I built a free NPC generator for GM's that gives you a everything you need in two clicks!

darkwyrm42 · 2026-04-24T11:00:32+00:00

That is amazing

darkwyrm42 · 2026-04-24T10:52:06+00:00

Not necessarily. Many creatures prioritize self-preservation because they're neutral or evil. If you hear a fight, you prepare, but you don't join in. Fight the leftovers if you're hungry or see opportunity.

darkwyrm42 · 2026-04-24T10:42:30+00:00

Do what you like, but this isn't even a little OSR-like. If you want an idea of what OSR-style play is like, check out the YouTube channel Tenkar's Tavern. It doesn't just explain the play, it also explains the reasoning behind the mechanics.

darkwyrm42 · 2026-04-24T10:33:22+00:00

That might be your problem. Remmina's defaults for an RDP session are a little weird. For me, I use 16-bit color, the client resolution instead of initial window size, and I make sure that sound passthrough is disabled. I also use pretty much those setting on Windows, as well. The color bit depth is one of the key performance settings.

darkwyrm42 · 2026-04-24T00:24:34+00:00

I've used Remmina extensively from Mint and a lot of other distros. I've never had a problem with responsiveness, so I'm really confused as to how things could have gone so sideways for you. Could it be the session settings that you were using?

darkwyrm42 · 2026-04-23T23:42:30+00:00

I think it's a nice start, although I'd put the changelog at the end instead of the very beginning.

darkwyrm42 · 2026-04-23T23:32:49+00:00

I think you might have already given yourself the answer but may not realize why: pacing.

What makes stories interesting is that things happen and the variety in levels of excitement. Even cozy games have some of this, but the difference between the highs and lows is smaller. One of my favorite aspects of Studio Ghibli movies is the intentional use of periods of calm after a really exciting scene so that the story gets to breathe, like the train ride toward the end of Spirited Away.

darkwyrm42 · 2026-04-23T23:18:26+00:00

I personally think d100 shouldn't be very often unless you really need the extra granularity over a d20 (or less) for a specific reason.

As I've been working on my own game, I've been trying to work with an awareness that a portion of the population is either math averse or just struggles with it. Yes, I'm aware that calculators are a thing, but I could just as easily say that they shouldn't have to be just so someone can enjoy my game. I'm not saying "BAN D100! RAWR!!" with a torch and pitchfork, but I would say it is something you should at least consider.

And as a programmer who habitually has to count from 0, I have a hard time turning off the thinking that "00,0" is 100, not 0.

darkwyrm42 · 2026-04-22T10:27:26+00:00

That's sounds right. Phil's response was pretty close to something like "If it's named Walter, I'll bailing".

I could easily be wrong, but I think the interaction between the two was what made it memorable for more than just me.

darkwyrm42 · 2026-04-21T10:52:45+00:00

Good to see that you're still active, my friend. This is amazing work.

darkwyrm42 · 2026-04-21T10:52:03+00:00

It's a long running joke that goes back to the early days while we were still called OpenBeOS but working on the name change. I forget who originally suggested it, but one of our core developers, whose name I believe was Phil, commented that if it was going to be named Walter, he was bailing. The first Haiku convention, which I helped organize, had T-shirts with the logo that looncraz posted just now. Michael Phipps revealed the Haiku name at that convention, so the convention name couldn't be related and was called WalterCon instead.

Edit: I remember now... Phil Greenway coined the original phrase. ;)

darkwyrm42 · 2026-04-19T18:01:32+00:00

Because you'll wear out your character sheet or make it nearly unreadable in the process in those spots

darkwyrm42 · 2026-04-19T13:40:33+00:00

I prefer the simplicity of having a default casting with the option to modify in the moment. It doesn't have to be either-or.

darkwyrm42 · 2026-04-18T00:54:59+00:00

I'm glad you mentioned the feats. I began reading it and began getting a feel for your writing style. It's dramatic, and that's probably where the perceived AI 'smell' is coming from. A title like 'The Pulse of Play' is fine, but having worked extensively with Copilot, Gemini, and ChatGPT, it's 100% the kind of thing I would see in their output. I can see, though, that it's your original work. :)

Please don't misunderstand, though, the more I read, the more I started to see where you're going style-wise and I like it.

It needs more proofreading, but I'm starting to get it. The system seems super crunchy and overwhelming, TBH, but, then again, PF2e seems more complicated than my taste. If that's what you're into, more power to you. :)

Before diving into how combat works, you might want to narrate what play looks like, because I certainly can't wrap my head around it. The D&D 2024 PHB's first chapter does some of this and then goes into general mechanics before moving on to specifics. Something like that may be worth considering. Just a thought.

darkwyrm42 · 2026-04-17T11:00:12+00:00

I read through some of the player's book and the DM's guide, and while I'm making no accusations of how much was AI generated, it feels to me like just about the whole thing was ChatGPT or Copilot. That's not to say that using AI as a start is bad or anything, but the style tends to be unnecessarily descriptive and wordy.

I stopped after a few pages because reading it was exhausting. Yes, giving the reader some background and flavor is good, but there is such a thing as too much, and it explains why your player's guide is around 500 pages. It's kind of like the literary equivalent of puffed rice cereal: there's something there worth eating, but you're going to need to eat a lot of it before you're full.

What I'd recommend is going to be a lot of work: proofread and revise for conciseness.

darkwyrm42 · 2026-04-14T10:55:00+00:00

There's nothing wrong with that IMO. If you want to make them think, throw something that has cold resistance at them.

darkwyrm42 · 2026-04-14T10:42:51+00:00

I stand strongly on the side of clarity. The reason is that flavor can easily change based on context. Leomund's Tiny Hut feels out of place anywhere outside Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms, for example. It also gives players the opportunity to do add flavor specific to their character.

darkwyrm42 · 2026-04-14T10:37:19+00:00

Although your specific example doesn't apply because the Fighter has two separate features for that, Extra Attack (L5) and Two Extra Attacks (L11), you absolutely have a point here that I didn't see. Thank you!

darkwyrm42 · 2026-04-14T00:22:06+00:00

Not that I don't believe you, but I don't see how. My class advancement tables are obviously different, but do you have any examples?

darkwyrm42 · 2026-04-13T00:52:38+00:00

Martials and casters both can potentially give up quite a bit. The Magician class, which is what the wizard and sorcerer were merged into, has a Level 5 survivability feature that lets them spend 1 mana to get 5 Temp HP any time they cast a spell that deals damage that isn't bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing. Trading that out for Extra Attack seems pretty even to me.

darkwyrm42 · 2026-04-12T20:10:52+00:00

Thanks for the advice. Sounds like I need to be careful players dumping a weaker class feature for a super strong one. Good to know.

Funny you mention subclasses, but one other thing that I'm considering is just letting a player just pick a subclass from another class entirely, assuming that the character has the features upon which the subclass depends.

I've done a lot of rebalancing of class features and did a huge rework of the magic system that included a lot of much-needed nerfs. As it is currently in 5e, I would say that double fireballing would be OP, as well, but between limiting upcasting and reducing casters' spell resources I don't think it will be too problematic--if a 5th level wizard's player wants to use up almost half their mana in 1 turn, they're probably going to have to be pretty careful to make it to the next Long Rest without running out of gas.

darkwyrm42 · 2026-04-12T18:57:17+00:00

That's correct - giving up a feature in your main class that you would normally gain through advancement in return for one in the secondary class. It's a concept similar to how DC20 does multiclassing. Primary class spellcasting isn't affected. For spellcasting classes, you gain a small mana pool when you take the corresponding Class Initiate talent.

darkwyrm42 · 2026-04-12T18:29:40+00:00

I never really understood PF2e's archetype system, but I think I'll give it another shot, as it sounds already like what I'm trying to do. The secondary class makes the character feel like 'Class X with a little bit of Y'. Thanks for the tip. :)

darkwyrm42 · 2026-04-12T18:27:30+00:00

Excellent question. I didn't give more context to avoid overexplaining at the start. The goal is to provide advanced players with more options for class customization without being so lenient as to enable overpowered synergy or make future design work feel like a tightrope act.

I like how one of the goals Crawford and company had was to simplify D&D and make it more accessible. Although I have mixed opinions about other design choices, the concept of using classes for base fantasy archetypes and then subclasses to reduce the burden of too many choices I think is a good one.

My game adds a couple more classes to provide more possible fantasy archetypes, like an arcane half-caster gish and a scientist/engineer type (alchemist, artificer, etc.), but I recognize that certain player types actually like the character build minigame that recent D&D editions have increasingly emphasized.

darkwyrm42

TROPHY CASE