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Where do you draw the line? Ogres? Trolls? Minotaurs? Or is it bigoted to treat any fantasy creatures in a game as evil monsters to be slain?

Well, levels are fiercely hierarchical. Do we really want to validate such a status-driven, vertical social model? Isn't there enough of that in the real world? Surely we can do better.

This is one of the big cleavages between traditional fantasy and the approach some want to adopt: traditional fantasy gaming is okay, even preferable playing in worlds that don't share modern moral sensibilities; while some people are deeply uncomfortable playing in worlds that have different norms.

Yes, I'm sure some people will feel more morally upright if their PCs always attempt to negotiate with a band of gnolls or frost giants before they attack. But I doubt it will be more fun for most groups. I know people can play how they like at their own tables. But this sort of virtuous...

I like the idea of this, as I'm not sold on PF2, and Savage Worlds seems like a much easier system to run. I'm preparing a RotRL campaign for PF2 anyway, so it might be worth holding off. One of the things I'm curious about is if this will be a straight conversion, with no content revised...

But individuals with the most raw power haven't always risen to the top of our hierarchies - at least in the pre-modern world. Until the 19th century, wealthy merchants and financiers were stymied in their efforts to run states by aristocrats who had the bloodlines and legitimacy. Ronin were...

How about FantasyCraft? It offers a lot more customization than 5E, without the complex array of sub-systems PF2 is built on.

There's a difference between roleplaying dramatic scenes with NPCs - investigating the slaying of the high cleric, convincing the gnoll chief to aid your assault on her rival, bartering with a sea captain to take you to the Isle of the the Flayed Men - and banter between PCs. There's a lot of...

The in-character banter between the cast of Critical Role doesn't exactly reach the level of the Crown or a David Mamet play. The dialogue in quality drama is revised, refined, and pared down, with every sentence serving a dramatic purpose. A TV writer would distill 9 minutes of Critical Role...

True. But I think you'd find Mercer's game is far more roleplay heavy than a typical D&D group's play. Which is understandable, as they're all actors and they're making dramatic entertainment. But people who run more typical games can be forgiven for finding Critical Role's playstyle strange and...

Agreed that watching others DM can improve your craft - though that's an argument for watching lots of different streaming games, rather than watching one for 100+ episodes. But I've been surprised to learn that most of the top boardgame designers, like Reiner Knizia and Martin Wallace, rarely...

The fundamental difference between sports and watching RPG live play is sports are competitive and feature a winner at the end of each session. That's their primary appeal. It's why they have an audience. Nobody would watch golf or football on TV if score wasn't kept and there was no winner...

Yeah, I've always assumed that the gods take a light hand in their dealings with mortals, else the world become an unrelenting proxy for the feuds and wars between deities. Like wizards, the clerics who have the ability to cast high levels spells are rare, strange, and apart from normal society...

D&D games vary dramatically in how common magic is in the setting. In some, it's the purview of a handful of eccentric wizards, in others it's commonplace and commercialized. I lean towards the former. Going by the assumptions outlined in AD&D, 1 out of 100 people in the setting have a class...

True. And until recently, 90 per cent of people lived in small, agricultural communities. But that's not the world depicted in most D&D settings. And even the NPCs in smaller communities are usually shown as independent, materially comfortable, and literate.

As much as I’d like to see it, the chances of WotC publishing a new and original setting are pretty much zero. Everything in entertainment today is about leveraging the brand and built-in audiences of existing properties. From a business standpoint, there’s nothing to gain and a lot to lose by...

If you look at published content from WotC and Paizo from the last 5 or 10 years, the presumed tech and social level of D&D seems more 16th or even 17th century now, instead of medieval. Communities are presented as being affluent, literate, urban, with highly sophisticated and developed...

Absolutely. I've been DMing for 40 years, and I find the number of NPCs, the details of their backgrounds, the convoluted plots and motivations in Paizo APs are way too much. Over-writing is another case where publishers are catering to one segment of the market - those who buy adventures to...

You couldn't be more wrong. Reading, in terms of the number of people who read and the number of books they read, peaked in the mid-20th century. Reading fiction has been in decline for decades. The Pew Research Center reported last week that nearly a quarter of American adults had not read a...

You're conflating creativity and imagination. They're two distinct things.