ProfessorCirno posted:

I want magic to feel magical and the first step to doing that is to make the mundane seem physically and logically possible.

quote:

I suppose the reason the wizard/fighter balance breaks down is because the DM is too easy on the party. You have the harry the players, put them in dangerous situations, throw big monsters at them non-stop, so that casters do run out of spells. Players just assume they'll get a good night's sleep every night, and have a peaceful hour in the morning over biscuits and coffee to prepare their magic. Bah! What is this, Continental Breakfast & Dragons? Put them in a goblin filled dungeon where every moment is filled with peril and spells are precious commodities to escape otherwise deadly situations, and monsters don't take breaks at night just so your wizard can get his shut eye. I don't even get eight hours of sleep a night and I'm just some guy, not a legendary hero being pursued by the forces of darkness.

KaiiLurker posted:

To me it is the opposite, now I feel like never playing a single human again, I don't feel like I can relate to them anymore. To me is as if every human became a freak, like an ability score version of the uncanny valley.

quote:

Quick question for everyone else...

Are you playing up, playing down, or not concerned at all with:
Spoiler:

Anevia and her wife's relationship? I love it and I'm trying to make sure I play it right. I'm making Anevia...not uncomfortable...but not forthwith about the fact. I'm kind of hoping for a nice reveal moment for my PC's, one of which is already invited to dinner at Anevia's house after this is all over.

Arivia posted:

quote:

The question is: Is Paizo pushing a pro-LGBT agenda on it's customers with the inclusion of a lesbian coule (one of whom was born a male).

I'm voting "yay". First of all because the point is to take a side, no sitting on the fence. Second, there is no real point (from what I read) to the one character being transgendered. What's the point? Her entire backstory makes no sense and doesn't contribute to the module. I don't care if the backstory is that she is transgender or if she is from the moon; whats the point of a backstory if it has no impact on the story or the individual character?

quote:

I am also disturbed.

I'll be running 5e for a few months regardless, but these particular abilities have hit a nerve.

I'm afraid my group is a one issue voter type of gang... and unfortunately this is it (anything resembling healing surge!).

Hopefully it'll shape up in context of the full game.

I was actually pinning my hopes on the promised flexibility; I'd be super impressed if these abilities were optional.

The Hitcher posted:

A fortnight of previews of the forthcoming edition of the One True Game has culminated in the release of a sample character sheet and a picture of some goblins. Almost immediately, several role-playing messageboards were “critically hit” by dozens of protests.

While ordinary folk went about their business today, the “heroes” of the Forgotten Boards leapt into action. Like all groups of people who have interests that are almost-but-not-quite identical, they were quickly at each other’s throats.

Several posters quickly pointed out aspects of the rules that were “unrealistic” or “utterly broken”. Others disagreed, stating that “those are the bits that are actually good” and suggested that perhaps “the bits you guys like are actually what is broken”.

While a few posters did try to preach patience and calm, they were quickly dispatched by their more combat-savvy brethren. We spoke to some of the posters to find out what was upsetting them about the new rules. User Tyler Gnoll had this to say:

“Well, extrapolating from this tiny subsection of the final rules, it’s safe to say that there are going to be some totally broken and over-powered character builds. It’s crystal clear that the entire edition has been lazily slapped together by people with gelatinous cubes for brains. I’m going to have to house-rule basically every single thing in the game, so what am I actually paying them for? I almost wish there was some way for me to not pre-order the books.”

While fifth edition has been built from the ground up to incorporate elements of every previous edition, and to be highly customisable to suit personal taste, this isn’t enough for some fans of the previous editions:

“The game is basically just Fourth Edition with a different number on it,” said user Manuel P. Lane. “I can tell because there’s a rule in there that I don’t like.”

User Metro Gnome was even more scathing:

“I don’t see why I should bother even looking at this rubbish. There are all these rules that are somewhat different to First Edition, which is clearly the greatest of all editions. If I can’t play a game that is identical to 1E in every respect out of the box, then what’s the point?”

When asked why he didn’t just keep playing 1E, he replied: “I will, of course. But it’s the principle of the thing.”

For others, the previews meant the reopening of festering wounds like the debate over what the completely abstract systems of Hit Points and Armor Class represent in the real world (they don’t represent festering wounds, ironically).

“I’ve worn heavy armour in real life,” said user pXX, “and my Dexterity definitely affected my Armor Class. I forgot to write the exact numbers down, though.”

“Hit points represent meat,” said user Claude N. Board, “When you reduce someone’s HP, you’re cutting arms and legs and steaks and sausages off of them. The only way to heal that jazz is by magic, in my experience. Of course, losing pieces of yourself never reduces your combat effectiveness, but that’s okay because it’s all abstract anyway, right?”

While D&D is ostensibly a “role-playing” game based in the collective imaginations of its players, other points of contention to arise have included the new edition’s focus on story and roleplaying elements that don’t involve any math at all(!), and the game’s “rulings over rules” philosophy:

“There needs to be a good, solid rule for absolutely anything and everything that a player could possibly imagine wanting to do,” said user Raul Sloyer. “I don’t care if that requires a Bookshelf of Infinite Holding. It makes me feel really uncomfortable to have to think of things that might not already have been thought of and written down, and then really vulnerable to have to talk to my Dungeon Master about them and have her judge whether or not they might be possible.”

Some were incensed less by the rules, and more by the fact that the rulebooks might contain superfluous information:

“I just can’t comprehend how they could waste all that space on rules that I won’t personally ever use! I was in the playtest and I gave them my phone number, but they never even called to check whether or not I care about electrum pieces!” said a clearly anxious Trudy Six.

While somewhat less controversial than the rules, the previewed art didn’t escape the gaze attack of learned forumite Knot Evil:

“Those goblins look totally wrong. Have they ever even met a goblin? Our … I mean, their noses aren’t anywhere near that big!”

It’s all looking pretty grim for the messageboard faithful. Tyler Gnoll went so far as to declare that he might even bugger off and never complain on a D&D board again. Amid muffled cheering from his fellows, he eventually changed his mind:

“The way I see it, I could cancel my pre-order and stay away from these boards. But then it’d always be at the back of my mind that all of this complaining would be going on here without me. And they probably won’t even be complaining about the right things. I think it’ll better for everyone if I take one of those newfangled Second Wind actions and stick around.”

Jack Daniel;6317744 posted:

You know, the more that I think about humans getting +1 to all ability scores, the more I think I might just ditch racial traits as a concept altogether and let backgrounds handle that conceptual space for the players. (I think the Dragon Age ttRPG did something similar.)

My "basic D&D" races will probably wind up looking something like this:
Roll 3d6, in order (good old 2e style "Ironman" method of attribute generation). If you want to play a human, you don't have any special requirements. Pick a background and a class and go.
A dwarf requires CON 11+ (all dwarves are known to endure hardship and, paraphrasing Tolkien here, "make light of heavy burdens").
A halfling requires DEX 11+ ("hobbits are incredibly light on their feet").
An elf requires both DEX 11+ and WIS 11+ (to cover both the running/jumping/climbing trees/shooting arrows Legolas thing and the "what do your elf-eyes see" thing), and because of the extra requirement, the elf actually has a unique racial trait: elves are psychically sensitive to magic, so when they enter an area that's filled with magic or evil, they'll feel it (kind of a limited, DM-arbitrary detect evil / detect magic built into the character). This is a blessing and a curse, since powerful evil will make most elves nauseous (disadvantage on checks while in the area). (And now that I think about it, what if a high concentration of magic in an area makes an elf intoxicated​?)

No darkvision, no low-light vision, no sensing secret doors, no sleep immunity, no speaka wit de badgers and moles, no fiddly little bonuses on anything. Mainly because those abilities are all either stupid or a pain in my rear end when I DM a dungeon. I expect that when I implement this rule, I will see many human PCs at my table, a good number of dwarf and halfling PCs, and a respectably smallish number of elf PCs. Perfection itself.

Another house rule I can tell I'm going to need to implement: multiply the XP needed to level tenfold, and award 1 XP per 1 SP of treasure recovered in addition to XP for monsters as normal.

Jack Daniel;6317779 posted:

No, you may not.

May I suggest your suggesting them on a Savage Worlds or FATE forum?

....

Since my GMing style is "megadungeon", what game besides D&D is built around that premise?

I'm just saying, after a lot of years playing OD&D, the whole "hah, I don't need a torch, I've got 60-foot infravision" shtick gets a little wearying after a while. Doesn't mean I need to have a gaming midlife crisis and go play some indie BS. Not when I can just get rid of infravision.

Now, I can't just go and do that in a B/X game, because it's one of only, like, three tiny features making the dwarf class different from the fighter class. But in 5e, where backgrounds can take over that design space typically filled by racial traits and offer something to distinguish between characters of the same class? Looks like it's gonna be pretty sweet.

EDIT: Hey, I just realized why you came off as insulting, despite your insistence to the contrary. I said that I'd probably do something modular at my 5e table, and you told me go pound sand and play some other RPG. I wonder why that might annoy somebody...

quote:

I suspect you've lost tell odd the conversation, but we're talking about how a charm actively rewards rape. It's one thing to recognize this and go "oh, that's totally not what we meant; here's a quick fix on the firm of a single additional word." You just made the hammer harmless while keeping its function. Is another to call people who noticed the perverse incentive psychopaths and give no indication that you'll change it. "Man, the child beating glitch is still in! This in no way reflects on my skills as a designer!"

Holden, developer of Exalted posted:

This is one of the weirdest, creepiest posts I have ever read, and I've been hanging out on Exalted fora for over 10 years now. Jesus.

Holden, developer of Exalted posted:

We mostly avoid clauses of that sort because we don't like to imply that our customers are insane sociopaths who would need that kind of thing made explicit.

Holden, developer of Exalted posted:

I dunno, these threads serve a helpful purpose in letting me know who not to get onto elevators with at conventions.

Holden, developer of Exalted posted:

Why did they become a bad idea now, and not ten years and two editions ago when this effect first made its debut, to no fanfare or objections of any kind whatsoever?

(In much stronger form, I might note-- back then there was absolutely no way to veto it at all.)

quote:

Holden, developer of Exalted posted:

Do I honestly, actually need to print "Please don't play a rapist outside of ERP boards that are soliciting for that sort of thing, it is creepy and it will freak your fellow players out?" Is this something most adults need to be told?

If you're going to include rules that mechanically encourage rape, then maybe?

quote:

The key difference between Pathfinder and 3.5 in regards to this trope is that the classes of Pathfinder have a better combat balance overall, so the Fighter doesn't have to worry about being outshone by the Druid's animal companion. In combat, a straight-up Pathfinder Fighter is a terror. The unofficial tiers in 3.5 and Pathfinder don't rank combat power but the ability to get things done. Once combat has ended and the diplomacy, problem solving, magical item creation, exploring, and so forth have begun, the Fighter might as well go grab a soda while the magic-using classes have plenty to do.

quote:

LFQW is a terrible, terrible meme.

Maybe I'm dumb and just don't get it. Let me take a stab at it.

The idea is that: as a wizard levels, not only can he prep more spells per day, but the caster level is going up too. And that's a huge deal for some reason.

Even if this was "quadratic"... it's only up to a point then it caps and becomes linear. The spells you can prep per level caps out at 4 in most editions, and damage spells like Fireball and Magic Missile all have damage caps...

Fireball for example, starts out as a 5d6 attack and works it's way up to a 10d6 attack. What if it started out as a 10d6 attack? Then wizards aren't "quadratic" anymore right? Problem solved?

Okay, lets say this is a real thing, and wizards do become exponentially more powerful with each level...then we would see that! Is a whole party of wizards a balanced encounter for a single wizard one level higher than them? I don't think so... do you?

Quadratic means "squared", right? 2 becomes 4, 3 becomes 9, 4 becomes 16...

That means that the gap between wizards of similar level increases as they level higher. So if there's just a little gap between a level 1 and and level 2 wizard there would be a huge gulf between a level 18 and a level 19 wizard... Not really seeing that either.

Frankly, this quadratic business seems like a bunch of malarkey.

quote:

Personally I've never had a problem with wizards becoming powerful at higher levels. I mean, they're frickin' wizards! The idea that wizards hide behind the fighters at low levels and tell the fighters to stand back and let them handle the big monster at higher levels is part of the genre. It's how it's supposed to be and I never understood why anyone complained about it, much less WotC actually responding to those complaints by changing the game. Seriously, just think of wizards in fantasy. Junior wizards generally are lucky if they can get off a single effective spell. Old wizards, on the other hand, have everyone quaking in their boots. "Don't mess with him, he's a wizard!" This is a significant and pervasive trope in fantasy fiction. Go and read The Dying Earth and tell me that those wizards aren't "quadratic" and they only have a handful of spells! Tell me the last time Conan said, "What a wizard? No problem, let me get my sword." Anyone who complains about this idea is clearly unfamiliar with the very source material that spawned D&D. The "quadratic" wizard isn't a design flaw, it's a feature. If you want to be quadratic too, then play a wizard, but remember not everyone can be the wizard, you'll have to take turns.

Darran posted:

So why should anyone take part in a Kickstarter with you again?
If the product can be bought as soon as it is ready for the backers all people have to do is wait.

publisher's blurb posted:

Book of Dirty Tricks (OGL)
This fun little tome is a GM utility for use during regular play when either too many good things happen to the players due to luck or just whenever the GM feels they need a little push to remind them that success is fleeting.

Dirty tricks are intended to create great players. That is and should be the only reason a GM springs such things on them. It also has the effect of creating a great game, where even mundane tasks cannot be taken for granted, and boredom is rare.

Endgeist review posted:

This book for the mean DM is 82 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 2 pages of SRD, 1 page back cover, leaving us with 74 pages of content, so let's take a look!

So...Bill Webb has somewhat of a reputation for not only being FGG's mastermind, but also for being a capable and deadly DM - one I didn't yet have the honor to play with, but from what I've heard - wow. And this book, well, it contains some of his nastiest tricks - which makes for an interesting read, so let's see if even jaded DMs like your truly can draw some neat tricks out of this one!

The pdf kicks off with an introduction -and something that makes the book rather interesting in sensibility - Bill's game is a blend of old-school, Sword & Wizardry and 3.X/PFRPG sprinkled in and hence, throughout the book, Skeeter Green has boxes, where he explains changes in terminology in the system, provides spell-conversions into a given system and generally elaborates peculiarities, making this book MUCH more useful than it would be otherwise. All right, got that?

One glorious house-rule herein is rather interesting -XP for GOLD SPENT. No, seriously - think about it: Clerics building temples and sniffing good incense, paladins giving alms, rogues and fighter gambling and whoring -it makes for a great way to handle e.g. XP gained via downtime etc.- even better if you want to have leveling actually take some time and entail some...things that happen. A great roleplaying catalyst! Alternate weapon damage, attributes and bonuses, travel etc. are also provided, though these will probably primarily be a godsend for DMs who want to defuse the rules-heaviness of PFRPG's crunch, for they represent essentially concise, but still a bit quick and dirty simplifications. Now the "got lost" charts and rolls on the other hand are truly awesome and simple for just about every system they're used in -especially thanks to proper survival DCs etc. also provided.

Simpler rules for food and drink, foraging etc. are also in here - more interesting and yet another godsend-level table would be the concise 50-entry-three column table to generate unorthodox door opening mechanisms - so simple and yet so flavorful - awesome! This also extends to actual specific trigger-mechanisms for traps.

We all have been there - the moment where players just are incredibly LUCKY. I once had it happen that a PC could ONLY survive by a) winning initiative (enemy rolls 1, he a 20) - he did that. Thereafter, he had to crit the foe and confirm - two twenties required, both rolled. THEN he still had to roll max damage with a d10 and 5d6 AND then, in order to not be destroyed by his godlike adversary, he would have to roll a 10 on a d10 (indicating fatal head wound) and then a natural 100 on a d% in order to manage an instant-beheading according to the crit rules I used back then. Every other outcome would have seen him SLAUGHTERED. Well, do the math - I did not expect this character to survive. He did. Players are lucky...and this one suddenly had the regalia of literally one of the most powerful warrior-lords EVER to walk the lands, plus his fortune as by custom of trial by combat.

Where I'm getting at with this anecdote is - sometimes players are lucky, deservedly so - but the consequences might prove to become issues for the balance of the campaign. Hence, the next chapter is all about handling players with too much treasure via quite an array of options - several of them rather nasty, but concise and best of all: They make sense -both in a historical context of fantasy and in-game - just think about all those times in the stories and comics Conan got a fortune and was subsequently deprived of it (when he didn't squander it to convert gold to XP, that is!) - yeah, that level of loss. Now here's a huge issue I have as a reviewer - I *could* go into detail regarding all of the tricks, as I usually do - but that would somehow defeat the purpose of this book.

As soon as the tricks as made obvious, players are more likely to consider them as such and not as just a concise development of the campaign - by exposing them, I'd hurt their effectiveness. So I'll refrain from that - just one thing: Whether it's an AP kind of on the wrong side of a despotic city's law, a certain mythic incursion into an abyssal landscape or a certain kingdom-building experience - there's a fitting trick for just about every context here.

The next chapter is called "Situational Advantage" - and is glorious - generally, it is a DM's primer for some cool environmental hazards/modifications/tactics, with neat mechanics to supplement them - and you gotta love the Pepé-Le-Pew giant skunk-entry. Now there are also some other glorious terrain books out there, but this chapter still makes a great supplement for some rather nasty hazards...

Next up would be a chapter that my players would HATE - because I've used similar tricks: Magical keys that do nothing, Unobtanium and similar nasty tricks and time wasters are exceedingly efficient at making players not analyze EVERYTHING - but there's another benefit: A DM can use these tricks as blank spaces to later revisit and improvise contexts that weren't there before, retroactively fit in storylines and the like - and no, not going into all the details of this chapter. Once again - less effective if players know what they're up against.

The next two chapters also are smart - Wolves-in-sheep's clothing and vice versa - with these, you can drive home the fear of the unknown, read advice on unkillable (no, seriously! You CAN'T kill these! Yes. Pointy sticks and arcane fire aren't always the solution!) monsters or traumatize your players to be afraid of mold. No seriously - my players start gibbering and running whenever something mold-related comes up. Demons? Pfff. Bring out the unmoving fungus! With the tips herein, you can make YOUR players afraid of whatever you like! (And if you require further assistance - drop me a line!)

Now the trick-chapter is also interesting -from stacking certain hazards/obstacles to puzzle-style combat to tesseracts and portals - a lot of goodies here.

Finally, we have a great chapter called "Greed is bad" - from pointing towards the timeless "Don't drink two potions at once"-table from 1E (seriously - hunt that one down!) to some other...interesting tricks to make players stop succumbing to Karzoug's favorite sin, this is a fitting conclusion to this nice booklet.

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn't notice any significant glitches. Layout adheres to a one-column b/w-standard reminiscent of small booklets like digests. The print-edition, which is btw. of top-notch quality, does also adhere to this size.The pdf provides ample, cool and iconic old-school b/w-artworks. The pdf also comes fully bookmarked for your convenience.

Wow, this was an uncommon ride for me - mainly because reading this book was somewhat a blast from the past, with many tricks implicit in the old-school of adventure design properly and concisely spelled out. While the house-rules herein may not be to everyone's liking, DMs and groups looking for simplification got one awesome resource here. Furthermore, some of the tricks are glorious, while others elicited a "D'unh" from me - the latter though, as I realized, mostly due to me coming from kind of (though not wholly - Bill Webb's old-school credibility vastly outclasses mine!) this school of DMing. I.e. my game is lethal, PCs die and the world is not conveniently CR-stacked for PCs to slaughter. I started thinking, and relatively soon realized that most new-school modules simply don't use tricks like these - and worse, were limited to the module, whereas most of the tricks herein actually help keeping a campaign going, not a simple module.

And as every DM who ran something that was not a plot-driven AP can attest, it is campaigns, with freedom, strange choices and especially sandboxes that can provide the problems this booklet combats. As such, and due to the ridiculously low price, I can wholeheartedly recommend this useful book - even if you're a better Dm than me and know every trick in this book already, it still makes for a cool blast-from-the-past-style reading and should inspire some rules-changes/refreshing of the mentality at the heart of FGG's success. Congrats to Bill Webb and developers Skeeter Green and Matthew J. Finch - well worth 5 stars + seal of approval.

Endzeitgeist out.

quote:

Forgotten Realms is to roleplaying what Twilight is to vampire stories.

You can't swing a dead cat in the Realms without hitting some magic pool or ancient city or hidden forest or highly regimented nation of anarchist pirates or something else ridiculous.

quote:

I agree with Nute and Ingmar. 4th ed didn't feel like the FR because it was originally defined as a bunch of places that are surrounded by unknown wilderness specifically made so you could set whatever you wanted in there if you were making a campaign. FR on the other hand has the entire world mapped out completely, (with incredibly nonsensical geography I might add,) along with every possible major NPC (who are mostly a bunch of Mary Sues based on authors' game characters). It was very clearly based on copying Tolkien at first and then piling everything and the kitchen sink on top of that, and then filled to overflowing with their own awesome (not actually very awesome IMO, I'm sorry) characters. It's decent as a source of "Hey, here's every possible idea we could come up with!" but not as something that you would try to do anything with.

Off topic, the more I look at the official map of Faerun, the greater the Nute-like offense I take at its very being.

Geology does not work that way. You can't just plop mountains anywhere, assholes. It looks like some god was walking their giant incontinent dog back and forth over the map for a week without ever cleaning up after it. The same goes for deserts, swamps, and jungles. The rivers almost look ok at first, since a lot of them start in the mountains like they should, but then there's lakes sitting around in deserts with no inflow as the sources of rivers and rivers that look like they run uphill, along with a few that start and stop without ever emptying into a body of water. Also it's kind of silly that there's a giant inland sea that has no actual connection to the ocean. The North American Great Lakes are supposed to cover an area I think the size of the UK and France combined, and actually count as an inland sea, and they still carve a path out to the ocean to drain. Everything about Faerun defies geology 101 in horribly basic ways. I guess since they have wizards they can be stupid as all hell if they want, but it's still stupid as all hell.

FYI mountains are mostly formed by tectonic plates colliding and the edge of the one that winds up on top being lifted and crumpling up. Which is why they form goddamn mountain ranges and aren't scattered around randomly. The other way they get formed is by magma coming up through a weak point in the earth's crust to form a volcano, which can happen in the middle of plates but again usually happens at the borders of plates that are spreading apart. Thus the Pacific ring of fire and the Hawaiian Islands. This is like two weeks of the very first geology course you can get, it's not hard.

Reene posted:

or highly regimented nation of anarchist pirates or something else ridiculous.

quote:

OK, I'm sorry. I know this topic has been done to death. But that's kind of the point. People still go on about GNS and it's time someone came out and said it.

Let's face it, GNS is dead.

The corpse stinks, but that's hardly surprising:- GNS always stank.

Why did GNS die?

1. People realised that there are things which drive games forward and make them exciting which do not consist of strategising/gamism, focusing on themes/premises or merely "simulating" fictional things/places/events

... for instance, building up an atmosphere of mystery, intrigue and suspense among the players is not any of those things ("Suspensism") ...

2. People realised that several things of those broad different kinds can all drive the game forward and make it fun at the same time, without necessarily getting in each other's way and often actually helping each other along in the process

3. People also realised that individual players' preferences are fluid and may change during a single session so a good game should be flexible enough to cope with all of them to some degree.

3. "Narrativism" is a horribly loaded word which suggests that thematic/premise-driven play has a monopoly over narrative/story - the proper word should be "Thematicism"

4. "Simulationism" is a horribly loaded word which is suggestive of, frankly, a boring, pedantic simulation - the proper word should be "Explorativism"

5. Anyway just think about it. An accurate simulation/exploration of a fictional setting does not in itself give a game direction or give the players something to do. No matter how good your simulation/exploration, you will want to find something exciting or meaningful or interesting for the players to do. If you don't come up with themes, premises or plot/intrigue/mystery/suspense, you may well find yourself resorting to hack and slash, or other forms of gamism. Whatever style of game you're playing, you need some level of believability/credibility for the game-setting and system - some people set the bar higher than others, and I set it very high - but it's never in and of itself enough to give the game direction and momentum.

If you want a typology of what makes a game fun, I would say you need at least these things:-

Gamism
Suspensism
Thematicism
Other

The acronym might not be the right way round, but to make it pronouncable it's ended up as GOST.

As for GNS, I started this thread saying it should rest in peace, but frankly I'd rather see it go to Hell!!!

quote:

If GNS is dead it is because the majority of people who talk about it have, like you, never bothered to actually learn what it is.

quote:

On the contrary, I have read Ron Edwards' original essay and wasted hours of my life reading c**p about GNS online and thinking about and analysing it.

Now whilst you might be able to construe my original post in this thread as misrepresenting GNS in some way - perhaps you draw some arty-farty pretentious distinction between creative agendas and "what drives a game forward or makes it exciting", or between GNS as a description of gaming agendas during play and other theories as descriptive of particular RPGs - I can assure you that my understanding of that particular steaming pile of bunkum is quite solid. So please don't presume in condescending, arrogant and patronising fashion that my basic understanding of the topic is flawed.

Of course, if GNS were less full of c**p, it might be easier to distil and explain its content for the uninitiated, and to paraphrase it without drawing criticism for supposed inaccuracies. But the reasoning I set out in my original post is quite sufficient.

quote:

We’ve been working on this monster for almost 2 years, and we can’t wait to get it in your hands. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be sharing more info leading up to August.

quote:

It uses a lot of Pathfinder, but you can play it standalone. The boxed set includes an appendix of the cornerstone feats and spells from the Pathfinder RPG. If you have access to the Pathfinder Bestiary, that'll be a handy tool to add more monsters to your game, though. Luckily, like all of the Pathfinder RPG rules, it's free and legal online at http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/index.html

quote:

Okay, so your worst case scenario is the Cleric casting their spells more productively?

Oh. The horror.

quote:

I expect there'll be pages of advice in the DMG about switching around default healing assumptions, and I'm sure both Second Wind and magic healing will be addressed. At least, I can't imagine they wouldn't be.

quote:

My participation the last few days has brought unto me a revelation! I like DoaM so much that if it is a core, unremovable, too firmly lodged in to easily house rule out concept *, I will buy 5e!

Yes, me. They guy who has never bought a WotC D&D product ever. Who stopped being a D&D consumer after the Moldvay BECMI set, I will buy 5e.


And if it it's not in there, and can't be snuck in because "the books are at the printers", then if you put it in 6e I'll come back to the fold then.

Pinky swear!

* At least as firmly embedded as Alignments.