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The whole "power to cloud men's minds" business was a creation of the radio program. The original pulp Shadow had no superpowers unless you count being able to hypnotize people with his fire-opal ring, but he was easily on Batman's level of strength and stealthiness, and deadly accurate with...

It's a shame the idea of exceptional fantasy PCs automatically brings cries of "if you want superheroes, play a superhero game!", yes.

And even superheroes fail as well. Doesn't mean they're not exceptional. Is Spider-Man less super because he failed to save Gwen Stacy and has been repeatedly beaten bloody by villains? I have no interest in running a game for peasants who barely know which end of the sword to hold and who...

I've never understood this distinction. Sword and sorcery characters are, by and large, exceptional people. Conan, Elric, Imaro, Kane, Jirel, Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, Morgaine -- none of them are just ordinary sellswords. It's exactly because I like sword and sorcery that I like my fantasy...

The '90s Buck Rogers XXVc game was mostly set in the inner solar system.

Or humans devolving into giant salamanders after going above a certain faster-than-light speed.

ASL is much more derived from French Sign Language than BSL, thanks to Laurent Clerc's influence in American deaf education in the 19th century. And of course it's not just a deaf thing. Many Native tribes have their own forms of sign language.

If you think they'd be comfortable with the PBTA style, and with contributing to the worldbuilding, how about Fellowship? Or Fabula Ultima, if you like the JRPG style. If you prefer something more trad, there's 13th Age or Godbound.

Likewise, if I run anything D&D-like, it'll probably be 13th Age, or maybe Beyond the Wall or PF2e. I have had zero contact with 5E over the last decade and I hope to continue.

Don't forget "well, that stuff will be in the tactical combat module."

Yeah, when 13th Age was being developed, a lot of people claimed it would be the "Pathfinder of 4E," mostly because of Rob Heinsoo's involvement. Although it does have a lot of 4E in its DNA, it's definitely its own thing. The power level is partly because of compressing the game into 10...

Yeah, 13th Age's fighter and bard have what are referred to as "flexible attacks," where the abilities you can use are determined by whether your attack roll came up odd or even. It's worth noting that this approach was generally hated, and the 13A fighter was frequently called a letdown even...

I guarantee if he did, it would be flooded within hours by people who wanted to insist that 4E was bad and wrong and the worst thing to ever happen to D&D.

Just passed 55 and I'm still thrilled there are so many games out there to try. I have some nostalgic fondness for the games I used to play back in the day but I have no desire to ever go back to them when the newer stuff suits me so much better. Getting older doesn't mean you have to get...

Try "In the Barn," the story he did for Harlan Ellison's Dangerous Visions, set in a world where women are not sentient and raised and treated like cattle. Or his early novels Chthon and Phthor, where there's a species of alien women whose brains are wired to treat hatred and abuse as affection...

I remember playing this, but it was published as House of Hades in the U.S., since I guess the publishers thought "Hell" was a little too stiff to put in the kids' section of bookstores.

Having someone in the party trained in Medicine and either the Battle Medicine or Ward Medic feats (or both) is really useful for recovering HP between fights, because it's always best to go into a fight healthy as possible.

Also getting Sebastien de Castell's name wrong. (His Spellslinger and Greatcoats series are well worth reading, by the way.)

The infamous D&D woodburning kit came out in 1983, a year before Williams was hired at TSR and two years before she bought out the Blumes and took over.

I don't recall, but it was likely Villains and Vigilantes or Gamma World.