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  1. Lord_Blacksteel

    D&D 5E (2014) How much range is enough?

    Wilderness travel and encounters, urban encounters, and flying characters or flying creatures all bring range into play in significant ways. Movement speeds of your party and those of hostile creatures are all factors here too. If a flying creature has a 150' breath weapon or a flying sorcerer...
  2. Lord_Blacksteel

    D&D 5E (2014) Xanathar's Guide #1 non-fiction bestseller this week

    I'm with you on this. If all people want is reassurance that the game is doing well then when WOTC says "Book X is selling really well for us" then that should be enough, right? But it's not, so people dig for numbers and come up with something like this 45,000 copies for Xanathar is a few...
  3. Lord_Blacksteel

    D&D 5E (2014) Is there any 5e love for skill challenges??

    Yes, there's definitely a place for them. Don't expect people who are unfamiliar with 4E to understand what you're doing the first time you use one but they are another useful tool in the toolbox. Also don't overlook the "Group Check" in the 5E skills chapter. I have used that quite a bit more...
  4. Lord_Blacksteel

    Here's A Look At The Cover Of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying 4th Edition!

    Well it's nice to see a full-on embrace of the retro! Looking forward to this.
  5. Lord_Blacksteel

    Xanathar's, Wizards, and FLGSes Charging For Playspace

    Let me dive into this with one perspective - I've been playing RPG's since 1979 when i was ten years old and I've never gotten away from the hobby. My longest break is measured in months, not years, so it's pretty much continuous for almost 40 years now. I've never played a single RPG session...
  6. Lord_Blacksteel

    D&D 5E (2014) Fifth Edition.....Why?

    So at least 1987 Now we're up to at least 1998 for SR 3E So now we're at least up to 2001 when your grandmother bought you an 18-year old version of D&D? Was she at a con when she did that? Your described timeline is kind of a puzzle but alright. You were playing AD&D after you received...
  7. Lord_Blacksteel

    D&D 5E (2014) They Broke Arcane Archer!!!

    To go with your football analogy, have you ever heard a team described as "lazy" or "lacking effort"? Is that "by literal definition" a shot at a person? Or is that a shot at the whole team? or in this case, a shot at the department responsible for this? Ah, it's the "you have to have done it...
  8. Lord_Blacksteel

    D&D 5E (2014) They Broke Arcane Archer!!!

    If anyone had tried to actually build and play an arcane archer from one of the almost-final drafts that contained this error it seems likely that they would have noticed the breakdown. It's not difficult to see the problem. If he feels like that's "lazy" on the part of WOTC then he has a basis...
  9. Lord_Blacksteel

    D&D 5E (2014) Where did the 6-8 encounter standard come from?

    No, 4E was ten encounters per level so it didn't come from there. That was intended to be a mix of combat encounters, skill challenges, and quest rewards so it was typically 5-8 combat encounters per level in practice. Combat could take a while, but from an "encounters" perspective you leveled...
  10. Lord_Blacksteel

    Paizo New Roundup With Extra Ultimate Wilderness

    I'm with you to a point. I think some of the discord is that the front page articles used to be mainly "news" or "reviews" from an original point of view. Now we have this type of article which is basically a re-telling of the linked blog entries on the Paizo blog. It's not a review, but it's...
  11. Lord_Blacksteel

    D&D 5E (2014) What D&D Beyond should have been.

    The main reason it is "better" at the moment is that many companies, from small business to corporate behemoth, are hypersensitive to social media feedback. If someone starts complaining they will typically bend over backwards to staunch it in some way before it becomes a trending thing. I...
  12. Lord_Blacksteel

    The State of D&D: Products, Psionics, Settings, & More

    Based on this discussion I'm not sure we will see a traditional "setting" book. I know that's what most of us are used to, but I think it's more likely we will see setting as an element of an adventure book (more like Strahd). They seem very reluctant to dive into those DM-only type books beyond...
  13. Lord_Blacksteel

    North Texas RPG Convention Refuses To Listen To Harassment Concerns

    Oh good lord - this is definitely a misleading title: "North Texas RPG Convention Refuses To Listen To Harassment Concerns" He did listen. He posted a response - by definition requiring some form of "listening". Some, presumably including the author of the article don't like that response...
  14. Lord_Blacksteel

    Loops in RPG Adventure and Game Design

    I loved Lew's work back in Dragon, and this is a nice "video game design 101" kind of nugget but this is a pointless, useless article on a tabletop gaming site. Here's one example why: How on earth does anyone assume that all of the players want to play the same thing? That they are looking...
  15. Lord_Blacksteel

    Look Back In Strangeness: The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Other Strangeness Game

    This may be the game where the Palladium system worked best. Fantasy was OK, and Heroes Unlimited was ... limited, but adding in guns and martial arts with a cut-down set of powers worked pretty well in this game at that time.
  16. Lord_Blacksteel

    The Original End Goal of Dungeons & Dragons

    Well in AD&D 1E you could build whatever you wanted whenever you had the gold to do it. There were some perks in that a a certain level your church would help you build a temple stronghold so it would be half cost, or the local lord would grant the fighter some land to build a keep, that kind of...
  17. Lord_Blacksteel

    Frank Mentzer's Worlds of Empyrea Kickstarter to be Rebooted!

    I can see being around that episode in particular might cause one to be more protective of it. Makes a lot of sense. I started with Holmes Basic and the Greyhawk Folio was the only campaign setting we had for years once it came out. I still have a pair of the poster maps up on my game room...
  18. Lord_Blacksteel

    Frank Mentzer's Worlds of Empyrea Kickstarter to be Rebooted!

    That's fine for a new game and setting (to a point) but this is supposed to have 40 years of actual play behind it. I'm assuming players didn't have to sign an NDA to play in the games years ago so where are the testimonials from long-time players? Where are some convention game summaries and...
  19. Lord_Blacksteel

    AD&D 2E Is 5e Basically Becoming Pathfinder 2e?

    We don't have a book every month. Were you here for 3E? For 4E in particular where it literally was a new hardcover book every month for quite a while? Try explaining up with that adjustment to the gaming budget. Do you play Pathfinder where it's literally 2+ books per month, though smaller ones...
  20. Lord_Blacksteel

    Frank Mentzer's Worlds of Empyrea Kickstarter to be Rebooted!

    This is exactly what some people are talking about. Please stop acting as if there is something unique about this project that makes it more difficult to describe in words! It's a setting, primarily for D&D, that has been in use for 40 years we are told - repeatedly! There should be a lengthy...
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