Search results

I don't mind their getting powerful enough to hold their own but I don't like it when they get so powerful they simply don't and can't fit into their own setting and background any more.

For me, learning new rule systems is pure drudgery hell and to be avoided if-whenever possible; even more so if said new system is as complex as, say, 3.x D&D or PF1. I'd far rather tweak-to-purpose the rule system I'm already using. As far as I know I haven't continued on to undead status...

Send him my way - I love players like that! :)

Then I must be on about my 25th campaign in my current game, then, using that definition. Once the players have each built up a stable of characters over time, they might put different parties into the field for each mission based on what that mission needs and-or what various characters are...

Difference between players and characters here. Character turnover, particularly at low levels, is a simple fact of life: they die. Frequently. Should also note that I'm by no means married to the one player-one PC concept. They're allowed (and at low levels, encouraged) to play two at once...

I misread this at first and thought you were saying you'd run twenty 30+ year campaigns, making me wonder just how old are you? :)

I've also seen proto-games where a few sessions in everyone involved (maybe except the GM) realizes that the GM just hasn't got a shred of competence, and bails out. Ditto for when the GM quickly realizes GMing just isn't their gig, and proactively shuts 'er down.

Disagree. Just keep on keeping on, running for whoever shows up. Eventually a semi-core group will coalesce, in the case of students even if it's just those players who stay in town for the summer (or, better yet, who live in town full-time). Player turnover is a thing, and not always bad. I...

An open-ended campaign where things never get fully resolved can still come to an end when all involved simply conclude it's run its course, either because what seems like a logical break/end point has been reached or because it just runs out of gas. The trick is to set things up such that when...

There's two types of failed/unfinished campaigns IME. The first type (failed) is that which never really gets off the ground in the first place: three or four sessions in, if not fewer, it's clear this thing has no future be it due to apathy, player-GM misfit, scheduling, arguments, or...

Why? If I'm playing a Thief and someone else brings in a mechanically-near-identical Thief to mine, why would (or should) I consider that the least bit rude? Hell, if anything I'd consider it a boon, in that now there's two of us to share the risks I'd otherwise have been taking on alone...

So? Not every move changes the game state. Never mind there's many a situation when a character finds itself with nothing useful it can do on a turn (e.g. an archer with no viable targets, or a second-liner in a tight passage who can't reach the battle ahead) and either chooses or is forced to...

"Nothing happens" is always an acceptable (if maybe unwanted) outcome of any attempted action IMO. Skipping your turn means you don't even get to roll to hit - you're paralyzed, or frozen in ice, or dead. Rolling to hit, plus whatever else you might be doing (reaction, bonus action, etc.) is...

In D&D, however, that hidden "sniper" could be dropping a fireball on the targets; and those can hurt. Some of us try to push back against this trend... On this, I agree. But there's a very large middle ground between "a 200-yard killshot and a clean escape" and "the ambusher might not even...

Is there a way to achieve the same result by bending the rules to suit the fiction rather than bending the fiction (as narrated) to suit the rules?

IME adventures have almost always been about achieving a specific end, even if that end is merely to strip a site of anything worth more than a few pence. Sometimes, sure. Other times not so much e.g. when the Orcs hold and guard the only approach to the BBEG's lair. That, and I'm more than...

Even if your neck is tingling and your spidey senses are on full alert, how can you effectively dodge something you don't see coming?

Sure, if there's loads of opponents I'll batch them together somewhat, like you say. The batches still re-roll each round, however. But it's a thing on the player side as well: one of my players loves summoning monsters, sometmes repeatedly, into any significant fight. Once they join the fray...

The post I was replying to when I first brought this up had as its main point somethng to the effect that trivialized combats aren't fun and so the game has moved to make it much harder to trivialize them, part of said movement being the softening of surprise benefits. To me, this sounded like...

To me, "cinematic" means what it says: the combat you see in a movie, whether it's Errol Flynn striking dashing poses during swordfights or a Marvel hero (any of 'em!) holding the "hero's landing" pose for a second or two or whatever. And why does it work in conema but not in the game, you ask...