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I have two groups. One went all-in on combat, the other didn't. The thing about building a hardened PC is that there's no level of power that makes you completely indomitable in combat; there will always be someone tougher, and days that weak streetrat gets really lucky with their poor quality...

Cyberpunk Red is a game that can be run low-combat. In a lot of ways, how dangerous combat can be disincentivizes it (like Call of Cthulhu). And like Call of Cthulhu, it has a robust skill system. I'm not a huge fan of FATE-based games, but I'll admit the system does a good job without having...

I went to a build-a-runner workshop at Origins last year and even the guy there said character generation was so complicated you really need an excel spreadsheet or app to go through it. To my mind, that's just too much. Still going to play the game; the latest edition at least made some...

Charles Halloway's decision to accept himself, accept his age, resist temptation, was such a powerful moment. It's been almost 15 years since I last read Something Wicked This Way Comes. I really ought to revisit it. Likewise, my youth wasn't as far in the rearview mirror then. Stephen King can...

I did. They got it wrong a lot, forgot this or that modifier, effect, or aura. I'm still suspicious of the one PC's AC calculations, too. We only got as far as 15th level or so, and that was way too busy. I can't imagine hitting 20th. Yeah, high-level play remains an issue in most editions. I...

Cyberpunk Red BECMI (provided I can get fresh shiny new versions to replace my original, much-loved copies) Shadowdark or DCC RPG

I love Halloween III. The images of bugs spilling out of those Halloween masks as children died was terrifying. In a lot of ways, I think the series would've been better, had it taken the anthology route. Maybe they could've brough Michael Myers back now and then, and it would've been a big...

Bradbury's writing has this strangely beautiful heartbreak. It at once captures what it's like to be a kid, aching to be an adult but also fearful of leaving childhood behind, and being an adult desperately recalling your lost childhood. All of it done with a simple description of an autumn wind...

In my experience, running 4e towards the end, with its slew of options, classes, and abilities got to be particularly onerous. But each table can vary.

Just about every kingdom or territory in Tellene stands at a precipice. Just one example (found by opening to a random page in the Kingdoms of Kalamar core book) is Shynabyth. The kingdom bans all religion, all clerics. King Joto seeks to depose the Theocrat of nearby Slen. Prince Sobryn works...

Sure, most of the editions work as core rules plus one book, but as you said, the more books you add, the worse most editions become. Sometimes I even think about giving 4e a try with just the three core books in play, see what that's like.

I finished reading Bradbury's The October Country. Positively loved it, and I've no idea how it's taken me this long to get to reading it. There's loss and yearning and orange October leaves spilling from the pages. The story Homecoming in particular hit me hard. The more Bradbury I read, the...

100%. It's gritty, with a lived-in sense of desperation. Even the well-off aren't exempt from the conditions of the world.

Is there any edition of D&D where that isn't the case? 1e, maybe, but even then, people will debate Unearthed Arcana's additions until the cows come home.

They could expand the story massively, as Dragonlance did so much backfilling of the story as it progressed. But I think that would be a huge mistake. Even beyond the contradictory plot elements, it's just too much. Best bet is to worry about each Chronicles book at a time. Do one a season...

About 150 hours of Cyberpunk Red this year, plus Shadowrun, DCC RPG, Shadowdark, and some other games at cons.

I liked the Wheel of Time series, but will admit that knowing how expensive it was, how risk-averse streaming platforms can be, and how much material they had to adapt, it was always going to be a long shot that it completed the story. That being said, it's a completely different scale. The...

Tunnels and Trolls is a lot of fun. But yeah, some of those spell names have not aged well. The way it abstracts combat works, but requires a different way to approach the game conceptually. As for rolling buckets of dice, I feel like for some games it's a feature, not a bug (see also...

Animation and D&D are both in very different places from 2008. There have been multiple successful animated series based on RPGs. And doing it as a live action TV series, that would require a heck of a budget for the special effects, what with all the dragons and draconians. You know, I still...

That's kinda my feeling as well. Star Wars might be the exception, since the movies are clearly divided into trilogies.