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I don't doubt it - he could make the phone book sound good. Look, I'm not denying that there is some good dialogue in Tolkien, just as there are some good lines in Star Wars. But Tolkien's default mode is to have someone declaiming rather than conversing. It works for him because Tolkien, but...

Except I love the first two Alien films - the second is my favourite movie. And there the bad choices make sense, and are called out. When Dallas breaks protocol, it both makes sense in the story (he's not a scientist, it's his friend), it is immediately called out by Ripley, which establishes a...

It's bad writing when it is done or the sake of plot and is inconsistent with what we know of the characters and with how we would expect people to behave. People behaving stupidly in Dumb and Dumber is not bad writing. Scientists failing to follow anything vaguely remembering basic scientific...

Ugh...that trailer has lowered my anticipation for the new campaign, significantly. I did not particularly enjoy BLM's last time DMing CR precisely because the story was dark and apocalyptic. Same with Age of Umbra. Remember when Critical Role used to be fun? A bunch of friends hanging out...

Great article - it is really striking to see the difference in how TSR (relying on Random House advances) and WotC have approached the game, and particularly how disciplined WotC have been with 5e, the game's most successful iteration. Sometimes less is more.

Eberron belongs too much to its author to ever feel like my world. I loved Greyhawk because it left so much room for you to make it your own. Now I love Exandria because, despite being arguably developed in more detail than any other D&D world (and yes; I am aware of all the Forgotten Realms...

He's a complete outlier, whose style was wildly out of synch with 20th century literary trends. In many ways, he could be considered a bad writer. He's often expository, his dialogue is often stilted and not how real people talk, he relied heavily on stereotypes, his class and gender assumptions...

For me it's popularity, measured in sales, streams, buzz, and so on. Whether or not I like it is irrelevant, as is critical consensus. All of the Billboard Hot 100 #1s have to be considered hits, even though their quality varies wildly. As previously mentioned, something can be a hit within its...

For me, starting with my own character was amazing, and I kept that character as my main all through my 1e years. But I was an obvious D&D mark. At school, I onboard new players all the time for the club, and they all generate their own characters. On the other hand, when it is new players who...

Today one of my players asked me, for future reference, if speak with dead could be used on a door that has a face, including a mouth, carved into it, on the grounds that a door is just dead wood, and speak with plants is already a thing. My thinking is "no," because I think the spell implies a...

The history of the rapier is a lot more interesting than I realized, and I'm not being sarcastic. But that aside, this thread also has me wondering what my bridge too far is, because it sure isn't rapiers. Psionics maybe, but that seems too broad.

I 100% treat natural 20s as critical successes and natural 1s as critical failures. Natural 1s are the best roll in the game!

I'm going to update the Cult of Chaos to a cult of the Chained Oblivion. Same-same, really.

I've used the Xanathar's rule, which is still current with the 2024 update. It works well enough - going without sleep*** is debilitating and eventually fatal. ***or a few hours of meditation for elves.

You should try the 2024 monk. It can do all that stuff but now also excels in your bland square room scenario! It basically has no weaknesses.

With all the ridiculousness in D&D, I am fascinated that rapiers are where OP draws the line. But I guess each of us has our bridge too far.

I hope the medication works out for you - balancing new meds is always tricky and usually takes time, as I'm sure you know. I don't envy the transition period. I voted for magic items, as I think they have the largest audience and your stuff is always really good.

Anything that leads to this much litigation is way too much rules lawyering for me, reinforcing my immediate inclination to just say "no." Arguing on forums is fine, but if there's one thing I hate, it's arguing about rules when we could be playing the game. The OP seems obviously against RAI...

The 2024 monk is very strong indeed; I think your tweak won't change much, though. The patient defence upgrade isn't until level 10, which most campaigns don't reach, and even then the PD upgrade is worth, at that level, 11 temp HP on average whereas your buff to the HP die adds 10 permanent HP...

Yeah, mine is going into Exandria, Eastern Dwendalian Empire I think. As far as I can tell, it is setting agnostic.