Recent content by dbm

Nearly every edition of D&D is an exception based game? 4e is the odd one out.

I haven’t proposed a definition of exception based design?

I think with D&D the appearance of complexity at character creation is a negative in its own right to a big chunk of the (usually casual) fans. So the normal cost / benefit analysis is skewed heavily towards hiding complexity and drip feeding it into play.

I think that is a likely take. One of D&D’s strengths is being easy for players to pick up (which is a good thing) whereas effects based systems have a front-loading of complexity. Exposing the effects system would have been counter productive for D&D.

I would call what @Thomas Shey is describing an effects based system. Even though Rob Heinsoo uses the label ‘exception based’ for the 4e structure, I would respectfully disagree. 4e is a pretty textbook example of effects based design, where the powers are built from a library of effects in...

I presume you meant Fantasy Flight Games? I don’t see anything online that suggests they own Fantasy Grounds? Edit for typo

PDF is an open format, so you will always be able to use the material. Proprietary formats are subject to the whims of the corporate entities who own them, and could be shut down at any time. Consider all the services that Google has created, run for a while, then dropped for how this can play out.

The 2d20 games use a lifepath system, where the life events you roll for your character influence their stats. Some games like GURPS have an un-constrained point-buy system where your pool of points can be spent on stats or other aspects of your character. Some other games have a point-buy with...

I’m another person who was a huge GURPS fan but would rarely run it these days. ‘Too fiddly for me’ is probably the easiest way to summarise how I feel about it now. There is amazing granularity to the system, and huge customisability that that permits. But I don’t personally find that the extra...

I haven’t used it personally, but there is an entire WWII line for GURPS 3e. I would agree that 4e is marginally better than 3e, and I seem to remember that guns in general got quite a bit of clean-up with the edition change so that might be beneficial. Running 3e stuff with 4e rules is pretty...

‘Templates without miniatures’ is on p97 of the SWADE core book or p129 in the Savage Pathfinder rulebook.

Some more RPG-related print news that people may be interested in: Loke Battlemaps has new Big and Giant entries in their map book series, this time ‘wilds, wrecks and ruins’. This is going straight to retail, no crowd funding. I have most of their existing books and find them a great addition...

It definitely requires a realigning of expectations on both sides of the equation. In D&D you might be fighting a monster with 50HP and your first five or six hits might do nothing in terms of degrading the monster’s combat ability but you can see the HP whittling down and feel like you are...

It definitely matters in my opinion and in the games I run. The context of the world is really important, too, in shaping how the NPCs will react. This can be really tricky if the players haven’t gotten their head around the campaign world yet. For example, I have recently started running a...

It is a swingy system to be sure, but the meta currencies for the GM are a key balance to that. If your main villain is going to be one-shoted then try to soak that wound. It isn’t guaranteed and it’s all above board. Similarly, if you villain’s big attack wiffs then re-roll the attack. As long...