The Gaming Den

I've been involved in a few Shadowrun games, and they've all had the houserule "No PC Deckers. The GM wants to run one campaign, not two."

So, it sounds like PL is the kind of GM that, when the party thinks of a clever way to simply overcome an obstacle that was supposed to be difficult and complicated, reacts by docking the party experience because "That encounter didn't challenge you". Fuck that noise.

Frank wrote a really good thing about MTP and what it's good for (The answer to which is actually not "Absolutely nothing, goodgodyall") and the reason why the prevailing wisdom around here is that MTP solutions are inferior. I don't have time to find it right now, though. I will see if I ...

Shadzar looks for any reason to decry any version of D&D past Pre-revised Second Edition as intrinsically bad, completely unplayable, and betraying the spirit and one-true-playstyle of True D&D, no matter how flimsy. You're just figuring out that now?

Back in 2e days, I played a one-shot Planescape module where everyone was an outsider, and they all got summoned by a wizard to kill a rival of his.

My copy has the picture of the girl reclining in some sort of overgrown shrine while almost wearing a kimono too.

I think The Lady works well enough as a justification for why Sigil does not explode despite not having a working political structure. This creates a minor problem which is that you cannot have the Factions in that situation. Fair enough, the Factions are kinda dumb. It also creates a bigger problem...

he wrote a textbook and two novels. this does not give him enough knowledge to write anything outside of his field and barely any knowledge whatsoever to write for the public, unless it might be a novel, nor ability to edit. And what qualifies you to judge his qualifications? being one of the many ...

I did this at the beginning of my last D&D Campaign, and it was well recieved. I started the party out at fifth level, and at the end of a quest to track down a wyvern who had been harassing a mining camp. I gave them a bit of boxed text to set them up, and then had them fight the wyvern. The pa...

I always figured it was a balance matter. Like, the fact that you have a very high strength means less if you can just throw dice at an obstacle over and over until it's done. Of course, it neglects the fact that having a high strength means less when your wizard friend gets a very lucky roll and ac...

Dragonlance seemed to work fine without gods. You're not particularly familiar with Dragonlance, are you? I mean, sure there is the core conceit that "The gods have been absent for a long time", but that's just an excuse to have them come back with a vengeance. Gods not only exist in the ...

Wasn't the Kinfolk book the book that debuted Samuel Haight, where his concept hadn't yet gone completely off the rails and was basically "serial werewolf killer"? No. That was a packaged adventure called Valkenburg Foundation. Its been a while since I read Kinfolk: Unsung Heroes, but fli...

I think truenamers were actually going for a minor antagonist from a fairly obscure Zelazney book called The Changing Land. It's a great book, and extremely D&d-like (in some ways), but that's kind of a stretch for a new class. I've had that sitting on my bedtable for, like, two years. I should...

What about the option of everybody going for cover while the Diplomancer starts working the negotiating angle from his own hiding spot? Happens all the time in media, and it seems like a trivial situation to recreate.

Which actually raises another good question. How would opinions change if a humanoid corpse was petrified, and then subject to stone to flesh ? Strictly, the corpse should count as a mass of stone, rather than a petrified creature, thus the spell should give a person shaped mass of meat. I believe ...

Something that had to be mind controlled into a job will continue to perform that job once the control is lifted? Seems unlikely, regardless of alignment. who said "had to be"? it is the law that guards are controlled by someone else, who takes orders for those controls. lawful characters...

I went to see it a few days ago while I was visiting my folks back in Texas. I think that I will just post my own response to the movie here, copied from my own blog. Had a bit of time on my hands so I walked down to the Alamo Drafthouse and saw 47 Ronin. It was... okay. It really wants to be a swee...

Something that had to be mind controlled into a job will continue to perform that job once the control is lifted? Seems unlikely, regardless of alignment.

Essence wrote:Though it would take a lot of work to properly prepare a Construct,

Two words: Bread Golem. Blugeons your enemies with terrifying eggwashed fists, and remains hot and buttery until destruction.

I was playing once with the idea that all casters should work off of all three mental stats. I don't remember how I wound up splitting it, but I think it was Charisma for Save DCs, Wisdom for Max Spell Level and Int for Bonus Spells. Fantasy Craft does something like that. If you just applied MAD t...

I was playing once with the idea that all casters should work off of all three mental stats. I don't remember how I wound up splitting it, but I think it was Charisma for Save DCs, Wisdom for Max Spell Level and Int for Bonus Spells.

if Magic Mart exists, these reasons are self-evident. everyone CAN freely buy magic items, so everyone DOES. they are just inhabitants of the world. you HAVE to HAVE mass parties of adventurers to make any sense that a Magic Mart would exist, because who is buying all these magic items? obviously n...

On the contrary. You don't put anything in a game without a plan for it. You have to ask yourself who this other party is, why you want them to want to buy items out from under the party and what you're going to do with that other party in the future. You could, of course, use this encounter to esta...

It's pretty transparent that the novels were Weiss and Hickman's home campaign transcribed literally into novel form. I mean, it's all there: A character hasitly brushed aside and replaced almost instantly because a player decided they didn't like their character and whined at the GM until allowed t...

shadzar wrote:what does the DM do when tehre is more than one party? do he have them interact or stay far away from each other or just kill off the non-player party to let the players shine?

You ignore them, until they become relevant to your campaign.