The Gaming Den

Anyway, a good source on prices in really ancient times is the edict on maximum prices by Emperor Diocletian. It was not a particularly good idea, especially as it was defined in terms of Denarii rather than gold or silver, which meant that a subsequent significant change in the value of the metals...

Having a resolution stack with simultaneous declaration and inititive-order resolution has some advantages. Just do not combine it with grid-based positioning, or any positioning for that matter, as it ends up with characters attacking empty air more often than not. Isn't that kind of how AD&D ...

Half, full, free. Easy peasy. I've skimmed through Fantasycraft before, that's the same mechanics as Spycraft right? I think they also have no out of turn actions, a quick google search brings up... * No attacks of opportunity. Adjacency will cause characters to get "tied up" in melee, bu...

So DnD does the standard/move/swift:Full thing, Shadowrun does two standard actions (and a free action?) Is there an action economy model you find to be ideal in tabletop RPG's? Spycraft and a few other D20 variants reduced this down to half action, full action, free action. I always found keeping ...

I did a setting where the old pantheon of gods had a pact where they regulated the seasons, prevented horrendous natural disasters, etc... in exchange for worshippers, rites, etc, that provided power to the gods. As the millennia rolled on, religions changed, rites changes, and the power of worship ...

If you want to read a basic ripoff of World of Darkness, the Anita Blake series is basically marginal yet popular fanfic before it turned into erotic dark urban fantasy (well, more than it had been) like 6 books in and turned into furry/fantasy orgies. Came out in 93 so like... she probably wrote i...

How much does a hyperdrive capable ship cost and is it a thing a middle class dude could afford like a car This question's come up before. A ship costs about five used cars, so they might need to get a loan or something, but definitely doable. George Lucas grew up in Modesto building hot rods and s...

"Look, I'm a walking corpse and I'm not using most of my torso for anything, can I just cut it open, stuff two fistfuls of dirt in there, sew it up and sleep wherever the fuck I want?") We literally had a powergamer do this. The Storyteller decided to be a prick and say to make enough spa...

It probably is just an age thing and not being around at the time. I was born in '97, never read Rice or any of the similar gothic fiction, and my idea of a vampire is mostly based off the performances of Bela Lugosi and Christopher Lee. Although even at the age this is supposed to be aimed at, thi...

In the original story Dracula could shapeshift into animals, hypnotise women, control weaver, control animals, teleport, was immune to attacks at night and could create illusions. It's not an understatement to say that Dracula would have 3-5 dots in every single Discipline in VtM. Vampires get take...

Kindred collapse into ash when you kill them, dumbass! They actually don't. Everyone assumes that they do, but as far as I can tell, there is nothing anywhere that would support this idea. With the exception of VtM - Bloodlines. I'm stretching back about 15 years to remember this, but how we played...

How easy is it to break?
Related- How railroaded is this adventure?
What kind of game are my players going for? Heavy narrative or murder hobo?
What kind of adventure is this?
Is this something *I* would want to play as a PC?

In generic terms, what should happen when a player uses Charm or Intimidate against another player? What should happen when an NPC uses these skills against a player? echo Against another player? We always ruled you couldn't in D&D. PCs have agency and NPCs didn't. You have to interact with peo...

Spycraft's chase system was among the best subgames I've ever seen. It broke down on the merit that D20's skill system blew chunks and you could legit break the RNG, but against similarly skill bonus'd parties/entities it ended up being exciting and fun. Spycraft 2.0 took the basic engine and splint...

they could take out an AT-AT with snowspeeder cannons because they were just so much better at shooting weak points than the other pilots, and screw Luke's Force-assisted aim, so of course they could outfly all the other fighter squadrons to cripple a Star Destroyer by themselves. In Rogue One they...

The problem with the argument that the Executor's engines were taken out is that there's 13 of them. Even if you only took out like 6 or 7, that's an awful long time to hammer on the engines. As an EU retcon it's pretty shitty. I'd just say that the aux controls didn't kick in in time to pull the SS...

All the WOD games have skill symmetry as well as After Sundown. One thing... This is factually wrong. World of Darkness is infamous for skill creep in it's expansions. I don't remember if NWOD had skill creep or not, because I couldn't be bothered to plop 50 bucks down for any expansion books, but ...

The Executor going down like that is bullshit that I wouldn't want in any sensible Star Wars space combat system; I don't care if it featured in the movies or not. It means it's pointless to have an Executor at all if that's all it takes to kill it. "All it takes" was the loss of several ...

If there had been competent officers left at the Executor, it would not have fallen to some random x wing kamikaze. They would have raised the shields or fired the lasers to intercept it or, wel, something. That wasn't a kamikaze, that was a freak of battle. Someone winged an A-wing, it was spirali...

While the idea of the whole Empire being run by idiotic and/or cartoonishly evil officers isn't really supported by the canon, regarding the Imperial Navy in particular the "most leadership positions are full of brown-nosers and ladder-climbers trying to make a name for themselves while the ta...

of course, now that I write it, I realize this wouldn't fit with Luke's last minute trip to Dagoba in ESB... :confused: That's easy to retcon. It wasn't a last minute trip. He used the nav computers in the base that calculate jump coordinates and didn't have time to dump it to R2. Now... how he got...

Mord , the only issue I have with your list is it doesn't quite answer the question of "why Star Destroyers?". It does a pretty good job answering "why everything else?", but it leaves me wondering why Star Destroyers over an equivalently priced group of carriers and floating sp...

Ah, crap. I knew I forgot something... Ion cannons have the same basic properties as laser cannons in terms of range and energy consumption, but their blasts forgo direct destructive power in favor of delivering a focused EMP to their target. Ion blasts rapidly drain ray shields, as compared to a t...

But if the X-Wing can reasonably damage the Star Destroyer then having a Star Destroyer feels a little bit like having a battleship in 1942 (or 2002 for that matter): an ineffectual waste of money. One of the X-wing books (forgot which one, I read it in high school) solved this problem pretty neatl...

I don't know why X-wings are capable of FTL travel and TIE-fighters aren't, but that's established in the first movie. Star Destroyers carry a contingent of fighters. Capital ships are also able to defend themselves. Against a dozen fighters, a Star Destroyer will win every time. Against 50? Those ...