The Gaming Den

That story is attested to in scholarly sources. It's not something a White Wolf writer made up.

It's still hilarious.

Healing surges is an fatigue mechanic with a stupid name. After reading articles on how 4e players were stoked about using surges for non-healing purposes as if it were a per-day resource for everything , I thought "Why still call it Healing Surge?" I think there would have been far less ...

(Ported over from the other thread) I think he was wise because he would have gave up his fame and intelligence to stop the atomic bomb's invention ("If I had known of the atom bomb, I would have been a plumber" is a good quote). That's a new answer to the new question "What's worth l...

So let's consider skills for a bit. I was thinking that in a system like this... There's a list of, say, 15 total skills. Choose... 2 skills to be Excellent at (5+ 1/2 level) 4 skills to be Good at (3 + 1/2 level) 4 Skill to be Proficient at (+3 bonus) 1 skill to be Terrible at (-3 penalty) The rem...

There crappy writers are approximately every single writer who worked on mid- to high-level monsters ever. Because MMs featured gigantic monsters that totally can chew on you or swallow you since earliest editions. Heck, we had the picture of one of the iconics being chewed on by a Colossal dragon ...

I don't think this is how HPs work in DnD. They really only measure how close you are to being unconscious, rather than strictly measuring how much damage you've taken. A 4HP attack against a 100HP giant is more likely than not just some light fatigue rather than actually being stabbed. This is an ...

Not being familiar with Feng Shui, how mechanically specific are the individual schticks? Shticks in Feng Shui aren't skills like in Over the Edge; Feng Shui also has skills. A shtick is like a d20 feat, expanded to include magic, cybernetic upgrades, and so on. Your Archetype gives you parameters ...

In terms of the ease with which one can throw together an interesting and half-way balanced character, Feng Shui is one of my favorite games. The Archetype+Shtick system allows for rapid character creation. I've seen the system adapted before by Frank for God of War, but the basic concepts seem flex...

FrankTrollman wrote:Coming or going, you must deny people their fervent wishes, because their genuine desire is retarded and impossible.

Into my signature you go.

Sounds a bit like the Wish Economy. I think the idea here is applying the Wish Economy idea on a more general basis. By making currencies not trade up, you free the players from having to play Super Accountancy Bros. every time they massacre some orcs and give them the opportunity to do fun things ...

It's an interesting idea, but I only see three major solutions: 1. Randomizers. Helpful, but indicates that you should probably go play a cRPG at that point, because interpreting all of the rolls would be a lot of work. 2. "Pass the stick" between sessions. Not actually a method of removin...

So, this is a slide show wherein the author throws a bunch of largely unrelated information at us and then wedges in an "RPGs suck!" comment at the end? Isn't this the guy who ragequit game publishing, sold his company, and then made a new game company a few years later? We're expected to ...

True. In fact, let's make this math needlessly complicated so as to demonstrate how not that hard this actually is. I see what you're doing here, and it's cool, but do we really need to make something that sucks (in terms of complexity) entirely out of spite? I mean, I know this is the Den, and we ...

Mouse Guard is like Burning Wheel except streamlined, which is good because BW gets very clunky. The universal conflict system (like rock-paper-scissors, but it applies to combat, sieges, chases, debates, and what have you) is interesting, and Mouse Guard is a property well-suited to having an RPG i...

The only Forge game I've seen is 3:16CAtS. It's decent. It is not what I would call a robust game, but it is fun for what it is. What's a good example of a Forge-related game that actually had some ambition? That's the thing about Forge games: they're dedicated to the idea that a game should only b...

How does relative speed of combatants factor into this system? Also, are AoEs only limited by fairly arbitrary zone restrictions? That seems like an "argue with your DM" situation.

I guess the major point is: Would it be better if D&D had harder rules about what magic can and cannot do more like a novel? Yes, it would definitely better, for exactly the reasons you stated. The problem is that D&D is expected to be the premier generic fantasy ruleset, so it ends up havi...

PL, It's almost as if, when storming the throne room of the goblin king, you might be forced to spend a few rounds hacking away a his waves of goblin soldiers before breaking through the lines to get at him and his vizier. Because that totally can't be represented in a simpler fashion by any other ...

Edwards has a long history of unwarranted self-importance and impenetrable goals in his writing; he doesn't even define the "battle" he supposedly won. Sounds like a grab for attention now that almost no one cares about him anymore.

These higher tier abilities and items allow you to scale up the sorts of encounters you engage in. For you "an encounter" is now primarily a raid on someone else's entire Barbie Mansion in one go. What plans do you have for supporting this concept? You mentioned that raiding mansions woul...

RPGs being supported by a different, popular game is nothing new (Legend of the Five Rings and Warhammer come to mind) so I could see this working. The trick is not to make it a port, but rather inextricably fuse them. The designers of both games have increasingly migrated them together anyhow: powe...

So, one bad game wins out over another? Interesting news to be sure, but not the apocalypse. RPGs have always been like that.

Still, time for more 5E threads!

Koumei wrote: ...come to think of it, Kamina Bro is what high-level fighters should be like.

Puppet fetishists?

For how crappy it ended up being in practice, the 4E notion of Paragon Paths and Epic Destinies was a good one. Saying "You take a PP at Level 11" is tantamount to a giant neon sign proclaiming "YOUR FIGHTER IS NOT RELEVANT ANYMORE!". Of course, then they decided that making &quo...

Remember that Wisdom also includes both perception and willpower. A Dedicated PC can hide out for days with a sniper rifle without moving, detect an enemy ambush, face down a tiger without flinching, see through an informant's lies, and make lesser foes back down just from seeing the cold, grim look...