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1. A key cleric being kicked out of the party/team because they made a political statement on twitter. "Losing their main healer just before a dragon-fight. Things have gone from bad to worse for the Ottowa Owlbears Jim. This will really hurt their rankings this season!" "I guess they should...

For me the test for hard science has always been "Does it get into time dilation due to gravity or velocity?". If it does, then space is going to be a very very weird place. Trade, communications, lifestyles due to cryogenics and travel, all sorts of things will be far more wacky and...

As an aside, questionable uses like this can make for interesting choices and drive the story forward. If in doubt about whether a divine spell will work like that, consider using it as a tool to show the tenets of the deity in question. I have actually had this question come up twice in my...

One thing that a lot of people in my games forget is that being charmed does not mean that people now hate their friends. It can be fun being in a situation where your new best friend is fighting your other friends. A PC could validly be healing both sides of the battle while trying to talk...

My Barbarian has an acquired brain injury. He was kicked in the head by a mule, but tells everybody the dent in his head is from a giant's club. He has very poor impulse control and his brain misfires a lot, hence the rage. He is based on Lennie from Of Mice and Men and is a really nice and...

My "scientists" use the basic elemental understanding of science. When it comes to biology stuff, they think a dwarf has more earth element in them, that is why they are dour, hardy and slow. The elf has more air in their makeup, so is flighty, swift and aloof. So when he gives a healing...

I like to run a skill system that is just a series of statements about the character, based on their background, personality and experiences. So instead of Survival Skill, we have "spent 5 years as a frontiersman and shepherd in the wild marchers" and you would apply that proficiency any time...

Curse of Strahd is my recommendation. It is sandboxy without being confusing for the GM. It has a few issues around people stumbling into higher level areas, but I think that should be pretty easy to signpost by using horror elements and forebodings to dissuade them when needed. I really enjoy...

Yes, the setting certainly is and the RPG lends itself to that too. I actually play D&D 5e in that setting, so the grittiness is really only from my DMing, not the system itself. I tried realistic injuries for a while, but it dragged gameplay down to a crawl. It is the old problem of fighters...

I play in the Warhammer setting. My descriptions are pretty much full blown body-horror. The PCs fight a great deal of chaos stuff, so the descriptions of mutations etc lends itself to that. Unconsciously I don't tend to describe wounds done to PCs or friendlies much, probably because of the way...

In 4e this raised a really good discussion for RP. Most of the party was ascending to divine status, but the cleric would forever be a servant of a greater power. The dragon born sorcerer was literally becoming Io reborn, the "thief of legend" was becoming Prometheus, the fighter was an eternal...

Oh man, in one of my games half my players are American and play D&D to get away from thoughts of crippling student debt. This is definitely something I can't include. In a 2 player game I run though, they are both magic graduates who have to go adventuring to have any hope of paying off their...

My most recent plot line saw the party meet a brave 15yr old man/boy who was trying to raid a heavily guarded caravan. He failed laughably, the guards flogged him and left him tied to a post on the arid highway. It turns out he wanted to rescue his beloved a 14yr old girl, who was being taken...

Have you seen the Scooby Doo RPG by College Humour? If you are not married to D&D as the system, then this could be a good introduction to RP in general.

IMC everything would continue as normal. Pelor does not make the sun come up, animals and crops still grow without Melora. The gods claim dominion over pre-existing things. Only the most hardcore believers think that they created them. It leads to interesting questions, what exactly was the god...

My first character death was during character creation. It was Traveller system. I rolled a great spec ops guy, he died in a training accident before hitting the table. My first in-play death was at the hands of a party member who wanted to see what a magic fountain did. He pushed me in to it...

If you take the Bard and remove all spell casting, they are still an OK class, but not great class. Compare them to the rogue. The fact that they are OK then have a full casting package added on as well is incrediable. They are OP but in that way that avoids scrutiny, as they do not pull huge...

I would not let people get encounter powers back. One of my complaints with 4e was that every encounter ended up much the same. We had a few powers that massively shaped the battlefield situation and they would be used every time. The avenger would always teleport to the guy at the back, the...

I would go with harvests failing and a bunch of civil war and seiges. All sorts of things that make people starve and turn violent. Cannabalism becomes a real issue and people that partake all turn mad and start having dreams that lead them to Yeenoghu worship. Later in the campaign, a disease...

Most settings have some animosity between elves and dwarves, but it is cultural, not racial. You will find those that dwell in mostly human lands seldom have such prejudices. Its easy to be racist in a remote settlement, much harder in a cosmopolitan city. Halflings come in distinct varieties...