The Gaming Den

In real life: Anyone who thinks that being able and willing to 'train really hard' isn't an inherent gift of some type hasn't hung around a Summa Cum Laude engineering student for long enough. The capacity to strive and focus so thoroughly on one thing is no less genetic and rare than the blessed ge...

The main argument against allowing incorporeal undead in your game is that because an afterlife is a given then you have to work out the entire cosmology and logic behind that cosmology. Unless no one cares, then whatever. Um, doesn't "I died pissed off" work? Yes, in beer and pretzels ty...

The main argument against allowing incorporeal undead in your game is that because an afterlife is a given then you have to work out the entire cosmology and logic behind that cosmology. Unless no one cares, then whatever.

Well, it might not be a Sacred cow, but it's some kind of divinely-infused bovine meat, because they obviously wanted to keep the phrase "roll a saving throw!" on the table.

But yes, its a duration mechanic now, rather than a standard defense.

Notice how once again, the game falls apart due to a "save" mechanic (3e was "worse" in that at later levels saves didn't even matter... but whatever broken is broken). The "saving throw" was kept in 4e because it is a Sacred Cow, and it's as bad as it ever was. In 4e i...

Gore: Implied, [Minor], Lots, Buckets. Fighting vs. Talking: What percent of game time is spent resolving combat? A lot of games it's approx. 50%. In D&D 4e, it seems to have gone up. Consequence: You accidentally kill the innkeep. Will this action still be haunting you 20 levels later? In most ...

The value for the Expert's attack bonus does not match between the table (+5) and the class description (+3).

I will read through it. It's pretty hard though because I end up laughing like every 2 minutes. "729d20+443: Seven-hundred twenty-nine twenty-sided dice plus four-hundred forty-three, generating a big number." That was ace. Anyhow, from the first 5 pages, I can already tell you're on the r...

Square brackets denote what I perceive to be the default: Civic Level Tribes, City-States, [Fiefdoms and Kingdoms], Nation-States. Monstrous Presence None, all monsters are unique and legendary, some monsters unique and legendary, [lots of monsters everywhere]. Water Only rivers, some large lakes, s...

Standardized tests have some interesting quirks. For example, knowing Spanish allows me to rapidly understand the Latin roots of a lot of strange words, which has given me a huge advantage in these sorts of exams: I don't need to know the strict meaning of malediction , I can intuit it has something...

Ron Paul was against abortions. Just sayin'.

EDIT: just read the comment at the end, someone already corrected him. Bah.

3e isn't dead by any stretch, and because people have been playing with it for 10 years now, I think most people have developed a sane system of house rules. Plus, the Core Rules are fairly workable at low levels... just have to watch out for game-ruining insta-kills. That said, 4e has a lot of unta...

Yeah, pretty much AW.

And Voss, that is good to know because I have never actually wargamed so I'm kind of talking out of my ass. All I know is that about a decade ago, someone showed me a Warhammer rulesbook and I felt like I would have had more fun reading my calculus text.

9. Wargames are highly simulationist. This ties into #1. What this means is that many wargames try to emulate a real battle scene as accurately as possible, with the resultant increase in rules, math and bookeeping. None of that belongs in a table-top game. People are not computers and they don't wa...

Here's what I've got on a current ruleset I am working on and will probably never, ever finish... so I freely share. Elemental Shapechange Illusion Divination Life Death Holy Unholy Nature (animal, plant) Force (telekinesis) Space (summoning, teleport) Time (haste, slow, time stop) Mental (charms, c...

Yeah, Dr. Gonzo is where I first heard of the Samoan stereotype. Turns out he was actually Mexican.

Still, you have to imagine that the Polynesians that made those fucking epic trips on small planks of wood across the entire fucking Pacific had to be either pretty hardcore or shark food.

free weights
squats
deadlift
burpees
pushups
liftups
situps

eat a lot of protein

If all else fails, abuse steroids.*


Your real best bet though is to be born Samoan and work construction.




*I am not responsible if your testicles shrivel and fall off.

I've been playing Pokemon Pearl, that chart is handy. They have a seriously complicated set of relationships: some attacks are strong against many things and weak against many thing, others has few weaknesses and few strengths, and finally others are weak to a lot of things and only strong against a...

... of what a cool combat system for an RPG might look like. For various reasons this is NOT what is ideal: http://img227.imageshack.us/img227/1208/rps25qn4.jpg Personally, I think it could look more like this: http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/6821/web38us0.jpg (From MTG Shadowmoor set) Note that ...

Last night I noticed that as I got more inebriated (and hence, more stupid) McCain started making more sense.

I can't vote, but I'm gently attempting to persuade every registered US citizen I know to vote Obama.

I lost 20+ pounds very quickly about 2 years ago. (Probably too quickly to be safe, but I never hurt myself) To lose gut, cardio and making sure that Cal(in) < Cal(out) is important, but you NEED to remind your body not burn muscle by eating protein (lean preferably) and lifting weights. If you want...

Yes, but you can reasonably expect to have 2 high attributes, so it would be feasible to play a high STR high INT character that could effectively take Wizard, Warlord, Paladin, and Fighter abilities.

1. Powers that actually DO shit, that are useable more often. "Powers" includes Feats BTW, which are next to fucking worthless. 2. More material in core books (illusions, summoning, more complete multiclassing, animals/familiars). 3. Better ritual rules, better skill rules (these go togeth...

You can also keep a gargantuan amount of porn on your computer somewhere. It will help.

I'm with Manxome. Also, I disagree that 4e is giving undue emphasis to "bad players". Although I'm sure they exist, when people got upset with the old D&D rules, it was generally for a good reason, and just as there were bad players, there were bad DMs. 4e has taekn away some of the mo...