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Conan. I like Conan better as a character and I prefer the way that the theme of Civilization vs. Barbarism is more present in the Conan stories (Beyond the Black River stands out in my mind). The 'good vs. evil' in the Kane stories doesn't really appeal to me either. That said, I really do...

I tend to like more flexible races, but I tend to allow fewer races in my games. Which, if one wants to cover most ability score pairings, requires more flexible ability scores. I've experimented with flexible ability scores in my past games I've run. My solution for dwarven ability scores...

Books marketed as 'evil' or 'mature' don't appeal to me, IME, those themes aren't hard to add to a game. Such books seem more about shock factor than anything else. PCs in my experience tend to be anti heroes or have amoral tendencies without any need for encouragement or special...

I'll agree that the a player who doesn't plan is more fun than a player who plans too much. But really both are just differently bad at tactics. I think a tactically competent player is one who knows to flank in melee, not launch a fireball that'll hit an ally (unless it also will hit a most...

Occasionally. More often we would have to play outside, even in the winter, on a porch, in the woods, or in an alley behind the school.

How is power gaming illegitimate? What constitutes legitimacy? In any case, system mastery helps creating powerful characters but it is also useful for other things. Someone who has system mastery of a complex RPG knows how to design a particular type of character using that RPG. So that if I...

Do you think D&D is a good entry level game? Its fantasy setting and tropes are certainly familiar to many who have played computer RPGs or who have read fantasy literature. But I've always felt d&d to be too rules heavy/clunky/non-intuitive to be a truly good entry level game (the editions I...

The idea that everyone acts to "maximize their survival" sounds reminiscent of Schopenhauer's (a 19th century German philosopher) idea of the Will to Live, that rationality and morality aren't the things that cause human action but the desire for survival. I haven't actually read much...

Sometimes But not just evil NPCs (or even all evil NPCs) only NPCs I think the PCs are likely to fight and would be a significant in a fight. Insignificant NPCs in a fight are the sort that would cower in fear or could be just quickly statted (minions in 4e d&d are great for NPCs who don't...

Thank you everyone for you responses. I've looked at your various suggestions and think we'll be giving Savage Worlds a try in the next couple weeks. @Jeff Wilder I kind of feel like SR4 is just 'differently complex' than SR3. Consider that in SR4 dice pools tend be bigger and that for all...

@Treebore We're not that new to Shadowrun. I played my first ongoing game of SR3 in 2000 and played it on and off for the next few years. In '07 I ran an SR4 game for 6 months and in '08 played in game for a several months. Most of the guys in my group have similar experiences (one of them...

The gamers in my group and myself love the Shadowrun setting. We've only ever played SR3 and SR4 but unfortunately both are too rules heavy for our taste. More to the point perhaps, combat is too slow and kind of clunky (we don't mind complex character generation and complex rules are fine to...

I like controllers followed by leaders best. The other roles are fun too, but I feel they usually aren't as tactically oriented.

I've always had mixed feelings about the alignment system in D&D. I largely ignore in it 4e, when I DM instead of requiring characters to be good/neutral/unaligned I require them to be heroic and be interested in working with a party. Even in 3e if I were DMing I'd tell players that their...

Top down usually, but with a caveat. I don't necessarily reference the Pc's level but instead decide what level the the challenge should be and base a DC off that. For instance, climbing most mundane sufaces, i.e. things that are possible to climb in the real world fall somewhere in the heroic...

Myria at level 9 will probably have better AC and attack that the orc chieftain. AC 26 (+4 lvl+2 shield+2 enhancement+8 darkscale armor) Compared to the chieftain's 22 Attack +13 (+4 level, +4 strength, +2 enhancement, +2 prof., +1 weapon talent) Compared to the chieftain's +11 Damage 1d8+7...

By that definition then Howard's Conan would be High Fantasy, as would his Kull of Atlantis. But Bran Mak Morn and Solomon Kane would be low fantasy. Which just seems odd. The tone of the worlds of these fantasy hero's is similar. Howard's writings and stories also make clear that Conan, Kull...

Actually, a lot of low level monsters in the first monster manual have lower fortitude than reflex, such as many kobolds, goblins and elves (three groups of monsters I run into a lot). So for a level 1 power, targeting fortitude can be to ones advantages (the power can be retrained when fort...

One can always get feat bonuses to defenses, lightning reflexes, paragon defenses, robust defenses etc. The bonuses can range from +2 in the paragon tier to +4 in the epic tier. Also there are some items in the adventurers vault I believe that add static defense bonuses. What these items names...

A stance last until you assume another stance or until the end of the encounter. Boundless endurance regenerates as long as the character is bloodied, so if you activate it while above bloodied and later become bloodied it'll still work. If the character then heals back to above bloodied...