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I would consider "level drain" as it is classically implemented to be extremely un-fun and will unequivocally refuse to play in a system that uses it. If the next time I'm DMing for my playgroup, they want me to run an OSR game (I have offered to run Dolmenwood), I will probably propose an...

Water as a "recording medium" might also be a reference to the idea of "memory of water", which comes up in Frozen 2, for instance. I don't know what, it any, folkloric basis the idea has, but it is part and parcel, if memory serves, of the sympathetic-magic-turned-pseudoscience of homeopathy...

Strong foundational DM/GM skills - that is to say, facilitating a game session that you and your players all came away from having had an engaging and enjoyable gameplay experience - are undoubtedly the most important thing any DM/GM can posssess. Each of the following DMs will run better games...

I've read Adam Tooze's "The Wages of Destruction" cover to cover, for fun! So, like, high-density text isn't too much for me. The 2014 DMG is so sloppy, though, that I've yet to read it cover to cover. I use it as a reference but the layout and organisation is sufficiently irksome that I try not...

Rather than try to change the boundary, what if you just introduced some light shading or cross-hatch for the water?

An update: I've got a prototype "module" for combat testing ready to go. All I need is to finish up some pregen characters and battle maps, and it'll be ready for testing. I think I'll put the playtest version up on itch.io for starters, set up a discord server for chat/feedback, and go from there.

Maybe it's cause I'm in my 40s, but put me down for greatly favouring either OSE/Dolmenwood or 4e-style layouts (in the pre-Essentials books; the layout in Essentials books is mostly subpar IMO) over either the 2014!5e "layout doesn't matter" style or the Vast Grimm artpunk style. I'd rather...

I mean, the text of legendary resistance is, "If the <monster> fails a saving throw, it can choose to succeed instead." If you narrate the result via game mechanics, such as, "<the monster> succeeds on its saving throw" despite a bad roll... I don't really see the problem here? It lines up with...

I'm rather fond of, if not hard scripting, then at least soft scripting, which 4e also possesses to some extent through the way monsters use up encounter or recharge powers, especially in conjunction with monster roles. Without having to overburden the DM with "what is this monster going to do...

I do wonder if there is a creative impulse at work: even if you arrive at reinvent a solution someone else has already come up with, there is something to be said for having worked it out "from first principles" yourself - if, that is, you're even aware of what other games or other designers...

"Disco is NOT dead! Disco is life!"

One interesting thought that occurs to me is that, at least in D&D, god-slaying is not a revolutionary act. If anything, it is usually enforcing a status quo. For instance, in Rime of the Frostmaiden, Auril has cast Icewind Dale in perpetual darkness - that is, Auril has broken the status quo...

If no mechanics are attached, dwarf fighter as a first character, random ancestry or whatever seems like it's cool afterwards. That's pretty much why my Spelljammer character is a plasmoid: I picked it primarily for role-playing/cosmetic reasons. I like having mechanics attached to choice of...

I spent many years around the 3E-4E era playing World in Flames, a strategic-operational WW2 game, and I can see why the early iterations of D&D had the varied roll mechanics they did. WiF does the following: When you fight an air combat, you want to roll either low or high on 2d10; middling...

It almost looks quilted, which is kind of a cool look.

On Challenging PCs... I'm not terribly impressed by the assertion that "struggle makes the victory sweeter" when it comes to leisure time activities. Waiting for an hour in the line at the roller coaster doesn't make it more fun and enjoyable when you finally get on it. Suffice to say such a...

Resource management is likely a "sometimes food" in more character-driven play, especially in modern D&D. In such play, dilemmas or "character-defining" questions are IMO a suitable approach for challenging the players. What I mean is, we're not as interested in asking whether the players can...

Are you kidding? Agglomeration is a great word! It has the virtue of both looking and sounding like what it means. It's almost poetic. ;)

The example you give doesn't really strike me as having much to do with the concept of "rule of cool", and more of a problem of "spotlight hogging", or at least a related player misdemeanour. I mean, "being up high on pillars [...] and jump[ing] onto the back of a dragon" seems pretty darn...

If you want a genuinely minimal fix, then I think all you really need to do is retrofit sorcerer so that all sorcerous origins have origin spells à la Tasha's, give the ranger a bit of love (which I daresay the gloomstalker and Tasha's changes manage), clean up a few spells, and give the...