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  1. billd91

    History Rhymes: Another Gygax Lawsuit

    It's sad that Mad Monkey would be relatively niche because, having run it, it's a lot of fun. I'd have voted for it over WG7. That said, WG7 still beat out the rest of the options, none of which are what I would describe as any more niche than a Greyhawk campaign product. It clearly had its fans.
  2. billd91

    Codenames: That wizarding school edition firestorm and resolution

    Just because you're not seeing a lot of action against Lego, doesn't mean that things aren't happening in the Lego-fan community. For example, Tips & Bricks, a prominent web-resource and reviewer of (nearly) all things Lego, pointedly refuses to review the Potterverse sets. And I'm sure that...
  3. billd91

    Codenames: That wizarding school edition firestorm and resolution

    I just try to remind myself that not everyone lives in the same media bubble I do. I certainly couldn't explain anything going on in the Czechia these days, literarily or in the media. So I try to extend grace, particularly when they're in countries outside of the US/UK media world.
  4. billd91

    Codenames: That wizarding school edition firestorm and resolution

    I discovered recently that Czech Games Edition (CGE) ignited a firestorm when they announced a new edition of their Harry Potter-licenced game as Codenames: Back to Hogwarts. The disapproval was fierce and furious given JK Rowling's persistent persecution of trans women (the latest being an...
  5. billd91

    I don't get the arguments for bioessentialism

    I'm not a fan (and never have been) of the idea of different maximums for species in D&D. For my money, halflings having to invest more to reach a Strength of 20 than a goliath does quite enough to satisfy my sense of species differences while allowing a halfling fighter or barbarian to reach...
  6. billd91

    IN REMEMBRANCE--2025

    "Houston, we've had a problem." Apollo 13 commander James Lovell has passed away. https://apnews.com/article/james-lovell-dies-obituary-apollo-13-astronaut-ed08c1efc0a74fbd9d47868ff9983a23
  7. billd91

    Check Out The Mutants & Masterminds 4E Playtest

    In one thread, you're talking about how increased profits means a company can pay its people better, meanwhile over here, you're excoriating a company for trying to make more money for the effort they're putting into stuff (and the 4e play test PDF has some pretty high production value). I mean...
  8. billd91

    What’s a song that makes you cry (not just from sadness, but from feeling too much)?

    Yeah, that Bogle's a tough one. "My Youngest Son Came Home Today" is fairly brutal.
  9. billd91

    I don't get the arguments for bioessentialism

    Except for the part that a lot of game design choices are all about the aesthetics of those choices. Game design isn't science or math - though those are also involved. Aesthetics, the art of game design, is always also a feature and it's a strong part of why and how games differ. If they were...
  10. billd91

    What’s a song that makes you cry (not just from sadness, but from feeling too much)?

    There are some songs that get me for fairly personal reasons or when I'm feeling particularly emotional about certain things - and this can be highly variable. A song that really moves me right now might not have done so 10 years ago. Or I might just have been a particular mood and vulnerable to...
  11. billd91

    I don't get the arguments for bioessentialism

    It's way more complicated than that, particularly since ERB introduced the white and supremacist Therns in 1913, years before the Nazis were an itch in their founders' metaphorical political pants. Moreover, while ERB detested fascism and Nazism, he was a fan of eugenics. That kind of makes the...
  12. billd91

    20-posts/page setting

    Did we just lose the 20-posts per page setting? I just noticed I'm suddenly getting 10 posts per page and I'm sure it wasn't that way before.
  13. billd91

    Today I learned +

    Maybe because there's a semantic difference between a profession and a role or job within a community. Profession generally connotes a more specialized calling - the kind of thing that might not strictly be based on community subsistence or basic necessities.
  14. billd91

    I don't get the arguments for bioessentialism

    uh-huh. So, if you belong to an ethnic group traditionally maligned by loaded terms like "savage" or "primitive", feeling kind of squeamish about the same terms being applied groups in a game is a YOU problem, eh? YOU are the source of your own feelings of exclusion? Convenient, being able to...
  15. billd91

    I don't get the arguments for bioessentialism

    Pretty much. Since ALL of these factors can influence someone's inherent stats/talents, none of them bears any particularly strong negativity for doing so. Our characters become a product of an intricate tapestry of influences.
  16. billd91

    TSR Why would anyone want to play 1e?

    Yeah, that issue was the one that always annoyed me the most. Whether it was a lost proficiency or known spell or literally any other thing that seemed to be about being knowledgeable or well-practiced, losing it didn't make any in-game sense. It's definitely loathe for me.
  17. billd91

    When you play in person, where do you play? (Poll)

    Our general method is to play at the home of the player with the youngest kids and who need the most supervision by their parents.
  18. billd91

    TSR Blast from the Past- How to Go Full Monty Haul in AD&D

    It's right there in the OP. It's a pretty obvious, special Thor Wannabe power.
  19. billd91

    D&D General Disparity in PC levels from same party

    We don't see a lot of disparity in levels in 5e these days since we level by milestone in our home games, but in cases where I have seen it (Adventurer's League) it hasn't been a particularly big deal. PCs at the lower end of the tier matched with higher end suffer only a little in the...
  20. billd91

    Brennan Lee Mulligan to GM Critical Role Campaign 4

    He's good at keeping the flow going, in part, because that's part of the method he's been using for most of the shows he's in. Dimension 20 games are all on a set schedule - x episodes then done. Same with the episode-limited specials he's done for CR. The regular CR campaigns haven't been under...
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