The Gaming Den

White Wolf never settled on one canonical set of core mechanics and everyone plays by house rules that they may or may not know are house rules, but which of the 50 or so different versions gets the closest to being good? I know opinions are going to differ on this, but my personal criteria: • Havin...

I don't blame you for lashing out. If I'd called mechanics this bad "actually a huge step up" I'd be embarrassed and trying to deflect too.

So I found the PDF for this thing and the basic mechanics are nonsense. The combat engine can't make up its mind whether there's an initiative roll or everyone acts simultaneously, or whether your attack pool is also your defense pool. It collapses in a pile of segfaults if either side tries to focu...

I'm legit unclear on whether Tolkein orcs are just another word for goblin, or orcs are a kind of goblin, or goblins are a kind of orc. I vaguely remember some speculation about him trying to stick to a specific language group for all his naming conventions and trying to retcon Goblin to Orc because...

I think it's pretty shit how this version of Odin is so focused on making sure he always wins that he has almost nothing in common with Odin from actual mythology. The guy Snorri Sturleson wrote about didn't have omniscient knowledge of magic and needed his ravens to go scout for him and actually us...

I’ll ask again, since there seems to be a lot of parsing replies going on. There is a 0-level NPC with godlike powers in an old AD&D module. There’s no reason he should be level 0, given his psionic capabilities. He is literally presented as a way to throw level/power metrics on its ass. Does t...

For the sake of simplicity, I have the hiding group only make a single hide check & the DC of those who matter if they spot you is that result + 1 (seeing as the players are usually the ones attempting to hide, I let them win ties). That's not just simplicity, you pretty much have to do that or...

In that same vein there's also low level demons and lantern archons and shit with at-will Greater Teleport. It's not exactly "DMPC" but it is in the spirit of "this thing would wreck your shit if played smart but I'll keep sandbagging as long as you stay on the rails". We could a...

Yeah, but how often do you get to play a 15th level character? Exactly. Even if you could beat up Odin at level 15 (which, this version, you pretty much can't), you're expected to do things that Odin and like fifty other gods might care about at much lower level than that. You could do the "de...

So, we talked about the Lady of Pain and Elminster. Are there any other infamous Penis Extension NPCs in D&D? I'll nominate most of the gods from Forgotten Realms. Really any god based on D&D's default assumptions qualifies. You can't beat them in a fight because they're Level : Fuck You (t...

Hi, longtime lurker. Whether the Lady of Pain is a force of nature or a bullshit metaplot NPC depends on your sources. Lady of Pain as Force of Nature In the original boxed set she exists to keep Sigil as neutral ground and has no other agenda. Unless you try to take over or destroy the city or acti...