Recent content by Lakesidefantasy

I agree with you, but I have to make a point. Making it important to the story that these characters do this thing in that place provides an opportunity to find out what happens if they don't. Sure, we can upend the Dungeon Master's (our?) plans just as well as we can upend an adventure path...

Great! now you've ruined it for everybody who hasn't read the books. Spoilers man, spoilers. 🙃

I liked: Adventure paths. I don't like: Adventure Paths. When I was running long-term campaigns in the past I didn't know what I was doing. The story arc would just kind of wind and wend randomly (organically?) intrigue to intrigue. Towards an ultimate goa to be surel, but we kept getting...

The odd editions are the best.

Hmm, smells like someone put poison in the well.

Yes, plus computer games. I do like the use of Virtual Table Tops to connect people. I don't like the use of digital tools that make the experience of playing Dungeons and Dragons more and more into a graphical experience. This also includes expensive tables with integrated monitors to display...

I don't like the evolution of Dungeons and Dragons into a digital game and an analog game. As the game evolves, these two will become increasingly incompatible. I do like Bounded Accuracy. This has "fixed" so many things. I do like the 5e focus on character personality traits.

I don't like the increasing focus on character building through rules systems. I do like like the increasing simplification of rules systems, and more dependence on rulings over rules.

I wouldn't call it Dungeons and Dragons.

From my limited understanding of statistics, a Standard Deviation of 6.7 here is gigantic! I imagine the bell curve would be rather hard to see.

That's a good question. I've only played with her for about a dozen sessions, but if I had to guess it would "This is cool." I feel all of these emotions at the table including others like frustration, confusion, and contentment (I'm a sucker for descriptions of a halfling village). Sometimes I...

Don't overthink it (I'll be handing out citations for such). I've always said that "Dungeons and Dragons is better in the telling." Meaning that, at the table, we, the Players, feel real emotions that are not always comfortable. It's not till later, after the emotions have dissipated, are we...

I think in this arrangement the Dungeon Master would handle that.

In the end, I think the Point Buy method is balanced. It seems to me that the team who put together Dungeons and Dragons 5e did the math and put some thought into it. They balanced the Point Buy method against the Standard method. The rules for generating ability scores on page 13 give us as...

For reference, here are the 65 sets of scores that equal 27 points. The scores in bold are the 20 that conform to Optimization Guidlines. Attached is the full list of 54,264 scores. You have to scroll down really far to find the Standard Array.