Recent content by pemerton

I'm not familiar with the source material, but based on your account of it my first thought was Burning Wheel. Or for a pretty different experience, but one that is definitely S&S and support episodic play with a mix of new and recurring characters, In A Wicked Age.

Lots. The approach that I use the most is from the Burning Wheel family of games - PCs have relationships (purchased in character buiild, or acquired during play), and also have a Circles stat which is what is rolled to try and meet a helpful NPC. This BW play report shows both relationships...

It's looser in campaign structure, but tighter in resolution framework, than Pendragon. As you may have gathered, I love it! When my group plays, the general vibe is Burning Wheel-lite. (And mechanically that is much lighter.)

@zarionofarabel Have you ever played Prince Valiant. I think it is Greg Stafford's true masterpiece, although I know most people put Pendragon into that box.

Romance has figured in a lot of my RPGing, although not normally as the central focus. How it's handled depends on system. For instance, in Prince Valiant it's based on Glamourie checks and/or the use of the Incite Lust special effect (here are some examples...

I've run many RPGs with no prep. But for a pick-up game, I would go for In A Wicked Age. It bundles setting creation, character creation and establishing situation into a single, fun, group process.

I can see that. But the player might have to have their PC do something or undergo something that explains what is happening: so being stabbed by a random commoner may not be enough; but being stabbed by the Guildmaster of the GH Assassin's Guild would be different. Or if we're thinking about...

I think it started in 3E - eg Expedition to the Demonweb Pits.

I agree with this. I agree with this too. In the example that originally started this tangent - a person ignoring the warrior attacking them in melee in order to strike at a dangerous foe 30' away - I don't see any difficulty reconciling that with the hp mechanics. The person is being attacked...

As a side note, your commitment to metric measurements is admirable!

In Burning Wheel, connections between PCs are established mostly as Beliefs. For instance, when my friend and I built PCs for a game, my PC (Aedhros, an embittered Tolkienesque dark elf) had the Belief Only because Alicia [my friend's PC] seems poor and broken can I endure her company. The...

Yesterday evening I bought copies of Alice is Missing and Deathmatch Island, as gifts for a family member and a friend. The shop also had a discounted copy of the Middarmark Gazetteer, which I picked up for myself. (Up until now I only had it in PDF. I like having hard copies of my Torchbearer...

I don't know how hard or easy it would be to do a S&S version of 5e D&D. But I don't think that there is anything about RPGing per se that makes it hard to have S&S RPGing.

In Prince Valiant, by default everyone plays a knight errant. There are two ability scores (distribute 7 points between Brawn and Presence) and 13 skills (distribute 9 points across them - with at least one rank in each of Riding and Arms). That's how we ended up with two very similar PCs (as...

Why don't a party of adventuring NPCs recruit a few PCs to fill their gaps? The way you're describing it seems to import a type of PC/NPC asymmetry.