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    Why I Hate Skills

    Interjecting this article as it is pretty relevant to the conversation. It's focused on Fate specifically but imo is applicable for any kind of game, including trad games. Specifically, the part about thinking about rolls less about "Overcoming Challenges" and more as about "Determining What...
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    Why I Hate Skills

    Typically if plan A fails in this sort of game, you are driven to using a backup plan to achieve the same result at a greater cost. The rogue being unable to bypass the lock might mean: The party goes to the chocolate room first, fighting their enemy without obtaining his weakness. The party...
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    Why I Hate Skills

    Many games sidestep this problem by encouraging the GM to just skip rolling on checks where there's no consequence for failure and no external pressure. But that isn't going to stop inexperienced or particular GMs from just saying "well you're climbing, and theres a climbing skill, make me a...
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    AD&D 1E Rules that are kinda cool but everyone forgot

    I'm not referring to playing 5e - I'm referring to playing Od&d, B/X, or any other TSR era game today.
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    D&D 5E (2014) Best way to balance an encounter against a level 10 5 player party?

    Your original encounter design should be fine, provided that you also include 2-3 other encounters of similar difficulty in the same adventuring day. 17,400XP* will give you a Deadly encounter for your party size - which means the party will probably win unless they play stupid or get super...
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    AD&D 1E Rules that are kinda cool but everyone forgot

    Also in the context that the original D&D designers were running multiple sessions a week, some lasting over 12 hours, including as many as 20 players simultaneously, and running for months or years. Not much else to do when snowed in in WI/MN before the internet or video games. These were...
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    AD&D 1E Rules that are kinda cool but everyone forgot

    In B/X notably this is true of ranged weapons and spell ranges but NOT spell areas and the like - helps prevent one AOE from killing hundreds and hundreds of soldiers in a mass combat scenario.
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    Pumpkin Spice Joins the Million Dollar Crowdfunder Club

    Its also encouragement for people who already backed at low levels to either upgrade to a higher tier or add add ons. The all-in tiers get to be a better "deal" as more stuff is added and you get a constant email barrage reminding you of that fact.
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    Pumpkin Spice Joins the Million Dollar Crowdfunder Club

    Yep its quite real. I've been following SimzArt for years and I think they're pretty much pulling from their whole body of work for all the book illustrations. 0% AI.
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    Most common RPGs of today?

    I believe the top ones that aren't 5e D&D are, by volume of players, in no particular order: Pathfinder (both editions) Call of Cthulhu (all editions) D&D (All editions other than 5e + Retroclones) World of Darkness (all versions) Pretty much anything else is just a rounding error relative to 5e.
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    OSR Why does OSR Design Draw You In?

    "perception" in Old school games is essentially the Search action - spend 10 minutes searching at most a 10x10 square, with a 17% chance of success each time, no retries. This rule is so horrendously bad and unusable that, by necessity, people started making up their own way of resolving...
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    OSR Why does OSR Design Draw You In?

    People typically are referring to OD&D and the Basic series when they say Old School was simpler, not AD&D and definitely not AD&D second edition. If they do use ad&d as a reference point, they ignore like 90% of the rules as optional. Old school was birthed in 1974 and died at your choice of...
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    Shadowdark Shadowdark General Thread [+]

    I ran the premade module in it to decent success. Trying to use the campaign tools was frustrating and I ultimately gave up and pivoted to a different campaign frame. It ultimately is a better book to steal ideas from than to use as the sole source for a campaign, imo.
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    Shadowdark Shadowdark General Thread [+]

    LL usually has the book pretty close to done before crowdfunding it. The KS's I've been on have all delivered quickly.
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    Shadowdark Shadowdark General Thread [+]

    The art, design, and ideas in LL's stuff is really really good. They're very fun to read or flip through. They tend to lack polish/specifics though that make them more challenging to use for actual play as-is. Specifically I tried to run Wind Wraith which was very challenging to use and...
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    Pathfinder 2E Do you think 1st or 2nd edition is more complicated?

    I can attest to this. The PF1 campaign I was in broke down for this exact reason around level 9 or 10, where the DM physically couldn't keep track of the buff/bonus/etc in an encounter where he had to run multiple spellcasters, and had like 30 tabs open in his browser just to try. This was...
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    Pathfinder 2E Do you think 1st or 2nd edition is more complicated?

    As some examples of early game complexity. How do you draw a weapon or potion? In PF1: you can draw a weapon as a move action, which means you can't move during your turn. But, if you have a BAB of +1 (like a level 1 fighter), you can draw a weapon as a free action during a move action in...
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    Pathfinder 2E Do you think 1st or 2nd edition is more complicated?

    Maybe 2 hours, then I started running the game. I had my group(s) read the rules and we started playing immediately, pretty well without too many issues. I have also had a group NOT read anything and we learned-as-they-played through the beginner box. Again, no issues.
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    WotC D&D Beyond Reveals 'Partnered Content' Schedule

    I'd take a supplemental update PDF. I just want to be able to own the update somehow.
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    WotC D&D Beyond Reveals 'Partnered Content' Schedule

    Does this mean that the Exploring Eberron update will be a dndbeyond exclusive or could it still be released on dmsguild separately?
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