Recent content by GMMichael

I think I get it. One skill check is no bueno- there have to be competing or mutually exclusive checks . . . Then skills are more acceptable. Wasn't trying to be obnoxious (probably just tired), but it seems appropriate given the thread title and some admittedly facetious responses. It's...

I'm just trying to wrap my head around what a PC is in a roll-playing game. I guess there's what the character is (attributes), what the character does (skills), possessions, background/history (where skills originate), and what, superficial elements? I'm sure that I'm missing a category or...

Sure. It seems "skilled" is in the eye of the beholder, here. Not sure which skill you're looking for, but there's skill in designing a character, skill in knowing what one has put on the character sheet and how to use it, and skill in role-playing the character in a way that maximizes...

These problems go away when you give up the pass/fail mentality. A failed lockpicking contest doesn't mean the characters can't get through the door; it means they have to take the harder way around/through. From this angle, skills just help decide the uphill slope of a PC's current objective...

Huh. I put locks on things because that's what the NPCs would do. And I assign a Myths and Legends difficulty to know about how cryptic that writing is. It's partially to reward a PC with a high Myths and Legends bonus, partially to know how much additional effort the PCs will have to apply...

Mo' money, mo' problems. Let the PCs buy whatever they want.

Or any Battlefield game. (I tried the free RedSec edition, and once spent about a minute and 50 rounds running around a van trying to kill someone on the other side.)

I'm in. Hold the enemy's sword in your wound so she's unable to parry your ally's attack! Although in my game, it's more like, "she does 5 damage. What happened?"

Not bad. If it works, keep doing it. It's easier to guarantee hits or maximize damage though. Especially on high-HP enemies. By intentionally lowering ACs ("bounding" them) WotC all but admitted that having attack and damage randomness doesn't work all that well. It makes sense to keep the...

But, doesn't Tide pod eating have a certain, Darwinian, benefit to it? You'll have to give us a link for this. All of my FBook profile posts regard illegal things that the FBook has done. So I have a nice set of reminders of why I shouldn't have logged in in the first place.

There's the pirate-endorsed term for a real role-playing game: ARRPG.

It's fair to call computer games an RPG if they resemble an RPG (even if you're not actually role-playing). But as you show, some RPGs don't even resemble other RPGs. Which makes CRPG pretty meaningless. Indeed, a quick look at Steam suggests that "RPG" is a self-applied term that can mean...

Thanks to a thoroughly non-medieval grocery chain, I prefer broccoli on mine. I'm not a gnome, but I'm not fully human, either. Also, I'm pretty sure that as long as there have been soldiers, there have been innovations like sandwiches.

Yup, I'm ignored by the poster. Which makes the ENWorld front page a little less useful/interesting. :(

I'd go with Advantage instead of bonus damage for (2). Ultimately, this looks like it incentivizes a lot of running around instead of actual fighting. Two words: damage advantage.