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Given that scenario it makes me wonder if my players cheat lol

Actually my issues with the 2025 MM are different.....and definitely not on balance. I have caved in to my group and been running it for a few weeks now, and have noticed the monsters have more punch (at least partially due to some of the OPs points on design), and while not all monsters are...

Fortunately the 2014 DMG did include good rules for GMs to make NPC statblocks, with customization rules by race. So while it would have been nice to have a quick stat block or two in the 2014 MM, in fact the DMG provided all the rules needed, a good design that somehow did not make the cut in...

Sure, I can agree on that. I think the element of threat is more evident, even in the examples you give (but yeah, who wins initiative and doesn't roll poorly helps a lot). But I've had very little success even when the mind flayer wins initiative in 5E to contrast.

True that. I guess what I was trying to say is: my group is old, experienced, and thinks tactically, and I have more than one rules lawyer in the group. They will find such an encounter trivial unless I stack the odds against them, and this has been an ongoing issue for most of the years I have...

This is a very specific approach to the matter with WotC. To contrast, Pathfinder 2E has handled this exceedingly well and stands out for providing all the tools a GM could need for NPCs of various ancestries (and custom NPC stat blocks in the NPC Core, no less) while also meeting the...

Has not been my experience. A Mind Flayer with several lower CR minions might pose a threat, but a single mind flayer against 3 level 5 PCs (caveat: my group knows what it is doing)? Nah, that's a dead mind flayer.

I get it, totally; I have to keep reading glasses with me these days. My younger players have no problem here though. On the plus side, it might not be immediately obvious, but the font size of the core books is "slightly more readable" in the pocket editions that it was with the 1E books.

That's a great example, I was just looking at collecting Dark Conspiracy a few months ago as its one of my nostalgia buttons, so glad to hear Mongoose may be able to do a revival with it now.

That is excellent! I admit I would run it again if I could find a decent copy. I ran it right up in to college, when my buddies begged me to please take a break from Dragonquest and Runequest to consider the new AD&D 2nd edition. I should never have listened to them LOL

The great thing is this is easily testable.....name a game you think is dead; someone just needs to come along and say, "Yeah, we're still playing that." Games I think are dead: Amazing Engine System (any of them) Synnibarr (EDIT: scratch that, the wikipedia page suggests that there Synnibarr...

I don't know the source argument, but it sounds like he's not critiquing game mechanics or writing, but art direction, suggesting earlier takes in art direction were better for some reason (not necessarily just because nostalgia). Art is inherently aesthetic and often subjective, so its fair to...

Pocket books are great for table copies, and I have players who can't afford a $60-70 hardcover but can afford a $30 pocket edition, and actually buy them. I bet my table's experience is not unique. And with the current economy and tariffs, I bet cheaper cost rulebooks are going to become even...

I'll take it. Daft Punk is amazing, but they earned their retirement.

Tron is one of those things that scratches a very deep, old nostalgic itch from my youth. I read the novelization then got to see the movie weeks later, and loved it, even though its a bizarrely flawed movie in many ways. The sequel equally so, though when it came out I was not yet old enough...

I'm keen on the Alien RPG Kickstarter but holding off on anything prospective (e.g. Kickstarter) for now until we see how the tariffs impact things.

I've been able to migrate my book and graphic novel collection to digital and it worked well, but I really have a hard time doing so with RPGs for some reason; the physical necessity of the book at the table for utility is too great, and the odds a laptop or tablet battery will outlast the...

I think you had to come from the wargamer side of it to know of (or think of) this strategy, or be aware it was documented somewhere in the rules. My groups from 1981-1989, and then with 2E from 1989 up until the last time I ran it in mid 2009 had never, ever heard of this, and this is the first...

My point stands and is also now proven. You should look up the actual definition of empathy sometime.

I agree. There could be a lot of lore that explains it. But we only have the playtest material from UA to go with right now, and it apparently alarms a lot of FR fans. So I really don't have any opinion, but suspect that even a sentence or two with the subclass saying something like, "And then...