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  1. Andvari

    D&D General Favorite Underrated D&D Monsters for Low-Level Encounters

    Kobolds because they are small and can thus live in tunnels too small for medium-sized PCs to stand up, because you can come up with all sorts of devious traps. You can mix them up with dangerous trained animals or larger monsters. Hobgoblins because of their militaristic nature. So they can...
  2. Andvari

    Why I Hate Skills

    I suspect you are primed for role-playing if you are a critter, and primed for roll-playing if you solely know D&D from BG3.
  3. Andvari

    Why I Hate Skills

    I know Pathfinder 2E has that, but it's still only one of those workarounds that are open to scenarios where it doesn't make sense. For example, first one player wants to attempt, and the other player doesn't offer to aid, or isn't able to, as he is in another room. Then after this first attempt...
  4. Andvari

    Why I Hate Skills

    We're also compounding the issue with the "piling on" of rolls, which I'm not sure is necessarily an issue with skills, although perhaps they make it more obvious. I think it's a fair ruling to say that if the high Int guy trained in the skill can't do it, then others can't, but you still run...
  5. Andvari

    D&D 3.x Favored Class

    It never came up back when I played, but I would have enforced it.
  6. Andvari

    Why I Hate Skills

    If you don't want your door to be picked or broken down, you can put in an alternative type of "lock." Like having slots shaped so only certain items held by someone elsewhere in the dungeon, or a lever in a separate location operating it. I think a good example of OSR design is that of an...
  7. Andvari

    Why I Hate Skills

    I think when OSR-style games or gamers refer to "player skill" they mean the player's abilities to think of solutions to obstacles in the game world, rather than physical skills, like real-life ability to pick a lock. That's why attacks are resolved by dice rolling but tactical decisions are...
  8. Andvari

    D&D General D&D Red Box: Who Is The Warrior?

    Plus, if the guy in the Basic set is supposed to be level 1-3, he is clearly dead by the time you pick up the Expert set, considering he's charging towards what appears to be a huge red dragon.
  9. Andvari

    Shadowdark Unless I am wrong

    Shadowdark avoids the mistake of describing the ability score as your character's ability to reason and process information, but maybe it should have been given another name. Just the fact that it is called "Intelligence" is already putting a lot of meaning into the mind of the reader. So I...
  10. Andvari

    Fighting the Gray Tide (Miniature Painting)

  11. Andvari

    Is "finding the right players" a solvable problem, or just luck?

    There is of course some element of luck, but as a GM you can do a lot to improve your group. If you pick up some random 4-5 people, most of them will probably be suitable, but you might have that 1 guy who's always late and that 1 girl who somehow causes tense social situations regularly. So you...
  12. Andvari

    Dragonlance Does draconian "Death Throws" ability affect other draconians?

    If you've ever played SSI's Krynn series of CRPGs (using AD&D rules), you know how delicious chain-exploding Draconians can be.
  13. Andvari

    Homebrew Designing My First...Thing

    The Basic DM has run an adventure or two, probably official adventures, or even mediocre, homebrewed adventures that everyone still enjoyed, and for the most part, survived. The Expert DM has gone beyond "read the module", and has not only run adventures, but is already taken the players into...
  14. Andvari

    Homebrew Designing My First...Thing

    Just make sure to abandon it when you are about 50% done so you can start making your own role-playing system instead. Then you will have hit peak GMing.
  15. Andvari

    Why do so many campaigns never finish? Genuinely curious what others think

    In my experience. 1. Players moving (as in geographically IRL). 2. GM burnout. I often hear scheduling being a major concern, but for whatever reason, that hasn't been much of an issue for me. Number 2 usually impacts when a new campaign is going to start rather than whether the current one...
  16. Andvari

    Homebrew Designing My First...Thing

    Sounds pretty standard GM fare to me.
  17. Andvari

    What is "railroading" to you (as a player)?

    When I think of railroading I tend to think of two ways. Soft: Soft railroading is when you're playing a narratively-focused adventure where the characters are intended to follow along a certain story structure, with various degrees of freedom in how they reach these stages. So it requires...
  18. Andvari

    D&D 5E (2024) Effects that kill you at 0 hp

    I think this is a case where you can just tell the players he has this ability.
  19. Andvari

    RPG-style Board Games

    You definitely need to hack it for the best experience if the players have any tactical skill. Also the choke points at the doors can get repetitive.
  20. Andvari

    RPG-style Board Games

    The Deep Rock Galactic board game is a lot of fun and fairly easy to learn. I made some rules for generating random missions for more variety than the brief guide for it included in the mission book.
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