The Gaming Den

So, spitballing some combat ideas, then throwing down some design questions 3e Grid/Turn Combat Everything lives and dies by the five-foot square, attacks of opportunity and reach are a big thing. Reactions don't typically involve movement - people move on their turn and then stand around during eve...

Alright. I don't see any need for a consistent benefit for vassalage, if it's not a way for PCs to swear an initial Truce. Leave the precise costs and powers of vassalage up to the DM and/or the individual Fairest writeups. Guest sounds mostly good - the one thing I'm not totally sure about is the o...

The other two are fine, really. My objection was mostly to the structure where one element requires involvement with the fairest and the other two didn't have an option to be Invovlef with them. For vassalage, are you thinking of it as an additional Rite that can be your initial spirit contact and t...

The Rite of Water: a rite of hermitage. By putting to sea alone with nothing but water, you weaken yourself to the point where the spirits no longer see you as a potential danger.

So, I like the Paths of Sorcery. However, the Rites don't make as much sense to me - I'm not 100% sure what should be done instead, but you should probably have different vassalage rites for each of the Fairest on top of having earth, wind, and water rites that interact with lesser spirits. Mechanic...

The big Privateer Press minis don't use their bigness, though. The Knight Titan has purity seals and tactical icons and stuff that's the same size as the detailing on the space marine next to it, and you couldn't cut its size down without losing that. There's some fine detailing on the Warmachine st...

One day 3-D printers will be affordable (agreed), they are now, they will be able to produce fantastic detail (the affordable ones won't) and they will do it faster than one miniature per day (no, they won't, look it up). So we may get to the time when someone can make a poorly detailed miniature a...

The original set of Dominion is all you really need to play - obviously there are other sets, but not having them is more like not having every Munchkin expansion pack than not having a full set of Netrunner cards. It is really good, but picking up everything ever released for it is pretty expensive...

Also, jenga removes control over the play experience and risk levels from everybody: designer, GM, and players. If a group happens to play jenga regularly things are easier, if they drink while playing things are harder.

The length and structure of combat is also a big issue . A two round fight means your target has maybe one round spent marked before he keels over, so it's not meaningfully different from a one-round debuff. The typical encounter should last something like four to six rounds if you want these kinds ...

Roll (level)d(size based on type) uh, that is a LOT of non-standard dice. Most players own at most two or three sets of dice plus some d20s and d6s, so every soak roll is going to end up involving passing dice around the table. so creatures that have fractional hit die would actually get their soak...

Oh ho! This is excellent. Fetish Magic! With your permission, I'm going to be making use of that. Go for it. It's a pretty standard idea, really. The setting is pretty vanilla, as it were. There's the mundane, vanilla mortal world, the scary magical superplane where everything is possible (a la Nig...

I think I'd be more okay with it if it were described as "a marine piloting a mech, his head stick out, and he happens to be in power armor like the other vehicle crewmen" instead of "yo dawg power armor for your power armor"

That's just bullshit. It's arguably less dumb than the Nemesis Dreadknight, but it's not good. Also, is there really a need for a 5th walking marine dude platform on top of scouts, standard power armor, terminators, and dreadnoughts?

I'm with tussock as far as blood magic being a bit humanocentric - a more general fetish system would be better: a dragon's scales, a lock of hair, etc. I'm not sure what I'd do in terms of spells that usually require LOS/LOE. Typically I picture fetish magic as being slower and more ritual-oriented...

Honestly, I think true names are more likely to be the new +1 longsword if learning one is a matter of rolls rather than shenanigans. I'd rather see true names be, y'know, names. If you need a certain level of power or non-name knowledge to exploit them, then they really can be everyday names for pe...

I don't think you really want a single spell that does all of these - there's a bunch of different kinds of creatures whose existence is explained by "a wizard did it", and different kinds should be created by different spells. Hybrid beasts and other low-int non-magical mostly-from-scratc...

I don't think I'd even have parrying melee attacks be a distinct game entity - if you've got something solid enough to block the other guy's attacks, have some room to maneuver, and you aren't flat-footed, an attack made against you needs to beat your Dex + Ancient Weapons + 10 because you're parryi...

Schwartzkopf: mind naming the actual company in question? I don't expect to find super-helpful figures, but there's a pretty short list of games and companies that actually sold anything in the last five to ten years. Looking at the ICv2 stuff with some google-fu, since 4E launched, Paizo is the 800...

So, "monster hunter show" actually has a real style of play associated with it. I'm less familiar with the genre than I should be, but I assume there's going to be enough non-combat screen time that non-caster face/infiltrator is a valid role even if he takes Mediocre Combat and Dodge and ...

It's important to remember that most RPG sales happen early in a game or edition's lifecycle, with occasional exceptions if an overlooked game gets noticed. SJGames has a ton of mindshare because their board games are culturally significant, but they haven't put out a new RPG edition in years. GURPS...

If most humans are 1HD, then even "simple" things they're focused in will fail one in twenty times in default conditions. Basically, average humans doing something they do every day are rolling somewhere between +2 and +6, so if it's not something people fail one in twenty times, the diffi...

Quick note: this is full of criticism because I want a good future-tech game with actual on-paper magic and psionics and aliens oh my, and saying this today beats trying to write such a thing from scratch. That said, WELCOME TO THUNDERDOME. Whose game is it anyway? Is this supposed to be more like D...

Best entry on there IMO is the forum game they ran that got wrecked in the first round. Why is Fate's first-round opponent not Savage Worlds? Do Rogue Trader vs Dark Heresy! Star Wars EoE vs d6 Star Wars! Can you really compare Paranoia and Nobilis? Why is Dogs in the Vineyard vs GURPS something tha...

The Palestinian Authority is what Israel recognizes as the Palestinian government. However, the PA as such doesn't really have any people - the entire government is run on a spoils system, so in practice the people providing governmental services are actually either Hamas or the Palestinian Liberati...