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Well when you design a game predicated on managing risk vs. reward, managing resources (like hit points), and deciding just how deep you want to risk delving down into a dungeon during each adventure, a certain degree of measured predictability is desirable. That, I think, lies at the heart of...

This is precisely how and why I can get away with implementing the critical hit mechanic that I use in OD&D and OAD&D, systems which emphatically predicate the balance of their combats on not having critical hits (a mechanic that Gygax appears to have despised, as he never missed a chance to...

This grognard's view of One D&D is complete and utter disinterest. If there is a horizon to my radar, 5e is already a dim shadow skirting the edge of it; 5.5e will be well out of sight and therefore out of mind. And the feeling is mutual.

But they wrote it on the cover of the manuals because that's what everyone on the WizO forums was already calling it in the runup to the release. Since the majority of gamers at the time had no idea how version numbers worked, they just called it "v3.5" because it was already in everybody's...

For what it's worth, I'll probably be starting a new OSR campaign in two or three weeks — or whenever it is that the staff over at Dragon's Lair decides their game-rooms are done being remodeled. :whistle:

Yeah. If I thought that "One D&D" had even a fraction of the staying power that "D&D Next" didn't have, I'd worry that WotC was out to deliberately erase the versions of the game that Gary wrote. But it doesn't, and everyone will call the next version "5.5" or something. Whatever the internet...

(Hm. Long thread.) My only real problem with 5e is that it stops feeling and playing like D&D above about 4th level. Monsters become bags of hit points, swords become nerf bats, and spells become strongly worded suggestions. A typical spell that could end an encounter in an earlier edition...

Alignment threads come up so frequently that instead of retyping what I think of alignment, I now just link to an image captured from my house rules.

The OSR has spoiled me. I never have to leave the OD&D-compatible ecosystem for any reason (except maybe for a Ghostbusters RPG, but I hope to fix that soon myself). Sci-fi? Between X-Plorers, Hulks & Horrors, White Star, and Stars Without Number, I'm spoiled for choice — I never have to touch...

Now that there are print-on-demand Rules Cyclopediæ, the only purpose retro-clones serve is their original one — recognizable labels that indicate compatibility with a specific edition of The World's First and Most Popular Fantasy Role-Playing Game, Wink-Wink, Nudge-Nudge, 'Ello-'Ello...

I have to go with the compass mermaid from X1. (By Jeff Dee, I'm pretty sure.) Sure, Darlene's mermaid in the 1e DMG might be reclining in a more classically alluring pose; but this one? She is ready to slither up onto the deck of your ship and mess your effing crap up with that trident. Half...

Oh, no, not "toxic". Anything but a buzzword. Uncle.

With so many forum-warriors routinely threatening to leave all the hypothetical tables in a self-righteous huff of indignation, it's truly a wonder that the hypothetical game-tables still have any hypothetical players at all.

Not to mention, the time that the fist is in contact with its target matters for Δp.

Holmes is definitely closer to LBB in terms of raw mechanics, and it's very much written to serve as their introduction — you can even think of Holmes + the LBBs as paralleled by Moldvay Basic + Cook/Marsh Expert — but Holmes also lays the groundwork for a number of innovations in Moldvay...

That's a matter of convention. When I was growing up in the Midwest? Every gamer I knew used "OD&D" to refer to both the LBB/white box edition and the later BXCM/red box and RC/black box editions. I'm used to the older "lumping" rather than the newer "splitting" that occurred on Dragonsfoot...

Easy solution (works every time I've ever had to do it): PLAYER: "I roll a perception check!" DM: "Okay... you fish some funny-looking dice out of your pocket, crouch down, and give 'em a roll. Everyone else in the party is giving you weird looks, wondering what that's all about. Meanwhile...