The Gaming Den

Apparently our right to a fair trial does not include new evidence gathered after the trial. Or invented. Or whatever. There could be a problem with petty crimes, when people are found guilty of, say, stealing a sandwich and then try to "get even" with the government by spending as much o...

...a system with published adventures that are only somewhat (rather than vastly) inferior to the WFRP ones. Call of Cthulhu has some [awesome] adventures. Since I read stuff based on recommendations primarily, the rest might as well be shit and they will still be, on average and based on your pref...

I started in 1999 with pirated SSI games (the Gold Box series, Eye of the Beholder etc) and a CD full of random pirated material. It had playable 1e, chapters from 2e books, playable Darksun, fragments of Leiber's Swords, a really weird Dragonlance sourcebook and some Planescape awesomeness. Most of...

While I cannot say that I truly admire the Pathfinder changes or that all of the changes make perfect sense, you are just wasting your time here with this sort of reasoning....This isn't saying that anyone is Doing it Wrong, it is just that approach to the games are so completely different that wha...

It was just a big marketing stunt to draw in the players that they intended to pander to (i.e. people that play broken spellcasters). WOTC may be incompetent, but I feel like Paizo outright lied to the gaming community, and they can fuck off as far as I'm concerned. That's what I was saying. Paizil...

So I guess liberal arts is also decent training for Starbucks. And particle physics is decent training for... Customer Service! Hello sir, how may I help you? Please choose one: * buy concert tickets * set up an office phone * get a loan * buy clothes * get an abortion * ask for legal advice * prov...

How so? It gives genuinely good advice and gives descriptions of player's that happen to fit mine perfectly. Confirmation bias. Also, giving zero information means you're never wrong: There are many aspects to a game session, and people can enjoy one or more of them, such as stabbing people in the ...

I play 4E in both groups and online and almost EVERYONE has at the very least a legitimate player's handbook--most people have all three books even. Maybe your players are just naturally honest. Ideally, I don't want to consult the rulebooks during the session. Ever. For that purpose, we use flowch...

Iron Mongler wrote:DMG is great

I'd be offended if the crap that is chapter 1 was in any product I paid for.

Why? There is a single combat system, why not a single system for challenges which are not measured in dead opponents? Large cats and fusion reactors do not operate in absolutely the same fashion. The more complex and detailed you want the system to be, the larger the differences between challenges...

There have been occasions when "skill challenges" (that is, mechanics for noncombat stuff beyond skill checks) were done right, notably in Dungeon Magazine around Issue 100. Examples include chase scenes, wilderness travel and negotiations. A scene where the PCs had to catch a bad guy sugg...

--Introduction of nonstandard races as Core material. I don't mind this - but then again, I think they need to stop fellating Tolkien's corpse, so I look forward to dorfs being phased out, then the elfs and so on. Um... what? The elfs will always be there. It's the reason we had a metric fuckton of...

It's like how Putin has announced that he is no longer amused by Kim Jong Il's antics and both Russia and China have signed onto a UN resolution that gives an open letter of marque to commit piracy on all North Korean vessels to every sea captain on Earth. Fun fact: Neither Putin, nor anyone else i...

Well for my part, I envy historians. They know lots of awesome stuff and they know where to look for/read about more awesome stuff. The downside is that I cannot really think of a job for a historian except spawning more of the same (university professors). Sure there are some who get to perform at ...

As far as I know, there is a Teleport Trap spell in AD&D 2e, and there's an actual teleport trap (either magic or spell trap, the distinction was never exactly clear, CR9 insta-kill/rape/DM's option on touch).

You know, I was wrong. I had forgotten the second page of that scene, and the escalation to "You don't care about us any more!" Still a domestic argument. If I only had a dime for each one I had with my mom arising of some insultingly stupid racist/sexist thing she says out of the blue an...

The [Russian] government in its wisdom used the most direct, simple and effective method to counter unemployment among university graduates. Which is: You cannot graduate unless you have a job. It has to be noted that universities are now obliged to provide graduates with jobs – but hey, if these we...

Oh fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck... That awesome quote about hands covered in blood went down the drain before I copypasted it.

Late for the party, as always. Oh god... that just reminds me of the bullshit thing my friend said when I stated the OotS characters aren't optimized... "Well you can't optimize in real life" Except you totally can. "Roll stats and choose a character class based on whatever you rolled...

But there's something to be said about his intent, which is that for many players, 4e presents more accessible options than 3e had. While I expect 4etards to say every single combination of powers counts as a build and provide a ridiculous number upwards of 10^30, the fact is that playable builds o...

Absentminded_Wizard wrote:I forgot to mention that I haven't bothered to look at any noncore 4e books either.

Fun fact: Player's Handbook 2, Adventurer's Vault and Monster Manual 2 are core. The GSL license logo listing all the required books (currently six) looks ridiculous.

* Mixed Blessing/Curse. Clever tactics should be rewarded and countered accordingly. One day you buff the barbarian with +STR -INT and win the battle, the other he's hit with -INT immediately afterwards and is out. * Vampirism vs. Resource Conservation Sharing is caring. Vampirism + regeneration won...

In SSI's Gold Boxes clerics were teh suck and warriors awesome. Especially the Solamnian knights, who had cleric spells up to 7th level, full thac0 and a nonmagical equivalent of platemail +4. Warriors killed monsters, magic-users dropped fireballs on enemy casters and the party cleric was a healing...

Thymos wrote:I mean, given the general attitude of forums it seems like there isn't anyone at wizards that is a good designer.

Mark Rosewater?

That should have been in Chapter 1 of the DMG. And they gave us "player motivations" bullshit instead which stopped being funny in '94.