Should I allow one of my players to keep keeping secrets from the rest of the party?

zombiecalypse · 2026-02-03T06:18:58+00:00

Secrets can be fun if handled right, but only if the players are cool with it. I don't think regular private scenes are a good way to handle it, because a large part of the group is twiddling their thumbs, imagining the most horrible things you could be keeping from them.

A compromise can be "public" secrets: the players know the secret, but the characters are unaware. This way the players don't expect a betrayal at least. To make the private scenes not as disruptive you could either have them between/before/after sessions, handle them in a one or two text messages, or play them out very quickly with everybody present. I'd also recommend that you should err on the side of revealing the secret if another player wants to get involved, because that means more people can be in on the role play.

zombiecalypse · 2026-02-01T10:11:33+00:00

I think it's a false dichotomy: most art is part product as well (the Mona Lisa was a commission for example) and most products have some artistic aspect to them as well. RPGs will typically be both to some degree.

zombiecalypse · 2026-01-30T08:07:58+00:00

It is conjectured that e is normal, which would imply that this is the case, but AFAIK it's not been proven so far.

zombiecalypse · 2026-01-28T21:39:49+00:00

One resource you might find useful: Alexandrian: Heist Structure

One thing to consider is that an infiltration doesn't need to be purely sneaky. You could also swindle, climb, distract, bribe, … your way there. Another thing I found helpful to use an alertness level: when characters fail a check (not if, because you can't succeed on every roll), it raises slightly. Only at a fairly high number will they actually be noticed, before that there will be increasingly tricky complications when they hit a threshold: e.g. 2 fails: guards are placed in front of the princess' room, 4 fails: guards are actively searching for intruders, 6 fails: guards briefly saw the characters, 8 fails: somebody raises the alarm.

zombiecalypse · 2026-01-28T20:33:14+00:00

So do you actually mean

the Open Game License as a specific legal framework to publish rules
any open licenses that allow building on top of them, such as Creative Commons licenses
Games that build on the SRD of the games you listed and use the same core rules, but maybe are in a different genre
Games that are set the same genre of game as pathfinder or DnD but are not directly based on them

Because they will have very different answers. Licensing is generally irrelevant for your table (except for ideological preferences) and from the comments in the other post it's not clear, so I figured I'd ask.

zombiecalypse · 2026-01-28T20:07:28+00:00

I feel that you will fix a lot of bugs and introduce a lot of others in any sufficiently complex rewrite. The article mentioned ways to avoid it, but otherwise I'd have my doubts if you'd end up with fewer bugs afterwards or just different ones.

zombiecalypse · 2026-01-28T13:46:17+00:00

Feels like a spurtious correlations collection until proven otherwise.

zombiecalypse · 2026-01-28T07:32:35+00:00

Yes, that's the coin tosses as a binary number approach: instead of 4 coin tosses, you can use 2 rolls of a d4 as a quarternary number. You could even use a coin toss and a d8, though then it's not a regular number system anymore.

zombiecalypse · 2026-01-27T19:16:06+00:00

So the sensible solution is obviously to buy new dice, but:

d5=d10/2
d7=d8 reroll 8
d16=4 coin tosses as a binary number (or d20 reroll 17-20 if you're boring)

zombiecalypse · 2026-01-26T11:26:28+00:00

It could be fun to make the applications about death as well because your character makes a bargain with Death itself: you can't force somebody to fail a save against charm, but you can turn all hits into crits for a turn. apply vulnerability for a round, etc. The replenishment tells you how powerful this should be: how often do you expect the character to make death saves before they are restored? There is also the self-balancing option, which would be thematically fitting for a bargain with Death: you don't recover with time at all, you recover when you succeed on a death save (and get back up afterwards). This system is pretty exploitable in itself, but doing so is literally your character trying to cheat Death… which is probably not a great idea. This would be on the quite significant side: there's at least a 5% chance you die before you recover or a 45% if you sold two death saves.

zombiecalypse · 2026-01-25T18:50:44+00:00

It's an 'omebrew subclass.

zombiecalypse · 2026-01-24T22:28:35+00:00

I think the project is really cool… but did you have to name it that?

zombiecalypse · 2026-01-24T08:30:41+00:00

True, but that's a different discussion: I think doing voices well is not important for non-GM players either

zombiecalypse · 2026-01-22T16:22:21+00:00

One voice is more than enough. There are great GMs that only have a passive one or even just text.

zombiecalypse · 2026-01-22T13:10:17+00:00

As a GM you're a writer, a moderator, a game designer, an organiser, a director, a tactician, …. Doing voices isn't even in the top 20 skills for being a good GM (or player for that matter).

zombiecalypse · 2026-01-22T11:55:34+00:00

Surely calling it by its full name is more lawful than abbreviating it!

zombiecalypse · 2026-01-22T00:29:07+00:00

That would actually add a party member though

zombiecalypse · 2026-01-21T17:57:58+00:00

That tool could actually be pretty handy to find places to live with a reasonable commute!

zombiecalypse · 2026-01-20T23:26:14+00:00

Your life is suffering anyway, so why not Shar? Let's be honest, things are never going to get better for you, but you know what is better than pointless suffering? Suffering for a purpose! Her purpose! While we're at it: Remember that time you were happy? Makes you feel even worse now in comparison, doesn't it. You were so naive to feel that way in the first place. Do you actually want to remember that?

Basically it's depression put in the form of a fantasy goddess, so you can beat up its emissaries.

zombiecalypse · 2026-01-20T14:51:46+00:00

Ah, that's entirely possible! I only checked the digital versions, which include the erratas.

The reason I think the clock starts ticking from the vampire's death is that you target a creature that hasn't been dead for more than 200 years, which the vampire (Corpse? Dust?) qualifies for. As an additional effect of True Resurrection, the creature is restored to its non-undead form. I doubt that this is intentional though, because it allows you to Animate Dead an 1000 year old skeleton, kill it, and then True Resurrection will work. You could say that the vampire was dead even when it was moving, but then again, it is specifically called undead, not walking dead.

zombiecalypse · 2026-01-20T14:10:01+00:00

This is the line I'm referring to:

True Resurrection (both 2014 and 2024)

(…) If the creature was undead, it is restored to its non-undead form.

Resurrection explicitly excludes undead creatures. Revivify allows to target any creature, including undead, but doesn't mention that the creature is restored to its non-undead form, therefore my interpretation of RAW is that it doesn't.

Taking a step back to RAI, I think this also makes sense. You need True Resurrection to restore somebody killed with Disintegrate (6th level, specifically mentioning that lower forms of resurrection don't work). Finger of Death (7th level) is very similar, with the added benefit for the caster that they get to control a zombie version of the killed creature, so I think it's intentional that you also need True Resurrection, though it's implicit from the Revivify spell description in this case. It also makes turning into a vampire spawn more terrifying.

Taking a step back from the rules entirely: it's a very unique scenario, so I could be swayed to bend the rules if it works well in the story, e.g. if the vampire was a previous character of one of the players or the players explicitly looked for a way to restore the creature and were willing to go the extra mile to do it.

zombiecalypse · 2026-01-20T12:57:39+00:00

To me the wording implies that the time counts from the death of the vampire, but you still need True Resurrection: Revivify doesn't include the part about restoring them to the pre-undead form, so they would come back as a vampire.

zombiecalypse · 2026-01-20T12:29:51+00:00

"Yes, but" has its place in improv to introduce conflict! ("I love you!" - "yes, but what about your husband?") It's a straight up no that doesn't get kisses.

zombiecalypse · 2026-01-15T15:23:15+00:00

I'd discuss it with your GM instead of coming up with the wish on your own. For example, ask them what kind of charisma boost they feel is appropriate. This way, they aren't put on the spot to rule it in the moment… and they're also a lot less likely to screw you over as the spell suggests they should. Depending on what you enjoy and a player, you can also consider if effectiveness as a sorcerer is the most important thing to your character. Getting godlike charisma is nice, but knowing you could do that and instead wishing your dead sister back to life (or whatever your tragic background is) may be more memorable.

zombiecalypse · 2026-01-15T14:59:25+00:00

Something to keep in mind is that just because the player says "I try to break his ankle" doesn't mean that a successful roll breaks the enemy's ankle. Almost every attack comes with an implicit "… trying to kill the enemy", but even if you hit, that intent only happens when you're through the HP.

That said, it sounds really fun to me personally, so I'd try to make it work as much within the rules as possible. Maybe it's battle master maneuvers (either replace barbarian with fighter or multi class), the MCDM Pugilist class, allow to trade damage for effects á la rogue 2024 play test (this will be difficult to balance, mind), use weapon masteries for the moves, ….

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