The Gaming Den

Changing the rules is WORK and obviously that's the hardest one. Take the easy method (ask using the magic word). I've been designing games for 35 years. Changing the rules, for me at least, is actually a lot easier than putting together a module every week. My newest group of players have never pl...

From about 1978 to 1982, we played OD&D and AD&D on the bus (using Casio digital watches as random number generators). And we used a system much like the one you describe, with abstracted regions. In our case, they almost always broke down like this: A) Behind the lines (on the PC side) B) T...

Although, honestly, module writers tend to forget how many options there are at high level. In AD&D and 3E I always enjoyed low and mid-level games the most (roughly 3-7). I'm happy to nerf many of the high-level spells and just turn high-level casters into "mid-level casters, with more sp...

Assuming I'm playing 3.0 or 3.5 or Pathfinder, what relatively simple measures do you recommend to nerf mid-to-high-level casters? I think there are two main problems I'm trying to address (but you're welcome to rephrase the problem if you wish): 1) Linear Fighters, Squared Wizards. 2) Spells that s...

That would make too much sense. As is, they have spent 3 years not making an MMO based on their mechanics Aha! In other words, it's going exactly according to plan. All the errata and 4.5 are just tweaks to the system. If Google Mail can be in Beta for 5+ years, so can the next iteration of DDO...

I may not be the first person to have this epiphany. I've worked in both the RPG industry and the MMO industry, so you'd think I would have figured this out 3 years ago. 4E isn't really a tabletop game. Many of us already knew that. It's an MMO. Again, that's been said before. But it's actually a BE...

Wow! Just ... wow. This is an incredibly well put together and well thought out product! Nicely done! One comment is that your "Lifting" scale is a little wonky. "Max Lift" doubles from STR 2 to STR 3, but "Carry Home" doesn't. "Max Lift" doubles from STR 8 to...

One would question why rope trick was in the game if people resting wherever and whenever they wanted was not wanted. The fact that Rope Trick survived through 3.5 means either: 1) Tweet et. al. explicitly wanted to legislate the 5-minute workday OR 2) They are really, really, really, really dumb.

The idea that some builds should be totally ineffective in certain fights is a BAD one. Disagree. It's only a BAD idea if your system is so complicated that it takes two 4-hour sessions to play out an average encounter. If you can squeeze 8 encounters into 4 hours, then the wizard isn't going to ge...

Koumei wrote:My girlfriend wishes to know whether it would work against a Gazebo though - do they count as scenery/terrain/"stuff" or creatures?

Gazebos are most definitely creatures. And damn scary ones at that!

Alansmithee wrote:Before I always enjoyed the commentary about RPGs here (and remembered reading when Frank & K made the tomes which I thought were quite well-done).

"Tomes"?

Link?

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- How the hell could Frank have missed the extremely punitive GSL system? Sorry for the ignorance, but what does GSL stand for? And WBL? - Okay, we had a couple of bad *writers* but on the whole we're the tops! And that's the problem right there. They hired *writers* instead of *designers*. Noonan ...