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Yeah, it's worth saying that you shouldn't necessarily rush out and buy this book because it's NOT for everyone. It's a pretty dense book and it's painstakingly referenced and foot-noted. This is a seriously deep dive into OD&D and its influences.

I also have nothing to contribute, but I <3 LoLL and applaud your efforts!

Gosh, XVK, are you saying you don't like 4th edition?!? I had no idea! </sarcasm> Despite your insistence on dragging edition warring into EVERY SINGLE THING YOU POST, I will answer the rest of your question seriously. Yes, game designers SHOULD make games based on their personal preference...

Have you ever read Stross's "Iron Sunrise"? At the beginning of the novel, somebody uses a 'causality violation device' to wrap the core of a star in a pocket universe, age it billions of years, and then return it to the star as an ultra-dense chunk of iron a split-second after it was removed...

This made me LOL.

I've been eyeing Jon Peterson's Playing At The World on Amazon for some time. The price held me back, though. I kept waiting for it to drop. It never has, so finally I bit the bullet and ordered a copy. It came yesterday and now I see why it costs so much: it's enormous! A 740 page tome on the...

I'll second the idea that it all depends on the time and place: there was certainly trade throughout most of the medieval period and some parts of Europe would have been very well-traveled. But then of course at other times and places there was war and plague and and bandits and ruinous lords...

Another problem with relying on books is that you don't have the errata, or you have to incorporate it separately. Not such a big deal for the later books, but PH1 has errata out the wazoo. And frankly, unless you want to stick with just one book, 4e character building is dauntingly complicated...

And more specifically, they made up new names for rules and ideas that are clearly based on 4e. For instance, 'staggered' is essentially identical to 'bloodied' but uses a different name. If you understand 'healing surges' in 4e, you know 90% of what you need to know about 'recoveries' in 13A...

Believe me, I've read, watched and listened to everything I could find regarding icons! What you're describing still doesn't resolve the basic tension: is it a (possibly delayed) mechanical benefit or is it a storytelling tool? If you pitch it to the players as a benefit, they expect to get...

I ran my first game of 13th Age Saturday. Predictably, 3 out of 4 players rolled 5s and 6s and so I struggled to fit all the icon rolls into the story. But my players and I discovered a bigger disconnect. It seems like icon rolls have the potential to actually represent two very different...

Oh I wasn't taking it as criticism! I was only saying that you don't necessarily need to have the most creative players that ever lived to play this game. But sure, it's not for every group. The game has a pretty strong storytelling emphasis, and if your players aren't into that it may not be...

Well the book advises that when a player suggests something that you drill into it a bit. This can work really well with something that seems either overpowered, or silly. If you start asking "Why does your player do this?" or "How did this happen?" you start to get some interesting answers...

This is a really intriguing idea. So basically, you ask if they want gold for their roll up front or an unspecified bonus later in the session? My main concern would be that the players might simply always choose gold.

I hoped for this in Fourth Edition, but it didn't happen. I don't think the problem is a technological one so much as WotC simply not having much experience managing technology projects. But there's no reason that there couldn't be software tools to automate the fiddly bits of running the game.

Close, he actually blew his money on failed magical startups! Hilariously, the player decided to roll for his starting gold and rolled a one. He then said, "I guess that's appropriate."

From yesterday's game: - A wizard who invented Magic Missile, only to have the idea stolen from him by the Archmage. - A Forgeborn construct built for unknown reasons by the Prince of Shadows. - A blind ranger who uses echo-location and has a giant bat companion.

Did any DM ever consider the Christmas Tree Effect a good thing?!? I mean, I'm sure players loved it. But DMs want to feel like they're running a game, not a magic item shop.

I think you're kind of overlooking the all-important "the volcanoes aren't really volcanoes, they're X!" approach. "The volcanoes aren't really volcanoes, they're slumbering primordial fire beings!" "The volcanoes aren't really volcanoes, they're ancient engines built by a race of super...

I suppose... I feel like there's gotta be a better way to do it than this, though. For starters, 'vampire' just seems like it's a bad fit for a class in general. And in fact, the actual class seems like a bit of a one-trick pony. Fair enough. Imagine all these options had come out at the same...