 8s or 10s in all their non-essential abilities...

Yeah, those are good points. Upon reflection, the method I'm considering is probably too zero sum. And zero sum games are pretty drama prone. Maybe in the first step, I'll have all the players roll twice, so that they feel less like they're competing for scarce resources in step 2. It would...