Thaevrizhax's Lair

There is a certain mindset which I believe I have noticed in a few old-school DMs.  An idea is present within their minds that anything the player characters obtain is just another means to attack the characters. Did you hire a henchman? Well, now he may or may not betray you. Did you build a stronghold? Well, now it might just get attacked. Did you get treasure from the dungeon?  Well, now it might be stolen in the night, or while you're away from your stronghold. Is this a problem? No. But, if you choose to run the game like this, your players will stop going to get treasure, stop hiring henchmen and stop building strongholds. How can you be so sure?  Because that is exactly what happened.  Here is how I think things went: The old-school DMs ran their games, and then in the 90s the players coming into the hobby, with the majority being power-gamers , saw the weaknesses of treasure, strongholds and henchmen for what they were, and simply stopped using them.  Co...

The question being posed is this: At what, if any, point does a character become competent, either in a singular ability, or as a whole, in your RPG/Game/Setting. A list, in order of competency:  CoC: I have never played, but my impression is: The idea of the game is that your characters will never be wholly competent, they may become competent in a skill or two, or many, but they can never beat Cthulhu. OSE: At 4th level I would say the characters become competent in their fields, at 7th they are competent as a whole and at 10th they are hyper-competent in their fields/niches. 5e: The characters start competent, become wholly competent by 5th level and hyper-competent past 9th level, effectively (and sometimes literally) becoming immortal by max level. Lone Wolf Fists: Characters start competent in a few areas and progress exponentially from there, high-level play sees them fighting deities and the idea of reality itself. But I'd like to go into more detail in the area I'm mos...

 I don't like the lore, I don't like the gameplay, I don't like the company who makes it.  My seething fury towards this terrible game was started by three separate incidents, relating directly to the three issues above, but which do not encompass the whole of my distaste for this game.  The three events would be: A frankly off-putting lore video, the first and last I can remember attempting to watch, before being quickly deterred.  The fact that the official rules require actual physical miniatures, all of which are purposely and prohibitively expensive.  And finally, an event which occurred long before I was aware of it: that the company had copyrighted the term "space marine" a horribly generic term which they had the gall to claim.   Now, I do not know the current situation regarding the copyright, but the rest still stands. Furthermore The lore. The video which I found, this was years ago by now, and I believe I have thoroughly forgotten which cha...

 I would define the types of critique as having three levels: Low, Mid, and High. For two examples of each: LindyBeige (Low) Most youtube channels centered around 5e D&D (Low) Matt Colville (Mid)  Most youtube channels centered around generic OSR (Mid) Black Lodge Games (High) Most youtube channels that focus on TTRPGs in general (High) My Argumentation I was recently revisiting LindyBeige's old D&D videos, and found them to be lacking.  Now, a few things should be said: My impression of the man is that he is well educated and not stupid either, so I do not think any of the faults in the videos were done out of maliciousness, I would say quite the opposite, they are made very earnestly.  As well, the videos, at the time they were made, were both some of the first sources of information on older editions of D&D I had come across, and some of the only criticisms of 5e that I had seen. Nevertheless, looking back at the videos, it becomes evident, at least to...

 There are two ways of defining Chaos: 1: Pandemonium, that is to say a state of lawlessness and a breakdown of the order of society, the disarray creating injustice.  In other words, Evil. 2: Randomness, happenstance and luck determining various outcomes and events, neither inherently good nor inherently evil. Equally, there are two ways of defining Law: 1: The Law, as in natural law or the Law of God.  This being the order which the world has been set by the highest authority, it is Good and right to follow such a Law, as to do anything else would be to go against creation itself.  Humanity being part of creation, it would naturally be insane for any human to willingly go against such Law. 2: A Law: This could range from the law of the land, that is to say, the state, all the way to any set of morality which a person chooses to follow, no matter how justified or sadistic it may tend. OD&D In OD&D, the alignments of Lawful and Chaotic must either: 1: Refer...

After the ghost encounter , our heroes bribed two dragons to help them kill the stygian witches (The Weaver's of Star's Light), stealing a philosopher's stone from them, and using it to fix Dalzel's magical aging (he's still retired).  I'm sure nothing bad will come from that, but as for the rest, I'm now onto the next half of the dungeon . Still solo play, for clarification. The fifth real level of the dungeon is another randomized mess.  The most notable happening on this level was the Ancient Blue Dragon the party stumbled upon.  Munro decides on a full offensive, one third of the party charges, the rest flee in terror.  The dragon immediately opens up with lightning. Maroshi Tano (can you guess the class?) loses his left arm, but no worries, hew is equally effective at killing with his right leg! Speaking of legs, Holger Holgerson loses his right leg and right arm to the lightning as well.  Not to fear! He simply takes hold of an idol they found elsewher...