Search results

Anybody running a hexcrawl? How's your game going? What scale do you use for the map? How do you handle short and long rests? How do you balance and place encounters/adventures? Do you use any houserules or optional rules? More broadly, I'm trying to decide whether a hexcrawl should be...

Sure. But I don't think the fact that the game has gone in a certain direction over the years evidences without a doubt that that's how most people would prefer things. I think people underestimate how much the evolution of the game has been the result of the prejudices of a handful of...

Wizards are weak without their spells because magic corrupts in some sense. It has a cost. Wizards use magic as a technology*. They are not beings of magic (that would be the Sorcerer). *Not to say that magic is a science. The original idea (inspired by sword & sorcery literature, particularly...

The way you've phrased it feels like you're begging the question. I've never thought of the wizard as focusing on magical spells. They're the class with access to (the best) magical spells. If one prefers a wizard that casts weaker spells often, rather than more powerful spells rarely, fine...

It's really important to let go of the idea that if a PC dies, it's because the DM killed them. One the best things (maybe the best thing) about running somebody else's adventure is that the DM can say "K I'm just running this as-is without balancing it to your characters" and the players can...

IMC Dragonborn greatly enjoy the taste of human flesh, but don't eat it often. They see nothing morally wrong with eating the body of a human who died from unrelated causes, but they find the meat very rich and heavy in the gut, so they consider it unhealthy to have more than once in a while.

In case this is useful for anyone else, I found out how to remove labels from Google terrain maps: Go here: http://gmaps-samples-v3.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/styledmaps/wizard/index.html Go to Map in the upper left and check Terrain. Under Element type, select Label. Under Stylers, check...

Unfortunately no, they're not fully zoomable like Google maps. I like the style much better though. It's pretty easy with photoshop or GIMP. Here are a few with labels removed:

I do XP for GP. I reduce monster XP to 20% and give it treasure equal to the remaining 80% (generally; some monsters have more, some less). The treasure is often hidden or trapped, so the PCs do get XP via the exploration pillar of the game. They also get XP when they sell magic items or get...

I've been looking for good maps at the 1 mile-per-hex "province" scale, but they're difficult to find. Mike Schley's maps are nice but too simplistic to take advantage of the smaller scale. The contour maps in old TSR modules had the right idea but they're ugly and difficult to use. Amateur...

If you remove or tone down the best feats, players will just take the ability score improvement instead. The ASI is better than most of the feats. I think eventually I will start a project to holistically tone down 5e. I'm going to run at least one high level vanilla campaign first though.

How much fun did the players have though? Were they bored?

No worries. I think when the DM knows that the players know that the DM doesn't know how things will turn out, it makes the game better as a social thing. The DM can do things like high-five a player in good faith. When you fudge, you can't do that. A fudger is like the dark knight of the game...

I have a great time making memories and spending time with friends too, and I find your attitude somewhat pretentious and condescending. I don't think there's even a tradeoff to be made here. I guess reducing the players' engagement with the game as a challenge might shift their focus towards a...

I think we should keep fudging defined as secretly changing the results of dice rolls, in which case most of those would not be fudging. But if we're talking about good gamist GMing more generally, the only acceptable way to go would be to set an objective DC consistent with similar situations...

Challenge is not just about the subjective feeling of being challenged, but the intersubjective recognition of good play, poor play, success and failure by the real people around the table. This can't happen properly unless the nature of the challenge is clear and publicly known. That's what you...

Well this is the "if a tree falls and no one is around, does it make a sound?" philosophical issue I alluded to earlier. I say that perception is not all that matters, fudging invalidates the players' accomplishments and thereby does harm to the game (to the extent that challenge is the goal)...