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I think this approach can only be cogent within a certain - campaign specific - context, where the milieu is tailored to reflect the classes and they are purposefully and mindfully grounded in the campaign world. And I don't think it can work - i.e. it is not logically tenable - with broad-remit...

Sure. But I think there's a huge difference between delineating an NPC to accurately accord with a specific vision - and one which is consistent with the way PCs are constructed - and requiring that the NPC partake of and be a function of an overarching imagined mechanical sub-reality which...

This makes it sound like "fighter" and "feat" are a real thing in-universe, as though they were "plumber" and "vocational qualification" - and I think that's a stretch for most people. Granted, prestige classes can blur the line between a suite of mechanical descriptions and an in-universe...

This, I'm in agreement with. And I think for the DM, 3.X is defined more by what you have to exclude in order to realize a vision, than by grasping at ways to make existing ideas fit.

Five hit points at first level means something entirely different from five hit points at 20th level. We accept the dissonance which hit points should inevitably evoke because we are all familiar with the way they work. The damage caused by a longsword is already hugely variable: 1d8 has no...

Believe it or not, I am actually familiar with the various arguments surrounding hit points. The thrust of my question - why is it acceptable to change the meaning of damage in one dimension (character hit points) but not in another (weapon damage) still stands. Besides preference, that is.

I think it would be more accurate to say that some of us prefer that the game make sense in certain dimensions, but are willing to overlook the fact that it doesn’t make sense in other dimensions. Why don’t monsters make death saves when they reach 0 hit points? What does a hit point even mean...

My personal aesthetic preference is for weapons to do predictable damage based on their type. And that’s exactly what it is - a personal aesthetic preference All arguments which appeal to the idea of an abstracted system having some kind of meaningful relationship with real world physics or...

(Deleted.) I realized I had already answered this 4 years ago.

I have no problem with AI art. My wife is a graphic artist and she has no problem with it - and she’s much better informed than I am. I defer to her.

Link here Slated for Christmas 2026. "It's the darkest thing I've ever written." Awesome.

In 1979, I think the opposite effect was intended. It was a hairier time. But I'm done talking about this now. Let's move on.

I'm assuming you're referring to Alien. It's unfortunate that that scene was eroticized; it's really supposed to be about the utter vulnerability of Ripley when all of the tech and gadgetry is removed. She only has her wits; both she and the xenomorph are naked - Sigourney Weaver actually...

Whether a word is viewed as appropriate or not is generally tied up with power dynamics and power structures - i.e. who's included in them, and who's not. Hegemonic groups can usually withstand much more linguistic discourtesy, because their hegemony is not threatened; marginalized or alienated...

Some further digging. Back on these boards in 2007, Gygax indicated that his inspiration for the lich was from a story by Appendix N pulp author Gardner Fox (link here). Gardner Fox wrote a series of stories called Kothar: Barbarian Swordsman; one of these stories The Sword of the Sorcerer...

Mostly, I'd agree. But the 1E Monster Manual lists liches as either MUs or Cleric/MUs. Blueprint for a Lich by Len Lakofka in Dragon #29 indicates they may be "clerics or magic users" (in that order), and suggests no preference in class. It doesn't mention phylacteries, but does mention that...

I don't think anyone here would fail to recognize that historical iterations of the game contain certain ...problematic.. elements when viewed through a modern lens; the question becomes one of degree, and in which dimensions: to what extent are we permissive or censorious of legacy traditions...

A general observation regarding Gygax's conception of what a phylactery was: Phylactery -- An arm wrapping with a container holding religious writings, thus a form of amulet or charm. —Glossary of Dungeon Master's Guide (First edition, 1979)

Amulet - well, yes. Literally a translation of φυλακτήριον into Latin. Speech scrolls - looks like some kind of post-2000 manga reference But reliquary? That’s a new one to me. If there’s an historical reference, consider me impressed. Obviously, the word has propagated through various rpg...

I can’t engage with this in all conscience without trampling all over the Board’s exclusion of religious discourse. Suffice it to say that my exegetical framework is not theological, and I don’t agree.