Recent content by lokidr

You are not alone on this Kaihlik. I see Archon's style as outdated and entirely too focused on lack of story because I have seen it done poorly. I think he's been in one too many games where he feels powerless and doesn't enjoy the ride. Yahtzee on this site has some very good views on why...

I don't think DM fudging is the issue, I think expectations are the issue. As I ran a Mutants and Masterminds game, one player grew upset that he had to use such mechanical tricks to keep his character alive. This was after he created a violent and criminal vigilante who upset the powers that...

I think you've got the 3rd ed. vs 4e debate pretty much nailed. Even if hit points didn't make a lot of sense, they were a simple way to say "you're dead". Simulation vs. Cinematic is a pretty easy situation to read in rules, but I think how much we like the games we play are more based on...

That's quite the philosophical tangent. My understanding of Tolkien's work was a desperate but not ultimately doomed mission. The difference between this and pagan epics was the concept of ultimate doom. The ancient world could seem petty and cruel but you did not get the sense that all...

Thanks Alex, that sounds like one decent approach. In that case, the story would be driven by NPC characters with their own goals to which the players can react. After all, if the world contains no characters with motivations and attitudes you might as well skip the GM. But let me propose a...

Thanks for your reasonable response, Archon. This is where I think you and I differ. I do not believe problem players are endemic to all campaigns, I think they are made by a lack of understanding and poor expectations. For example, if you were to play in published adventure you could easily...

I find your article to be a considered and reasonable approach to the Old School of thought on role-playing: let the dice fall where they may. Your central idea seems to be that fun is always better when it is earned, that making choices resulting in real impact is the most fun you can have...

Bob, can we talk? Are you upset at others who put in less "work" than you do the same things you do or that they get it wrong? Seeing the 50,000th person to make a "dances with smurfs" joke does get old but that doesn't make the narrative original. You know, Bob, you have panned your far...

Where you see depth, I see plot holes. You like Avatar for other reasons but what does that really say about the movie as a whole? The line between "classic" and "cliche" is how often I've seen it and how much I still like it. Bob panned Book of Eli as unoriginal but I liked it but I just...

It was completely unoriginal in narrative. The visuals were stunning. The world details in the other materials [http://www.pandorapedia.com/doku.php] were fascinating but largely not included in the movie. The cultures were not original, they weren't supposed to be, it would have ruined...

Haven't you heard that TV Tropes Will Ruin Your Life [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TVTropesWillRuinYourLife]? Any movie can seem poor by pulling it apart. Yet the most fun of the recent GI Joe movie for me was tearing it apart afterward because I've seen too many of that kind of...