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Except the idea that something might happen in the fiction does not equal character death. I agree. But character death adds so many more levels. When you have players who care about the game fiction, it makes for a great game. Death only adds to that. Knowing that your PC might fail and...

I like the Lore Heavy Setting I run games "back in time", before 1375DR, and ignore new dung. Forever. Lords of Darkness, The Magister, The Seven sisters, Cult of the Dragon, all the Volo books and guides. Yes. Er....all of them most of them. Even the "bad" ones are okay stories...

I agree. This is one of the Big Things that makes RPGs Unique. I find character death makes players care more about everything game related. Not just their character, but their characters story arc and the game arcs. Too many players get comfortable in the no-character death game and check...

A DM just being a DM is not Railroading. How can the "rules" matter when a DM can do anything? When a DM makes a monster or NPC they can make the numbers whatever they want: this is one of the basic things DMs do. Most RPGs don't have 5,000 page rule books telling a DM every little thing...

Odd, I never really put time skips as 'railroading'. And I don't hear many complaints about it. But all Time Skips can't be Railroading. Like Downtime Time Skips sure are not Railroading. The PCs want to take a year to build a base, and everyone agrees to skip forward a year to when the...

Even back in 1E, the spell said "contact your deity or agents thereof. It for sure said that in 2E. Also, 2E at least introduces the Avatar concept, where most deities can have multiple avatars of themselves. And a "answer" one is obvious.

Except such a DM is just like a car with a flat tire: even if they have run hundreds of games they might be doing all sorts of 'bad' things. And not even know, or worse know and just refuse to grow or change. But they do "finish a game" the same way a car with a flat tire can limp down a road...

11. Here's an example of bad railroading I experienced back in the day. We were playing a game, a friend of a friend was the DM. We were in a town, helping out the towns folk and getting established. We were planning on making this our base. The DM kept giving hints that something was going...

Are you sure? #4 does seem like an Everyone will Agree one... And really for most people, nothing is a life time stamp. For Example, there are tons of DMs that run the Wild Sandbox type style and their games are just random messes of activity where no one has any fun. Such a DM can be...

My biggest myth is: Each alignment has a set in stone list of rules that must be followed every second of every day.

Is it just as you don't like the word "bad"? As with most things, you have to have 'ranks'. To say "everyone is average" is not every helpful. If you have to pick between two "average DMs", and one does not know the rules well, does not care to learn them and spends large amounts of game...

I agree, as I do like mundane skills. But I also like magic for that extra "skill" beyond what the mundane can do. Like seeing the last minute of life of a dead animal.....not something you can do in the real world, for example. The same for speaking with a dead animal. I'm not sure how...

DMing a RPG is hard. Being a player in an RPG is hard. Unless you play an RPG like a board game/war game where you'd say "my character moves three squares forward and takes the attack action!", an RPG has these parts: *RPGs are complex. Even the rules lite ones have a lot of rules. And a...

Half is close to my 45%, so I agree. I'd say half of that 45% are not "bad" intentionally. There is the huge half of DMs that are just bad through inexperience, misjudgements and not thinking things through. And most of the rest.....well, power does corrupt in nearly everything. This...

I use the Ancient Companion/Masters/Mystara Domain rules, with the Dragon articles and a bit of the old Castle Guide, Birthright and 3E's Stronghold Builders Guide. I use the Ancient 2E XP mixed with Mystara XP rules, so a PC can get xp for doing lots of actions in game. And they get the most...

I do like the Skill Hunter and Survivalist who thrives in civilization, the wilderness, and the borderlands between. But I don't want them to be all mundane, I want a magical fantasy ranger. I want a ranger that can.... *Touch an animal corpse and learn how it died, if it was hunted for...

I'd say more like 45%. But I do cast a large net. I could DMs that just sit there and let the players do anything as "bad" DMs. I think the DM must be the voice of reason in the social group. I also count DMs that are hostile to their players as "Bad". And I see so many DMs that don't...

I like a ranger with spells.....but very much lesser spells then wizards/clerics...but more focused on nature. Plenty of detection and divination spells like "detect prey" "find hunter" "detect blood" "find food" and such.....things a ranger can do with mundane way.....but magic gives a...

I do this all the time. Of course, few wise wizards keep their spellbooks on them....or are silly enough to jump into things. 2E/3E did have plenty of anti magic monsters that could do things like eat spells...

Sounds good to me. It is a very different game then the Push Button play: DM:Your character encounter obstacle: door Player(looks down at their character sheet) : I use ability six: Open Door DM:Your character opens the door