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Runequest had fixed initiative (3rd ed and earlier; not familiar with the more recent versions), and I've seen that in numerous computer RPGs as well. Essentially, your character always acts at a certain time in the round. If you have a strike rank (the Runequest term) 6, then you always act...

I've always been puzzled by the fact that the Romans, along with the Koreans, never really developed a decent set of monsters. Most urban societies did. The Romans even toned down the Greek monsters, such as the Gorgons. Anyway, to fix your problem, plenty of Iron Age cultures around the Roman...

I was thinking of the various Forgotten Realms speciality priests, but those came out after a few years of power-creep. I do remember several of the Greyhawk ones being rather weak.

Off the top of my head: Monks, Assassins and Half-Orcs dropped as character options. All are added back in various splat books Bards (originally a proto-prestige class) now a base class with very different abilities Thieves and Wizards get to specialise, so are actually useful at low level...

Never knew that (that Sigil should have a hard "g" that is) :confused: Reminds me of another common pronunciation error that annoys me: people who pronounce Genghis with two hard "g"s. The first g is soft - his Mongol name normally gets transliterated as "Chinggiz". Maybe a hard g sounds, well...

It's Guinevere, as in Arthur's queen. Gwenhwyfar is her Welsh name - Welsh "f" is pronounced "v". The one that always gets me is "geas". I know it's meant to rime with "geese", but I just can't take it seriously when it does. I settle for "gee-uhs".

Thals from Doctor Who spring to mind. They were the warrior caste on Skaro (the Daleks/Kaleds being the scientists), and their alignment on the show has varied all the way from antagonist to protagonist depending on the story. In north European folklore, there are the Huldra, who may be a bit...

Maybe they skip the use of fire altogether, and work out some other reaction, possibly based on pressure. What if they find that a particular oil mixed with a particular crushed shellfish, lowered down a few kilometers and brought back up has become some sort of high density polymer? Another...

I want to climb that. True, I'm twice the weight and twice the age I was when I was at my rock-climbing peak, but that - is inspiring.

Darths and Droids Both Star Wars trilogies reinterpreted as a role-playing campaign. Better than it sounds. Can't say more without spoiling things.

There is a theory, no longer widely supported, that the Cimmerians and the Cambrians & Cumbrians (i.e. Welsh) are related, based on their name. Howard probably just took that idea and ran with it. Rule of Cool, as tvtropes would put it. Also on Celto-Iranian links, I believe there was a King...

The historical Cimmerians were an Iranian tribe, so he'll have an Iranian accent, or possibly Armenian given where they ended up. Now I can't get the idea that he sounded like Freddie Mercury or Serj Tankian out of my head :confused:

Sleep. Not so much now it's nerfed, but back in the day when a 1st level mage had one spell, that was the one to take. Power Words Stun, Blind and Kill. Raise Dead. And finally another mention of Magic Mouth.

I've always considered the magic item market to be one of high overheads. You've got to have really secure premises, you've got to have spell casters with identify and remove curse on stand-by, and most of your stock sits idle on the off-chance that one of the few people in the area rich enough...

Here're two more: Runequest-style plant people. IMHO the most innovative version. Discworld-style eldritch abominations. I think I did a poll on this a few years back, but my thread necromancy skills are weak.

As a DM, I've pulled this off three times. However, in one of those cases I warned the players that something dramatic would be happening after a few sessions into the campaign, and in the other two a new system had come out (Spelljammer and Chronomancer respectively) that the players wanted to...

The Madagascan lemurs are named after the Roman lemures. It's amusing when typos become official. Huecuva to Heucuva for example (or was it the other way round? Don't have the books handy).

Yup, that's one of my influences ;) (Also Oriental Adventurers, Rolemaster and some other obscure RPGs) "Thought" sounds a little to psionic-y, especially since I have the more mental magics split out into another system.

I'm experimenying with a system where there are four circles of magic, each containing four elements. Two elements per circle overlap with another circle, and two elements are unique to a circle. Here's what I have so far: The circle of prime elements: -fire (overlaps with energy) -water -air...

We were 2nd level. We'd just found the Sword of Kas. In a goblin lair, no less. Yes, it was that sort of a game. In our defence, we were all young. Slight problem. It's an evil artifact, so we can't use it. Fortunately, in the very next encounter the treasure was... ...a Scabbard of Alignment...