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In general I prefer magic items which widen the range of what a PC can do, rather than magic items which increase a bonus or otherwise increase the effectiveness of what the PCs can already do. Enchanted weapons: I attack the monster, but with higher numbers Cloak of elvenkind: I stealth, but...

If a party of adventurers, starting at first level, encounters an ogre, can they retreat? can they deter or prevent the ogre from pursuing them? In my experience, caltrops work well for slowing pursuers; relevant first-level spells include Fog Cloud, Dissonant Whispers, and Command. Are you OK...

Plausible. I have such issues. I can't recall ever writing a cis het male character with that intention. I've played only a few PCs who were conventionally attractive, who might inspire second looks from straight women. Hm, one time I played a martial artist movie star, and the one female PC...

I'm gonna wildly speculate that your experience as one of the moderators in a forum on the Internet has something to do with the opinion you've formed on this topic. Formal debate, and plaintiff vs. respondent, so far as I know, tend to involve only one assertion, which gets a confirmation or a...

Hussar, at this point I'm having a hard time trusting your good faith reading of what people are saying. Patrick McGill explicitly says as of session five, in this scenario, no failure has occurred. You're attributing to him an argument about who's at fault: one player, or the other players. Why...

"All knowing each other" is a major factor. I'm glad it gets you good results, but please don't assume that's everyone else's experience of D&D, or of TRPG. In my 30-ish years of TRPG, only a few of my games (on either side of the screen) have started out with everyone involved already knowing...

If you are proposing more frequent use of dictionaries as a primary method for change in this dynamic, then you and I have radically different views of what's working badly and what would be an improvement. Which is consistent with our track records across many threads. If you believe that...

Indeed. Thich Nat Han has a metaphor about water and tea, where water is justice and we all need it, while tea is flavor and each culture flavors justice with different specifics, sometimes including religion. It has been much on my mind. Among the posts from those interested in change, there...

My conception of the joust is couched under the arm, and that's the attack which IMO should get a bonus involving the charge, and the attacker-mount combo adding up to more than Medium size. Should require the target being in line with the charge. Sure, the rider can also stab, and can do so...

If the basics of human decency are so innately universal and obvious... ...then why do so many nations, and states/provinces within nations, have different laws? Why are so many of them STILL revising their legal codes and/or judicial precedents? Why do people drive on the right side of the...

I've been pondering a question along these lines, for weeks now, following discussions on EN World, in other threads before this one, mainly the epic thread on harassment, with a side of MToF. I see a LOT of EN World participants who default to the "truth emerges from no-holds-barred debate"...

In D&D 5E lances do a lot of damage, compared to other one-handed weapons. Doesn't make sense to me that a lance *inherently* does more damage than a spear or pike, if you're poking someone with it while standing still. IMO a person who charges on a horse, and puts the combined momentum of a...

So on one hand, I love paladins, possibly almost as much as you hate them. My current main PC is Boris the Green, the Oath of Ancients Paladin (Green Knight) and Archfey Warlock who's also a green-scaled dragonborn. I mean, if I'm gonna play a character with aspirations other than "get rich, as...

"Captain America: First Avenger" included Hydra soldiers dual-wielding chainguns. I guess they brace each other? Pick a threshold of plausibility. Could be Black Hawk Down (guns can run out of ammo!), could be Xena, could be Roger Rabbit. If you can get a table to agree on a threshold, then...

If the DM says "You must play characters of your gender", then I'll take it or leave it. If the DM holds a Session Zero and a player says "I'd rather that we each play same-gender PCs" then I'm inclined to acquiesce to that player's request. (If the player instead says "No one pull any feminazi...

This comes back to the question of what is and isn't salient. As I understand the PHB, people in the Forgotten Realms know what classes are, and if you ask the gate guard or an innkeeper "are there any clerics in this city?" they'll understand the question, including the distinction between...

If I understand correctly, we agree on this much: anyone creating a setting could provide a map of the main territory on the Prime Material (or its closest equivalent or equivalents), and also a map, diagram or some other explanation of any other relevant planes in the setting. Plus a...

What's the point of choosing a Bond or Flaw on session 1, which doesn't emerge in play until session 11 or 23? For over a year I played a half-elf bard who was not, anatomically, binary male nor female, going by PHB p. 121. Dexter never objected to people using "he"; Dexter was used to humans...

Let me turn the question around even further. If you are choosing to play a character with the same gender you have (in the sense of anatomy, and/or in the sense of social role), why? This is a conscious choice that you are making. You have deliberately chosen this. So, again, why? If you are...

So far as I can tell, few people have done much to defy or revise the planar setting of 1E. If Planescape had never been published, would the Gygaxian diagram still be D&D's default? the diagram, I forget if it was PHB or DMG, with inner Etherial and outer Astral, four elements, nine outer...