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Completely, and poorly, imagined. 1. This generational identity crap is codswollop. 2. 4e is not played by a single generation. RPGs are played by all ages. 4e is played by plenty of players who've been playing since OD&D and OSR games are being played by 20 year old kids. So, you...

Never let 'em see you sweat.

Significantly inconvenienced, heh, I like that. The point is that you're (theultramark) getting way to hung up on a single word and not imagining that the word could apply in a more broader sense. It does. The word prone is defined by the dictionary in a certain manner. In 4e D&D it is...

And that right there is all that's needed to "justify" those few, isolated wonky conditions that come up once a year or so in 4e. It's hardly the monstrous case of total immersion breaking zaniness that it gets labeled all the time. "How do you make an ooze prone?" "Have you ever seen...

That's what I was talking about. The difference is an illusion. If the PC uses a spell, and it works, they had to wait for you to nod sagely and say "yes, your targets fall asleep", but there is no real difference between the two. There is no loss of control just a quicker resolution...

Yep, that's all you'd need. And the core book is $10, to boot. My group's played SW exclusively for the past two years now and we've had a blast with it. It's very much a system for experienced gamers who don't have the time and focus they once did perhaps as teenagers. There aren't a...

No, they weren't. The actual rules of a game are not arbitrary decisions. Games are built and designed, not just a compilation of whatever popped into the author's head as a way to respond to a situation. Numbers are balanced, the interplay of the mechanics are considered, systems are...

Is this just a shift in the semantics of the game, though? Players have always been able to do this in various manner, and in many different systems, whether it be knockback rules for big weapons or the many D&D spells that grant the caster some control over a target, command, charm, dominate...

You kind of keep moving the point of the thread, from trusting to the DM, to the DM is the rulebook, to now the old argument of player skill versus character skill. But I'll bite on this point. The single thing I hated most about early edition play was sitting around a table for an hour...

That's not what the poster or pg. 42 is saying at all. It has been pointed to, both in the primer and in this thread that the earlier editions empowered the GM by stating things along the lines of Rule Zero, the DM had the final call, the rules are guidelines, etc. In 4e, all "page 42" is, is...

Halflings, Tolkien can bite me. Hack.

I do a bit of all of the above. I don't do random encounter tables, but I have a nice big file of sketches for all kinds of campaign/PC background/world-building encounters and happenings that I can pull from if this particular journey needs an encounter or two. Sometimes I just handwave the...

The closest I've come as a DM is I used to give out fairly lengthy background questionnaires for the players to answer, then I would fill in relative details (names, locales, etc.) and then write it up into a background, but it was their choices and their ideas, I just edited, added details...

I don't agree that modern D&D is a "mess". I think the latest edition excels because it returns focus to the core gameplay of D&D - adventuring, instead of trying to account for so many different directions. The gameplay expectations of the modern gaming audience have shifted to a more...

I missed this thread in both of its previous runs somehow. I'm glad you necromanced it, weem, it's an interesting topic. It's been fun reading through the responses. A - Running a game that is fun for all - my best skill comes from my profession (poker) - reading people. I stereotype and...

I would decree it to be illegal, then have my propaganda ministers actively encourage the popularity of the game. Then I would inform the sheriffs to only enforce the law on 'undesirables' (gnomes, bards, gnome bards, half-orc barbarians not already in my service, elves, and fishmongers) and...

As others have said, the key to creative play is not in prep, it's play at the table. No matter how many scenarios you plan for, the PCs will inevitably come up with something you never thought of. Sometimes, it will be frustratingly simple and bypass hours of your prep. For me, I don't...

That's interesting. Even any PCs with hidden identities and secret agendas that run contrary to those of the party at large? Do you find that the added fun of letting everyone in on it from the beginning outweighs the loss of the "big reveal" scene or the surprise for the others as the truth...

We've gamed out on the lake in a fishing boat and in high school, our Paranoia GM often started the afternoon's session at lunch and continued with notes throughout the day, setting up secret societies, missions and the like, then we would play out the actual game at someone's house after...

I have to take exception with those listing Savage Worlds as a fairly easy game. It is, but not in the context BluSponge is talking about (presenting to the general non-gamer). SW assumes a pretty solid base of RPG knowledge by the players and GM (especially), which is how it gets away with...