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LoL. Exactly. I think I'm the only one in the group willing to play a "sub-par" character. And the bar for what is considered "unplayable" varies widely in our group (who have been playing together on and off for 40 years). And yes, especially in 1e (when we really got our teeth into DnD)...

I was a patreon on the Dolmenwood book for a short while (didn't hang long enough to get the final set of pdf's), but I did back the kickstarter for the hardback books. While I appreciate the creativity and interesting worldbuilding that he did in Dolmenwood, I don't care for the whimsical...

In our recent campaign, where one of our players who had never Dm'd in 40 years wanted to DM B/X (after several years of playing in 5e), I rolled up a Fighter - S: 12, Int: 9, Wis: 9, Dex:10, Con: 10, Cha: 11. It was 3d6 x6, two columns, but I think he allowed us to assign. This was my...

I agree with this. I have moved to using traps 1) sparingly, and 2) in places where a player would naturally think "this area might be trapped". I don't use traps in dungeons, especially not ancient dungeons or ruins, because unless magical (and that's a whole 'nother can of worms) traps...

Ours sounds a lot like everyone else. We played a lot of 5e during the pandemic online: Discord for voice, Fantasy Grounds for maps/sheets/etc. We would schedule 7:30pm to start, every other week on Tuesday. We would start usually around 8 by the time all were there and settled, and play...

Not as a publicly traded company with shareholders…it’s all about the money. You can’t ever leave money on the table, it’s against the rules.

Totally depends on what and how magic is described. @EzekielRaiden talks about his conceptualization of it. Depending on campaign or theme, I go between magic being part of the natural world and something that can be tapped into with no problem or it is something dark and dangerous that has a...

This has been one of my bugbears with 5e, that Level 1 to 20 journey could potentially happen over the course of about 2 months of in-game time. Is that going to be enough time for that Adult Red Dragon to get that much more powerful than it has been for the last 100 years? I mean, I know its...

I like the idea overall (the fragments of power redistributing to other BBEGs). It could certainly also be part of the lore/legend of the creatures (assuming that there are things known or rumored about these big bads) that is either figured out by the PC's as they adventure, available from...

Folks are still taking that one portion of the noble background out of context of the entire background. It clearly states in the background that the player and DM need to discuss and agree on what that nobility means, I quote: “Work with your DM to come up with an appropriate title and...

Right, but that falls into the realm of bad DM'ing, which might or might not include player agency. I'll stick with the Noble Background, since that is the "rules" that are being discussed. Part of the rule says this: "Work with your DM to come up with an appropriate title and determine how...

Beyond the Wall and Other Advantures, in one of its either expansions or threat packs, has what it calls Blight zones. These are hexes in the game world where some event has happened, and the land is blighted, and anyone traveling in the areas must save or lose HP each day. It is also...

Roughly same here. Started Ad&d in around ‘82, major metropolitan area, closest game store was “Compleat Strategist” with no play area. We didn’t know of any gaming community, I started a club in high school (immortalized in the Yearbook). We still play some 40 years later with the same core...

Beyond the Wall and Other Adventures - spells are safe (cast 1 spell/level), cantrips can be cast whenever based on attribute roll - failure means you choose between a bad thing happening, or not being able to cast the rest of the day; rituals - castings that take an hour per level of the...

Right, I get that, but to what end? Is the point to still be able to NOVA at the BBEG? Or to be able to make it further into the adventure that day? What is the design goal of that mechanism? The classic we came up against was the Warlock. 2 Spells, maximum level, recharge both on SR. If...

If I’m reading these correctly, the friction is between a game featuring “resource management/depletion” compared to one featuring “NOVA”. And I think, from a design perspective, you have to choose one or the other. If you want every fight to be a boss fight, then you’re working on a NOVA...

You haven’t had the joy to play with the table I’ve been with for the last 40 years. There was nothing passive aggressive about it. We have a player who makes no bones about his “job” being to find every loophole/advantage/ruling/build/whatever to “win” DnD, and haranguing the DM and being...

That seems to be a terrible way to do surveys and compare data. What if you didn’t do the surveys of the PHB for whatever reason? Missed them? Too long? Whatever? Then this new UA survey comes out, and you’re comparing apples to your lime survey from two years ago. The same people may or...

We had an eldritch knight in our HoDQ/SKT campaign played by a player who prefers simple straightforward builds in general. He played a Drow Eldritch Knight specialized/feats in crossbow (augmented by Artificier infusions), where, after awhile, he rarely, rarely missed multiple shots with his...

Old School Essentials has the Incandescent Grottoes which includes “Adventurers who delve within may discover odd mosses and fungi, a ruined temple complex, and the lair of a crystal-eating dream dragon.” Among other things. I remember part of Winter’d Daughter with a bag of various fungi that...