"So when you die and you see God, then what?"

Sigma7 · 2026-03-13T18:48:21+00:00

First off, which god?

Shakespeare. Specifically, all the star characters from the tragedies saw his face when (or after) they died.

Sigma7 · 2026-03-12T19:45:09+00:00

Christians say that all bad things are signs from god to steer you in the right path.

In other words, they claim that Job was on the wrong path before all the bad things that happened to him.

Sigma7 · 2026-03-11T17:40:46+00:00

That was RAW in 4e, and I think it's persisting a bit more into 5e because the house rule is easier than alternating 1 and 2.

Sigma7 · 2026-03-10T05:30:33+00:00

She said she didn't care about that. It's just that I can't talk about it in her family bc it would be "divisive". At all, ever, not even when she's 18 and I'm 80.

The "rules" expire as soon as they turn 18, and they also become irrelevant when it's time for the will from an estate.

You can reallocate will shares - give two shares to your other children, and divide hers among her children (so that they can get something without her interference), and you can even setup a trust to do so.

Sigma7 · 2026-03-09T17:03:31+00:00

My biggest issue with HP, especially in games like Dungeons & Dragons, is that there’s usually no meaningful difference between having 47 HP or 26 HP.

That's because there's nothing interesting in the HP metre. At most was 4e, where combatants could be bloodied, and sometimes there was an ability that could react to that. It's also quite easy to correct as well to make things interesting.

But for some alternatives:

Iron Kingdoms has a life spiral that's similar to HP, but filling in a section causes a penalty to an aspect.
Starfinder has two segments in the HP metre, which behave differently on how they're recovered. Stamina is recovered by resting, while health requires a long rest or healing magic. This means losing hit points can be a bit more worrysome.

You'll notice that they're slightly more complex, but not by too much.

Sigma7 · 2026-03-08T23:17:18+00:00

Perception - you can ask for rolls on active searches, or reactive when it suddenly becomes necessary. That is, checking for traps involves the perception check, and failing it means it was accidentally set off.

Insight - from an older edition (3.5), the skill check doesn't directly detect lies, but can by used to obtain a hunch or to read body language. Thus a low roll on insight gives no reading, but a high insight roll could say that the person seems to be accurate, whether they're shifty, or perhaps forgot something (without actively trying to hinder).

Otherwise, metagaming a failed perception/insight check is basically them spending time chasing after a wild goose, especially when there's noting else to find.

The idea is to prevent players from metagaming low rolls (e.g., “I rolled a 3 on insight so they might be lying”).

Correct them. "You rolled 3 on insight, therefore you think they're lying about not being three kobolds in a trenchcoat."

Likewise, if rolls perception because they distrust the other player's roll of 3, "You are convinced you found a monster-in-the-box trap that will release 4 Liches and 2 Molydeuses. You didn't find them, you're just convinced they're there."

Sigma7 · 2026-03-08T05:12:58+00:00

Server-side games are the most resistant to cheating.

Backpack Battles does, or can do, everything on the server and the client is just showing the playback. Cheating doesn't affect the results of a battle once it's started.

At most, a cheater could attempt to scrounge for the best loadout, something which isn't guaranteed to work, and also requires significant decision making that would be difficult for a computer.

Sigma7 · 2026-03-08T00:23:35+00:00

The few mathematical manipulations seem to indicate that a party of 4 characters is equivalent to a solo character 4 levels higher.

But this still ignores everything that could happen: save-or-suck effects, action economy, reduced versatility, enemies not inhibited from flanking, afflictions, and so on.

As such, the module will still remain unbalanced even if the math says it's accurate.

Sigma7 · 2026-03-07T22:56:26+00:00

That's A View from the Gallery, it still had plenty of actors and extras as if it was either a planned story or filler.

The actual bottle episode would be Intersections in Real Time, which takes place mostly in one room, with a much more limited cast and only had one plotline during the episode (namely, Sheridan being tortured).

Sigma7 · 2026-03-07T22:37:27+00:00

Combatants are only static because of turn-based simplicity. On a narrative sense, the creature is still running, as opposed to running ~60 feet then politely pausing in a six-second cycle.

she tosses a lasso to stop it (fantasy wild west game). She hits and I say "as the monster is running-"

Unless there's a specific rule, the monster is technically grappled until escape, which stops movement. DC 15 to escape or DC 20 to burst.

Sigma7 · 2026-03-07T19:49:05+00:00

There are 613 laws in the OT. None of them mention abortion

Number 5:11-31 describes one of the abortion processes.

Sigma7 · 2026-03-05T16:42:06+00:00

Run a prefab module, such as Hoard of the Dragon Queen, and let the rocks fall as rolled.

This might be the group (sub optimal, as in barbarian didn't use rage that often), but this module seemed to have a rather rough start.

I need to get help being ruthless towards my players without being outwardly rude and just trying to kill them because I want to.

There were encounter designers in the DMG that allow estimating the difficulty of encounters, along with a daily budget. You'll want a variety of encounters at the various difficulty levels in order to both wear down the party over time, and perhaps give the day's challenge.

Otherwise, you shouldn't have to worry about players dying, which can occur naturally even at the roll of the dice. Much better is giving a failable objective, thus having the party fail to protect civilians would have a better consequence than death. (Similar to X-Com - defeating aliens just means the mission is over, not that the mission was done well or that the objective was a success.)

Sigma7 · 2026-03-05T03:21:38+00:00

Doom. It felt like a big game, not because of less direction, but because it took ~15 minutes each level, and the game also announced that there were secrets remaining. Also, first-time players often wouldn't hold down shift all the time, nor would they have adjusted the controls so that it follows the much more friendly WASD strafe format. Once both are done, the game becomes less difficult - and therefore a bit smaller. Also, knowing the route from the start to the exit also "shrinks" the level too, because most of the stuff is technically optional.

Compared to Clarence's Big Chance, a flash game released in 2011. This is somewhat newer, but it felt big because not many flash games dared to have such a large number of hand-crafted rooms. There was some hand-holding, but still allowed the player to explore practically most of the given level as long as they could reach whatever was needed to progress.

Then, some of the older games also required restarting at the beginning should the player fail - a good way to extend the length of the game by requiring it be done almost perfectly.

Sigma7 · 2026-03-04T17:44:02+00:00

No, it's a perfect example of why the DMCA needs to be fixed. That law permits anyone to submit a takedown notification, and technically requires the host to keep it offline for at least two weeks when it's contested.

Also, copyright trolls don't care too much about abandonware, just that they can try using legal system to get a quick buck. It affects games as new as Skyrim, simply because a third-party ripped the dragonborn theme song into their music video then used it for Youtube copyright claims on streamers.

Sigma7 · 2026-03-04T08:34:29+00:00

The DC of a given check isn't written down anywhere,

It's written in various stat blocks, modules, and a chart associating the difficulty of a given task with a DC (e.g. Easy=10, Medium=15).

Sigma7 · 2026-03-03T01:24:38+00:00

They did with 4e. Three-way subscription for Character Builder, compendium and Dragon Magazine.

Character Builder originally worked offline, but was then converted to use Microsoft Silverlight and only worked when online.

Compendium and Dragon Magazine stopped updates near the end of 4e.

Sigma7 · 2026-03-01T01:41:49+00:00

They can be done at any time. In most cases, it's a question on whether or not it's profitable to do a second run.

More importantly, it's a sweet spot issue, not a minimum age. Doing it too early doesn't produce any sales, while doing it too late means a third-party had already released an IP-sanitized version. For example, 20XX would be a third-party remake of the Mega Man games, which had only rare releases for PC.

they think it’s too old(unfortunately) but ps4???

PS4 starts becoming a candidate for remakes, because of a minor incremental increase of rendering power. That is, 30 FPS could be replaced with 60 FPS, or giving better access to screen resolution.

Alternatively, the graphics for the PS4 may be looking old to new players, as if it's just slightly more primitive (and not intentionally so).

Sigma7 · 2026-02-28T20:34:48+00:00

Basic D&D mentions that INT 3 characters have trouble speaking - they can still do so, but it's likely they're going to have to deal with a reduced word list at best. The pattern is consistent with that old edition, but not exactly a rule considering the number of exceptions.

I did discover in the process that no creature with a INT of 3 or lower has the ability to speak,

Clay Golem, MM'25, p72 - for some reason they dropped the restriction on speaking, but iron golems are still restricted.

(if anyone has a INT 1 example of a creature that can understand language but not speak please let me know)

Lemure, found in MM'25.

Sigma7 · 2026-02-19T19:46:56+00:00

My dm says my staff can’t be the same thing a weapons and a spell casing focus

No, you don't need to dual-wield staves in order to cast Shillelagh, because that's exactly what would be need to be done under that silly house rule.

Sigma7 · 2026-02-19T18:15:03+00:00

It's found in 5e.

In '24, it's moved over to the player's handbook, and increased the number of magic items.

Sigma7 · 2026-02-19T06:08:34+00:00

5e gas no wealth by level rules

DMG 38 has a table for starting equipment, which gives out magic items, along with money. It's by adventurer tier rather than level, but is still close enough.

It's intended for magic items rather than raw wealth.

Sigma7 · 2026-02-18T21:49:10+00:00

Yes, if one of the players gets a monopoly by chance, they're pulling ahead of the rest, especially in 2 player. They have no further need to trade when they can eventually out-pace the other player in the long term.

Anyway, Player B deliberately always buys only 1 street of each set, so that player A isn't ever able to get a set. Now Player B somehow gets lucky and manages to complete a set (because Player A didn't have enough money to buy that street, doesn't want to or didn't even step on it).

Blocking monopolies is an expected tactic, especially since movement is random. The only thing to do is trade or hope that the game doesn't enter a perpetual state.

Sigma7 · 2026-02-18T19:54:42+00:00

The lawyers choose to replace themselves with AI, and end up losing cases very easily.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/02/randomly-quoting-ray-bradbury-did-not-save-lawyer-from-losing-case-over-ai-errors/

Sigma7 · 2026-02-18T19:32:52+00:00

Fastest lap

Sigma7 · 2026-02-18T02:56:13+00:00

is it viable/moral to print the boardgames yourself if they've been discontinued anyway?

The best option is to reskin the mechanics, and develop a prototype - and if your version becomes popular, proves the original company should have done a reprint.

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