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Well the downside of it being a group activity is this is a pizza where everyone at the table has to come to a consensus on toppings, and sadly I'm stuck learning and playing a system I didn't want or ask for at some tables, while still needing to remember the nearly the same but different one...

Yep, 5e was absolutely due for some sort of revised rules compendium from the moment Tasha's hit. I mean suddenly if I wanted my character to have all the core class features they were "entitled" to I was hauling a minimum two books to sessions as a player. And the PHB was full of little things...

2014 was somehow unusable because your character might have to make an ability check, but 2024 where the target always gets a saving throw is somehow more "usable"? I mean I guess that makes sense on the "I sometimes feel bad as a DM just auto-killing one of a low level PCs few spells for the...

I mean some people absolutely hated Counterspell, so I guess a nerfed to near pointlessness version seems like an improvement to them. The main lesson I got from the 2024 experience was realizing that the majority of things WotC and their boosters seem to have considered bugs in 2014 5e were...

In a vacuum I might give it a 7 or an 8. I love Fifth Edition Classic, and New 5e is just a version of it which set out to be a little more needlessly complicated, a little less simulationist, a little less license to make it one's own, and a fair amount more homogeneous, all things I dislike...

I think rolling the hit die and subtracting it from an enemy saving throw that just succeeded would be the most fun, and about the only thing that would regularly be worth pursuing the path of blood magic over (other than just to be edgy). It might need to be coupled with proportional hit point...

NPC stat blocks are definitely a place where New 5e doubled down on tendencies I disliked in Fifth Edition Classic. It's not exactly a big thing, but if I'm redesigning or using 3rd party content for practically every NPC I'm a step closer to just playing a different game. Really I'm just...

Well free is a very good price. I have the old edition. I've never actually played it, but I've found it a good resource for game design ideas.

The one time I set out to create a homebase option, a run down former "adventurer's guild" in a city that the party could clear the giant spiders out of and adopt through several possible avenues, they took no interest in it and instead set up in a mysterious abandoned wizard's tower, which had...

I'll start campaigns intended to be short at whatever level is appropriate to the sort of threats the characters are facing. If it's going to be a "grand campaign" I usually want to start at level 1. Though even then if players had character concepts that required a little multiclassing to...

I swore a pact to serve a magic sword. No, not this magic sword I'm holding, a better, cooler magic sword that teaches me magic spells it can't cast itself. It picked me because I'm so charismatic, while also being a misunderstood loner. Or at least it will when I reach 3rd level.

They are separate classes because, even if we consider their core themes not that different for argument's sake, they all lend themselves to a large number of subclasses based on their core thematic concept, which is important in the 5e class structure. Wizards get themed around schools or...

I suspect the predictable magic of of a lot of rpg fantasy world's might counterintuitively (since some of it is "divine") make people less religious. Many years ago I came to the realization that it's really kind of odd that many religions don't revolve around worshiping the sun given that it's...

Alright, well my northstar for what is Arthurian is the works of Chrétien de Troyes. The codification of this originally Celtic mythology into English national legend came by way of a mostly French language story cycle, the Matter of Britain, because the actual middle ages tend to work like...

Mad Max is my pick whenever this comes up. I'm not even exactly that big of a fan, it's just that it's the most iconic post-apocalyptic setting which most others are cribbing from. The movies also play out more like ttrpg games than a lot of franchises, with lots of quest-givers, resource...

Is the default for them to be on or off?

Something like that would be my solution as well. I totally appreciate that it's not particularly realistic, but the realistic reasons you ride a horse in a vaguely medieval setting (an easier journey, being able to have the horse carry some of your gear, marking you as being of higher status)...

Given that Red Sonja was only in theaters for one night it's probably not much of a Renaissance. I have an unlimited movie pass and planned to see it but it was just gone immediately. It did however lead to the self-realization, given that I was disappointed at missing a movie that I am almost...

While the IGN post does identify it as a reboot, star Daniel Bernhardt is about to turn 60 and the plot description looks very different than the original, so this might be some sort of soft continuity sequel. Sadly the days of sequels having clear differentiation in titles are long past, but at...

There is in fact a new one coming out next year. A rough cut was evidently shown at GenCon, and a slightly different one was (briefly) sent out to those of us who were Kickstarter backers a few weeks ago, and if you liked the second one you'll probably like this upcoming one as well (from as...