Search found 86 matches

by Smeelbo
Sun May 24, 2020 9:12 pm
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: 6th Edition Speculation Begins
Replies: 31
Views: 8727

I nominate Catacombs for D&D 6E.

Finally get rid of the damn D20!
by Smeelbo
Tue Jul 14, 2015 12:45 am
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: Magic: important to your enjoyment of rpgs ?
Replies: 52
Views: 7588

But I'm not the one claiming to have a consensus based on a complete extrapolation of fundamental laws... Neither am I. What I am saying is that there is one world we all share, the real world, whose shape depends on the consequences of physics, regardless of the degree to which we understand those...
by Smeelbo
Mon Jul 13, 2015 11:01 pm
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: Magic: important to your enjoyment of rpgs ?
Replies: 52
Views: 7588

Re: The real world

Well that stupid idea can fuck right the hell off. Anyone with even a vague half remembered background in physics should be able to take pretty much any RPG rules set, spend less than five fucking minutes looking at the way it handles things like falling, missiles, and vehicle movement and flat out...
by Smeelbo
Mon Jul 13, 2015 10:31 pm
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: Magic: important to your enjoyment of rpgs ?
Replies: 52
Views: 7588

The real world

Multi-author fiction only works when the authors come to consensus about how their world works. There is no consensus about how the real world works, so the real world is not a good game setting. Magic is a better game mechanic than physics because people don't understand physics, but do understand...
by Smeelbo
Fri Jun 26, 2015 6:00 pm
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: Example of nonlinear storytelling to build a mystery
Replies: 6
Views: 1721

You might take a look at a board game called Android. It's kind of reverse Clue, where the player's start with suspects that they get more or fewer victory points if that suspect is fingered, and the player's can make the "clues" incriminate some suspects but not others.

Smeelbo
by Smeelbo
Sun Jun 21, 2015 8:23 pm
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: Clerics: overpowered or overrated?
Replies: 64
Views: 15689

Preparing Known Spells for Spontaneous Casting that day...

The more I think about it, the more I like the option I was offered for Rise of the Runelords described previously. I don't mind the Cleric spell list, but I hate the fiddliness of deciding in advance how many castings of each spell I will memorize. It's not so much the choosing of the spells, but t...
by Smeelbo
Sat Jun 20, 2015 10:15 pm
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: Clerics: overpowered or overrated?
Replies: 64
Views: 15689

Supposedly an idea from 5E...

I am about to begin playing Rise of the Runelords as a cleric, and the referee offered me the following option, apparently based on 5E . First, I will spontaneously cast spells equal the number spells a cleric could normally cast, plus one per level for Domain . All Domain spells are automatically k...
by Smeelbo
Fri Jun 19, 2015 10:17 pm
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: Pathfinder Is Still Bad
Replies: 8556
Views: 1658001

Humans are clearly the best race...

...because, as you may have noticed, all the other humanoid races went extinct a long time ago. But seriously, I almost always play humans because of their flexibility. The alternate favored class option for human spontaneous spell casters is to add a spell known of not the highest level you can cas...
by Smeelbo
Sun May 17, 2015 1:17 am
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: D&D 5e has failed
Replies: 1907
Views: 401125

D&D Attack Wing not selling

In any case, there's the D&D Attack Wing thing going on now. You get 6 Hobgoblins for like $25. That's pretty stiff, but it also comes with a maneuver dial and cards that I guess you might care about if you played Attack Wing. It's made by WizKids, and some people seem to like it OK. It's not m...
by Smeelbo
Sat May 16, 2015 10:09 pm
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: D&D 5e has failed
Replies: 1907
Views: 401125

I'll have a double malted roach killer, and one for the road

Also, the actual wargame portion of the D&D miniatures snorted malted roach killer. You can't discount that as a factor, either. What mattered was that enough people played Malted Roach Killer that the demand for under-pointed figures drove prices for singles to the point that it made sense for...
by Smeelbo
Sat May 16, 2015 9:50 pm
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: D&D 5e has failed
Replies: 1907
Views: 401125

The Golden Age of Plastic Miniatures has come and gone

What's the best way to push miniatures then? Is there a way for D&D to develop a 'tactical tournament game' scene (something more like Mordheim than warhammer 40k)? They've tried a few times without much success, but I think it's totally doable, just do a mix of what Pathfinder and Heroclix do ...
by Smeelbo
Fri May 15, 2015 9:32 pm
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: Annoying Game Questions You Want Answered
Replies: 5992
Views: 933134

Lady Fish

In the KingMaker campaign I am running, the group calls itself "Lady Fish," and consists of a Barbarian, Duelist, Druid, Sorcerer, and Inquisitor , and the player we lost had a Rogue . Everyone is very experienced with RPG s generally, and PathFinder in specific. It's not an easy group to ...
by Smeelbo
Thu May 14, 2015 2:37 am
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: D&D 5e has failed
Replies: 1907
Views: 401125

Oh, oh, oh! It's Magic! You know! Never believe it's not so!

Magic is so successful because they sell to Timmy and they sell to Johnny and they sell to Spike. And they sell to these different people who have different buying patterns and ways of interacting with the game with the same packs of cards. So very true. For example, there are multiple formats for ...
by Smeelbo
Wed May 13, 2015 11:45 pm
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: Most popular RPGs?
Replies: 14
Views: 5924

CoC 7th Ed PDF only

Yes, but Chaosium hasn't bothered with a printed version of Call of Cthulhu, 7th Edition.

Why would they?

Smeelbo
Abuser of BBCodes
by Smeelbo
Sun May 10, 2015 7:57 pm
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: D&D 5e has failed
Replies: 1907
Views: 401125

Magic vs other CCG's

In a typical week, we host a tournament each of Yugioh, Pokemon, Weiss Schwarz, Dragonball Z, and HeroClix , for a take about $250 in entry fees. Magic would be twice that, but for weeks with a special event, like a Preliminary Pro Tour Qualifer, pre-release, or the upcoming Modern Masters 2015 , we...
by Smeelbo
Sun May 10, 2015 2:33 am
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: D&D 5e has failed
Replies: 1907
Views: 401125

Tripling board and RPG sales did not matter to the owner

In the past 5 years, Magic the Gathering has increased by almost 200 percent. The last several blocks have been well-received moneymakers and smash hits. As pen and paper Dungeons and Dragons went underground for almost 3 years, Magic: The Gathering basically doubled its value. Forbes has reported ...
by Smeelbo
Fri May 08, 2015 9:18 pm
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: D&D 5e has failed
Replies: 1907
Views: 401125

D&D 5E not worth the time to learn

I have nothing but scorn for this iteration of the game - it is literally the only edition I'll never own a single element of... I've been playing D&D since the summer of '75, and I will never own a single book of 5E . I won't run it for the store, even if they offer to pay me, because I would ...
by Smeelbo
Tue May 05, 2015 3:18 am
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: Need Input on Kingmaker
Replies: 28
Views: 4911

Command vs Stability

I'm not sure if this is a different rules issue, but in my Kingmaker book, and on the Paizo website, the kingdom has to make a Stability check every round. On a success, the kingdom loses one Unrest and gains one BP. Yeah, I was writing from memory, and got Command and Stability reversed. Command a...
by Smeelbo
Tue May 05, 2015 1:53 am
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: Games for a Lazy MC
Replies: 38
Views: 5405

FATE, it is your destiny...

My advice is to push the creative work onto your players. For maximal reward for minimal preparation, nothing compares to FATE . First, you get a lot of information from the players about what kinds of scenes they expect from their choice in skills and aspects, as well as how much to emphasize those...
by Smeelbo
Sun May 03, 2015 9:34 pm
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: Need Input on Kingmaker
Replies: 28
Views: 4911

3 rule sets to rule them all....

Keep in mind that there are THREE versions of the Kingdom Building Rules: 1) The original rules published in volume 2 of the Adventure Path 2) Modestly revised, expanded, and clarified rules from the Book of River Nations . This is what I am using, with a few variants. 3) The very revised, very diff...
by Smeelbo
Sun May 03, 2015 8:24 pm
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: Need Input on Kingmaker
Replies: 28
Views: 4911

KingMaker Hints

I have been running KingMaker for a few years now. You can build a kingdom that cranks out magic items like a vending machine. Either your Wealth By Level is tied up in the Kingdom, or the Kingdom breaks Wealth By Level . As a Druid , you do not really need to worry about gear much, but hiding the K...
by Smeelbo
Fri May 01, 2015 3:26 am
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: Does RPG rules get better with time ?
Replies: 12
Views: 11448

D20 + bonus vs DC is a huge step forward, so are dice pools

RPGs are new. In 1974 the rules were basically incomprehensible even to people with years of related wargaming rules under their belts. This. The summer of '75 I read the 3 OD&D books from cover to cover literally over a dozen times, and I still had no idea how to play. We fumbled around for a ...
by Smeelbo
Fri May 01, 2015 12:47 am
Forum: In My Humble Opinion...
Topic: Zero Buzz on 5E...Is It Dead Out The Gate?
Replies: 2279
Views: 299576

At Adventures in Comics and Games

At the store where I work, we have one wall (about 5 long shelves) of PathFinder books, basically everything they have in print, which we reguarly restock. That would be about 20 hardcovers, each about 2 deep, plus maybe a couple hundred different softcovers, Adventures and Adventure Paths, Setting ...
by Smeelbo
Sun Apr 26, 2015 3:45 am
Forum: MPSIMS
Topic: The Gaming Den "Going to a Con" Thread
Replies: 146
Views: 158372

Headed to KublaCon

I am going to KublaCon 2015 in near the San Francisco Airport this coming Memorial Day weekend. Running a prequel to Tekumel using FATE.

If anyone lives near Sacramento (Carmichael, specifically), I am looking for a ride, will pay gas and coffee both ways.

Smeelbo
Abuser of BBCodes