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That is adorable. I can just picture you guys arguing about whether or not you could cast "sepia snake sigil" because you couldn't remember the full name. "You know... The one that puts a snake trap on your book? I cast that one." "What's it called?" "Come on! Just let me cast it!"...

Have you ever joined a new group only to discover that "they're playing wrong?" I'm talking about fundamental misreading of mechanics, bizarre ad-hoc rulings, and the kind of homebrew the belongs only in the darkest depths of the SRD. What was the rule? Did it ruin your experience, or did it...

You're right that the assumptions of play change things up wildly. The difference between dungeoneering and open-world adventure is a big deal too. Whether or not your party (read: rescue party) has line of sight to you in case you get in trouble another one of those "it depends on campaign...

You're a rogue. As the resident stealthy guy it's your job to scout ahead and collect intel. So in the interest of no rolling up a new dude, how do you go about improving your odds of survival? When you’re running a stealth operation, what are your favorite strategies? Any especially good tools...

That's just it. One thoughtless mention of, "What's in the ship's magazine? I dunno. A dozen kegs of black powder I guess?" and your campaign is facing down a 120d6 crater. It might makes sense for a pirate ship to have a reasonable amount of boom, but that raw damage can get out of hand if...

There’s a reason that black powder tends to be expensive or scarce in D&D. It’s the same reason why, when my players boarded an enemy pirate ship, I chose to make it a “ballista and crossbows” kind of ship rather than the “pistols and cannons” kind. If you give players the means to blow a hole...

Hmmm... He did just renounce his birthright in favor of his brother. It would be very funny if the sword forced the love triangle.

I'm GMing for a bladebound magus, and we're getting to the late campaign. He's finally come to an understanding with his intelligent scimitar: she wants to be wielded by the flashiest, most flamboyant warrior in the world, and he's taken dips in vigilante and swashbuckler to appease her. In that...

One of my favorite parts of character creation is coming up with justifications for unusually high or low ability scores. Maybe high Dexterity just means you're Mr. Magoo lucky, stumbling your way out of a fireball’s blast radius rather than dodging it like every other Legolas out there. Maybe...

If the party were fighting a mirror match of themselves, it would be classed as a "deadly" encounter according to the CR system. That is indeed what I'm talking about. The odds are stacked in the party's favor. It's the basic assumptions The Alexandrian describes over here...

Typical encounter design favors the party over the monsters. You provide a bit of challenge without seriously threatening death. And when we're talking about a group overcoming challenges together, the issue of "we're stronger than the monsters mechanically" usually disappears into the details...

I find it difficult to make one-on-one combat exciting. If the duel is between evenly matched opponents (mechanically speaking), there's a 50/50 chance that a PC is gonna die. But if it's tilted in the PC's favor, it's hard to make 'em feel like they triumphed in an actually-dangerous situation...

In my experience, the true one trick pony enthusiasts are fairly new to gaming. They're just getting into the fun of character builds, and haven't had the chance to sit down and run a game. Because you're right: I think that's where you get a lot of the wackiness out of your system.

Having a tightly-themed character can be a lot of fun. Fire mages with burning hands and fireballs and wall of flame have a pretty solid identity. Of course, it's considerably less fun when you run into that immune-to-fire red dragon. That's where you stop being an interestingly-themed character...

I'm coming at this straight out of the Dead Suns AP, and I'm trying to do minimal rewriting. Is the consensus that you have to apply a bit of DIY design to make computers more interesting? I'm thinking in particular of the Securitech mini-dungeon and its server room.

I've been having a bit of trouble with the Computers skill lately. I just can't figure out how to make the damn things fun! I'm in Book 4 of Dead Suns right now, and every Computers check seems to be "make roll to access plot." Even worse, it's only one character that gets to interact. Everyone...

Right on. But how about the devil's advocate version? Is it possible to questions a ruling with good grace in the moment? Or is it always disruptive?

What sets off your personal “that’s bad-wrong-fun” alarm? PvP without a Session Zero agreement? Stealing form the party? Tacking a critical miss chance onto the system? And from a more philosophical perspective: Do you think it’s possible for a group to enjoy that kind of bad-wrong-fun despite...

Do you have an spreadsheet or maybe a blank worksheet for this sort of thing? I imagine that i could be a useful tool for GMs.

Yeah it is! These are all great. But for me, the big question is "what next?" For my money, making a full progression of events for any of these could easily fall into the "more effort than it's worth" category, especially if the PCs didn't pay much attention the first time around. So in...