The Gaming Den

I was curious so I googled it and found their training video. There were a lot of mediocre to bad chokes on display. I’m sure poor training is a big contributor to choking related homicides by police, but there’s an easier solution than this. Not choking suspects. Police generally outnumber people t...

Does anyone have any advice for DMing 5e? My wife is running Storm King’s Thunder and is confused by the CR system for making appropriate encounters. Looking back at this thread, it seems like the CR system is borked anyway, so I was hoping there was some practical advice available. It’s also potent...

I'm toying with a heartbreaker that frankensteins a bunch of systems together from the board and was wondering what numbers would be appropriate. The basic combat mechanic is that attackers will roll 1d20+attack stat vs. a defense set by the same stat. If it hits the target rolls to soak using 1d20+...

Have you heard of Shmovie? https://schmovie.wordpress.com/about-2 It's not the same, but it is very similar.

Snake Oil is more fun, but Snake Oil is the best of any of the Apples to Apples-style games that I've played.

I genuinely don't know what they expect to accomplish by posting a bunch of insults at various parts of the fanbase without having any products released or even on the horizon. I seem to remember player and storyteller advice in their books being really derisive of D&D players (and even their o...

Would using a tighter RNG be worth having more than one core mechanic? If players are rolling a d10 it would mean that the unskilled character would outshine the specialist a lot less. The downside would be the chance things could lead to 2e crazytown, with different dice rolls for every damn thing ...

I dislocated my shoulder a few weeks ago and, while I have been feeling less pain and having more mobility in my shoulder, my bicep and elbow have begun to hurt. I have seen an orthopedist and have an MRI scheduled next week, but am wondering if I should try to get another appointment with the docto...

I don't think the dungeonology book really counts as a 5e product. It's a licensed book that will hopefully shift copies and create crossover appeal. The 'Ology books are pretty popular and often get racked face-out in the children's section of bookstores. It's a grab to expand the consumers of D&am...

Candlewick/Templar publish the 'Ology books (Dragonology, Wizardology, etc.) that are fantasy "non-fiction" picture books aimed at middle readers.

The Minutemen and whatever ragtag cohorts they have with them must steal as many as they can of the 24 cannons of the battery on Manhattan’s southern tip and drag them up to City Hall Park, a distance of just under a mile. British troops on boats just offshore will fire on the Minutemen the entire ...

Considering the intention is that we'll put pickle juice in cocktails, it doesn't make sense that they're packaging it in aluminium cans. What do I do if I just want to make one Kosher Deli?


(Rye, pickle brine, mustard bitters, garnish with pastrami slice.)

This premise is different enough than most RPGs that I think you should shuffle around the steps of the flowchart. What do you see an adventure or campaign entailing? Also, will players keep the same characters between phases? If so, what role does John Adams have in the first phase?

Yeah, but strength is a good example because it can come up in other ways. Can a giant move a rock? What about Manticore? In the example of a giant drinking a potion of strength, the "+3 to strength-based rolls" would improve its attacks and damage but wouldn't answer the question of wheth...

The classic problem in old-school D&D is the spell Web. It gives variable amounts of time to break out based on the subjects' strength. Since monsters don't have strength scores you have to decide whether the monster is as strong as a person, a giant, or a dragon. Each strength-based challenge t...

I just started playing 5E (it's serviceable!) and the lack of material is kind of ridiculous. Between spells, feats, backgrounds and character paths there are plenty of areas to expand even before making new classes. Also, since the paradigm seems to be hardback adventures that players make new char...

I second the warrior question, since you seem to dislike them (although I have a hard time telling when you're being serious.)

Will this game use the 5' square grid?

Overall, I'm interested in seeing more.

Do you ever ink with a pen or brush? Most of my interest in drawing has been focused on cartooning so I'm a big fan of bristol board, blue pencil, and micron pens. I know I should take the time to learn to ink with a brush but I tend to slack off and use Sakura pigma brush pens. They are a lot of fu...

Looks good! It's cool seeing some of your progression here. What did you draw that with? I'd be interested in seeing it with less uniform line weight.

I was looking through the old Kitchen Sink Fantasy threads and became curious about the CAN damage system outlined in this thread. In that thread the system is talked about in the context of both Winds of Fate powers and the Very Abstract Locations (which I think sometimes get referred to as Tides o...

Sure, you could make Search just like Wall of Stone where it normally worked without a dice-roll, but did have a roll in a combat situation where you are being damaged while Searching, trying to Search without provoking AoOs, or when trying a combat application of Search. That means that in 99% of ...

Bill De Blasio... wildly unrepresentative of New York democrats as a whole. From what I remember, Bill De Blasio ran (and was received by the voting population) as the most liberal of the major candidates. Christine Quinn was the early favorite but her endorsement from Bloomberg associated her with...

A lot of the people who are in the OSR scene are super into the poor game design decisions of the past. Not having Thac0, the five saves or descending AC will get segments of the OSR to lose interest in your game for changing too much. This is why there are tons of D&D retroclones, different peo...

Bear and rat people having cities sounds a lot like Kamandi to me.


Is that what you're going for?

Burning Wheel and Burning Empires both use lifepaths. They're not the same as Traveller since you are able to choose which lifepath you go to (with some restrictions) rather than roll to see if you pass the entrance exam. In BW the lifepaths are really variable; a character who goes "Born Noble...

It almost sounds like "urban fantasy" is being used a a shibboleth or dog whistle and we're outside the loop.