The original question was what was the authors intent?
I think the authors intent was what is written. The fact there hasn't been an errata between publishing and 5th edition essentially proves this.
The explaination you give for this is probably correct. People thought Tattoo monks were fun...
I think for me there’s a few things you are discounting a little too easily.
First the is the basic premise that the tattoos are overpowered when they have unlimited uses. I disagree with this premise and so when I have GM’d I haven’t been really digging much deeper into how the rules were...
Somehow I knew it would be the Tattooed Monks causing grief!
As much as those Dragon Bastards get on my nerves as a GM, :wink:, I think overall B is correct.
Some of it comes down to the fact that Tattooed Monks should not be treated like regular samurai. Their bonus to social skills via Crane...
I'd argue that from a RPG GMing point of view "need" is perhaps doing a lot of heavy lifting here.
But even conceding that we want to know the writers intent canon and lore have connotations that are (or have become) unhelpful. "Publisher/author content" would be probably more useful for GMs...
The term canon always gets on my nerves as well, especially given the sheer amount of retconning that goes on in fiction these days. When people say "Uhm actually that's no longer canon" I just think "You know all of this shit is made up right?"
I stick closely to established lore, but that may not be the most up to date edition. Warhammer and WH40K being the obvious examples.
In addition I will often set my games in either in the blank spaces of the map or at a scale where lore hasn't been established (generally low level, the back...
First time round the Jedi destroys the Death Star from the outside, second time round he comes inside the Death Star and kills the boss, the Force only knows what the Jedi would have done if there was a third Death Star.
I've come across a surprising number of people who I was amazed to discover didn't understand that a d20 rose in increments of 5% meaning, obviously, you can very easily work out the % value of d20 rolls.
This is a very obvious concept and yet on three different occasions I've felt like I'm...
Two things to consider.
1. A Jedi's strongest weapon is not his lightsabre duelling skills but his Mastery of the force including their training as a negotiator and diplomat. Weapons and equipment is redundant if the jedi convinces your troops to fight for the rebels. So I'd say systems that...
One counter point to simply roleplaying NPCs and then relying on the players to know whether it is a lie or not is that it removes the choice from wider context of the day to day life the characters are living in.
It also relies on good acting and pacing from the GM to be convincing (or for...
I am happy to use social skills vs PCs with the important proviso that social skills are not mind control and are not magic.
So if a player deduces or thinks a NPC is lying I may still tell them that their is no indication they are lying or indeed the PC thinks based on their body language...
In a feudal society gold or any other valuable material is only one part of the equation as to why some people are powerful and others are not. The value of gold might plummet but established nobility are in a far better position to withstand that shock compared to the PCs themselves.
Also...
I've asked ChatGPT to give the rules for abilities from various games. It invariable gets them wrong but confidentially provides me with some different rules for that ability.
I.e what are the rules for an Orcs Frenzy in X game?
ChatGPT: The rules are [...completly wrong answer but often...
Thanks, that's helpful. And to be clear is hallucinations referring to the end user thinking they are seeing genuine intelligence (and perhaps not double checking) or the tendency for the AI to produce nonsense because it is a sophisticated random word generator rather than applying genuine...
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