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I had forgotten that it was just five 1st level characters, whereas OD&D parties were often twice that size or even larger. When I played B/X and AD&D we mostly played TSR modules and never used henchmen or hirelings, so we wouldn’t have dreamed of starting an adventure with fewer than 6 PCs...

Oops. Reading comprehension fail. 😀 When I think about my 1980’s B/X and AD&D groups, I remember that we noticed the areas where the rules did not perfectly model real warfare, but after a bit of discussion we would go back to using those rules anyway because we did not really want to pull on...

Every table is different. When the 2E PHB came out in 1989 we eagerly adopted it with no hesitation. I was already chafing at what I saw as limitations in the 1E rules and the only disappointment I felt about 2E was that it did not go farther: ditch the weird AD&D ability score tables and use...

Retreater’s experience of Shadowdark reminds me of something I read on The Alexandrian blog. Justin Alexander ran an OD&D Caverns of Thracia campaign in order to test out how the game played RAW. The 3d6-down-the-line method produced such poor characters that after several TPKs the players no...

There are definitely people who don’t want magic spells on their alien planets or laser rifles in their fantasy kingdoms. Pathfinder’s Golarion is already a kitchen sink setting with a steampunk gunfighter town (Alkenstar) on the same continent as African jungles (Mwangi) and an Egyptian...

Paizo is certainly doing this with Starfinder. I do wonder how many people are actually playing that game though. For whatever reason science fiction RPGs have always been a niche within a niche.

It is certainly strange that Wizards had a themed starter set for Rick & Morty but not for the movie or BG3.

I was not really thrilled by most of the standard covers for the 5.0 books. There were lots of dull muted color palettes, too many figures cloaked in darkness, and sketchy brushwork that gave a “soft focus” effect that I usually dislike. I usually prefer bright saturated colors and crisp...

I remember DMs trying to mess with players this way back in the 80’s, and never in a consistent way that would let players learn and adapt. The game is called Dungeons & Dragons, not “Simon Says”.

I have been having this problem all day - Chrome and Firefox on Android.

It figures that I would forget about the 1E Monk, because the Monk, the Assassin, and the weird optional Bard were the three 1E PHB classes that I never played, so I never really learned their rules. No one else in my groups ever played them either, so they were basically absent from our games...

The Ranger was always fairly popular in my junior high school (late 1980’s) AD&D 1E groups, but more because of Aragorn from LOTR and general “rule of cool” than because of the actual class abilities. One of our house rules allowed Elves and Half-Elves to be Druid / Rangers or Druid / Ranger /...

Ancient cultures had lots of weird hybrid monsters mixing animal and human parts, and those of Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the Scythian nomads seem to have been particularly influential. Encounters with unfamiliar animals or prehistoric fossils turned into travelers’ tales and bestiary entries...

One final “staircase thought”: I also like how terse he is here. I like a good villain monologue as much as the next guy, and he could have gone with a long rambling rant about the insufferable impudence of anyone daring to offer him, Settra the Imperishable, a job... a job!!! Because how dare...

Also, over-the-top supervillains should take every opportunity to refer to themselves in the third person whenever possible. 😄

I always wondered how dragons managed to use their huge clawed hands to collect hoards of treasure made by small human hands, especially coins. I guess they all have Mage Hand or some other telekinetic power. See also: sphinxes

Back in 1986 or so a friend of mine had WFRP 1E, but I don’t think we ever actually played it. I glanced through it a bit and found it somewhat interesting as an alternative to D&D, but never liked the grimdark tone. I was only a casual fan of heavy metal music and never liked most horror, so...

Sutherland did a lot of classic D&D art, but I did not particularly like his dragons, especially when they were depicted head-on as they were here or on the cover of the 1977 Holmes Basic set. I got all of my AD&D books in the late 80’s and so they were all from the later “orange spine” series...

It has been years since I last saw my copy, so I am not surprised to discover that I remembered some of the details wrong. The horse riding prohibition probably had some basis in historical fact, but in typical fashion it was presented as a fiat rule with no explanation or advice for the DM on...

I always imagine RPG dragons as legendary, protean beings that might exhibit a wide variety of fangs, crests, horns, frills, claws, talons, wings, and tail tips, so I never pay much attention if one particular depiction or personal artist style does not appeal to me. I figure they are all...