The Gaming Den

So in discussions of pre 3e D&D (like OD&D and AD&D), grogs often complain about the vile influence of modern videogames having terribly twisted their childhood favorite into a numbers crunching grid measuring level appropriate dungeon raiding game and it's not the imagination in exerci...

Btw, why do SS weapons even exist in the first place? There's absolutely nothing they can do that any other gun can't do better. Because they exist in the real world, and simulating the reasons they exist in the real world is hard. I suspect that it may have something to do with Mad Dog being a fuc...

If you punch your team Paladin to death I don't see why you wouldn't get experience for it. I don't think it's written anywhere that you can't kill people you consider friends and gain XP for it. Remember the XP chart for assassinations in the 1st edition DMG? Back when I was in high school, the gu...

I've done "giant anthropomorphic ants invade the Earth in flying saucers" and "gunfight with angry vampires during a car chase" but what actually keeps recurring is "oops, you overslept and missed an exam". That was kind of funny the first ten years after I got out of c...

I used to get irritated by the "clip" versus "magazine" distinction, I think maybe because it was like someone referencing Ludwig Plutonium in a hard sci-fi game -- a signal that the person writing simply didn't know enough about the subject to be taken seriously. But I just can'...

Throne of Bloodstone might be a fun OSSR. I have H2-H4 if someone wants to do the series. Or else I'll do it myself once I get through the stack of other things I kind of want to OSSR. You can become a Dragon King in your own right, but whatever magic army you get to solidify your rule is 100% magi...

Spell accumulation in AD&D was slower than in 3.x, and there were no bonus spells for wizards. When you reached level 29 (the end of the Spells By Level chart), you would have about the same number of spells as a 3.x 20th level wizard -- fewer, if the 3.x wizard were optimized to even a modest d...

Frank's Dad's description is essentially accurate. Generally you'd only bring the 3x5 cards for things that weren't "standard" magic items, to the degree that anything was actually "standard" in those days. I never saw anyone bother with carding a +2 sword or whatever. Something ...

Speaking of shit sandwiches, it's time for more Gygax-directed bile. The "Xenoborgs" chapter immediately follows on the world atlas, and finally gives us our first real look at what Earth is up against. It immediately takes something of a shit on the epic struggle by informing us that the ...

On including real-world politics in your games: 1) I mentioned it above, but: try to use something old enough that no one will feel strong emotions about it. There's thousands of years of human history to pull from. Picking something current right now will only make it feel as dated as an MC Hammer ...

"Primary source" is a thing that has a specific meaning in the context of historical research. Because there is a primary source for something doesn't mean that whatever that source describes is necessarily factual -- it just means there's a primary source for it. For instance: De Bello Ga...

See, this thread right here? Is why I prefer not to have real-world politics in my games. Or at least to make those politics old and obscure enough that no one fucking cares or or is even likely to recognize them, like having a campaign based around the Social Wars.

The author intention with the dice and rules chosen are multiples, but being a resolutor for physical tasks like in your typical trad RPG its not. And if you're pointing errors based on that premise - like Frank is doing - then you are not grokking the game in the first place. If I understand your ...

So two questions: Where did the idea that players shouldn't know the rules to the game come from, and what was the reasoning behind such a stupid idea? Second. Also, where did the idea that complexity for the sake of complexity some how made the game fun come from? Historically speaking, probably t...

Feng Shui is a self-aware pastiche of action movie elements all mixed together in one cauldron with a dash of self-parody. HKAT! is as much a game about making action movies as it is a game about simulating action movies -- it's also more complicated, and complication is not an ideal characteristic ...

The general relationship of the RPG industry to freelancers is roughly analogous to the relationship between Stalin and the laborers on the White Sea Canal. Which is to say, "use up as many as you have to -- there's more where those came from." As Ancient History says, the pay rates range ...

Played it for a couple of sessions using the actual rules, and it was by no means the worst gaming experience I'd ever had. We busted up some cultists and saved the girl. Guy. Whatever, it was 15 years ago, memory fails on the exact details. However, I think three key points helped it be more enjoya...

D&D characterization of any race (Imaskari or whatever) is restricted to being a stat-block for combat encounters with little or no meaning outside of that. And even then its meaning is arguablly light, with just a feat like infravision here or a bonus to some saves there, etc. I found the Deep...

From the way you describe the opening vignettes, they are probably lifted wholesale from the first edition (published 1998). That was early enough in the history of the internet that the porn star thing was not completely silly, but even though it was the pre-Wikipedia era, Alta Vista was already a ...

This is a great trip down memory lane.

Some people want to be John McClane, sure. But some other people want to be a slave , a ratcatcher , a powerless investigator , a gay mormon killing heteros for revenge , or... simply a bunny . :wink: I played Bunnies & Burrows at a con in the '80s where the GM was Steffan O'Sullivan, the guy w...

Well just because you're playing someone more powerful than you doesn't mean it's a power fantasy. Power fantasy are about you being powerful compared to the rest of the world, and in something like Forgotten Realms, your 2nd level 18 strength barbarian is garbage. Literally you'd gain more relativ...

I'm supporting dean's point, even people who say "I like puzzles/talking" are engaging in a power fantasy most of the time. Just wanted to address intentionally comedic games. If Steve is a farmer who's turning into an adventurer then yeah, power fantasy. Zero to hero is a really common o...

His point was always obviously that if you want to play James Bond, and there's a Secret Agent class, it better be able to do the sort of things James Bond does. Because if it doesn't, you aren't going to have any fun playing your character. This seems right to me. Maybe a better way to make that p...

I think you may be somewhat misconstruing his remarks, although to be fair I didn't think his phrasing was ideal. The crux of the issue to me is, "What do you mean by 'powerful'?" The teenage hacker in a world where the whole planet is ruled by corporations run amok -- is that a powerful c...