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In my previous post I presented two possible situations. 1. A 'library' of never before encountered, pre-planned encounters that a DM can throw against the players. 2. A choice of three different directions to go in, where any choice leads to the same encounter. Situation 1 is generally fine...

Yes. What if I wanted to scout the three choices or wait for signs of monsters? What if I used a spell or ability to detect a certain threat. These are all things I can do to gain information and make a decision about the best choice. If after doing these things, I end up encountering what...

It's not the altering of reality that would bother me. It would only bother me if doing so invalidates player choice. If you don't invalidate player choices or force meaningless choices on your players you can do whatever you think is fun. So those pre-planned encounters? If I never had any...

Like Iserith, secret doors in my games usually lead to sub-levels, short cuts, or unguarded treasure. They are never necessary to be able to progress through the adventure. But I run large megadungeons where there are many possible choices and directions to go. A secret door may never be...

Personally, I wouldn't fudge things like hit points or attack rolls. I run my games fair with dice in the open. In the example of the character nemesis that was crit down to 3 hit points... I would keep that as is. Maybe the nemesis survives to make its attack and crits the character and maybe...

This does not actually reward exploration. It's not really a reward to be handed treasure through no actual effort. Exploration is rewarded when players make a choice and make a deduction that there may be something of value in the fireplaces. If the players decide not to search additional...

CR is ok. I've played and run D&D games that were better than what happens in CR. But this is subjective. I will put my own games up against any streaming DM game... any day, any time. My game is unique to me and there is nothing CR or other streaming games can do to impact that. I work at...

I do this too. I also roll initiative this way every round. It really streamlines combat and makes things a lot more tense. Long rests not allowed in the dungeon. Long rests are 24 hours and require a successful survival check in the wilderness. Magic item charges use the Usage Die from The...

Yes my players map. I describe rooms as if they are mapping and I require them to navigate themselves through the dungeon. I do allow a shortcut where if they can accurately narrate their movement from the entrance to where they want to go, I 'speed-run' the party to that location. I don't...

There is tons of character growth in D&D. The mistake is thinking character growth can only be expressed by mechanics options. The myriad things your character will do in game over so many levels is where the real character growth lives. The things that happen in your game that brings real life...

OD&D: Hex crawl rules and overland adventures. B/X: XP for Gold and less XP for monsters. 1E: Separate Race/Class 2E: ??? - not sure - don't have a lot of experience with this edition. 3E: Ascending AC and Base Attack Bonus 4E: ??? - not sure - to be honest, there is very little from this...

I'm a classic B/X guy. 5E is a decent game, but yeah I'm in the healing is way overpowered camp. I think too much access to healing takes away from the 'campaign' / realism of the game. 5E is definitely more suited to high fantasy / high heroics (like low level Marvel comics superheroes)...

In my experience, if you don't use feats, no one will ever play a human. Half-Elves are very good. Combine them with a high skill class and they can be proficient in a ton of skills. 5E is built from the ground up to favor non-human / non-traditional classes.

Monayuris... my first AD&D character a human ranger who rolled like 99% for psionics. I ran him to 14th level. He established a lodge and formed a band of rangers outside of one of the major towns in our game and patrolled the woods nearby. Kind of like the Rangers of the North. This was...

My first AD&D character, I legit rolled a 99% for psionics. I never used them. Otherwise I've never seen another Psionic character in 1e days. In the 30+ years of playing since... I saw one Psion in 3rd edition and one battlemind in 4th.

I am mostly satisfied with the variant features. My primary feedback was with Spell Versatility. I suggested it should be associated with a downtime activity and a cost to reflect the time and study required to change out a spell. I also thought some of the additional spells for some classes...

Favorit house rule in my game: Over / Under Initiative rolled every round in place of cyclical initiative. It works like this: 1. Everyone rolls initiative, I roll one initiative for the monsters. 2. Everyone who rolls equal to or better than the mosnter, acts (in any order they like). 3...

In general it is better to die quickly and roll up a new character than sit and roll death saves. Terrible rule.

A corollary to this is as a player, you got be alright with what happens in the game. You got to trust the DM. There are jerk DMs but they aren’t the norm: When I run with save or die games:... I make it clear. I expect that the people playing with me understands that it is in effect. As a...

Yes. But a half way decent DM isn’t doing that. I mean the choices of the players have to lead to appropriate consequences. These consequences need to be explained clearly. If that is done successfully, anything goes. Maybe save or die requires a more skilled DM to implement. That is a good...