The Gaming Den

I never went anywhere with all of that. But I wanted to do a Macross knockoff once and wanted to share. The massive galactic Zentraedi Maeltrandi space war with Earth being a seemingly insignificant spec but holding the power of culture is a neat angle for Performance skill characters Well, that, a...

The Wall of the Faithless is a cosmic injustice, but I did want to use it in a campaign. I think, though, that my idea sounds better in concept than it would have been in execution. Basically, the gods use the WotF as a defense against Pandorym - the god-slaying weapon from Elder Evils. But, in this...

It's worth noting that, while Niven was a passable SF author who was basically at the median level of "white engineers are the best and willl drive the future" that was the go-to modus operandi of his cohort, Pournelle was actively noxious and terrible. You can see it in Lucifer's Hammer, ...

Sorry citizen, protesting is a threat to public health. Protests are cancelled until it's safer to go outside. I dunno, I think a protest that causes gridlock outside A HOSPITAL in the MIDDLE OF A PANDEMIC should probably be considered an illegal gathering. On top of the idiocy of social distancing...

In a world where orcposting exists, the idea that elfgames can be without politics is the real fantasy.

One of the hacks for 3e I've considered (and never implemented) was the [Magic] tag for weapons and armor. The idea is that a +1 sword is just not exciting, but a flaming sword or one that strikes true against elves is awesome. The [Magic] tag means that you get your +1 or +3 based on your characte...

One of the hacks for 3e I've considered (and never implemented) was the [Magic] tag for weapons and armor. The idea is that a +1 sword is just not exciting, but a flaming sword or one that strikes true against elves is awesome. The [Magic] tag means that you get your +1 or +3 based on your character...

While we are at it, what's it with all the "I can't support Nazism, I'm an X" when X is someone legitimately at threat from Neo-Nazis? There seems to be a lot of people who'd be genuinely and personally at immediate threat should the neo-Nazis get more active, who are trying their best to...

So uhhh I guess to get this thread back onto a course I guess.... In the event Blicero from Gaming Hub reads this: ....Since you think that domains and mass combat is the game's killer app, I'd like to extend to you an offer to preview the revised Axioms issue 3, which has the most extensive and de...

I took a look over there. Just a quick look. And the amount of disingenuous nonsense is... yeah, wow. I think my favorite was the thing where the one guy poses Conservapedia and Wikipedia a) equal and opposite in their presentation, content and accuracy; and b) that only Progressives like Wikipedia,...

You know what? I was going to respond in this thread, but I'm just going to go watch Green Room again.

Goddamn Nazi punks ruin everything if you don't forcefully show them the door.

The Deed of Paksenarrion is AD&D fanfiction from 1988 about a woman whose character class changes from Fighter to Paladin on account of being awesome. Apparently there was a made-for-TV adaptation of it in Australia in 2016? I had no idea. What? Ah, crap, I gotta find that for the spouse. Even ...

Someone on another forum actually did write up an alternate druid with binder-style mechanics, found here . Worth a look for refluffing ideas, if nothing else. I only gave that a cursory glance, but I did like two parts - one being the power breakdown (at-will, encounter, daily, passive) and the ot...

Just a tiny fluff bit from this corner: Binder flavor would definitely work better as a shaman, because your ability package from binding the spirit would be written on the wrapper. You get stealth, entangle, and wild empathy from a forest spirit; you get fire powers from a fire spirit. It's the sph...

There are certainly things about Shadowrun Magic that I think are mistakes. The fact that you can't use a magic sword without Chosen One DNA means that a lot of things that could be checks on the power of big demon summoning actually isn't. But it's a system you can describe the edges and boundarie...

My MMO experience was exclusively in City of Heroes - which was notable only for coming out at about the same time as WoW, but having been developed separately, didn't follow the same 'holy trinity' concept. There are ways to make the concept work, I think, that just break from the concept. 1) No de...

I am in a place of deep frustration when it comes to finding new fantasy books to read. In particular, when I go looking for recommendations, I get lists of things that are bad . Every list has The Name of the Wind on it, usually highly ranked. I have no fucking clue why anyone thinks that book is ...

Apropos of nothing -

Star Wars is the only major franchise where the "real true fans" haven't liked anything new since 1980.

As an aside, is there anything in the Mythos that is still someone's IP that people tend to care about? Lots of authors have added to it over the years, but I can't think of any additions off the top of my head that people would generally regret not being able to use. I think Lumley's still alive a...

Fun fact: It sounds to me as though the Convergence scenario presented in 1992 is nearly identical to the one that was included in the 1997 Delta Green book. I mean, I don't remember the seduction tagline thing - but everything else is spot on. That's one way to up your page count, I suppose. If it ...

The Second Ethiopian-Italian War and the Abyssinian Crisis were the names of the events. The podcast that utterly failed to mention either was episode three of Hardcore History, subtitled The Organization of Peace. The episode with the 'encoded in DNA' thing was Episode Two, Guns and Horses. (I hop...

I'm not an authority on history. I took my degree in it, I taught it at the secondary level for a few years. :rofl: But I'm better equipped to examine sources and biases than Carlin is, apparently. Low bar. I have no relevant degree and (based on the limited information admitted above) also am. So,...

I'm very surprised no one has mentioned Dan Carlin's Hardcore History. His stuff is more like miniature audiobooks than what you would normally think of as podcasts. His series on the Mongol Empire and World War I are fantastic, as is his single-episode analysis of the atomic bomb. Hardcore History...

The more ancient your secret history events are, the less relevant they are. If your "common vampire origin" takes place in pre-historic Africa, it is so irrelevant that it does not matter if it is true . A six thousand, a sixteen thousand, or a sixty thousand year old vampire all have fa...

WoD vampires' historical roots in the Fertile Crescent were merely a by-product of their Biblical origin story with Cain. On the other hand, the eurocentrism is really lazy writing by white people who never bothered with non-white History. They shifted their entire setting from the Biblical Middle ...