Recent content by Retros_x

How does that happen? Normally players don't know what the optimal path is in terms of exp, because most times they don't know what lies ahead of each choice they make. With milestones - they do actually know what the optimal path is. Everything that has a chance of driving forward the main goal...

What do you mean exactly? I would understand it at some bigger goal where there is no clear line of quests to reach it. And it should not be to pressing IMO (if I understood you correctly). "Stop the demon king from destroying the world in 2 weeks" for example would be way too pressing for a...

some sort of resolution mechanism some sort of mechanism to track beneficial and negative attributes of one role (very abstract, but I think there is some mechanic needed to track consequences of roleplaying decisions for those roles. HP, level, conditions are all examples for those kind of...

Most characters don't take more than 4 feats on their road to level 20. 4 out of 75 seems fine to me. More feats would not increase the number of feats you actually can select. Its just more decision fatigue.

The exact same thing can happen with milestones, just for different reason. Milestones incentive going after the "main quest" and making more story progress. Running exp driven games are in my experience better for more or less open games, while milestones work better for plot driven games. I...

This is the first time I experience the Dunning-Kruger-effect in a direct interaction. Do you actually think you blew anybodys mind after trying to suggest a table of contents is a b-tree search? But it never decreases. 100 pages is always easier to navigate than 1000 pages. Thats another...

The idea that 100 page rules would be more cumbersome than 1000 page rules is bizarre to me. No matter the searching algorithm, 100 will always be less than 1000 - but the idea to suggest a search algorithm at all to handle tabletop rules is so freaking hilarious to me, I had to comment about...

I see great potential for DM assistants and for random tables and other generators - tons of DM already use generative AI right now to get creative juices flowing. What I don't really see are AI NPCs or even the full DM as AI. At least for me, it would rob the hobby of its novelty and would...

Races would be definitely more distinctive with feats like that, but wouldn't "cool" actions like this push even more players choosing race for powers and not for their story? I truly am more of a fan of "roleplaying" feats that connect story with gameplay in that regard. An elven fighter should...

I don't know if thats true. For me it feels like more that the fixed attribute bonusses + darkvision is what makes the elfes "humans with pointy ears" - because players might choose them for their mechanics, not for their story. They kinda get forced into specific races because of their...

Its clear they got hired - yes because they are famous - but definitely also because they are obviously very experienced DMs and in the case of Matt Mercer also published quite successfully 5e books. But in the mind of some people ambiguity doesn't exist and they can't fathom that both is true...

You being a cynic doesn't change the fact that multiple authors and designers work on these for years.

Yes, their acting gigs are definitely the reason they got hired. They could've at least hire Chris Pine /s

Even if many people dislike WotC its quite obvious a lot of people are putting a lot of work into these books - thats not easy earned money, its not a cashgrab. People who seriously think that are just blind by hate I guess.

I try to avoid most homebrews that are just there to make the combalt more difficult. The more special rules me and my players have to remember the more complicated the game gets + they are often not playtested well enough. To run more difficult combat I do the obvious I am surprised to have not...