The Gaming Den

Sure, why not? D&D is a world of absolute morality, rather then relative morality. The absolute morality in place here considers intelligence as the baseline for moral qualities ... the Selfless care more about intelligences that are not themselves, while the Malicious destroy other intelligenc...

Use a simulacrum of the bard. Does not need to eat, reast or be paid. Can work non-stop until completion. Also avoids intentional sabotage such as structural weak points or secret passages. You can then use planar binding to staff your new castle with critters like Djinni, Efreet and Azer. That shou...

A wizard might live the lifestyle of a flamboyant transdimensional pimp. If he does, that is going to have a profound societal impact as well as an economic one. If he cruises around a fantasy setting in his tricked out wagon, it's golden wagonwheel rims spinning, his enchanted bling flashing, and a...

Morality is a concept of intelligent beings. It doesn't apply to creatures without human-comparable intelligence. Unintelligent animals, much like plants and oozes, lack any alignment whatsoever. Should human morality apply to non-human intelligences though? I mean, cultural biases exist that bring...

Good - Neutral - Evil is really Selfless - Selfish - Malicious and Lawful - Neutral - Chaotic is really Conformist - Pragmatic - Individualist Your model was an accurate assessment of the AD&D+ alignment model, but it fails exactly where the original does. According do this paradigm a brainwash...

The ends justify the means, so long as the ends are the only concern. If there is any other standard by which your actions will be judged, then it is no longer a case of the ends justifying the means. It becomes a case of my Hasidic traditions justify the means or my Jurist philosophy justifies the ...

When people try and apply real world economics to a fantasy game it is amusing. Educational and thought provoking, but IMO a lighthearted distraction. Attempting to apply real world morality to a fantasy game on the other hand is plain insanity. D&D for example a game where people role play noma...

To assume that magic has no influence on fantasy economy is ridiculous. The extent on which it has an influence is of course open to debate. However, I do not think that asanine examples of characters such as Popeye the tree-punching cottage builder are a fair argument. To suggest that a magical cha...

Interesting and astute observations, but I feel that important details have been neglected (or are yet to be added). Scratch that, one detail. Magic. In a fantasy game economy magic is a big deal. Even neglecting the wish economy, magic has a profound influence on an economy. From repair to craft, t...

A deity does not need to be omniscient or all powerful to have an influence in the world. The plot of the Elder Scrolls:Oblivion game is centred around the innate divinity within the Emperors bloodline. Even Warhammer has the Emperor as a ''mortal'' proxy for Sigmar. The trope has something to do wi...

Protectionist organisations could provide some interesting storylines. Whether it is Magi-corp Johnsons hiring the PC''s for espionage or the Dwarfen government trying to keep a magical nuke out of the hands of Goblins, I am sure you can get a lot of mileage out of that theme. As for a monarchy/aris...

The concept of turning is cool. Unfortunately I have rarely seen the standard version used effectively in mid/high level play. Too many spawn or minions get in the way and soak up the pool. It is a much more efficient use of an action to cast a spell, or in the case of Paladins/Blackguards to attack...

I get inspiration from a variety of sources. TV and movie plotlines, books, console and computer games, new items, websites and many other places. I have also aceess to a small collection of old RPG's, so updating a 2e box set adventure is not that hard. Ripping off an idea from White Wolf games, SR...

High level games can be tricky to run, probably the most difficult part for me was to avoid the 'arms race' mentality between myself and the players. I have run only 2 successful epic range campaigns, and bombed out completely on another attempt. The successful campaigns followed a rough formula: At...

My DMing style runs toward sandboxing. I am not above laying down railroad tracks occasionally, but I have learned not to freak out when the PC's go off the rails. The difficulty in AP's as presented is getting the players to play the module as the author intended. I have never been able to do this....

The spell creates a pocket dimension with an extradimensional interface.

The pocket dimension can not be effected externally as written.

The interface can be detected and effected externally. Because nothing says that it can't.

I am not even going to pretend to be as clever or as rational as some of the people on this forum. I will say this though. If the PC's decide to use mundane methods to hole up in a dungeon, by using spikes or barricades, the DM can have NPC's use mundane methods to interrupt the rest. Whether it is ...

Danchild wrote: The thing about spellcasters is that they allow the 5 minute workday to actually be a successful tactic. Teleportation or rope trick allows for an immediate 'safe'zone. A party without a spellcaster has to slog it back to town and hope they don't meet anything nasty along the way. T...

The thing about spellcasters is that they allow the 5 minute workday to actually be a successful tactic. Teleportation or rope trick allows for an immediate 'safe'zone. A party without a spellcaster has to slog it back to town and hope they don't meet anything nasty along the way. The end result is ...

My memory is a little hazy, but I will attempt to use my words and explain my disgust. The original ToH was a hack tournament module. I believe it was designed to be an endurance competition. A limited play time coupled with pregenerated characters, the objective of the module was simply to see how ...

https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://www.wizards.com/dnd/files/excerpts/TombT3.pdf A link to the Tomb of Horrors 4e excerpt. Scary for all the wrong reasons. I once had high hopes for 4e. I thought the game would be an improvement on the previous edition. I now realize it is a horrid simulacrum...

At the same time characters have the luxury of teleporting back to town, they usually have access to the luxury of divinations, callings, animations and item creation. In my experience GMing this level of play, the PC's spend as much time setting up countermeasures against their own tactics as they ...