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I'll admit I'm about to be a wee bit of a grump, but based on the line-up of character options selected, I'm not sure you guys are giving the setting a fair shake. Who the players are plays a big part in making Athas, well, Athas. If you play the same characters you play in a Tolkien like...

I don't like randomized collectible products. They feel like they are predatory and exploitive products, similar to gambling. They scratch a psychological itch in the human makeup that takes a repugnant person to attempt to profit from. The sea of unwanted common magic cards or boxes full of...

I'm going to go on a "tangent" here. Tell you a nice story that has nothing to do with anything. Have you ever heard the phrase "it is easier to ask forgiveness than it is to ask permission?" Lets say a soldier sees a quick and easy way to accomplish a task, except it isn't the approved way...

Rests should service the plot, not obey rule mechanics. I think maintaining the concept of getting an extended rest "when you go to sleep" was the biggest fumble in D&D4. It should have been, that you get an extended rest at the end of a "chapter" in the story. Fitting 4 or more fights into a...

I don't think that is a ridiculous reason to dislike the realms. I've literally had this discussion with people before on why they dislike the realms. It is what Elminster is the most egregious example of, and represents, that makes people dislike the realms. Elminster is the grand-daddy of...

Overall I think it is an OK book for a great setting. I'd say that it is worth buying, but I wouldn't use it as an example of how a campaign book should be. 1) It was too short. Honestly, deep down, I'm seriously unhappy that the Eberron Campaign Guide got 63 more pages. This isn't purely a...

I can see the concerns with it being too 'on rails', as railroaded plots can be bad. If you've got some ideas of how to open it up a little, I'd be glad to hear them. That being said, I put the early part of the adventure a bit on rails for a few reasons. First of all, players being...

I'm thinking about putting together an introductory Darksun adventure. I'm thinking of doing essentially a variation on the A Little Knowledge adventure from the first box. It needs to impress upon the players what the world of Darksun is like. Critisism and feedback is welcome (and hoped...

I'm going to share my armchair theory on this subject. Some people self-identify with their characters in a roleplaying game. They view them as extensions of themselves, and a means to do things that they want to do but can't (be it the literally impossible, like throwing fireballs and...

The problem is, experience has shown that there are a lot of players who will not roleplay (bold and italics aimed not at you, but said players who will not roleplay), if the rulebook doesn't tell them to roleplay and how to do it. It isn't that they don't know how to make the attempt, as I've...

I think rituals are a very good idea, but I think they don't fit into the system correctly yet. I don't think it is really the fault of rituals either. Rituals cost gold, and magic items cost gold. Rituals are fleeting and non-combat, while magic items are a lasting combat upgrade. Actually...

However, there are many people who merely find Startrek entertaining, and just don't care that other people don't like it. I liked that DS9 was on a space station, other people thought it ruined the Startrek premise. There are people I can have a conversation about that dislike with, and then...

I think the guy has enough of a point. I think a lot of it is because there are enough (I said enough, not all) gamers that want to 'escape life' through playing fantasy games, and anything that even jostles their escapism is seen as a direct attack on their person. Your disrupting their...

Great observation. Stoneblessed lets a half-giant player get some more half-giant mechanics without making them overpowered. Maybe there will be some really nice and focused half giant, mul and thri-kreen racial paragon paths that let them have a 'racial advantage' without being mechanically...

Are the stat rolls being observed by the DM? I'm not saying it is the case here, but I've noticed that a lot of players used to quietly apply all sorts of 'common law house rules' or 'that roll didn't count' rationalizations when it came to stat rolling before point buy was widely accepted. If...

On another forum there was a 'what if' discussion about WotC picking up the shadowrun license if CGL loses it. This resulted in a DnD4 vs SR4 discussion, and I noticed something in the discussion that seems to be of more general interest to RPGs. Some RPGs (SR4 is a good example) appear to be...

There really isn't any reason that a break has to be 5 minutes. Your party has made it through the gauntlet, having dispatched the hobgoblins in your way, and are now out of sight of the hobgoblin bowmen on the ramparts. As you round the corner you see a hastily assembled barricade in front of...

Personally, I always find the general argument of: but if we included a difficulty rating system, it would just make people lose the ability to think for themselves, and rating systems are not perfect so you can't rely on them, to be an excuse. I find it an excuse because I consider the...

I want to be nice to the Dragon Age books, as the books themselves are very nice with a lot of full color art, a lot of background material on the setting, the system seems interesting, and they give guidelines and advice for darn near every other aspect of using the game system. I suppose I...

The part that made me stop reading was the monsters in the DMs guide didn't have any classification with regards to their power level. I mean not a single metric at all (at least old school D&D had xp values). The GM simply has to either eyeball the stat blocks or spend prep time on test...