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Yeah, colonialism and early capitalism are good PTC themes. Exploitation of labor, especially - straight up using people as tools and disregarding their humanity, employing powerful armies on their behalf, treating everyone in their web of influence as an obstacle to enriching Esteban and his...

It's OK. There are some really troubling design choices that I think work against some of 5e's great strengths (2024 has more complexity, more decision points, more "game logic"), but it's not a revolution or a totally different game or anything. A little slower. Some moments of "this is a dumb...

Building on this a bit, I think the "gameplay" for those pillars is different, and that difference is good for the game overall. If everything had the mathematical complexity of combat, the game would grind, things would feel samey and monotone. The different pillars of gameplay are different...

In 2e, where the Plane of Water met the Plane of Ice, it was a "topped" with the infinite glacier (which then peaked as it stabbed into the Plane of Air). Water also became a swamp as it neared Ooze, and a bubbly, aerated mixture as it neared Steam, and a salty brine as it neared Salt (giving it...

Remember: it doesn't have to be this way. This is a choice, made by individuals. Normalizing it is letting those individuals off the hook.

I've been looking at some OSR games that use some aggressive inventory tracking mechanics and I'm quite partial to the idea of a character significantly (exclusively? almost exclusively?) defined by what they find in play and what they choose to equip and use. What if you only had one (or maybe...

Flight is not a power consideration. It is a genre consideration. Like a mount. It's not too powerful to have flight at 1st level, it just changes the kinds of adventures and challenges the party faces. For a homebrew, if you don't mind the change, slot it in wherever it makes sense. For a...

There is no such thing as a class that casts magic. All spells are in magic items. Wizards are just artificers. Wands, spellbooks, scrolls, runes. Warlocks don't cast spells, they have their familiars cast spells (different familiars, different spells). Sorcerers are living potions. They shed...

I use Xanathar's encounter building guidelines almost exclusively, and this sounds like a bit of a step down from that (XP budget uuuuugh).

5e was never balanced around the adventuring day, anyway. I do like having an expectation of how many encounters the party has resources for so I can pace dungeons, but so many folks got hung up on that 6-8 encounter line that they figured it was essential for balance when it was really just a...

I think "adventure first" is probably the right approach for a new DM in 2024. WotC has written and published adventures and written and published settings and going as quickly as possible from "I want to play D&D with my friends!" to "I am now playing D&D with my friends!" is a worthwhile goal...

For death specifically, no, not everyone cares about that. I wonder if I can read something in those tea leaves, though. What if "risk of characters dying in combat" is something of a signifier for "risk of failure"? As a game system, D&D doesn't have a lot of out of the box ways for someone...

Do people want balance? IDK, wtf is "balance," define your terms. It means different things to different people. I think rigid mathematical combat balance isn't really for everyone, for instance. 4e maybe got the closest to this, and I think this contributed directly to the feeling of grind...

What would be the worst place you can put them? Put them there. See what they do. This is the stuff of memorable sessions!

It definitely feels like a legacy of the earlier dungeon survival vibe. In more intentionally designed dungeon survival games, inventory management and encumbrance are a key part of hitting the vibe. A lot these days use a limited "slot" system where maybe a dagger or about 10 arrows fit into a...

It's a more general genre statement. Yeah, you can have story in any game. But, a game where the main challenge is surviving a hostile environment where you need to carefully track resources is a different vibe than a game where the main challenge is to grow and change as a character and thwart...

Bet yo momma can. Really niche use, BUT, there's a few poisons in the DMG that cause unconsciousness or paralysis to an injured creature. If you wanted to incapacitate a creature with one of those poisons, but did not want to kill them, a blowgun would be the safest way to do that. Its low...

Sure, that's just meaningful chance of failure. My point was just that in the play of the game, swinging a sword isn't ALWAYS a die roll. By default, it's not. We need to have an excuse to roll the dice. I mean, I accept that you can make an argument for wanting to roll dice for social...

It's a problem seen across the gamespace, and I think the cause of it boils down to the diverse audiences D&D tries to serve. If you're trying to make your game hit a broad audience who wants both dungeon survival and monster fighting you have to somehow develop, say, a healing mechanic that...

There's something that seems off about this statement to me. If we go back to the example on swinging a sword vs. the talky bits, both seem to me to hinge on one shared rule: "Pretend to be your character." In certain circumstances, pretending to be your character means doing something with a...