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    D&D 5E (2014) Context Switching Paralysis, or Why we Will Always Have the Thief Debate

    Sorry, I'm not hearing what harm it does other than it's not to your taste. And you're not at my table, so you don't get a vote. To me, that doesn't look like punishing the player for trying the stunt, it is punishing the player for trying the stunt. Especially depending on how high you set...
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    D&D 5E (2014) Context Switching Paralysis, or Why we Will Always Have the Thief Debate

    And I see it as "What does it harm to let Legolas do this, other than possibly offending Celebrim's sensibilities?" See, it's not my scene the player is trying to "cheese" with "unnecessary showboating." It is, or should be, all of ours at the table. If Legolas is trying to get around the...
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    D&D 5E (2014) Context Switching Paralysis, or Why we Will Always Have the Thief Debate

    Uh huh. This is why in the pre-3E era (at least in my experience), you never, eeeeeever saw a fighter try to trip, or disarm, or try any swashbuckling tricks. Most DMs who tried to adjudicate those sorts of actions fell back on the called shot rules, so the player ended up eating a stiff penalty...
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    D&D General "I have played in or run a D&D campaign set in Greyhawk." (a poll)

    Not unless you count the original Against the Giants campaign, which was only vaguely Greyhawk-ish.
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    D&D General "I have Played in or Run a Campaign Set in the Forgotten Realms" (a poll)

    Never played it. I just don't find it very interesting as fantasy worlds go.
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    D&D 5E (2014) Has D&D spoiled you on other RPGs?

    No. I have zero interest in 5E. If I want to play D&D-style fantasy, I'd be more likely to reach for 13th Age, PF2, or Beyond the Wall first.
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    D&D General Did You "Return" because of some Edition of D&D?

    I have never stopped gaming, but I stopped playing D&D during late 3.5E, came back with 4E, and left again with 5E.
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    D&D General Willpower and ... Charisma ??

    Note that 4E allowed you to use either Wisdom or Charisma to determine your Will defense. I always liked that -- Charisma should be able to do more than just be the social-fu stat.
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    Out with the old (Game design traditions we should let go)

    Besides the cultural aspect, smoking was also an easy way for writers to insert little bits of "business" to break up long conversations. And you could reveal things about a character's personality and emotions from their choice of smoking materials, how they handled them, etc.
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    Out with the old (Game design traditions we should let go)

    This sort of thing was really common in 90s games: skill lists that cover every single thing a character might possibly want to do, regardless of whether it might make sense for the game or genre. Gotta have that Underwater Basketweaving skill in there!
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    Worlds of Design: Making an Adventure “Believable”

    The Realist perspective sometimes leads to what's occasionally called the Guy at the Gym problem -- where the mighty warrior who's at or near maximum human physical ability can still only accomplish the sort of feats that a moderately fit 21st-century human can do, because the DM thinks anything...
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    D&D General What is the best dungeon for long term exploration?

    I mentioned that the Stone Thief is a living dungeon, as in it's actually alive. It travels around beneath the surface, occasionally popping up to eat buildings and towns for more material to extend itself. Which, of course, should include places that are important to the PCs, to motivate them...
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    D&D General What is the best dungeon for long term exploration?

    Obligatory vote here for Eyes of the Stone Thief. Since it's a living dungeon, it's designed for multiple visits and it can shift around between visits. It can pop up wherever the PCs go (and if they piss it off enough, it will actually start hunting them). 13 levels and over 350 pages of...
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    Marvel Multiverse Role-Playing Game Playtest Impressions

    Yeah, there are a couple fan-made datafiles for Dazzler floating around out there, and they all work by giving her a Limit to shut down her light powers when there's not enough sound around for her to convert, plus letting her use a reaction to step up or create a stunt die if she's hit by a...
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    Marvel Multiverse Role-Playing Game Playtest Impressions

    Another odd thing about the Rank system -- it's apparently assigned based not on the character's comics power level, but on their sphere of influence. Like, Daredevil is Rank 5 because he mostly sticks to one neighborhood, Spider-Man is Rank 10 because he's best known as New York's hero, but...
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    Marvel Multiverse Role-Playing Game Playtest Impressions

    They don't. An opponent who can challenge a Rank 25 character is completely untouchable by a Rank 5 character, and will turn the Rank 5 character into paste with a single attack. As for noncombat challenges, the game uses difficulties that scale by Rank. I know some people hate this approach...
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    D&D 4E Dissociating what I (we?) like from the mechanics

    The hybrid rules were a kludgy as hell attempt to create traditional multiclassing. If you weren't experienced with the system, it was all too easy to create an unworkable mess, or in a few cases something that broke the game's power curve (the dreaded paladin|warlock, for instance). I much...
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    Worlds of Design: The Destination, Not the Journey?

    Count me as another old gamer who blinks in disbelief at "players cared about the adventure, not levels, in 1E/2E." Next, you'll be telling us that old-school players didn't care about all that silly loot and just adventured for the pure joy of playing...
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    Check Out This Preview of the Marvel Multiverse Role-Playing Game

    It's not an unusual way to handle super-attributes, but Spidey being Mighty 1 makes me wonder how the game will handle someone like Beast, who's much stronger than any human but well below Spidey's weight class. Is there a Mighty 0?
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    Check Out This Preview of the Marvel Multiverse Role-Playing Game

    Looking at the powers, I wonder exactly is the difference between Webcasting, Webgrabbing, Webslinging, and Webtrapping, and why you would need to break down "slings webs" into several different abilities. I assume Spider-Dodge and Mighty 1 reflect superhuman levels of Agility and Might...
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