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Some folks really like playing on hard mode. Your Mileage May Vary as always. :) Individual tastes always vary. Though whether TSR-era Thieves are bad in combat and have terrible chances of using most of their skills is simple to see if you just read the text and look at the numbers. I've...

I'm always wary when people bring this up because there's a categorical difference between this and the legal system. People have a right to counsel before the government kills them or locks them up or takes their stuff. No one's got a right to make people buy their products or listen to them...

Ewalt's might not be as bad as Barrowcliffe's, but this book is absolutely ran through with shame and self-consciousness over gamer geekery. That Taskerland review aptly skewers it.

Sure. I get the rationale. I'm a bit concerned that it's kind of a trap option, or just a design which ostensibly addresses the issue while actually not fixing the problem. Which is that Thieves are, in the TSR editions, just bad. Incompetent at their role and also terrible at combat. Like...

Yes, as might be obvious from me citing each edition and mentioning a page number, I both know the rules and looked before posting. I know about the repeating 20s. By "no extra weight" I'm not talking about THAC0, I'm comparing to the attack tables. A nat 20 in 1E gives you exactly what the...

Depends on over how long a period we're talking. Potentially years of play. A given DM might easily have a "Tree of Strength" or "Fountain of Wisdom" which specifically increases a given ability score, and which the players might be able to hear rumors of and quest for, or otherwise be a...

Nice work! I read DMG page 66 as saying that weapon length applies when closing to melee whether charging or not. So longer weapon always strikes first in the first round of melee in either event. (Which accords with my IRL fencing and LARP experience). Looks like your read is that it only...

I think this is highly variable from table to table. Given the DMG example of such a pool, and the one from B1, it's highly likely that a fair number of people's campaigns featured at least semi-regular instances of weird magic which could raise ability scores. OTOH you'd also have DMs like...

Untrue. As Bill pointed out, the vast majority of the rules cited in ADDICT are straight out of the DMG. I think your characterization is unfair and inaccurate. The only place a Dragon article gets cited for rules (as opposed to just references to the names, levels, or equipment of characters...

The other possibility is that they are able to continue on the basis that most of their fans are not nearly as connected to this story and don't value Goodman's promise not to work with Bledsaw as much as we do. That most DCC fans either are blissfully unaware of the controversy, or don't want...

Pretty close. It's a bit weirder than Conan, what with the flat world and all. But definitely emphasizing Howard, Lovecraft, Leiber and Moorcock in the worldbuilding, and pretty much eliminating Tolkien. Which is in its own way in keeping with Gary's preferences. Yes, totally agree on...

Right now I'm in the middle of David Ewalt's Of Dice and Men. It's a bit better than I had heard; readable but not amazing. Though I think the Taskerland review makes some excellent points about the unfortunate shallowness of Ewalt's delve, and it's difficult to argue with any of it. From the...

Hey, we're lazy too! :) I don't know why it's never caught on here, while the latter two are endemic.

OD&D: No extra weight, critical hits and fumbles were house rules, third party supplements like Arduin might have them. AD&D: Same. Although the Saving Throw rules mention that a nat 1 always fails regardless of modifiers, which can very much matter at high levels with magic items. B/X: First...

Sure. "Half past" as a short reference to 30 minutes past the hour when which hour has already been established is both American and British English. It's the specific construction "half [number of hour]" which I don't see/hear used by Americans. Always by Brits or Irish. Not sure about but...

This one is a distinct Britishism to my eyes.

This. "Quarter of" and "quarter to" are both 15 minutes before the specified hour. A quarter past is 15 minutes after the hour.

Hyperborea, really? That's incredible to me. Right up front that one makes substantial changes to races and classes to better suit its own setting and to fix/replace multiclassing (respectively), which is the furthest thing from trying to be purist about Gary's vision or the mechanics coming...

Aesthetics and nostalgia, plus this: I think there's a lot of truth here. 2E tried to be all things to all DMs, and encompasses some contradictory approaches and a whole mess of supplements. When I think back to playing 2E the Complete books are absolutely part of that, but which ones is very...

My cold came back, so I've been staying out of the gym and just doing PT exercises at home. :/ Hopefully I can get over this frickin' virus this week and get back to lifting.