The Gaming Den

Pathfinder, just gained 5th level sorcerer, cha 23 counting magic items, a total of +17 to use magic device. for obvious reasons I've focused on save or Lose and battlefield control type spells, but since our party is just 3 casters (the others are an Alchemist and a Magus) and no meatshields (altho...

The world's first corporation was the East India Company, a product of imperialism. They sold drugs, killed folks who got in the way, and extracted wealth from nations for their own profits. technically the Company of Merchant Adventurers had them beat by 47 years in their home nation Britan. http:...

In March 2006, Cofer Black, vice chairman of Blackwater USA, allegedly suggested at an international conference in Amman, Jordan, that the company was ready to move towards providing security professionals up to brigade size (3,000–5,000) for humanitarian efforts and low-intensity conflicts. Citati...

The company formally knows as Blackwater could maybe field a battalion(-), if all the guys they had on contract at any given time were in one place. In March 2006, Cofer Black, vice chairman of Blackwater USA, allegedly suggested at an international conference in Amman, Jordan, that the company was...

Don't forget that you need to have a reason in your setting why the corps have military power that can stand up to the government and the government just lets it slide. Monsanto already owns Blackwater, so you don't need to bang your head on the wall trying to justify things that already exist in t...

I'm very interested by the concept of multiple main quests. Could you tell more about how Avernum dies this ? The Avernum games are pretty great, but he's overselling it. There are usually a number of quest lines that get you the gem-encrusted plot-coupons that you need to unlock the door for the f...

Basically, I just think they could've found a better way to do it. My thoughts on how to do invisi barriers -Player gets a warning to turn back -Heads ui display dissappears after a while -Player enters cutscene describing how he's left and was never seen in the lands again -Return to main menu scr...

First, We've already done the grandmother hypothesis bullshit. It really doesn't help, especially since that's just one more mouth to feed. I'll admit I had to look up "grandmother hypothesis" and now I'm wondering if you either misunderstood me, are trying to move goal posts, or you're u...

Sunburn is probably not a source of selective pressure as it doesn't really affect survival until after your children are adults. yes, because living grand parents helping with child care is never a factor in family size or childhood mortality rates in a pre-state (or even just preindustrial) socie...

If you have controlling interest by a thin margin, you damn well better know who has shares. Even if you have to write it up on a list for the back of your door, titled 'People Who Can Screw Me.' If you're finished vigorously agreeing with me, perhaps you can give me some of your nifty reading comp...

I'm starting to get curious as to how everyone here is defining "Nation State" and "Nationalism". because I'm getting the feeling that we're not all on the same page. EDIT: what I mean, a lot of the more recent posts seem to be centering on "nation state" being synonymo...

According to oWoD, there is 1 vampire for every 100k humans. Of course, this leads to ridiculously small numbers. Moscow would have 200 vampires. L.A. would have 40 vampires. Boston has 12 vampires. And mages are supposed to be even rarer. Is this an instance of the "writers can't do math"...

Virgil, I have to admit I'm getting very curious about how you're defining a "bleak" game, especially after you picked up PL's terminology of Scooby-Doo as the opposing style. Because I'm starting to get the impression that the difference is only visible at the end, if the PC's lost it was...

I'd like to see a Den look at Don't Rest Your Head, it's pretty rules lite, so it'd mostly be a setting review.

Or maybe Whispering Vault that'd be fertile ground for the den treatment.

or I suppose if anyone has any other horror games with bizzare and hyperspecific premise and settings.

Can a fetus be ghouled? I don't have access to the books from my 'white wolf phase' but I remember a line in 'Time of Thin Blood' (which, admittedly, came out two years and a new edition of the core book after Gouls: Fatal Addiction) wherein we are told it's apparently "common knowledge" ...

Is the mustache thing a reference that I'm not getting?

Hang on, I got this one. search out the old PDF, Guide to the Technocracy, published June 1999 acording to the ISBN search. page 72, sidebar Technocracy or Technology? waffles slightly on the issue, in the 'Sleepers did it' camp we The Technocracy alternately claims and denies credit for many modern...

monarchy implies a line of succesion from parent to child historically, no it doesn't. Elective Monarchy is an actual thing. which is too bad because with out that convenient metric (which for the life of me I can't trace back further than coldwar soviet propaganda claiming that anything without a ...

This is looking awesome. or the Hungary. Sidetrack: is there a rule on which Central-European countries are the (country name) and which are not? I've generally heard people refer to the Ukraine, and this is the first time I recall seeing the Hungary, so is there some list of which countries are su...

Heh. Presumeably, if you had a dwarf-human hybrid--and I'm sure it's been printed somewhere--they'd get a +2 to Str. Dwarf build! Human leverage! yeah they had those in darksun. they were called Mules, because apparently dwarf/human hybrids are sterile, unlike human/elf hybrids for some reason also...

Gold is not in fact something you can eat. Adventurers in history came back with porcelain, spices, dyes, and seeds that could change peoples' lives for the better. The D&D adventurer is basically just coming back with gold. For that to be a service at all , you have to posit that the economy i...

I think we're all familiar with the problems surrounding rolling a variable dice pool against a variable target number. for those who don't know the effects of a given modifier on various rolls will be inconsistent, Counter intuitive, and Mathematically difficult to predict but many designers which ...

A good DM would do Dark Powers checks just often enough to keep everyone's mind on the morality of their actions, but secretly never let PCs actually fail one unless they seemed like they were asking for it. Unfortunately, that advice is not in the boxed set. IDK, that does sound like what they wer...

As I recall, gods are very explicitly barred from interacting with Ravenloft. Clerical spells are provided by the Dark Powers wearing the trollface. shit... that does sound familiar... still, the point stands that "unholy acts" are cross-referenced against the alignment of the faith that ...

so... I have to ask, How the fuck did you come to your conclusion? That chart has victimless crimes on it. The "suffering" in this case is the Dark Power Attention. It has to be, because there is no one else to cross reference for their looting an abandoned temple example. How are you rea...