The Gaming Den

..and I am now willing to play DnD5e.

That's good advice, re: creating mechanical adjustment packages and then finding a narrative scope to suit. Creating independent conditions columns (economic, operational, planetary, etc) is also a really good idea. Thanks! I think that's enough to keep me going for a bit, but to answer the question...

Red_Rob , there's a few things there that I hadn't considered, but I wasn't looking for mechanical descriptors as much as thematic/evocative tags. So far as I can tell, the game's greatest risk is that it ends up merely as a series of tactical exercises, which is a lot more dry than what I'm hoping...

One of the projects I'm working on is Houses of Hydraulics and Plasma , a sci-fi game where the characters are noble pilots of massive mecha who lead regimental military forces, engaged in an ongoing war against an opposing imperial power. The characters and their forces form a larger military force...

Yeah, but that also takes the game away from its class basis. One advantage of a class-based system is that if you've balanced the classes, you reduce the gap between character effectiveness that results from system knowledge.

Re: Shadowrun economy.

Reminds me of this.

http://omnifeed.com/article/digg.com/vi ... yn-hustler

I found with the Monk that the Chi empowerments - specifically the one that Activates when the Event is significantly-rated - were really useful. The ability to select (successful) search results and the free travel Chi abilities were the ones most-used. I felt like the Monk had the most tools in hi...

Manxome, Darkest Night is yours? That's awesome, congratulations on getting published!

I just posted on BGG, but my feel was that the Paragon was way too effective at dropping the Necromancer with Rebuke and Infallibility so easily acquired.

Also big props for making the Monk awesome.

Italics means you win! I can concede most every ounce of ground with a happy smile. Frank's example - smashing into a shield wall needs some random resolution mechanic - is, in retrospect, a great one. To me (I'll steal DSM's line here: NO ONE FUCKING CARES ) it still feels like a need to determine...

Lol no fuck yourself and have a nice day. <3

If you think the point of the wedge had nothing to do with forcing shield walls to expose flanks while protecting the vanguard's flank, and instead was for mano-a-mano let's-do-this it-ends-here combat you're not seeing the forest for the trees.

I'm arguing with six people at a time. If it's looking like a Gish Gallop it's because I'm trying to respond in good faith to everyone simultaneously. Articulated infantry IS rank and file. The only reason I brought it up, and others made a bibigass deal about explosives and what not was because som...

Y'all are right. I think a due roll for combat is fine. But it should be nearly irrelevant in the face of position, terrain, and tactics. A system wherein peasants can cut down wounded heavy infantry mired in muck by the thousands with a casualty ratio of something like 1:10 a la Agincourt needs to ...

If you think knights fought in rank-and-file, prove it. They didn't. There's a gap in the general use of articulated infantry from sometime in the post-Roman era to the Late Middle Ages. Right now the LOL EXPLOSIVES cannon that proves they were battlefield worthy is from the fucking what, 18th centu...

There's also the issue that fantasy mass combat assumes a level of armament and capability which carries with it the assumption that most infantry are probably unarticulated units and not organized into rank-and-file subject to the example you have up there. I don't see how any fantasy world with a...

I'm referencing the difference between cannon firing iron balls and cannon firing explosive shells. Not cannon and canon. You guys have gone full retard based on your echo chamber curiously devoid of historical examples. DSM's point about phalanxes is a good one, but the rest of you are so full of s...

Find me a historical example of reliable, deployed explosive artillery at a time when articulated infantry are the Big Thing. And articulated infantry continue to be used despite that fact.

Just one, maybe two. Because haha, I'm an idiot.

You people love sucking each other off too much.

You guys are welcome to believe what you want. For the record, early rocketry were incendiary devices, not KAboom FUCK YOU things unless you count static, non-launched weaponry. The use of explosive BLOW UP massed infantry artillery is way late. Fucking around on Wikipedia pretending you know what y...

Dude. Explosives aren't cannon. The ability to fire a solid projectile of mass into a wall at a great distance isn't equivalent to an explosion of man-killing fire with a 30ft radius, or shrapnel. Creating an explosive shell that can fired from a cannon but blow up later without blowing up in the ca...

I should also point out that a shield wall is a squad-level method of movement. They got cut down by being outmaneuvered... at least in a Roman testudo, which is different from the overlapping shields of a phalanx. You don't hit a shield wall with a triangle, you move to its sides or rear while dela...

Proving a negative is hard, Angel. Just find a positive example. It's a discussion. I'm saying I can't recall an example that supports your conclusions. You're saying you do, but lol fuck me for being dense you can't be bothered. Okay. As for Frank's point, I love that being conversant in the subjec...

Demanding favors ("I raised you from a muggle so give me money/vis/a proxy vote", "screw this other guy because he insulted us and our lineage and teaching") is always popular. You don't want him to be just a jerk, give him a reason why he expects something onerous and a plausibl...

The ability of men to kill other men is much more predictable. No it is not. If you put a bunch of people in a tight formation, one person fucking up can in fact fuck up the functioning of the entire formation. And that can butterfly-effect/for-want-of-a-nail up to basically any level of organizati...

Morale should be a dieroll, but not the actual combat. I know dierolling is awesome in games and maybe that's reason enough, but if you've ever played Bonaparte at Marengo you know you don't need dice for mass combat, and when reading historical reports of battle unexpected slaughters just don't rea...

I didn't really see anything in 13th Age that was striking other than the built-in 13 Icons (or Idols or whatever). Otherwise it's basically a stripped-down version of 4e, yes?

I like where this is going.