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I do find campaigns that have lots of SoD or trap monsters tend to allow the players to use out-of-character information to avoid putting them in the situation that reasonable actions taken in ignorance by the PCs would be potential suicide, but the players know this. I've primarily seen this in...

Another issue is that the more swingy the game is, the harder it is to learn before a new group gives up D&D and moves to another game where their PCs don't have the life expectancy of a mayfiy. I learned to play D&D from the books themselves as informed by magazines, and pretty much accepted...

As it happens I tend to dislike The Wire and other serious dramas as well, (and I have tried to expand my horizons but just confirmed my ability to appreciate such fare is constrained). Possibly one reason is that I have Asperger's Syndrome and have difficulty appreciating the nuances of human...

I've seen some players use "feral barbarian" tactics in all versions of D&D (every RPG, come to think of it). Typically their game allows the tactic to work most of the time, and they don't mind making up new PCs (who are just like the old character) when it doesn't. The constant spectre of...

I do know of at least one game with frequent character deaths, and resurrection very difficult, where eventually there was no PC left who know anything about the long-running plots. Continuity can be a severe issue with high death rates in longer campaigns, and I find SoD definitely intends to...

Yes, but the philosphy of 4e isn't to pin down powers as working in a single hard-coded way - they specify effects, suggest but don't enforce the typical appearance of the powers use with flavour text, and leave it up to the referee, player concerned and the group in general to come up with a...

As it happens the essentials fighter subclasses. knight and slayer, from Heroes Of The Fallen Landsare based on basic attacks modified by a variety of at-will stances. Back to the thread topic, I find that complex classes tend to have more potential power than simple classes - more hidden...

Pinning down what's the acceptable design space for these mechanics is a serious question. Mechanics like "Here's one I prepared earlier" or "I'm calling in a favour" are controversial in D&D if not preset but retconned into existence, but these are the sort of mechanics that are essential for...

I've seen a lot of new players over the years who want to play a wizard/ arcane spellcaster immediately, and I always found it irritating that in most editions of D&D I felt I had to advise them against doing so. Low level arcane spellcasters had lots more complex decisions to make over other...

I intend to stick with 4e for the most part, it's the best iteration of D&D for my purposes. I'll keep looking at other games for inspiration and possible adoption, though D&D next is too retro for my tastes at present, and apparently by design.

Running for kids I would both lower and filter the typical violence of RPG scenarios - how much depends on the ages and preferences of the players concerned. Some kids will prefer non-violent solutions or bloodless low-key violence I would typically run simpler plots with stronger direction...

Admittedly, signals are subjective and can be misinterpreted. Which I am prone to - when a referee is throwing up lots of roadbocks and reducing success chances to 25% or less, I find it difficult to tell if it's because the current task is very difficult or actually impossible. Depending on the...

I think this incredibly long thread is essentially about who can set game goals and disposition of authority within the game. In an old fashioned rpg, the referee controls everything except the PCs, and generally has approval over which PCs are accepted as well. Players have limited...

I used to be a passive player much of the time, but have grown out of it, (mostly because I have to referee nowadays to get a game). Perhaps because of my refereeing influence, I am nowadays much more willing to exchange out-of-character information and trust the players to roleplay and not...

For myself, one of the requirements to facilitate proactive players is to allow them (the opportunity) to have sufficient information to make informed choices most of the time. Given no foreshadowing, no information to the players at all about the desert, it seems reasonable to me that one or...

23 in a 3rd ed game as a DM, 14 in a 2nd ed game as a player, from 1st level. I'm DM almost all the time, so have limited chances to play nowadays. I've played in high level campaigns that started at high level though, 18th level in a 2e game and 31st level in an epic 3e game, ending at 33rd...

Finally! It's taken me days to read this thread of mutual incomprehension and slack-jawedness. So my bystander's perspective of desert vs siege. To me the player a desert is a mostly empty hostile environment where any encounters are likely to be wandering monsters i.e. random encounters with...

One reason it's an issue is the following chain of events (which I have observed happening in various games over the years). I'm talking about combat heavy games, but most D&D games I'm personally aware of are fall into this category, and it's possible to be sidelined in any sort of game(though...

The designers of a generic polymorph spell can't anticipate future monster design, and probably won't be familiar with all the monsters in print in the first place. Canny players will seek out the most broken printed monsters that are valid for polymorphing into(I certainly did). So the only...

Agreed. Yes, this is something I have learned to do over the years, resolving PC actions with some discretion to keep them in the action, albeit disadvantaged, rather than just remove them as may happen to a lowly NPC. For instance a lot of mid to higher level D&D scenarios feature...