Thank you for the clarification! So the German laws fall more under “capricious” than “indiscriminate,” good to know.

The trend towards more races and classes started in 3rd and became downright silly in 3.5, which began to suffer from pretty bad imbalance issues. I can’t vouch for 4th, but Paizo’s Pathfinder has largely avoided the issue while keeping the spirit intact. It’s a fun gameplay philosophy, but it can lead to decision…

I know, right? WotC were directly responsible for 3rd and 3.5, but they were then sold to Hasbro (for that sweet MtG money), who pushed them to make 4th. 5th was a reaction to the reception of 4th, when Hasbro loosened the leash a little. It’s a little reminiscent of the last few years of TSR, when they were…

You’re not familiar with the progression. First, the current regime is replaced with a tyrant. THEN the tyrant is overthrown. They never got past part one, primarily because the tyrant typically isn’t afraid to oppress the working class with the military. The Qing Dynasty and the Romanovs don’t count, they were merely…

Eh, communism never really got to the “overthrow the tyrant” stage, as tyrants generally don’t approve of being overthrown, regardless of their professed ideals. An idea can’t fail if it hasn’t been allowed to start.

If you pay much attention to Chinese media, you’ll discover that they don’t mind violence, as long as it’s directed towards the right people.

Because prime rib exists.

It’s one of the things that Paizo is doing that WotC should really take note of. All the main Pathfinder rulebooks are $10 PDFs, and people with subscriptions get free PDFs when their books ship.

The only reason to pick up 5th Edition is if you want to play it. If you’re comfortable with your current editions, stay with them.

...it’s Hasbro, now.

First thing I thought of. Ambrosia had some amazing games back in the day...

I’m not particularly sure that this is the kind of news that Kotaku should be reporting on, for a variety of reasons. First, tabletop RPGs grind out new books at a ferocious rate, so simply stating that a book has been released isn’t really something newsworthy. Second, there are a wide variety of RPGs out there, so…

Yeah, that was one of the patch changes that made a rogue’s life easier. It’s like every patch introduces some cool toy to make up for some other toy that was broken. One involved a talent that allowed automatic counterattacks when parrying an incoming attack... that had the side benefit of not counting as triggering…

I’ve been with the game since Vanilla, but I’m all too painfully aware of many of those warts, as a rogue who played with a hunter. We loved it for the community and the sense of exploration (both brought on by difficulty), but being the best thing available then doesn’t make it the best thing now.

I think it’s worth pointing out that, while the goal of an RPG is to play a role, as a new player you’ll likely not understand much of how the world works. Resist the temptation early on to play a character who would know a lot of the world and instead aim to play a character whose knowledge of the world matches your…

It’s worth noting that anything involving size in Blizzard games is representational at best. The heroes aren’t actually four times larger than the creeps or the same size as stone towers and it’s been established by Blizzard that size in WoW is more related to the importance of a character rather than their physical…

It seems to me that this limerick from the late, great Isaac Asimov is appropriate here:

Reminds me of when my fiance pinned someone underwater with entangling roots until they drowned. Good times.

That’s actually a really impressive build, and all the more so for being made with actual bricks! I’m intensely curious, however, if the attention to detail includes the interior of the buildings or not. A set of scale buildings that open like some of the classic LEGO sets would be rather nice and, given how WoW…

I know I’m a bit late to the party here, but as someone who reserved all judgement until seeing the movie and having recently seen it, I do have to agree with many of the early critics. It’s unfortunate, but this movie was very much style over substance, which also means that the choice of actress, given the context…