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Unfortunately, whilst I'm sure there are people in this thread who are both more qualified that me to talk about ChatGPT, and know more than I do about Forgotten Realms lore, it apparently won't stop me from commenting here. The quote above I think shows a significant mis-perception about what...

I've enjoyed the current two episodes for the most part. I do kind of wish that the elves were a bit more fey; I quite like Galadriel's high-mindedness, and would have liked to see a bit more of that from the rest of the elven side of the story (Elrond gets a pass here as I feel like being...

I'm not sure that's the more general proposition. For me, that's become specific in a way that misses the focus of what I'm trying to get at in this discussion. To put the above back into the OP's original context, class A is 'fighter', enumerated ability B is (say) the 'Healing Word' spell...

So the short answer here is that I think finding out what characters are willing to risk in pursuit of their goals is interesting and fun, and this applies at all levels of "zoom" in play, from ticky-tacky 5ft of movement to breaking alliances, closing magical portals, etc. But maybe my answer...

Which rules are those? I couldn't find them in the books. I know, I'm being facetious. And I know what you mean. But I think it's worth remembering that for the most part the rules for D&D cover what players can achieve through the game mechanics, and the rules about what they cannot achieve...

Having had a chance to reflect on this, I agree costs are clearly way too high, to the point of being punitive. It's also far too fiddly. I'm happy with the two-round consequence and the DCs, but success should just be "target spends one HD for hit points" and failure should be "petitioner...

For this sort of stuff, where a character tries something they don't have the right mechanical build for (wrong class, missing feat, etc), my preference is to put at least part of the cost into the action economy rather than denying it outright. This isn't absolute - I'm not saying I'll let the...

I think I prefer 20 as the cap, as it keeps character creation somewhat more streamlined, but I wanted to pick up on this part here. For AD&D 1st edition ability score limits were, if you'll forgive the technical term, a complete dog's breakfast. Firstly, for maximums: dwarves, halflings and...

I think @Manbearcat's post above covered most of what geography might add even if de-coupled from a specific map, but your question about the kind of adventure prompted some thoughts about what else geography might add. I think for many people, different kinds of "geography" (fictional spaces...

They're cool? On a more serious note, a lot of what a roleplaying game consists of is a way to answer the question "what happens next?"; and using map creation as a process to answer that question has some qualities that I suspect many people appreciate. Notably, it allows some of those answers...

So I don't have anything to add to the intra-party conflict side of things, but I thought I'd comment on this: I've recently DMed a game after a hiatus, and my solution to this sort of situation was to let the players know that when they defeat someone through combat (ie, the remaining...

It sounds like your DM has a solution he likes with his multi-cleric idea, so this is just for discussion's sake. Anyway, did you destroy the vampire, or just defeat him? Because one way to get past the "0 hit point maximum" problem is to bury the PC so they come back as a vampire spawn - they...

Burning Wheel has a stab at this; essentially each weapon has a stat (VA or "Versus Armour") which rates its effectiveness against armour. Given that armour is quite effective in BW, you really want to bring a hammer or similar to a fight with a fully-armoured opponent.

Some random observations. You tagged this thread with '[2E]', but the text you've posted I'm pretty sure is specific to 1E, which may account for some of the discrepancies in the replies you've received. On the other hand, I don't have an early printing of the 2E Player's Handbook, so if your...

Did you get a chance to incorporate any of the Icon boons from the start of play? I'd be interested to hear how that went, as it seems there was a lot on that front. Did any of your players actively cash them in?

It's entirely reasonable to do it this way, and I've used it before. But it doesn't address what I've been referring to. The difference between decapitation as you've presented it (can't happen before 0 hp) and something like tripping, is that decapitation necessarily represents a result - that...

So, the thing that irks me isn't at that point - by the time the action has resolved, I've accepted the narrative and moved on. The problem is when I'm making the decision of what my character does, because there's nothing in the fiction currently that suggests it can't work. Not to get too...

Because they aren't just as dissociated as fighter dailies. There is something that a character can sense and interact within the fiction of the game. Spells are much closer to objects rather than skills in and of themselves, and a D&D wizard no more forgets how to cast a spell than an archer...

Here's my own perspective on this, hopefully it's useful to see where other people might be coming from. My own preference to avoid these sort of mechanics comes from the fact there's a sort of dissonance between my idea of my character's decision-making process or mental narrative, and my...

Instead of thinking of these options as "how much information should a DM tell the players", think of them as some of many options in your bag of tricks, each useful in a given place. Make the information available to neither player nor character I think you'll find this is a popular tool for...