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Exactly!

I prefer to run warlock patrons as working like actual patronage does. A patron gives money to an artist to enable them to keep making art, because the patron likes the art the artist makes, and wants the artist to be able to keep making it. Often, an artist will offer benefits to potential...

Well, that’s the “DM acts” part of the equation, in my view. It is part of the DM’s role to make sense of the results the game rules dictate, in light of the NPC’s wants, desires, and moods, and to narrate it in a believable way. Resolving social actions is, in my view, often a game of “how can...

Yeah, TSR D&D did have a lot of bespoke resolution mechanics for very specific tasks, in which ability scores played no role. I mean, heck, saving throws and the class-specific stuff like thieves’ chance to pick locks, pick pockets, hide in shadows, move silently, etc. usually didn’t take...

The 1e bard feels like a prototype for 3.Xe’s prestige classes, though obviously it wasn’t. Maybe the 3e designers took some inspiration from the 1e Bard in developing the idea of prestige classes though.

Interesting! A 5e clone made by the guy who lead the design on original 5e has a lot of potential, especially considering that D&D Next 5e was my favorite version of the system and every evolution since has been a mixed bag of improvements and… whatever the opposite of improvements is… Seeing a...

Fundamentally, I think that it should be possible to succeed and fail in social challenges without a roll, just as it’s possible to do so in exploration challenges. But, there is a very real issue of DMs setting the bar for eliminating the chances of success and/or failure extremely low in...

Yeah, that’s a perspective I have come across, but I think it’s rather different than “character statistics shouldn’t play any role in determining success or failure.” What folks who hold this perspective usually prefer is broad categories for character statistics (e.g. just the six ability...

I’m only on the periphery of the OSR, so I’ll take your word for it that this is a sentiment that exists in that space, but it does come across as rather extreme to me. What are the character statistics for if they don’t play any role in determining success or failure? To my knowledge, there has...

This is a very real problem, and fixed DCs is one possible solution to it. Though, they do come with their own drawbacks - in defining the DC of an action, you necessarily limit the possibility space, as well as creating negative space. To unpack that a bit, the long lists of DCs in 3e...

Well, I did note that those rules come into play assuming success and failure are both reasonable possibilities (I’d also add that there should be meaningful stakes for success vs failure but opinions on that matter are more varied). If either success or failure is not possible, or even just not...

I think “player skill” as a jargon term has accumulated too much baggage to lead to productive discussion. It’s a lot like “dissociated mechanics” or even my pet “goal and approach.” There’s a valuable concept that the jargon term expresses, but people have very strong feelings about the jargon...

Didn’t she also defend Zak S?

It’s hard for me to rate with a single number, because there are things about it I really like and things about it I really dislike, especially relative to base 5e. I guess those things should balance out to a middle of the road rating. 6 or 7, probably? It’s interesting because it improves on...

This guy is a lot less focused on “um, actually”ing than the people who make this kind of content tend to be. He talks not only about how weapons really work, but also engages in more speculation about how you might approximate some of the less realistic applications seen in fantasy media. He’s...

There are a lot of folks who have reverse-engineered the math in the new monster manual, and it seems like the benchmarks really haven’t changed much from 2014 to 2024. Which makes sense, given the explicit goal of “backwards compatibility” meaning that all previous adventure material should be...

Not much, honestly. They got a magic equivalent of Barbarian Rage they can activate a limited number of times per day and gives them +1 to their spell save DC and advantage on spell attack rolls. At 7th level, you can also use two metamagic options per turn while it’s active, and at 20th you can...

Well, I think the reality of it is pretty comprehensible to anyone who is or has been religious, if they can suspend disbelief enough to imagine feeling as they do in their own faith about a different religion. I think what’s harder to grasp for modern folks is the grounded practicality of...

Moorcock I am a bit more familiar with, and not a fan. That’s the thing with D&D’s inspirations, I’m not super motivated to look into them because I do know a bit about the general sort of sword and sorcery genre and what I know of it I don’t really like. The vibes are kinda cool because they...

How appealing either is will depend on your familiarity with and attachment to the things being referenced. I know what most of the referents in the latter description are, whereas apart from Aragorn, Galahad, and Dracula, I’m only vaguely aware of the other referents in the former description...