The Gaming Den

My characters have a tendency to capture murder-hobos in their sleep, then take them to the authorities and collect whatever bounty they have on their heads. I just don't like murder-hobos. I don't like the trail of bodies they leave behind them. I don't like that playing style. I don't like people ...

I think once you equate "accomplishing interesting things" with "power fantasy" you have officially taken the argument into la-la-land. It's a simple enough tactic; once he's re-defined everything that goes on in RPG's as "power fantasy", then by default, "power f...

I think once you equate "accomplishing interesting things" with "power fantasy" you have officially taken the argument into la-la-land. It's a simple enough tactic; once he's re-defined everything that goes on in RPG's as "power fantasy", then by default, "power f...

...as if anybody does anything for exactly (and only) one single reason!

Q: Why haven't I put shadzar on ignore already? A: Because he's freaking hilarious. Ahem... I've played a number of D&D campaigns in which the GM decided we'd level up when we reached a particular milestone in the game, regardless of XP. It was just as much fun, if not more so, than tracking XP ...

I just recently started playing Pathfinder, and in my initial perusal of the classes, I did not notice any of the spellcasters had the "shit all over melee types" ability. At what level can they select this, and which book is it in?

Wow, this is awkward. Alright, here's the deal. I freely admit that I have frequently made reference to my pro-credits here, without ever explaining them. I can't specifically point out the professional game design work I do here, because... A) The Den REALLY hates many of the products with my name...

I've only got one RPG credit to date: a little-known Star Hero setting published by Blackwyrm Games in 2011 called Terracide . I'm currently working very hard with the folks at Pinnacle on an all new expanded version of it for Savage Worlds, to be released early next year. :hiro: <--- see how hard I...

One group I used to GM for came up with a really weird countermeasure against a beholder. I forgot one of them had a Mirror of Life Trapping; they whipped it out during a battle with a beholder and I thought "Hmmm... what's it gonna do, avert it's gaze? With every single eye?" I had to adm...

Grizzly bears with owl heads.

I haven't played Pathfinder, but this is pretty much spot on with respect to 4E.

Which I enjoy playing anyway.

What needs to be kept in mind when making a game/campaign where the players are cops? It doesn't matter whether you're angel cops in Finality, Men in Black in alien-infested NYC, or even Shadowrunners with a badge in Seattle. In any mystery-based game, you can't assume a party of Sherlock, and inst...

Basically, orcs are people, too. Orcs in this view aren't a corruption of nature, evil by virtue of their very existence. They're criminals, or an enemy nation. Their culture is evil, they're raised to be evil, but they don't have to be evil. So slaughtering their babies is evil, too. That's not fa...

Technically its a bad Dali reference since actually the piece is a "Lobster Telephone" and I got it backwards. What can I say, it just makes more sense as a username this way around. But then again, it's Dali, so backwards is pretty much OK. Well, you learn something every day. I'll googl...

PhoneLobster wrote:

Neon Sequitur wrote:Congratulations, you've got CHURCH POLICE! (With apologies to Monty Python....)

You forgot to enumerate the weaponry in their arsenal.

Sorry, different sketch....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UO0ZjJm-FPk


Also, I was wondering: is your user name (PhoneLobster) a Stross reference?

Another thing: Does your fantasy setting have at least one deity in its pantheon devoted to Law, Justice, or anything remotely similar? Congratulations, you've got CHURCH POLICE! (With apologies to Monty Python....) They are all Lawful Neutral, and extremely zealous. They have a Holy Mission to hunt...

That's what I meant by "they fight the law (and the law doesn't win)". The benefit of angelic police is you can have all the hound archons be labradors, leading to "take this stuff down to the labs". Oh snap! Consider that one stolen. WRT police, the question inevitably comes up...

Maybe I'm a little out of the loop on the terminology here, but...

WTF is a "token of player narrative agency" exactly?

D&D Next is gonna be like an old computer: its performance will be measured in megaflops.

Re: History How about science fictions settings? For future settings extrapolated from the present, how important is it to include a future history bridging the gap from "here" to "there"? (As opposed to the histories of fantasy settings with no connection to our world.) And is f...

Does anyone remember the demise of GDW? The lawsuits surrounding the release of Dangerous Journeys ? The howls of protest from the Traveller community when The New Era was released? Either of those two alone would be a noteworthy debacle. But coming out in the same year as back-to-back releases, tho...

I don't even know any more, fer fuck's sake.

If I could run anything? Right freaking now?

Savage Worlds, using the sci-fi setting I just finished writing, and the plot point campaign I'm currently working on, with my very best group of play-testers. We'll get around to it soon enough, I think.

I actually ran this one: Escape From Outbackistan

Cross the badlands and fight off hordes of pyschic zombie bikers to rescue the last living ESPer on Earth.

Red Steel.

For sooo many reasons....