Search results

I’m with @Lanefan on this; mental stats still have a relevance even once you remove the personality aspects from them. It just sounds weird because Intelligence no longer strictly relates to the character’s being smart or not, etc, but it works as a modifier for specific skills/DC/special...

This sounds all pretty consistent to me however. Non-conform, sure, but well integrated within the setting, the story, and between players.

I think this thread suffers from people having different definitions of “consistency”, whereas some use it as “constancy” or “conformity”, while others use it as “coherence” or “compatibility”. The case of the “last mage” for example, is IMO a quite consistant element of a setting, or else is...

Which is a great campaign pitch but an intrusive burden for DMs who already have a campaign in mind or at least, aimed for certain themes and concepts. Perhaps it goes well with the intended campaign and if so, great!

By that I meant that they are nevertheless consistent with the story and the setting, but I may just be arguing about a definition of "coherence" that doesn't agree with yours, rather than disagreeing about the premise of your OP. I get what you mean about setting and story being separate and...

I don’t know, many of the things listed strongly support the themes of LotR, at least the departure and fading of the « great », the rise of the « small », and what happens when they’re confronted to power, whether it’s one they have or one they must oppose. The weakest creatures finding the...

Hehe, who doesn’t like defining the flavours of player butts! ;)

Eh, one on my original systems had a spinner as « dice resolution ». It was for a Labyrinth (as in the movie) one-shot rpg. If there was a doubt that a PC’s action could fail, you’d spin the wheel. Get the primary in your stat and you’d fail. Get a secondary and you succeed with setback. Add a...

Here are the broad strokes I'm going for when tinkering with rules and settings. Some of it is subjective but as far as the complexity of game rules, consider D&D 5e verging on the "too complex" side of things. The game should be fair and offer comparable options between player-characters, but...

But sometimes the question useful to whom, or powerful in the hand of who? An economy solely based on setting is bad system design, but economy solely based on the needs of adventurers is bad world design.

I'm throwing this here if you're willing to homebrew or use homebrew content. It's a subclass I've made for a homebrew setting a few years back (so ignore the Vegepygmy stuff). It looked balanced at the time, and was one of the few classes that actually got playtested. The "cast any one spell...

Still, between the Diablo series, the Elder Scrolls series, the Fallout series, the Final Fantasy series, the XCOM series, the various Baldur’s Gate/Neverwinter/Planescape D&D games, WOW/Overwatch, the Mass Effect series, Cyberpunk 2077, all of which have variations of class/level/increasing...

While i never played it, i read the (unlicensed) Twilight Imperium RPG from ‘90-something a few years ago. I don’t remember much other than thinking « yeah, the reviews were right. It’s crap ». But despite the disappointing result, I’d hardly call that the worse game ever.

Concept is sound and worthwhile IMO (without being overtly magical at that!) but implementation was very meh. It was part of the first set of new subclasses published after initial release and they were very timid about power creep back then (a valid sentiment). I’d like to see how they would...

Personally, I liked the way it was. Same damage, same strength, same of almost everything for the same contribution as a small-sized adventurer; that was a satisfactory trade-off for lack of « realism » as far as I’m concerned. yes, they are smaller, therefore not as much mass, therefore not as...

My equipment/encumbrance variant is very similar. 3 levels of encumbrance based on light/medium/heavy. Worked very well for us. Yours looks just as good.

I wonder if any game actively supports that. Paranoia certainly encourages it but I don't know it well enough to tell if the rules supports it beyond the "extra life" clones. What "slapstick" requires is tough characters and the ability to be a threat regardless whether you have a bomb or a...

Which skills do you see missing from 5e? I know I’m missing a gather information type skill, or some kind of courtesy/intrigue/etiquette or other « function well in society » that isn’t Persuasion or Deception.

interesting idea, Unless I missed something, this removes the Dex contribution to AC, which I’m still debating whether I love or hate.

But otherwise, I tend to agree with the OP. Even if some play styles are less supported by rules, D&D allows for a wide variety of play styles. The only thing it doesn’t do is give players the ability to affect/change the narrative without going through their characters first, whereas some...