Recent content by BookTenTiger

I've never played in a game in which planning a heist is actually fun. Conceptually it seems like it could be fun, but I find the gap between player knowledge and character knowledge makes planning difficult and rarely useful. Flashback mechanics, on the other hand, have always almost been...

DM: The guard asks you to identify all the stoplights in the photograph. Player: I make a Perception check... 13... DM: You missed one! The guard asks you to identify all the bicycles in the photograph.

Here's the problem as I see it. (Please remember that I fiddled around with a similar idea for a number of years.) In a standard 5e combat, each player gets a turn, and the DM gets one or more turns. This means everyone is sharing the spotlight somewhat evenly throughout the combat. Let's say...

From my experience attempting this kind of system, it's very challenging to keep track of multiple opponents! It also means you are frequently interrupting players' turns, which isn't always a fun experience.

My friend and I once tried to create a Continuous Initiative System for 3e. We used a cribbage set and created pegs for each combatant. Each action or set of movement had a cost- when you took your action (or moved), you then moved your peg down the cribbage set a number of holes equal to the...

I'm going to suggest something: Let them get the math wrong. My prediction would be that if you told the players that keeping track of (and printing out!) all their character sheets was too much, and had them do it, they might get some of the math wrong. But I also predict it wouldn't actually...

I'm not surprised! D&D has always been a great outlet for me creatively and socially. It helped me through the pandemic and during spates of depression.

Good follow-up question: How old were you when you first joined EN World / other variations thereof? I was 14 when I first joined Eric Noah's site. I am now 37.

I am 37. I don't exist on the poll. 😭 Edit: I found it!

This reminds me of the time my older brother told me the whole story of the Odyssey using gummy bears. Every time someone died we are their bear. When the ship got caught between the big monster and the whirlpool... that's about when we started to get stomach aches.

What we really need to bring back is the Cromliness score. Conan had massive Cromliness, and he's the epitome of a great D&D character!

I used to study DiTerlizzi's art in the Monster Manual religiously. His versions of the monsters are pretty much planted in my brain.

Cleric, absolutely. Without healing spells, the BBEG's attacks will have much more effect on future rounds. If the BBEG takes a lot of damage while killing the Cleric, they can Misty Step away to recuperate, and return to pick off another character later!

These are the very words I was seeking before my morning coffee truly settled in. Like you say, there are narrative truths to each species that, I think, are more important to most players than the mechanical benefit. Being an elf means something, even if you don't get a +2 to Dex and...

Let's say you sit down to play D&D, and the DM has introduced a house rule... There are no mechanical differences between the species. Whether you choose to play an Elf, a Human, or a Tortle, you gain no mechanical benefits. (Let's ignore flying races for right now and say this DM has come up...