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There is a tendency amongst my peers to either deride or exalt their pastimes, often to an extreme. The former smacks of the sneering disdain for experiences that marks the hipster, while the latter lends a hand-wringing quality. Both are the acts of uncertainty. This uncertainty isn't implicit...

Ah, but you see, because it is random, it is not guaranteed. You might just roll poorly, and even if you do roll well, you might end up getting a Wand of Wonder instead of the Holy Avenger +5 you always wanted. You weren't entitled to anything, but you hoped for some things. It made those...

So over on the rpg.net boards, there was someone asking for help with rebuilding their rogue. This notion is entirely absent in old school gaming. If you didn't like your character, it was probably more to do with not connecting with them personally. Or, like me, you made a gag character and...

True that. In older versions of D&D, fighting wasn't something you spent three hours out of every six hour session on, in my experience. (I suspect groups that treated combat as the de facto reason for playing had a very different experience, though, and were probably far more interested in...

I think we're talking about two different things. You're talking about having a set of standards for doing stunts. This is good. Most every game out there has something like this, from Runequest stacking of ability throws to Feng Shui's stunt system. There was weirdness in AD&D because there...

tl;dr version: YUP. Nuanced Version: In earlier versions of D&D, the class abilities were only what made you exceptional. You didn't have a dozen fireballs, or an endless supply of killing words. If you were a wizard, you had to think very hard about when to spend their big strike, because once...

Which is exactly my point. Rather than interacting with the fictional world first, then figuring out what rules are applicable, you are interacting with the rules first and coming up with a fictional justifications after the fact. Page 42 is all about the fiction first. The other 1,000 pages...

Which will never be as effective, have a far greater chance of failure, and in short do everything they can to encourage the player to stick with his character sheet. Page 42 is good. It's a well designed system. But taken in context of the rest of the powers system, it's a withered, vestigial...

It's not IN the DMG, that's the point. A very general system is, but there is nothing there that covers all the eventualities. Compare this with a player having a "Pin the Wing" daily power. One requires creative solutions, the other requires tactical thinking. Having a codified solution to...

I actually *cough* built a spreadsheet *cough* to model how many hits I wanted characters to survive over their lifespan in my house rules. I ended up with a 1st level fighter surviving 3, maybe 4 hits before unconsciousness, but having a damage bonus as monsters increase level. I also cap HP...

I've been trying to figure out what the psychological difference there is in new school versus old school play. I have a theory, and I'd like people to honestly assess it. In old school play, the rules existed only as a rough approximation of the fiction. That is, the players treated the...

Yet another vote for Fiasco. Here's the thing though: you don't need as many hard core gamers as you'd think. I played for the first time with two experienced role players, one who'd only played for a year, one who'd played DnD twice, and a third who'd never even seen an RPG happen. As long as...

D'Oh! They're taking away my nerd credentials for missing that. Terminus Est, right?

No, they were not. That's an invention from DnD 3.0, like swords weighing 25 lbs.

You just described Runequest. It's a good game.

Just a side note: its a combination of conditioning and sideshow tricks. Anyone can bend a spear on their throat, or break a brick with a few weeks of training. During the Boxer's Rebellion, when monks rushed gunmen, they became dead monks just like anyone else.

I'd also point out that the longsword used in the clip above was a bit crap- it's a spring steel flat ground bit of piffle. Historical swords were a sturdier weapon. Besides, you'd never go after someone in full plate with any kind of sword, katana or no. Drag them to the ground and gouge out...

I think what we have here is another example of the divide between the older conception of classes as 'archetypical' and the newer conception as 'skill package'. People who like archetypical explanations of classes like having the game fiction intrinsically tied into their character...

Here's what I did in my home brew campaign. Every class has a damage modifier that adds to any attack they make. This increases with level at a rate determined by their class, so a 1st level fighter gets a +1 to damage while a 10th level fighter gets a +6. I also use the old 2e version of HP...

In ACKs you can try to start a domain at any level, it's just impractical without the wealth adventuring brings. They can still hire followers and mercenaries, but when you reach 9th level they just show up without you trying. It's a good compromise.