Recent content by Moonglum

I understand (though am not personally bothered by) the 'whiff factor', but has to be emphasized that, as was noted above, odds of success in BRP (RQ, etc.) for starting characters are broadly similar to those in D&D and many other games. I think the more problematic issue in BRP type games is...

I'm not bothered by the Order of Hermes at all. But then again, I take a very loose interpretation of all detailed 'meta story' materials for published settings. To me, the specific dynamics of something like a magical order and how it relates to other slices of society are things I'm going to...

The unique mechanics of AM magic are obviously a centerpiece of the game design, but I don't find them nearly as interesting as the ideas involved in the basic setting and campaign concepts. It is probably the best development of the european high middle ages as a rpg setting, which is really...

The complexity of characters is one of the reasons I love AM as a setting and campaign concept but love even more the approach of playing it with a different core system.

To me, the most important positive thing about Life Path approaches is that they concretely ground the character in a social role and establish social status and relationships. These are things that most games relegate to a few buzz words, un-supported by rules or other structures, and...

In my experience, system matters much, much (much!) less at the table than it does in the white-room thoughts we engage in during planning. My advice is to grab whatever generic system you feel most comfortable running and go for it. If it were me, I'd probably pick GURPS because the core system...

To me, the best approach to this is minimal explicit rules, but a very clearly defined and robust way of making up rules on the spot. What I mean by this is, I prefer a game that doesn't slather on gobs of specific rulings re. what dice are rolled against what stat with what modifier for all...

I feel like there are only two approaches to class-based character creation (i.e., ignoring games that are totally classless) that hold up over time: 2 (uses magic/doesn't use magic), and infinity. Any approach that tries to sneak up to some finite number above 2 will add more every time you...

The hard copy of this bad boy just arrived at my house last night, and it is a fantastic addition to the Fantasy Trip game. The book is very well thought out and beautifully illustrated and produced (hard cover with BW interior art in the same style as most of the product line). Probably the...

Black powder guns appear in pretty much any game I run with late medieval or renaissance style settings. They are fun and in my experience not unbalancing.

Love the concept and would happily jump on with both feet ... but for the system it's saddled with. I don't have any direct experience with 2d20, but I do know I am violently allergic to pointless new systems that are written just to be new. Please, lord, save us from the base instincts that...

I feel like Kaiju battles are really suited to a board game with the basic structure of Ogre - something hex-and-chit (or, if you hate having money in your savings account, miniatures and terrain), where things like human size infantry get abstracted as units. But I'm afraid I can't point you...

D&D both chickened out and missed a major opportunity when it shied away from this over time. Games that lean into a specific depiction of religion are always stronger for it. Even a game like TFT, which is explicit about the non-existence of religious miracles or intervention of gods in the...

I feel like I get what they were trying to do with 4e, and I initially thought they were going to do something I always thought could be awesome: having all the core classes possess a daily allotment of special things they can do that follows the same logic as the wizard's spells per day chart...

At least part of the OP argument seems to be based on the premise that people use religion as a way to access some kind of functional power with demonstrable consequences (like magic), and/or turn to it because they lack a power that they hope religion will give them (again, magic). But that...