Though I did send it along to a friend who believes the standardized container, along with the universal coupler at the back of a tractor, is one of the 20th cnetury's two most-important inventions. So maybe it'll spread....
Hrm. Thought on this question; is Lightning Arrow technically a spell attack? It says 'the next time you make a ranged weapon attack' and 'make the attack roll as normal', and nothing about making a ranged spell attack directly. I'm curious if it's still technically a ranged weapon attack.
@CTWind Honestly, I hadn't noticed that the spell said it does the 4d8 damage instead of normal damage. That just makes it another point in the "Rangers suck" column.
I'm getting very excited about this "cryptid underground press" concept. There's a lot of examples in the 60s and 70s of a zine or press becoming a central organizing point for a subculture community.
Here's a London underground press that also connected homeless or jobless readers with readers or community contacts who could help them out.
This is gonna be a great conceit for a solo mystery campaign.
doing OK here, schedule shuffling coming soon, hopefully my existing game survives, might be adding a new game (and getting to play in-person once again)
Also re: underground press, a significant factor in their reporting was a kind of organically gonzo journalism. The articles were often written as first-person accounts by people who were there.
It popped monocles in the mainstream journalism community which valued dispassionate reporting, but it often meant more compassionate, coherent reporting on subjects that professional journalists didn't understand.
This seems tailor-made for Gumshoe One-2-One codas.
The conclusion of a mystery is the article that gets written about it, and how the PC slants their reportage in light of their experience.
(It also gives solid motive for the PC to get deeply involved in whatever the mystery is!)
@BESW That reminds me of a mystery movie I saw on TV once, years ago. Protagonist got poisoned early on, with something that's fatal in a few days and has no antidote. Spends the rest of the movie finding the culprit and bringing them to justice, before wandering off into the fog (and an off-screen death).
I've been thinking of games producing artifacts as part of play, but of course that requires players possess some talent and desire to actually make stuff.
What good RPGs are out there that emphasize exploration and discovery? E.g. the party is literally exploring a new continent, or finds new planets.
And not just as a theme, but with mechanical support or GM advice or something. 'Cause you certainly can run a D&D game about wandering on an empty map.
Deep beneath New Mexico, an ancient civilization, now dead, wrote books that became portals to a thousand different worlds. Whether they're other universes, other planets, or something else entirely, is unclear. PCs are working for the D'ni Restoration Council, whose mission is to explore and document these worlds, establish diplomatic relations with the locals where such exist, and to learn more about the ancient D'ni and the Art of Writing.
System-wise it's a Fate hack that removes the Attack action completely and adds two new action modes--one is basically a re-skin of Atomic Robo's brainstorming mechanic, but with a mind toward solving environmental and mechanical puzzles. The other is a "question the GM" mechanic for gathering pre-made clues instead of establishing them yourself.
And, of course, there's a good bit of GM section dedicated to designing worlds.
The Doctor Who Role Playing Game (1985) has planet generation advice and extensive tables, but they're kinda silly and I don't recommend them as a good resource.
Astounding Interplanetary Adventures has minimal planet generation tables but no useful advice.
@BESW For another example, Head Comix, by R. Crumb (who also created Fritz the Cat) might be worth a look in your research. I'm getting very excited about this "cryptid underground press" concept. There's a lot of examples in the 60s and 70s of a zine or press becoming a central organizing point for a subculture community
Okay, possible discussion topic: I'm starting a campaign where the PCs begin at mid-level, where there's no reason to hold back in terms of difficulty. What are some "do"s and "don't"s for putting together a first session? How would you design the first session's combat, in terms of difficulty and complexity?
Assume D&D, the players are experienced, and I have explained to the players to expect a mid-to-high level of difficulty. I'm aiming for the challenges to actually feel challenging, but not overpowering or unfair.
On one hand, an easy "introductory" challenge would be boring at their level. On the other hand, I don't want to start the campaign with something too complex.
And yes, this question is meant to be open-ended and based on opinions and experience.
You don't need to expect characters to die to make encounters challenging
Death might be on the table, but I throw tons of stuff at my players and expect them to pull something out of their hats that will pull them through it, even if I have no idea what that something is
The way I imagine "challenging" is something along the lines of, at the end of combat, the party has lost over half of its collective HP, and the PCs expended a non-trivial amount of resources
I agree with Adam. My goal is to challenge the players, not to "beat" them. That said, I don't intend to pull punches or implement artificial safety nets.
@godskook When my players walk into an encounter, unless I give the enemies instakill abilities, I expect all of them to survive. Because I believe in their skills and abilities to keep things together. And every time I've thrown something catastrophic at them that I thought they had no chance of winning, they managed to do it.
But early on, I feel like the difficulty shouldn't be too crazy - If the players get stopped too often, then the campaign won't gain momentum in the first place.
Example: The burly melee enemy is walloping on a squishy party member, and they're down to low HP. Would you arbitrarily say "Well, the enemy loses interest in you and leave you alone", to spare them?
@MikeQ No, of course not. On the contrary, I've had monsters attack those characters while they are already unconscious. You know, to make sure they're dead ;)
I generally don't have low-level mooks use "kick the unconscious one" tactics, but that's partially a 3.5 thing. That'd be a near insta-kill in almost all cases.
I'm unavailable to play with or run for that group for the next month, and my other game that I'm starting up has a bunch of people who have never played D&D before, so they're all starting at 1st level.
