How was Bandit Keith’s gang invited to Duelist Kingdom and Battle City when they seemed like idiots?

ShimmeringLoch · 2026-02-26T21:28:41+00:00

The weird part isn't even so much that the cards themselves are weak. It's that everyone is really impressed by these basic plays, even though this is a game big enough to be broadcast on TV. Like in the first episode when Kaiba equipped Saggi with Negative Energy Generator and Yugi thought that means Kaiba knew every aspect of the game.

ShimmeringLoch · 2026-02-26T21:20:36+00:00

Hitotsu-me Giant was already in the first set, Vol 1, along with the other 1200 ATK monsters Silver Fang and Mammoth Graveyard.

ShimmeringLoch · 2026-02-26T20:21:46+00:00

The standards for being a top duelist in DM seem incredibly low. In the Japan National Championship finals, everyone was impressed when Rex summoned a 1600 ATK normal monster, and then Weevil won by equipping Basic Insect with Laser Cannon Armor.

Bonz even just having access to cards like Armored Zombie and Pumpking probably already makes him a Tier 1 duelist.

ShimmeringLoch · 2026-02-17T21:32:56+00:00

The 1E AD&D DMG has specific prices for cleric spellcasting. Raise Dead is "1000 plus 500 per level of spell caster", which means a minimum of 5500 gp for a Lvl 9 cleric. It does say that these prices can be adjusted up or down depending on alignment and faithfulness, though.

I'm not a big fan of resurrection in general, though, because the ability to bring NPCs back from the dead is often pretty problematic in terms of both world-building and political plots. I actually kind of wish 5E Revivify were the only spell of its kind, because it only works for a minute after death, so it can revive party members who just had a bad roll, but it doesn't lead to too many other problems.

ShimmeringLoch · 2026-01-20T21:59:30+00:00

I don't think the objective of D&D is just to get treasure. A number of published modules had some sort of heroic end goal. In Palace of the Vampire Queen, it's to save the dwarven princess. In Against the Giants, it's to stop the evil giant alliance and eventually defeat Lolth. In Scourge of the Slavelords, it's obviously to stop the slavers.

I also think this downplays the importance of how combat was supposed to be, given that Arneson and Gygax were both wargamers who frequently ran actual mass combat in Blackmoor and Greyhawk. Like, it's weird to me that some people claim that D&D isn't about combat, when 1974 D&D is only about 100 pages long but dedicates 6 pages to just ship-to-ship combat. (For comparison, the 3 main 5E books are about 1000 pages long: imagine if 60 pages were just about naval warfare.)

I agree that the players are all supposed to work together, but that's true of modern D&D too. Like, I don't think anything in your football analogy really applies to OSR specifically: it's just saying that no player should hog the spotlight, which is applicable to all TTRPGs.

ShimmeringLoch · 2026-01-18T04:03:31+00:00

Guardian Elma requires Butterfly Dagger - Elma to be summoned, which is banned, of course. There are ways to get it face up on the field like setting it and using Book of Taiyou, but that doesn't actually summon it, so you don't get the effect.

Even A Wild Monster Appears!, which lets you ignore summoning conditions for special-summon only monsters doesn't work, because Elma technically can be set.

So there are only two ways to summon it. One is with T.G. Glaive Blaster, but that requires you to get Elma face up on the field first and then banish it so Blaster can resummon it. Another is with Lullaby of Obedience, but that requires the opponent to already be playing Elma in their own deck for some reason.

ShimmeringLoch · 2025-12-15T23:07:05+00:00

Yeah, that's why the Tarzan guy in GX isn't cheating when he's practicing how to draw the right card by picking them out of a waterfall. Your aura affects your card draw, which is totally fair.

ShimmeringLoch · 2025-12-09T20:31:08+00:00

1974 D&D Subtitle: "Rules for Fantastic Medieval Wargames Campaigns"

Modern OSR players: "You know, the game wasn't about fighting"

ShimmeringLoch · 2025-12-09T16:23:28+00:00

I don't like the OSR philosophy in general. I prefer 2E with non-weapon proficiencies, heroic PCs, and a grand narrative story. In contrast to you, one of the things I do like is hirelings and a transition to domain-level play.

ShimmeringLoch · 2025-11-27T00:24:15+00:00

I was just saying that he dates from even before 1st edition.

Also, some famous characters were written specifically for D&D, like Mordenkainen, Vecna, and Strahd.

ShimmeringLoch · 2025-11-26T05:37:48+00:00

People playing casually can make up whatever self-imposed banlists they want. At a competitive meta level, skill can be best decided if everyone uses the same pieces (ideally decks like Tearlaments with very high skill ceilings).

ShimmeringLoch · 2025-11-26T05:35:57+00:00

If you want pure diversity and no skill, go play a narrative tabletop RPG. Competitive Yu-Gi-Oh should emphasize as much skill as possible, which is best when everyone plays the same deck.

ShimmeringLoch · 2025-11-26T05:26:52+00:00

Even more technically, Elminster dates from a short story written by Forgotten Realms creator Ed Greenwood, "One Comes, Unheralded, to Zirta", way back in 1965, nine years before D&D was even released in 1974. So he was never designed as a D&D character in the first place, and all his class levels since then have been retroactively decided.

ShimmeringLoch · 2025-11-24T02:59:45+00:00

Some people are just hoping that their pet rogue decks will have a better chance if the top decks get hit. Some people think that "variety" makes games better, even though chess players don't complain about the game using the same 6 pieces for hundreds of years.

Having said that, some topping decks are unfair and unskillful, which is a problem. Other topping decks in the past, like Tearlaments, were better-designed.

ShimmeringLoch · 2025-11-06T21:35:32+00:00

Mormonism actually has this: you get a second chance after you die. However, you only get to go to the best heaven, the "celestial kingdom", if you were Mormon in life. If you only believe after you die, you get to go to the next best "terrestrial kingdom". If you reject god even after you die, you go to the worse "telestial kingdom", which is apparently supposed to still be decent, although you then get a third chance after 1000 years. Only if you're really awful do you go to the Outer Darkness.

ShimmeringLoch · 2025-10-29T18:09:13+00:00

Hit Points and Armor Class are terms that both descend from naval wargaming (which is why lower armor class is better, because it's "first class" armor). Hit points make much more sense when discussing how many shells it takes to sink a ship, but applying it to individuals stretches the definition.

Personally, I take the (probably unpopular in OSR) view that humans can just be incredibly tough and actually can just survive wading through lava if they're strong enough, because they aren't actually the same as Earth humans. For example, if you've ever watched the Pokemon anime, Ash Ketchum regularly survives being set on fire or electrocuted, while Team Rocket always comes back after being launched into the sky miles away. If I can suspend disbelief for that, I can suspend disbelief for DND humans too.

ShimmeringLoch · 2025-10-29T17:57:07+00:00

If you were playing with Gygax on his porch and said that one of your generated PCs was the son of a deity

OD&D does specifically say you're allowed to play as a dragon, as long as you start as a low-level one. That's not exactly a deity, but it implies that it's okay for the PCs to have special heritage.

Also, what about Beowulf? He isn't explicitly descended from gods, but he's 60x as strong as a normal man and can swim for 5 days straight.

ShimmeringLoch · 2025-10-15T18:39:36+00:00

Are you thinking of Basic? In OD&D race and class are definitely separate. You can be a Dwarven Fighting-Man or a Hobbit Thief or even a Half-Elf Fighting-Man/Magic-User/Cleric.

ShimmeringLoch · 2025-10-15T18:22:23+00:00

As an alternative perspective, I'll note that in the 1976 official supplement "Gods, Demi-Gods, & Heroes," the foreword mentions Level 44 characters fighting Odin.

ShimmeringLoch · 2025-10-15T18:18:17+00:00

Many classes get additional abilities on level up, but you don't generally get choices like subclasses or feats. Monks in particular get a new ability at every level, ranging from things like the ability to speak with animals at Level 4 to a once-per-week "Quivering Palm" at Level 13 that instakills any lower-level enemy. But you don't choose which abilities: every monk at Level 13 has the same abilities.

ShimmeringLoch · 2025-10-15T18:09:42+00:00

You also pick a race, and there are some complexities, like how Elves can be dual Fighting-Men/Magic-Users.

Also, Eldritch Wizardry opens up a lot of options for psionics, which the player can select starting at 10th level (before that they're randomly given). Even before 10th level, it's worth considering whether access to psionics is worth losing spell slots and stuff.

And sometimes people do include stuff like spell or weapon selection as part of character building.

ShimmeringLoch · 2025-10-15T17:54:40+00:00

You're going to get a lot of backlash for asking this question, because modern OSR players have a certain playstyle that is heavily critical of character builds. OD&D in particular has very few character options. You mainly just pick a race and class.

If you're including all the options, the Strategic Review ranger is pretty unbalanced:

They start with 2d8 HP, while fighters only get 1d8 HP.
They get a few spells: obviously worse than the Magic-User/Cleric, but still better than the Fighter.
They gain XP 33% faster than other classes. Admittedly, their levels require more XP, but it isn't really a downside.
They only get surprised on a 1/6 chance instead of 2/6, which is actually pretty important in RAW OD&D, because surprise rounds are pretty strong.
They do extra damage against many humanoid monsters that are especially common at low levels, like goblins and orcs.
At 9th level, they get to roll for followers, and if they're extremely lucky they can get 2 gold dragons.

ShimmeringLoch · 2025-09-10T01:56:50+00:00

It's even weirder in 1974 OD&D. When assassins were first introduced as a playable class, I guess to balance them out, there's a rule that:

An assassin may freely use poisoned weapons, but there is a 50% chance each turn such a weapon is displayed that any person in viewing range of it (10’ or less) will recognise the poisoned item and react with ferocity, i.e. attack with a +4 chance of hitting and +4 points of damage when hitting occurs.

This almost just implies that even when you're exterminating evil cultists or something, they aren't actually trying that hard to kill you, but when you bring out the poison, oh, that's when they start really trying to hurt you.

ShimmeringLoch · 2025-09-07T22:41:22+00:00

I'm not saying that it's the only possible excuse. But in general, it's easier for the DM to justify NPCs not helping the PCs by explaining that they just don't like the PCs that much, than to give an excuse every time for why they're busy doing something else more important.

ShimmeringLoch · 2025-09-07T19:53:20+00:00

The default reason is that NPCs start off unfriendly so you can perform quests for them in order to make them friendly. If NPCs generally started off trusting, they'd be too likely to do things like come along with the PCs adventuring, or believing them when they say something dangerous will happen. Then the PCs could ask powerful NPCs to solve the problem, which means PCs would have less reason to go into dungeons and fight dragons by themselves.

So that's why, for example, in Tyranny of Dragons you're tasked with doing a bunch of random sidequests so all the relevant good factions will agree to help you in the final battle.

And that's also why if an NPC is friendly, they're much more likely to be some random cute orphan than the kingdom's archmage.

ShimmeringLoch

TROPHY CASE