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I wonder why you want to do that instead of paying human beings for art, writeups, and statblocks. Time? Money? Convenience? Not concerned about the energy usage or copyright issues that are inherent to AI? Fun to try out a new tech toy? A little from all the above? Honestly curious! But, this...

Single combats don't last 10 rounds IMXP. I suppose I could FORCE one to last that long, but folks start to loose focus after 3 or 4 rounds, IMXP, so I don't know why I'd inflate it artificially beyond that. I dunno what to tell ya. 10 round combats aren't happening in my 5e games. The hard...

Depends on your end goal and a few decisions along the way. Say I'm a DM using Sigil and I want a 3d dungeon for my next dungeon crawl on Sigil. What are my potential options? Invest my time. Build it myself. Best possible results! But, maybe I don't have the time. Invest my money. Pay someone...

I'm finding it a little hard to parse "more output in a single 10 round combat adventuring day than in seven 3-4 round combats." D&D combat in 5e is about 3-5 rounds per fight, maybe up to about 7 if there's a significant legendary brick in your way or something. In that time, I usually see a...

I'm fond of how 5e is flexible enough and balanced enough around the encounters that if I have 1 or if I have 7, the PC's can feel a bit of a squeeze in each encounter. Multiple encounters tend to add to a feeling of struggle and fatigue, but even one encounter can be a potential party-killer...

There's a lot of unfounded assumptions in these sentences that you should deeply question. The question that got Cocks talking was about bending a cost curve. IE: reducing the development budget. IE: using fewer people to produce more things. If you don't imagine that a key reason investors...

It's OK to kill a goblin with a single sweep of the greatsword. It's OK to fix a common disease with a single spell slot. Diseases need CR and potency and (potential) complexity. But they also need to be able to enter the flow of play seamlessly and be actively remembered (even between...

D&D has never really had a great use of disease. The mechanical role of disease is as a way to inflict a condition that robs characters of the option of rest (rests don't restore you, they make you worse), and drain your resources over long periods of time (so, when between adventures, or...

Human beings can make choices that are different. It's probably hard to make choices that fly in the face of what the people writing you checks want, though.

One of the especially awesome bits about Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel was that almost every culture included some notes on its culinary traditions (and in some adventures these traditions became very important!). Adventures in that book are one of the few experiences I have had of...

Less dire than some cases, for sure! D&D is owned by Hasbro, whose top investors are huge investment firms. The investors are already there, and have been for a while. Since D&D is one of the profit centers, I'd generally expect D&D to be pushed more toward monetization in general in the...

When "every industry" is doing something, that's suspicious. What do industries as diverse as healthcare and toy making have in common? Well, one big thing: wealthy investors. That doesn't mean generative AI can't also be useful in certain contexts. It does mean that the cart is before the...

What curve? What's the curve? Well, now we know what those layoffs are paying for. Peak CEO logic. "I know a lot of people who do it, therefore, this is a signal that means something for EVERYBODY." This is OK. This is probably bad.

It does get pretty immoral when that Elf is the hero of the story. When the audience is meant to cheer on the inherently moral Elf and his massacre of the inherently immoral children. But regardless of morality, I can say that bringing up the slaughter of children is not something a casual...

Yes, yes, YES, hahaha. Not familiar with the setting, but in principle, a background that is a guild membership sounds perfect. If the setting has the guilds, but isn't CENTERED around them, you could just have one background as "member of a guild," among the others.

"You get to wail on your enemies for 10 minutes before they can react" ...well, I DID say I liked a powerful ambush, hahaha.

When you would've given a whole round out to the side with surprise, just give out one turn to the character with the highest initiative bonus on the surprising side (or just have the party elect someone). Then, roll initiative (you can keep 2024's advantage/disadvantage if you like, too) and go...

Eh. It's OK if the party stomps the occasional encounter (or if they get seriously threatened by being ambushed themselves). Having combats isn't really the point of play for me. Running the game with surprise rounds since about 2000, and I have yet to have a game fall apart because of it. The...

Limiting CME to actually conjuring 1 elemental of CR 2 (or something similar) is a much better solution than "have a weapon buff."

I get that this rule is made to make surprise less powerful. I want surprise to be more powerful. I don't mind a group engaging with the world to get a significant advantage. Combat isn't the point of play, I don't mind a fight where one side gets a little stomped, or where the PC's need to...