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  1. Professor Murder

    ENnies To Ban Generative AI From 2025

    Good. No organization that gives awards based on achievement should permit AI use.
  2. Professor Murder

    What’s good about Call of Cthulhu 7th Ed? (and what’s not)

    I'm a fan of 7th. I like the degrees of success/difficulty used. Advantage/disadvantage. Pushing rolls. All good. But the real winner for me is the wealth of solid setting books across time and geography. Western. Dark Ages. A slew of stuff in the traditional 1920s-30s. Weimar Berlin. Gaslight...
  3. Professor Murder

    D&D 5E (2024) Monster Manual 2025 Stat Block Compilation

    Minor gripes being the order of the day... The Minotaur Skeleton description describes them using great axes. Statbock just gives them a slam. I think this was the case with the 2014 ed also. But just irks me irrationally.
  4. Professor Murder

    Call of Cthulhu Gets New King in Yellow Adventure in 1980s Japan

    Curious to hear more. The formatting of the title makes me feel like there will be more in the series.
  5. Professor Murder

    “Monstrous” NPCs

    For me, the only way this would work is if non-pc species don't have intellect. It is limiting, but creativity can be born out of limitations.
  6. Professor Murder

    So Much Art From the 2025 Monster Manual

    That is a touch disappointing in some respects, but it is what it is. Will reserve judgement to seeing some stats. I stand by my appreciation for the design visually.
  7. Professor Murder

    So Much Art From the 2025 Monster Manual

    Gotta say, I quite like the succubi/incubi design. Sexy/sensual without being titillating. A hard task I am sure.
  8. Professor Murder

    Monster Catalogue vs. Monster Creation Rules (vs. Why Not Both?)

    Look, often the most basic of thumbnail math of a challenge is simple. How often will the PCs hit/effect the challenge? 50% of the time? Less or More? How many successful actions will it take to overcome the challenge? Multiply then divide by the number of PCs. Thats how many rounds very roughly...
  9. Professor Murder

    Monster Catalogue vs. Monster Creation Rules (vs. Why Not Both?)

    GM skills dont manifest from the head of Zeus unbidden. They need to be nurtured by the game itself. Poor game design is design that assumes GMs will intuit how to make things work instead of showing them how they can work. But a GM agnostic skill can be signaling to players that PCs are in...
  10. Professor Murder

    Monster Catalogue vs. Monster Creation Rules (vs. Why Not Both?)

    Possibly. Or by finding non-combat solutions to overcome an obstacle. Or it can be simply tabling dealing with a threat until the group has a better shot at winning.
  11. Professor Murder

    Monster Catalogue vs. Monster Creation Rules (vs. Why Not Both?)

    Calibration is still a needed element even in games that allow for unwinnable scenarios, else how can the players recognize the scenario is unwinnable prior to the tpk?
  12. Professor Murder

    Monster Catalogue vs. Monster Creation Rules (vs. Why Not Both?)

    Expanding out a bit, what matters more is clear encounter design guidelines with examples. Give a sense of scale. How hard will a given challenge be for a give caliber of PCs?
  13. Professor Murder

    NPC Deception/Persuasion and player agency

    A guard jamming their pike into a PCs guts interrupts their agency. A ravine being too far to jump across interrupts their agency. If your game has social or mental systems use them. If a player elects to have poor stats for said interactions, knowing that skills using them will come up, they...
  14. Professor Murder

    D&D General Muscular Neutrality (thought experiment)

    Some psychotic posts here. Muscular Neutrality is the "Some good people on both sides" of DnD. It's a relic of some really wrong thinking navel gazing nonsense from people achingly entrenched in privilege. "Oh oh. Too much joy in the world. Need to up the suffering index." "I mean, there is...
  15. Professor Murder

    What TTRPG Is Perfect and Complete In One Volume?

    It was, imho, the best use of the Storyteller system that White Wolf ever produced.
  16. Professor Murder

    What TTRPG Is Perfect and Complete In One Volume?

    So "perfect" is a very high hurdle. For my answer, I guess it would have to be a game that had no supplements or if it did, they either added nothing or just were so inferior it just made more clear that all you needed was the main book. Furthermore, said book would have to leave no real ideas...
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    1734713509095.png

  18. Professor Murder

    It's Time To Vote For 2025's Most Anticipated TTRPGs!

    I kick-started Victoriana, so it is the big one for me. Daggerheart also has my attention.
  19. Professor Murder

    D&D General Dark Sun as a Hopepunk Setting

    Some really solid ideas here. Thanks. Only bit that I'm less all in for is the heritage variety solve. But that comes down to GM style and how willing one is to enforce option limitations. All told, some great pitches here.
  20. Professor Murder

    D&D General Elon Musk Wants To Know 'How Much Is Hasbro?'

    On the short list of things that would get me to quit DnD.
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