NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9239520" data-attributes="member: 6790260">I will!Actually good, well-made encounter design rules out of the box. Truly useful advice and guidance, preferably in every book: not just "You can do X, or you can do Not-X, and it's up to you to decide!", legit actually breaking down how and why you would choose to do various things. (For example, instead of just fiat declaring that human/elf/dwarf/halfling exist in every universe and other races are rare weirdos, tell people how different slates of available races can explore a theme, set a tone, or highlight useful things.) Include productive rules for how to improvise actions that are both fair (meaning, reasonable success chance) and worthwhile (truly worth trying for, neither "pointless" nor "overpowered"). Effective game balance on a pervasive level, so DMs can stop worrying about whether they need to pull punches, or whether some players will dominate play through major power gaps, and instead go all-out with the confidence that the system has their back.In other words, rather than presupposing excellent DM skills and thus doing nothing to help, a system that presupposes that most would-be DMs are well-meaning but often ignorant or untrained, and thus in need of support and guidance. DMs that already have high skill may not need such rules, but they are an absolute godsend for new or would-be DMs.Designing your game only for the already-long-invested, already-highly-skilled is an excellent way to make your game flourish for a brief time and then die horribly thereafter as it struggles to grow. The DM shortage will only get worse with the attitude 5e has taken toward supporting new DMs.I haven't seen this myself, but I certainly believe it, based on how hard it is to find any games that aren't 5e or PF1e out there.Yep. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. One (of many) reasons why I never take it seriously when people argue that D&D must be doing something super duper ultra right and amazing because it's the market leader. It is, at least in part, market leader because most people never bother to even look at the competition. It's extremely hard to ever breach that barrier.</blockquote>

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