The Gaming Den

The key would be for a group of GM's to convert monsters as they use them before sessions, and then that work could be compiled via a handy wiki-esque repository. This is the internet - distribute the workload! You could even maintain a list of monsters-to-do (a polite way of asking DM's to use and ...

Fectin, what he wanted most was crack. Dead people cannot smoke crack. In that regard, killing himself (even with crack) was counterproductive to his interests, but he did it anyway. That's not really an ambiguous counterpoint at all. That is the clearest possible rebuttal of "there is no diffe...

Sure it does. In a society with slavery, slaves will probably be given a constant supply of Food and a Place to sleep. They'll also be provided a nominal amount of protection based on the idea that it's rude to break other people's things. This, almost. There are cases where it's better to be a 'sl...

Red_Rob, yes. That's a logical explanation for why there might be few high level characters in a campaign setting even with incredibly high advancement rates. But I pointed out why this simply brings us to another problem. High level characters need high CR threats. If high CR theats existed in the ...

Ahh, the augmentations. Consider what the artificer is doing, though. He is spending a 2nd level and 1st level infusion slot to summon a CR 5 creature for what I believe is one minute. At the levels where this is an interesting ability, the artificer can do it once or twice a day, and we don't care....

That actually is one solution to the problem, mean_liar. The world is mundane, and the heroes are the exception to the rule, not the norm. I believe there are campaign settings based on this (Birthright, where everyone but the PC's and special NPC's have an XP ceiling or some such, I'm not entirely ...

No, no, it has nothing to do with titles. I suppose I wasn't clear enough. I'm talking about XP gains not as a way of gathering titles, but of gathering power. And powerful people take titles, but that's only tangentially related. It's supposed to be something like 13 encounters before you level, an...

Oh no, I realized the diversion - it's just that Psychic_Robot mentioned something about "inadvertently stumbling across overpowered options," and I was just pointing out that while you're right that it takes some deliberate effort to find them in 3.5 (you have to be pretty aware of what y...

And sorry for the double post, but let's just forget the Germany thing. I keep trying to bring it back to the Star Wars example, where it's nice and fictional, and because it's fictional we can define the context to any arbitrary circumstances we desire. And this is much better, because there's no r...

Okay, we know Germany in the 1920's was having economic problems, while for everyone else it was called the "Roaring 20's." The Great Depression is usually cited as starting in 1929 for most countries, and the prices of basic goods and foods had been high in Germany for the entire decade p...

That doesn't really work. "Is it right because the gods love it, or do the god love it because it's right?" - Some Greek dude, a long time ago. The informal conclusion you'd want to draw is that morality and divinity are separate. But let's look at what you said, for a more meaningful eval...

Aharon, that's a little different. In the artificer example, the artificer isn't consciously choosing not to use all the spells he hasn't made magic items for. He literally can't use them because he didn't make magic items for them. Sure, he has the theoretical to take gold and downtime and create a...

Core Principles: Fantasy Social Orders are unstable in a nutshell. XP gains are too fast. "Welcome to the Church of Smiteyness. Here's your membership badge. It'll be your turn to be high priest in a month when you're level 8, and shortly thereafter you too will be replaced by next month's recr...

I think there's a few issues in this thread that we're failing to correctly separate. 1) Is one side of a conflict inherently more evil than the other? 2) If so, are the soldiers on that side of the conflict inherently evil people? 3) Does the fact that it's war excuse killing good (or morally neutr...

Catharz, well, that's sort of complicated. These experiments weren't about inflicting anguish, they were about discovering underlying flaws in human behavior. Understanding the consequences of the Milgram experiment forces us to completely rethink the way we handle authority - it is dangerous to put...

The alignment system is broken, but the actions characters take as a result of their alignments are not broken. It's okay for a 'good' character to stab a baby kobold in the face because he has no comprehension of a kobold as anything but a flesh-eating little murder monster who will do anything he ...

No. Letting Germany not pay them in full was a bad idea. Giving Germany rather lenient peace conditions, instead of just cutting it into smaller states was a bad idea. Leaving in potential condition for Round 2 the country, which leaders consciously and deliberately decided to solve all of its prob...

No, there are very little to no viable justifications for them not deserting to the Rebels, they know they are helping making the flying genocide machine run smoothy, and, in the very best case, they chose to do so, to save their hides, ... I'm sorry, but that post just shows a remarkably deep misu...

The 90% niche chart is vastly more playable than a 90% niche deck, though, which is what I set out to establish. The difference is: is "Crashing Wave Throw" in your matrix, but you have only a medium chance of getting it when you need it, or did you have to cut "Crashing Wave Throw&qu...

A card-based WoF is an iterative selection of individual cards at random. Whether you redraw the entire hand (bad) or you keep the cards you want and redraw the ones you don't (better), there is no relationship between any of the cards in your hand. None. Whatsoever. In statistical terms, the probab...