The Gaming Den

I've never run Jzardine, but I do like the idea of dungeon that someone else has partially explored and dug through the walls to get to stuff. It's logical behavior in an abandoned dungeon and it's something I think that more games should either encourage or provide non-arbitrary reasons why people ...

Funny how there are people for whom a game being Abandonware is considered "a feature." I don't consider it a feature. It is something of a problem. It's just not a problem that's effectively damaging the table I play at, and hence, I'm not complaining about it. 5e has real problems, like...

What I'm actually surprised at is the LACK of content. Why the lack there of? Why doesn't it bother players? My group plays for 4-5 hours a session, every other week or so. Between Lost Mines of Phandelvor and Princes of the Apocalypse, we've played for 6-8 months. We haven't really needed any more...

All of my friends who have tried 5th Ed have liked it and switched to it. That represents people in 3-4 groups as there's some crossover between groups. Even when chatting to total strangers in the local RPG shop - people in my town at least really like 5th edition and it largely seems to me, peopl...

The basic moves changed somewhat: sucker someone is added, and there's new battle moves for combat. The seduce or manipulate move is new (I think), but although it gives a nod to the idea that you can use it on PCs, it still doesn't address that there's no change in difficulty for manipulating Gulli...

I admit it makes sense for vampires to embrace and thus induce into their clan companions whose interests are similar to theirs. And it's a feature of the game that clan affiliation makes your character a part of the secret history the game is about. But I think I would try to separate those two is...

There's nothing in Rifts that can't be done in a less mechanically awful system, and it doesn't even need to be a very good system: Savage Worlds is pretty crufty, but it's still better than Palladium's base system. Shadowrun would also work (or GURPS) and you wouldn't spend much more time convertin...

One more for today... CHI'N NA, THE ART OF SEIZING No restrictions per se, but honourable characters will shy away from it. Takes 13 or 6 years to learn. This is another grappling art. Also you have to spend up to 100K to learn it and are then expected to keep making annual "gifts" of up ...

The focus of the game is different, since the players actual roleplay as the leaders during the periods between the battles, so they should expect to be able to choose tactics. There are still orc hordes and shit, who can jolly well use randomized shitty tactics, but the players are going to want t...

Much as I'm a GURPS guy, I'd probably put Champions in that spot. It's the same sort of anything-goes point-buy, but it understands itself a lot better and puts more of its design decisions out in the open. Acceptable SPD, CV, and DC/defense spreads, as well as the 'effects-based' philosophy are al...

My understanding is that any advantage cancels all disadvantage and vice versa. So if you're in the dark, grappled, and firing your bow at a monster at long range, the three instances of disadvantage are canceled out by your buddy using a spell that gives you advantage against the target and you onl...

The water chip in Fallout 1 is maybe half of the main plot, at best. IIRC, you can find it in fairly short order if you're determined to do so. I vaguely remember having to put off getting it when I replayed Fallout 1 a year or two ago so I could have more time to screw around in the wasteland. Yep...

FATE is a 300+ page "rule lite" game, and that's exactly what's wrong with it.

Gold is a measure of value, not pieces of precious metal. It's possible to increase value even if the metal increases slowly. Most paymental end up being notation on account, with only small transfers. That would still cause inflation, though. The largest city in the world needs the largest set of ...

The largest city in the world needs the largest set of controlled farms in the world, and may have to go to war in order to secure more land. Also, neighboring cities may decide that instead of joining The World's Largest City Development Race, they may want to invest heavily in armies and get some ...

My experience with 7th Sea was that because of the cost of knacks and the number of different knacks you needed to be a chandelier swinging, banister sliding, acrobatically dodging, sword swinging swashbuckler, it wasn't possibly to build D'Artagnan on the starting PC's budget. D'Artagnan, who is li...

So now D&D has the same design philosophy as GURPS? That's hilarious. The difference being that GURPS has a single line editor that tries to keep the rules consistent and makes it obvious when you're using optional rules and alternative systems. As opposed to just throwing out a bunch of differe...

[Setpieces monsters are] a holdover from old published dungeons. There's an orc in the bathroom and a troll in the adjoining k bedroom, but the troll will never need to pee no matter how long you wait, so after you kill the orc you can wait a week for your cleric to repeatedly Heal Light Wounds on ...

I briefly got into Magic around the time of Fallen Empires: just late enough to have missed Legends while it was in the store and affordable. I remember a friend of mine buying 4 boosters of Legends for $100 (which was a tidy chunk of change for me in college, even working part time as an engineerin...

My most successful Star Wars games were the ones when I completed ignored canon beyond aesthetics and just let people do what they wanted. I used Savage Worlds because its fast to play even if it sucks. I've played in 3-5 different Star Wars games in the last decade with a dozen different people, an...

I think GURPS is China in this analogy, off doing its own thing. More of a Mongolia to Munchkin's China, but yes. SJGames is putting out 2-3 high quality PDFs for GURPS a month and turning the best selling PDFs into books on an irregular basis. I don't think GURPS is more than marginally profitable...

Akashic Record gives you the cumulative score graph from the start of the game until the time you cast the ritual. So it will give you relative army size, relative accumulated dominion, relative gems and gold income, relative research, and relative province size. It's the same kind of information yo...

I'd swap Karate for Judo, because hitting people with your fists is generally worthless, while throwing them to the ground or putting them in an armlock is useful. If you want to damage someone, hitting them with a sword isn't a bad plan. If you have access to the Martial Arts or Low-Tech books, con...

Dodge is Basic Speed, any Advantage bonuses, and penalized by encumbrance. So DX and HT are the big ones, as well as Basic Speed (at 20 points a level). Relevant advantages are Combat Reflexes and Enhanced Dodge. ST comes in on the margins, by letting you carry more gear. If you have free points (ha...

I'd recommend Fit, as it's in-genre for soldiers who exercise a lot and is a almost always on HT bonus (as in, the rolls you'll be making to avoid the affects of alien poisons, not to mention to stay conscious and alive should you get hit). How useful is Very Fit for being inexhaustible? Well, it's...