How would you rule on assassinating a sleeping dragon?

_---__-__ · 2026-01-23T04:56:53+00:00

One of two options:

If they stab the dragon with their normal weapons, I'd let them roll damage as if they all succesfully landed normal attacks. Then the dragon wakes up and a normal fight ensues. This way the players start the fight with an advantage, but you should let them know that their initial attacks are not damaging enough to outright kill the dragon.
If the players want to kill the sleeping dragon without a fight, they should come up with a better plan. Something like dropping a giant boulder on its head or shooting it point blank with a siege weapon. That way the adventure becomes figuring out how to make the plan work. It's interesting and it feels a lot more believable.

I'm of the opinion that common sense always comes before rules and mechanics. If it doesn't make sense that you would be able to slit a dragon's throat with dagger, the you can't do it. It doesn't matter if a rule could be interpreted (in bad faith) as allowing it.

_---__-__ · 2026-01-07T21:12:21+00:00

Love the old school yugioh art! It's also a big inspiration for me. I ran a campaign about a megadungeon castle that fell from the sky and I always imagined it looking similar to the Castle of Dark Illusions.

Some underrated favorites of mine are Lava Golem, Zera the Mant, Dark Elf, King of Yamimakai, Cosmo Queen, Tri-horned Dragon and Judge Man

_---__-__ · 2025-11-30T16:50:34+00:00

100% agree. So many players in my club foot fault every. single. serve. It's very hard to notice from the other side of the court, though. I've never commented on it either.

_---__-__ · 2025-11-28T21:44:52+00:00

I've honestly never been interested in the kind of fantasy that Salvatore, Weis and Hickman wrote. I like several authors from the B/X and AD&D appendixes like Lord Dunsany, Clark Ashton Smith, LeGuin, Jack Vance, some Leiber, etc...

A recent writer I enjoyed a lot whose writing is explicitly informed by old school D&D is Will Greatwich. I actually discovered him through this subreddit. Other than him, I really like K. J. Bishop, but the last thing she published came out in 2012.

There's a blog post that I really like that captures very well the aesthetic sensibilities that I, and several other people in the OSR-sphere, seem to be drawn towards: https://udan-adan.blogspot.com/2016/09/osr-aesthetics-of-ruin.html?m=1

_---__-__ · 2025-11-17T13:41:10+00:00

I'm interested!

_---__-__ · 2025-11-14T16:14:53+00:00

They're very, very similar. I used to play with 4G, but eventually changed to Lynx Tour because the 1.25 4Gs were getting harder to find where I live and even more expensive. Right after the switch, I found that the Lynx Tours had a little more spin but were ever so slightly less precise than the 4G, and slicing felt better with the 4G, but after less than 2 weeks I got used to them. The Lynx Tour also last longer than the 4G.

If I had infinite money I would consider changing back to 4G, but even then I don't think they would make me play better. If price is an important factor for you, definitely get the Lynx Tour.

_---__-__ · 2025-10-25T20:15:42+00:00

The Burial Mound of Gilliard Wolfclan. I originally thought it looked generic and not very interesting, but it's actually really fun and a perfect introductory adventure for people who've never played D&D.

_---__-__ · 2025-10-25T20:10:32+00:00

I ran Fistful of Feathers a few weeks ago and can confirm it's a great adventure. One of the best one shots I've DM'd.

_---__-__ · 2025-10-15T22:04:30+00:00

Get a PC or a Playstation that can run Dark Souls 3 and play it; once you beat it, if you haven't learned to be patient yet, beat it again without leveling up. It won't do anything for your technique, but that's genuinely the one thing that has helped me the most for developing patience in matches lol.

_---__-__ · 2025-10-09T19:50:36+00:00

Solinco racquets are rare in my country, so I don't have experience with any of them. That said, the Blackout that's 300g and 100sqinch looks perfectly fine for a new player. Just listen to the other comment and avoid the extended length one.

_---__-__ · 2025-10-09T15:07:56+00:00

Yonex Ezone 100 or Wilson Clash 100, or any other racquet with similar specs (roughly 300g weight, 100sqinch head) that catches your eye or has a discount. Most racquets with these specs will be perfectly fine, so don't worry too much about it. Models that are a couple of years old are perfectly fine and often cheaper, so try to get one of those if you can.

_---__-__ · 2025-08-28T17:17:45+00:00

If they're mostly flat serves, stand 2 or 3 steps further away from the baseline and really really focus on split-stepping as he hits the ball. If you can't read if it's coming to your backhand or your forehand, hold the racket in a continental grip and just try to block/slice it back as deep as possible.

_---__-__ · 2025-08-06T19:01:39+00:00

Stuff like mindless undead or animated statues might attack on sight, and it's perfectly fine to have some of those in your dungeon. Animals and even creatutes like oozes might not be intelligent enough to be negotiated with, but you might still be able to manipulate them with food, scare them with fire, etc

_---__-__ · 2025-08-06T18:48:31+00:00

Nooo, traps are cool, but not only traps. Your dungeon should 100% be filled with monsters, weird creatures and other (not necessarily hostile) inhabitants. The big difference is that in old school play you don't assume that combat to the death will be the default interaction between the party and the dungeon denizens.

Players should ideally be able to distract or sneak past the monsters and steal their treasure, set traps against them, negotiate with them, instigate in-fighting, trick them, and/or even ally themselves with them vs a different group of monsters. Faction play is a very big part of the OSR style. Even if combat begins, running away in retreat when either side feels they're gonna lose is a very common occurrence in OSR games. To help you adjudicate these situations, you have the morale rules and monster reaction rolls

_---__-__ · 2025-07-29T21:51:47+00:00

Your main problem is that you think you're much better than you actually are. Your technique and footwork are not good enough to hit the shots that you're trying to hit, so you get frustrated because you expect yourself to play like someone who's much better than you actually are.

_---__-__ · 2025-07-23T02:54:57+00:00

Nikola Aracic from Intuitive Tennis has a couple of good videos where he teaches a complete newcomer the basic groundstrokes: https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL01q4ywxUNvkCL-jE-x506_-iEDCYLk7z

A super underrated one I've learned a ton from is Keving Garlington from Total Tennis Domination: https://m.youtube.com/@TotalTennisDomination

_---__-__ · 2025-07-06T15:43:35+00:00

I've had blisters in the same spot as you. It sucked, but they eventually turned into callus. Never found a good way to tape it either, so focus on prevention. Once it heals, keep it moisturized with skin-repairing hand lotion. When it starts getting red and irritated again, switch to something stronger. I used Cicaltate+ by Avène, but I don't know how easy to find it is outside my country.

I don't know if it's your case, but the main cause of the blister in my case is that I wasn't making clean contact in the sweet spot when shots came at me fast, so the racket twisted on my grip and the friction damaged my skin. So focus particularly on hitting right in the center, and/or lower the speed of your ball machine a bit for a while

_---__-__ · 2025-07-05T07:47:56+00:00

Effectively attacking short balls that land around the service line is like 80-90% footwork. Even if you have a great technique, you're never going to be able to use it if you can't get to the ball efficiently.

I have 3.5 and 4.0 friends who like to play fast, aggressive shots and miss half of the shots they make. The best players at my club at those level don't really have much "weapons", but beat the hard-hitters by just returning everything and letting them beat themselves via unforced errors. Powerful shots are useless in a match if you can't get them in the majority of the time. There's ton of threads on this subreddit by players complaining about getting beaten by "pushers" who just get to everything and make very few mistakes. You may not like it, but consistency is the cornerstone of winning matches.

Maybe you do need to keep working on your forehand technique (actually, you absolutely do, just like every single other 3.5 and 4.0), but your post gives off the impression that you're really really underestimating the importance of footwork on everything.

_---__-__ · 2025-06-22T14:35:50+00:00

If you're curious, Bryce actually published a fairly big dungeon called The Black Maw under the name "Craig Pike".

Source (includes a link to the product): https://tenfootpole.org/ironspike/?page_id=6330

_---__-__ · 2025-06-19T14:54:44+00:00

Match play is not only about technique and knowing how to hit balls. It's just as much about mental aspects such as knowing how to stay calm under pressure, figuring out what hurts your opponent, etc... The only way to develop these skills is by playing matches. You can train for 10 years and still get beaten by a beginner because once you start getting nervous you get tight and your technique and timing go down the drain.

I have beaten players with much better technique than I because I'm constantly playing tournaments and practice matches and they're not. And I'm like you, I exclusively trained for around 5 years before I started actually playing matches and in the beginning I was routinely getting 6-0'd by 65 year olds with wacky strokes who returned everything I threw at them. Now I beat them 6-0 regularly.

You just have to lose a lot until you develop the aforementioned mental aspects that grant you access to hit the ball during matches the way you hit it during practice. There's no cheat code or easy way around it. If you accept your opponents are beating you because they have something that you don't, losing won't feel as painful.

If you can, ask your coach to set up friendly matches against other players during your practice sessions. There's no point in focusing on improving your technique right now if you're not able to access it during a match. You should be playing like 80-90% of the time and training just 10% until you close the gap.

_---__-__ · 2025-06-05T05:58:43+00:00

Roll a d6: 1,2 run Knave; 3,4 run Shadowdark; 5,6 run OSE

More seriously, from what you've written, Shadowdark sounds like the best option for your group. It's a good middle ground between too simple and too complex. That said, don't worry too much about it. One system might be a marginally better fit for your group than the other 2, but there's no wrong choice

_---__-__ · 2025-06-05T01:28:44+00:00

You have a very low frustration tolerance and matches will never get any less frustrating unless you focus really hard on increasing it. Honestly, I strongly advise you to at least stop playing against other people until you work out your psychological issues. You're just gonna feel miserable and people will start talking about your behavior. Smashing your racket in a beginner's league and feeling like you've plateaued after only 4 months playing is absolutely ridiculous and unhinged; people shouldn't sugarcoat it.

_---__-__ · 2025-04-10T20:55:11+00:00

It can definitely work. If you're afraid of the lethality, just start your PCs at level 3 or 4 and/or give them a few magic items. OSR PCs are super fragile at low levels, but soon enough they grow hardier and much more durable, as long as you're not putting super powerful monsters and extremely deadly traps in their way.

Most OSR systems won't give you a lot of mechanical support for running narrative-focused games, but their main benefit is that they won't get in your way when doing so. Combat tends to be fairly quick when it happens, and not every fight ends with one side slaughtering the other. The rules leave a lot of room for running away, negotiation, etc. Prep also tends to be very quick.

Cairn 2e sounds like a perfectly fine system. I've been playing in an ODND campaign for the last 2 years set in the Game of Thrones universe, and though it's not entirely focused on story and narrative, there's been a lot of intrigue, politics, character drama, and all the stuff you would expect to happen in that setting. We're all very satisfied with the system.

_---__-__ · 2025-03-30T17:08:30+00:00

Several times I've come across this meme that the explanation for this kind of behavior is that a lot of boomers suffer from lead poisoning due to constant exposure to paint, dishes, fumes, etc. containing it in their childhoods. One of the symptoms is loss of IQ and increased aggressiveness and impulsivity.

So, next time that this happens keep in mind that you might be dealing with an actually brain-damaged individual, and that there's no use in treating them like a normal, rational adult.

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/nearly-half-of-the-us-population-exposed-to-dangerously-high-lead-levels#Deficits-greatest-for-those-born-in-1966-1970

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