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I'm not sure I understand the argument that these rules don't take the fiction into account and don't require strategy. The rules literally say you can't convince someone to do something against their alignment. To convince someone to do something, you have to suss out their alignment and then...

What happens when an NPC is hiding from you? What exactly can you do to find the NPC?

Some Background Information The first 3,000 copies of the revised Player’s Handbook went on sale a few days before I wrote this post. Like many people, I don’t yet have a copy of my own. Nevertheless, I’ve learned enough from online discussions of the book to realize one thing: the new...

I'm a little confused, as well. I know freelancers depend solely upon the credits they get in individual projects, but it doesn't sound like any of the people affected by this incident were freelancers. I've never had the privilege of working as a full-time employee at an industry-leading game...

There's difference between picking a pre-made background and picking options to create a custom background: the pre-made background is packaged with a default backstory, whereas the options selected when making a custom background aren't restricted to any particular story. I don't care if...

If the 2024 PHB doesn't explain things to new players at my table to my satisfaction, I'm not going to use the 2024 PHB. I'm going to use a starter set of my own design. I play in person only, so I'm not restricted to using official rules that interface with DDB.

See, this is the exact reason I dislike the designers' decision to move the custom background rules to the DMG. I'm a DM. I to want to be able to point new players at my table to a player-facing rule that encourages them to create interesting, engaging backstories. I don't want to game with...

If Barbarian isn't the right fit for "guy who gets stronger when angry," then I think the Barbarian class has utterly failed to deliver what it's promising.

I remember reading a comment from someone who was working at WotC when they first released the OGL. To paraphrase, they thought the OGL would create an environment where thousands of developers built upon each on others' contributions. Instead, the OGL created an environment where developers in...

This post is more of a progress report than an in-depth design note. I’ve spent my free time this week doing copy edits of my manuscript. My latest editing pass involved checking to make sure names of Backgrounds and Classes are capitalized (and words like “farmer” aren’t capitalized when not...

Oh, I'm well aware. Back when I was a player during the 3.5 era, I was the wizard who took all the item creation feats so I could deck out the whole party with custom, half-price magic items.

The best (or worst) part about the Crafter feat's 20% discount: If your character takes the feat, you can do all of your party's shopping for them, so no one will pay full price again.

I can't wait to see a revised rules update of the Fairy. I imagine the video preview of the "glowed-up" Fairy will go something like this: Talking guy: "The fantasy of the Fairy is getting to play a Tiny creature, so we've given the Fairy the ability to become Tiny for 10 minutes per Long...

New and Updated Species A few days ago, Wizards of the Coast released an article summarizing the playable Species that appear in the upcoming revised edition of the Player’s Handbook. Since my sourcebook is designed to accommodate any edition of the game, the Species options in the revised...

I'd feel better about the GenCon release if the store release was in mid August instead of early September. Seeing a bunch of leaks for a week leading up to the store release would make me more excited to get the book. Seeing a bunch of leaks for an entire month will make me more excited for a...

Barbarian Likes… Yelling Dislikes… Anger management Complexity: “Hulk smash!” Bard Likes… Guitar riffs Dislikes… Selling out Complexity: Side gig Edit: Put the end of my attempt at humor in a spoiler block so it wouldn't hog anyone's screen.

I can imagine a TTRPG where participants play characters having a philosophical debate about the nature of the world they inhabit. In a round-about way, that game could handle any genre, up to and including non-fiction, because the goal isn't to have characters participate in events. The goal is...

I was hoping an offer to pay for all three products at once, months in advance, would warrant at least a small discount, since money now is better than money later. Either way, not getting that consideration was the least annoying part of this experience.

A Tale of Mild Annoyance After careful consideration, I decided I want to preorder all three revised D&D core rulebooks. Specifically, I want the store-exclusive, alt-cover versions. As it so happens, I moved to my current town just before the pandemic lockdown began, so I wasn't yet familiar...

I don’t have any in-depth design notes to share today. This post is more of a quick progress report. I’m currently doing some editing work on my book. At the moment, I’m reviewing a few hundred short descriptions of major settlements. I’ve included a few examples in the following spoiler block.