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There are some implications, which may vary by setting and by DM, about the relationship between body and soul. In my non-expert understanding of Forgotten Realms, the friend's spirit is gone to the afterlife. When you cast Animate Dead, you bring a spirit from the Shadowfell to the Material...

Here's a scenario: the DM and all the players are survivors, and *with that as common ground*, they voluntarily - with advance knowledge - choose to play a party of survivors who become level 1 adventurers, and form a party, specifically to protect their community from further abuses. It would...

Yes, it would be. I've played lots of good games at conventions. It's possible to design a four-hour session with some fights, some puzzles, and time for the PCs to do a bit of roleplaying with each other. Pre-generated characters make that a LOT easier and simpler, since the range of unknowns...

I don't think there's been a year, between 1974 and 2019, in which no TRPGers anywhere would have any objections or concerns about a con game going down that path. I also don't think there's been a year, between 1974 and 2019, in which no one anywhere was eager to project their sexual fantasies...

This isn't yet narrowed down to a character concept, any more than "what could you do with teleportation?", which is the power concept of Nightcrawler, Blink, Cloak, and Gateway, each of whom is a distinct character. This is narrowed down perhaps as much as a D&D class. What one can do with...

I mean the bard spell list, as per PHB.

Then favor spells which are not on the sword bard spell list. As Gyor pointed out, Find Familiar and Find Steed have major utility, not just on the day you cast them. On another hand, you don't get any utility out of anything if you're dead, and two great spells for avoiding death are Shield and...

It's a reference to a flowchart of engineering problems. If it moves, and it should, good. If it does not move, and it should not move, good. If it moves, and it should not, then apply duct tape. If it should move, and it does not move, then apply WD-40. For example, if you have a spool of duct...

That might be the sum of YOUR goals and ambitions, but it's not MY only goal. You say that as if I had not already arrived at madness. I expect the players at *my* table to interact with the setting in ways which are not limited to "kill" and "loot", and I get what I expect, because I don't...

"The GM has been ejected from the show, which runs until Sunday, and is banned from future events." Future UK Expo events, that is. He might show up at GenCon in August. Anyone here who has any pull with any convention organizers: please consider the option of contacting UK Expo, getting this...

On one hand, thank you for introducing a specific example. Those often bring ideas into focus and give commenters more specific approaches. On another hand, your scenario is missing a step which to me seems obvious. DM buys book. DM contacts player 1: "I've got this campaign book and I'm...

I have been pondering, but have not hammered out nor play-tested, a system which combines D&D HP with the Mutants and Masterminds idea of rolling to see how well you survived damage. Track how many HP damage you have received. Every time this increases, make a CON saving throw against that DC...

No, I don't want to disprove your point. I don't know what your point is. Perhaps you're confusing me with some other participant, or perhaps you're looking for a foe to vanquish? Are you perhaps arguing that the difference between "play your PC as a pawn" and "play your PC as a character" is...

In 1981 or 1982, at age 14 or so, I started a group using "The Fantasy Trip", in which PCs allocate stats, then choose skills up to the limit of their INT. When I handed off the role of DM, I wrote a PC with lots of INT, so that my PC could have all the major lore-related skills, and thus I...

Indeed. In your scenario of the players choosing “let’s invent muskets!” as a campaign objective, and a DM interested in running that campaign, I’d recommend the following as background reading to the DM: (1) Twain’s “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court”. The protagonist succeeds - at...

As an aside, one of my less-favorite rules in 5E, is that the fireball cannot ignite the musketeer's keg if it's "worn or carried". Let's assume the musketeer has set the keg on the ground. THEN we can get the secondary explosion.

Cherry-picking example: in “White Plume Mountain”, there is a puzzle involving a series of numbers, and which of those are prime numbers. I pondered the numbers for maybe a second, then stated the correct answer. My PC, a Folk Hero paladin, was unaware of prime numbers (and possibly fuzzy on...

To be fair, you're not wrong about my use of parade-of-horribles. "I invent the musket! From scratch, in under a year!" is a classic cherry-picking example. It does not prove that there are only two possible modes of play, one of them mature and the other immature. There are a LOT of mature...

It's sticky and uphill for a DM to enforce "no, you don't know that, at least not yet" on determined players. If your D&D players insist on having their PCs invent gunpowder, refine caking and corning gunpowder to propellant grade, invent cannon, and refine those cannon into shoulder-fired...

That sounds fun! Maybe long ago, a druid in her tribe fought earth elementals, evoked a thunderstorm, and won an amazing victory. Maybe there's a tribal folktale or song about that fight, which the barbarian heard as a lullaby. So the barbarian thinks "if I buy scroll and wizard makes thunder...