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Did somebody say it wasn't okay to say that?

Everyone just needs to read Paracelsus, and they will understand the difference. 🤓

To add to what I posted above, there's Sam's description of the event: He heard Frodo's voice, but it seemed to come from a great distance, or from under the earth, crying out strange words. This can be read as a description of Frodo's voice coming across from the wraith-world, but it also...

I think he was remembering the song Gildor's company had been singing when he met them, which had driven away the Black Riders. Eta: Reading the passage again, particularly "he heard himself crying aloud", it seems like an instance of divine providence working through him, as if the words have...

I don't want to debate the semantics of the term gnome. What I consider its misappropriation, to refer to household spirits, bothers me, but that ship sailed last century. Such usage is now quite popular, garden gnomes and the English title of the 1976 book Gnomes being prime examples. The...

I like to play generic D&D with the campaign starting at the mouth of a dungeon.

Gnome was coined by Paracelsus in the 16th century. It refers to the Bergmännlein or "mountain manikin", a class of beings believed to lurk in the mines in early modern Germany. It was in the 20th century that gnome lost its strict association with earth and became largely synonymous with...

The description of Santa Claus as "a right jolly old elf" is misguided and similar to the name Gandalf being applied to the maia Olórin; he is apparently long-lived, magical, and associates with elves, therefore people think he's an elf, but he's not. In both cases, the beard is a dead giveaway...

I recently discovered this. It's my current favorite.

Cora Weiss, longtime peace activist, died on Monday at the age of 91.

Gnomes have beards. Santa's elves do not. In 5.2E, High Elf, choose size Small.

I haven't read REH, so it's difficult for me to answer. I mean, would Conan ever just let himself be executed? (I've heard Crom wouldn't care, but if he's never tested?) On the other hand, according to this Wikipedia article, S&S has been criticized for over use of Deus ex machina.

No, the gods intervene! :)

Finished reading The Story of the Glittering Plain by William Morris, continuing my tour of his fantasy works. I can see why JRR Tolkien preferred Morris's previous two books. This one was much lighter in tone and less naturalistic but a bit more fantastical. It was also shorter, and the edition...

I think you mean Dunvegan Castle, the seat of the MacLeod of MacLeod. I visited there in the Summer of 1987. At that season and latitude, the sun is up almost all day, just dipping below the horizon around midnight. Great for taking walks through the countryside, but watch out for the herds of...

For me, immersion, as it relates to RPGing, is being what I would call "in character" in a method-acty sort of way. This doesn't mean outwardly acting in character or even speaking in first person as my character would, which I may or may not choose to do at any particular time, mostly unrelated...

Different games are different, but, with that being said, I'm going to address the question with reference to the RPG with which I'm most familiar, D&D. To me, there's a clear demarcation around the player's sphere of authority which includes what's commonly called roleplaying. I.e. it's the...

I forgot to mention, the only time I draw a map for the players during the game is if combat starts and we're going to put some miniatures on the battle mat, in which case I draw an outline of the room or the surrounding terrain where the battle's taking place .

During travel (either through a dungeon or in the wilderness) in my 5.0E games, I describe the environment the party is moving through, and it's entirely up to the players whether they choose to draw maps or take notes in some other way, which are ways players can engage with the fiction. Some...