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What's your policy for alcohol at the table? Has an excess of booze ever become a problem for your group? (comic for illustrative purposes)

For my part, I've actually invented a "you teleport out of the dungeon" plot device for my megadungeon campaign. I'll have to pay it off at some point (what the heck is doing this to us?), but tying an in-game phenomenon to out-of-game constraints has proven to be an OK workaround.

The worst possible thing has happened: One of the PCs has a scheduling conflict, and has to miss the session. How do you guys handle it when you have to run a stand-in PC? Do you just handwave that character’s actions, pretend they aren’t there, or try and do the character justice by allowing a...

Did you ever run into a “gatekeeper” type when you were first starting out in the hobby? What was the encounter like? Comic/anecodte for illustrative purposes.

Nice. Seems like a useful study in contrasts. Same deal with the wizard that has mental block about flying spells or the thief who only steals from other thieves. Phobias are explicitly irrational, so they make a useful counterpoint for tightly themed characters.

Characters with Phobias. They can be challenging to pull off well. Case in point. Have you ever seen a character that managed to make such a drawback interesting without getting flanderized by it? By the same token, have you ever had a character that really nailed some other kind of Flaw? What...

The more you use them, the more the GM sees them as viable targets. I've actually heard GMs say, "If it doesn't act in combat, I won't target it in combat."

I think we've all done it. You're booking passage on a ship or saving from fireball damage and forget to include all of your party members. Somehow, the existence of your raven or loyal wolf has completely slipped your mind. He's "over there" is the usual excuse. After enough of that, the...

I think these are the saddest. So much potential lost due to ambivalence rather than malice.

Have you ever had to boot somebody from a game or a group? What caused it? How did you go about disinviting the person? How did they react? Comic for illustrative purposes.

Continuum is an odd word here. It implies an either/or, where I think it's more of a matter of degree. You want structure and your want meaningful choice in EVERY game. The proportions are a matter of taste, but I think that you need both. That's what I was getting at in the OP when I described...

That's an awesome term. There are toys in sandbox. You get to decide when and if you want to play with them.

Game designer and DM to the stars Chris Perkins once described railroading as a style of GMing that “denies [players] any opportunity to affect change through their actions or decisions.” Contrast this to sandbox design, which Technopediadefines as, “A style of game in which minimal character...

It does. I know from experience. The downside is that you're breaking immersion when you do this. That's the tradeoff. If you've got a player that is so far on the "game" side of things that they're unable to hear "this is a really tough monster" when you tell them in plain language, the only...

Have you ever had players who just refused to get the message?

You guys ever hear of Gygaxian Naturalism? Hit the link for the full story, but here's what's got me curious: Do you ever put overpowered monsters in the party's path? For example, is it ever possible for a party of level 4 dudes to encounter an adult red dragon? And if so, how do you impress...

Now see, this is the approach that I personally find interesting. One of my favorite parts of gaming lies in attaching setting information to mechanics. It's weird to think of a character's gender as a game mechanic, but consider the character sheet. One of the first things you jot down when...

I've always thought that Paizo does an exceptionally good job at representation. Between their diverse cast of iconics and the general attitude of equality between the sexes in the setting, Golarion seems like a truly inclusive place (matriarchal drow and patriarchal orcs notwithstanding). I've...

Once, long ago, I was a precocious goblin cabin boy. I've got the full story below the comic over here, but the TLDR is that I spoiled my werewolf buddy's secret affliction in Session 1. Concealing her lycanthropy was supposed to be an ongoing plot point for her. Sure it's "what my character...

Ouch. My DM reminded me last night in our Out of the Abyss game that I had Inspiration after the roll-to-not-plummet-to-your-death save. He allowed me to use it as a reroll rather than advantage. Not its intended use, but maybe a good house rule while you guys are getting used to the new system.