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I think it's safe to say that 5E is most long-time gamer's second or third favorite version of D&D. It's not even in my top five favorite editions of D&D. B/X, BECMI, 4E, AD&D, and AD&D 2E. 2E is only there because of the mountain of amazing settings and splat books. I've never actually played...

Yes, it was an awesome scene. The only way it could have been improved is if he did pull the trigger. We're reading that scene differently. To me every word from his was a warning. His manner from the start was "Go away, kid, you bother me." He warned her off and so did the Dean several times...

Not, really. No. There was plenty of back-and-forth during the scene. Several exchanges occurred between them. Marisha had plenty of warnings. She chose to keep going. It wasn’t rocks fall, you die. It was two NPCs telling her to stop, including her friend. She didn’t listen. Exactly.

Yep. And with one scene, even without Brennan slaughtering a PC, he made it crystal clear that this is, in fact, not one of those basic escapist power fantasy games. Simple, brilliant, and effective.

Well, at least you're proving my point. What one party of a conversations wants or hopes to communicate is irrelevant when the other has agency and autonomy. You get to decide how you react to any given situation and my thoughts on the matter are irrelevant despite being the other part of the...

I'm uncertain what you think I've done or what line you think I've crossed. But that's illustrative of the point of this interaction we're discussing in the game. A thinks B has crossed a line while B is unaware that there was a line or that they crossed it. So, should the behavior of A be...

Exactly. The world is treated as a real place, not a power fantasy theme park for the PCs. The NPCs act like real people, they don’t fawn over the PCs. This is one thing that’s making me more interested in this campaign, not less.

Yes, and? Brennan has stated multiple times that the PCs don’t have plot armor and that the world exists independently of the PCs’ level. The super-powerful NPC are super powerful, regardless of the PCs’ level. Here be dragons. And Marisha poked it. Nothing arbitrary about it.

Could be. Some were also friends and family. I'm also fairly thorough when bringing people into a game. I want them to know what to expect, so I have a several page document with my referee style, house rules, expectations, etc. Some might not have read it, sure. But I tuck a cookie or two in...

Ah. Then we fundamentally disagree about most of that.

Yes, that’s true. I’m still curious why you think it’s a bad thing to do or a bad tone to set in a live play.

All over the place. I’ve run 5E for the better part of the last decade in person, over VTTs, play-by-post, etc. Easily 200+ different players over that time. I’ve run several large West Marches style games, so that’s probably a low estimate. The vast majority only cared about maximum power, i.e...

Why? We’re still talking about a certain character death from C2 several years ago. It’s a great way to get people talking. It‘s no different than any other long-form TV show at this point. They‘ll have 100+ episodes at 4-5 hours each. They have plenty of time to get a new PC into the action.

I have. Met them in droves when running 5E. It‘s one of the many reasons I quit running it. The players pushed to rest as often as possible and refused to push through. Town invaded? Don‘t care. Prince sacrificed? Don‘t care. If they couldn‘t start every fight as close to full as possible they‘d...

Killing characters early to establish tone is a time-honored tradition in storytelling.

Yeah. I didn’t mean it is Eberron with different proper nouns. But it feels really inspired by Eberron. The last war, picking up the pieces, the houses, the feeling of another impending war, the pulp action, possibly noir intrigue, etc.

Damn. I know I can be…a lot…but damn, at least I’m not that bad. # I didn’t want to get out the big guns, but I need homes for these kittens. Free to a good home. Near Portland, OR. No. The photo is not altered. They are just that damned cute.

At a guess, it'll be three games a month so each table plays once a month.

AD&D came out in 1977-1979. Let's say 1979 for ease of use. That was 46 years ago. So in another 36 years we'll be able to check in with the 5E cohort to see if this holds water.