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I don't think that JRRT's work suggests that "the world sucks, people suck, etc". His work is optimistic, and that optimism is theological. Because it is theological, it is sceptical about the power of merely human agency; but that is not the only agency at work in the world, as JRRT sees it...

Well, if bows make the Goblins tougher, then shouldn't that increase their CR? I mean, isn't CR meant to be a (rough but not worthless) measure of toughness?

I've often made this point about Planescape. But D&D doesn't have to be played with this sort of nihilistic cosmology.

In classic D&D, clerics as well as MUs can undertake spell research, and thereby create spells that only they know (unless they choose to share them). So there is precedent, all the way back to 1974, for cleric spells that are not able to be memorised/prepared by all clerics just by dint of...

I could say the same thing about playing touch rugby with my friends. It was nearly 30 years ago now, so my memory is pretty foggy. I have no idea of what the scores were, or who was scoring, but I do remember having fun.

Someone who thinks there's something at stake in insisting that RPGs are not games, but rather activities, must think the semantics matter. Otherwise why would they care? I'm engaging with that person. I've played backyard cricket, and kick-to-kick, with no ultimate win-state. But there are...

Like backyard cricket, kick-to-kick football, friendly hands of cards, etc, etc. These are all games.

Agreed! Of course RPGs are games. They are structured activities that are played for amusement. The participants have rules-governed positions, and those positions underpin their participation in the activity in rules-governed ways. If it looks like a game, and quacks like a game, and calls...

I'm not sure I really follow the ostensible contrast between a function, a mode of play, a format or a medium. Especially because at one point you say that "RPG" does not describe a format, but on the other hand you say that - as a specific product category - it does describe a format...

Only Fea-bella emptied hers - because she'd refilled them from the rivulet flowing out from the pool with the corpse in it. But the others hadn't emptied their waterskins, and those were the ones that got tainted. Think of it as a bit like a skill challenge, but with checks on both sides...

Gygax's PHB (1978) has this on p 7: Swords & sorcery best describes what this game is all about, for those are the two key fantasy ingredients. ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS is a fantasy game of role playing which relies upon the imagination of participants, for it is certainly make-believe, yet...

Here's an example of how I managed this sort of thing in my most recent Torchbearer session:

If there is going to be a more systematic approach to consequences for resting - to reduce the "fuzziness" that @Campbell described - then that will be linked directly to "what's on hand", by use of clocks and other aspects of prep. Apocalypse World, with its rules for fronts and the way clocks...

One of the original winning tournament teams approached it pretty aggressively! I mean, they used good wargame-y tactics, but they didn't shy away from combat: as the victory report in The Dragon 19 says, The WV group’s philosophy has always been that of slash and hack with a large dose of...

Sure. I prefer to use methods other than GM decides to handle this sort of thing. I started a (long) thread about this earlier this year: GM fiat - an illustration I was just making the basic point that INT 8, at least to me, doesn't seem to entail is incapable of reasoning. The closest I've...

The odds of rolling an 8 on 3d6 are 21 in 216 (ie about 10%). The odds of rolling an 8 or less are 56 in 216 (ie just a touch over 25%). So we can tentatively infer that a D&D character with INT of 8 is in the cleverer half of the least clever quarter of the population. Even before we get into...

The Torchbearer 2e version of Lightning Bolt can only be cast during a "warfare" conflict, that is, a skirmish or battle involving units on each side: The magician channels the terror, hatred and ecstasy of armies in battle into a bolt of white fire from the heavens — hammering down on their...

To add to this: while the PCs, typically, do not want to be in combat, I assume that people playing a game which has an intricate combat system enjoy that system. And so the reason for having combats as part of the game is that pleasure. Part of the pleasure consists, as you say, in...

Sure, I mentioned this upthread. But the same techniques that can be used in 4e to maintain pressure on the PCs, so that the players can't just rest at will, seem like they should be usable in 5e. It's basically about brining the action to the PCs, rather than hoping they will follow bread...

Your last para moves from "can"/possibility to "must"/necessity - which are not the same thing. But anyway, in D&D there is always a degree of relaxation of pressure, at least in combat: namely, when it's not your turn. And there are other ways in which RPGs typically dial back the pressure for...