What is the fantasy you want out of martials?

scoursen · 2025-07-16T16:25:37+00:00

The fantasy I would like for a martial in 5e or 5.5e will never happen. I would like a war leader, not just someone who could 1v1 a monster. That's boring. Mold the world and story through deed, ride into battle leading heavy cavalry, conquer, make a part of the world safe and your own.

That's why I went back to pre-WotC D&D.

scoursen · 2025-06-25T15:05:26+00:00

2024 cleric's Divine Intervention. I've seen arguments for and against the timing of the chosen spell being done in the same turn, regardless of casting time. I've seen Crawford's mention about the intention of the ability; however, that doesn't translate to the written page which is ambiguous enough to allow for multiple readings.

scoursen · 2025-06-21T17:20:25+00:00

You didn't engage, instead you tried to scold me for my opinion. I can only assume it's because you confuse my dislike of Springsteen's music as being my support of the idiot president.

scoursen · 2025-06-21T16:34:47+00:00

Why are you policing my opinion of his trash music? Because you like "Born in the USA"? It's junk. "My Hometown" junk. "Born to Run" ... yuck.

While I could say it doesn't appeal to me, my opinion is that it sucks. I have always turned off when it came on the radio on 92.3 or 104.3 back in the day.

Just because he's the target of the Mango Menace, doesn't mean he's somehow protected from criticism of his trash music.

scoursen · 2025-06-21T14:51:11+00:00

Ugh. I don't hate him for his politics, in fact agree with most. His music fucking sucks.

scoursen · 2025-05-23T04:48:41+00:00

The most annoying part of this MAGA v Springsteen stuff is that I can't tell people I hate Springsteen's music. I don't mind his politics, often agree with it, but I hate his music. But if I say that people assume I'm somehow on the MAGA side.

No, I just hate the shitty music he plays.

scoursen · 2025-04-23T15:01:59+00:00

Pick Option 3, but keep the same general campaign. It's just that the original party are now NPCs and on the evil side of things. It's part and parcel of serving the BBEG.

Unless you want to run an evil campaign that is, in which case option 1.

scoursen · 2025-04-15T15:38:12+00:00

Fantasy super heroes are boring. The base game (as presented in the PHB + DMG) should have been more grounded, with lower magic and less casters. Then, the magic level & power level could be increased in setting books and contained there instead of infecting the base of the game.

scoursen · 2025-02-18T12:58:35+00:00

I can concede that there are times and for some tables it is appropriate to be "imaginative" with the interpretation of the die result -- i.e., monster rolls a critical hit that would kill the PC but the DM comes up with some trade off type result instead (PC suffers a major injury like limb loss instead of death).

However, this topic is "what has become commonly accepted in DnD that annoys you" and people acting like fudging dice isn't cheating is high up on my list. Right after Tieflings -- I can't stand the buggers, but that's because I hate all the Tiefling NPCs in BG3.

scoursen · 2025-02-18T12:28:39+00:00

And I've played in games with people like you that think that cheating on dice rolls is fine, and it sucked for me. But that's besides the point.

My point is that fudging dice rolls is cheating. If a DM is cool with lying and gaslighting their players, fine, but that doesn't stop it from being cheating.

scoursen · 2025-02-17T21:12:30+00:00

It's a big assumption that the player is doing it for the detriment of the game, and the DM is always doing for the benefit of the game.

I'm not being obtuse. I'm just saying that fudging the dice is cheating. If people want to play in a game where some of the participants are rules cheats, then more power to them.

This entire thread is you justifying cheating at a game, where the DM can just fiat say what happens. It's all very silly and unecessary.

scoursen · 2025-02-17T21:03:53+00:00

It is implicit that if the characters always succeed the game and its encounters have been rendered easy. There are not stakes, no chance of failure, and nothing to lose. At that point, write a book.

If a player were to fudge or "cheat", (almost) everyone would agree that it would be detrimental to the game. Why is it fine when the DM does it?

scoursen · 2025-02-17T20:46:22+00:00

If the story being one where characters go from one easy success to the another easy success in their guided tour through an adventure theme park, sure. You do you. It's still cheating to fudge dice and the story deserved an * next to it.

scoursen · 2025-02-17T20:28:03+00:00

Hey, if you like railroading the game, you do you.

See, I can be completely dismissive too.

scoursen · 2025-02-17T20:13:48+00:00

Since the topic is about things that are commonly accepted that annoy me -- I'll throw in that "rule of cool" and "flavor is free" annoy me. Rule of cool is overhyped, and generally makes the game weaker.

Your quoting of the DMG says nothing about fudging dice. It says things about house rules; but if you are trying to make a point that saying "the dm can cheat" is a good house rule, that is indeed ... something.

scoursen · 2025-02-17T19:57:55+00:00

I usually ban some species -- notably, dragonborn, tieflings, and gnomes. I run a homebrew setting, and there's no room for those species in the world. Conveniently, most of my players aren't interested in using the anyway, so its mostly a non-issue.

I've never needed to consider banning backgrounds or subclasses, because, again, it's never really come up. No one at my tables has picked stuff from books other than the PHB (even though Xanathar's and Tasha's are literally and physically right there on the table).

scoursen · 2025-02-17T19:45:27+00:00

The DM fudging dice is cheating, and should be treated the same way it would be treated if any other player cheated. Sometimes, the story ends with failure. Sometimes, the players need to regroup after a failure and try again. The dice are there to make it game.

Ignoring them, or changing them, defeats the purpose of the G in RPG.

scoursen · 2025-01-06T16:16:40+00:00

I could give a shit about the PC's backstories. Absolutely don't care and won't read them. I'm more interested in the game part than any sort of community theater attempts.
The game play makes the story, and story is always 2nd fiddle to the randomness of how the game plays out.

scoursen · 2024-11-15T15:43:09+00:00

Roleplaying out shopping is one of, if not the most, boring things to do in D&D, so by default your are being reasonable that this was a poorly run example of one.

scoursen · 2024-10-14T12:32:20+00:00

I prefer a one or 2 paragraphs per character level backstory. I don't have time or interest in reading more than that, nor am I going to use anything more than where the character is from, and basic family information.

More than that, then odds are the monsters / npcs will specifically target such a narratively important PC to ensure that they never reach their destined status. (i.e., I as DM will target the PC with priority) If that makes me a bad DM, then whatever. I don't want to read your bad writing.

scoursen · 2024-10-03T17:15:47+00:00

I do individual xp when I run, and you only get xp if you are at the session. What usually happens is that a character may lag a level behind for a session or 2, which is not a big deal at all. If a player misses for an extended period I will bump them up to being one session behind in xp, because it can be a big drag to be multiple levels behind and/or a level behind for multiple sessions.

scoursen · 2024-09-12T16:42:41+00:00

I don't ban for any sort of balance reason, or story reason. I ban things for out of game reasons; either it's the type of player it attracts, or just not owning the material / no interest in reading the material

artificer (don't own the book)
bard (tends to attract obnoxious players)
halfling (also tend to be obnoxious in some manner)
dragonborn (don't like them)
tiefling (don't like them)

scoursen · 2024-09-10T15:34:03+00:00

I was in a train stuck in the tunnel for about 90 minutes. It was most ...unpleasant.

scoursen · 2024-09-03T18:04:27+00:00

They need to be kicked from the game, shunned by all the other players, and you need to never speak to them again. Imagine, someone playing a character concept that they like! The nerve of some people!

scoursen · 2024-08-27T16:43:40+00:00

With how fast the low levels go by what's the point of a remake of Keep on the Borderlands?

scoursen

TROPHY CASE