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Cake day: June 23rd, 2023

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  • You can also safely check with Vicious mockery. The spell can target any creature, but only damages the target if it can hear, which “inanimate” things cannot.

    On the other hand, Dissonant Whispers causes the target to hear (rather than hearing being a precondition as it is with Vicious Mockery) and with this you can kill petrified creatures, thus ensuring no spell casters return them to flesh-and-blood, without damaging the statue.


  • You’re not dead when you’re petrified, either, which can lead to some pretty interesting exploits, rules-as-written.

    Petrified creatures count as creatures, not objects, so rules-as-written you can determine if a statue is a petrified creature by trying to target it with a spell that requires a creature for a target.

    With the cantrip Poison Spray, you can check for petrified creatures without using spell slots or risking damaging the creature, since it would be immune to poison while petrified.











  • Gygax also elevated Jean Wells in the company before the subsequent management basically made her a secretary. Wells had a decent working relationship with Gygax, which you can see if you read in Dragon magazine “Sage Advice” column from the mid 80’s. Gygax should have listened to Wells more often than he did, but he did try to empower her to make the game more friendly to women.

    Still, his legacy towards women in gaming is mixed at best. In the 80’s, TSR games which Gygax was less involved in tended to do better with women, notably Star Frontiers, but also “Basic D&D” which did not include rules making it disadvantageous to play a female character, unlike Gygax’s Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, which capped female strength below male strength for each race. And I think telling a new D&D player their character would be a lousy fighter is pretty rough.

    Yes, there was a pattern in Gygax’s creations of evil female power that went beyond the dragon example. Most notably drow were the only evil elves, and the only matriarchal (he would have said “female dominated”) ones. This pattern wasn’t his invention — it’s as old as Snow White, Cinderella, and the rest — but even in his own time, others (for example, Tom Moldvay) created more inclusive games.



  • This can happen with new players who are native English speakers too, as D&D has a fair deal of vocabulary not everyone knows. Words like charisma and melee really got popularized by D&D.

    Deep cut here: When I was a kid (ages past) and first heard friends talk about D&D, I thought there was a lens to keep you on the border. And without it, you might go straight Into The Unknown.


  • I ran 2 tables in 4E, but when 5E came out they never wanted to go back.

    It all came down to keeping track of all the powers, nobody liked that. They also hoarded their encounter and daily powers, rarely using them (and hoarding encounter powers doesn’t make a lot of sense).

    I was a little disappointed because the one table was about to hit their paragon paths, which seemed like fun, and the players seemed excited for. It’s a concept I wouldn’t mind seeing in a new game – it was a little like choosing a subclass at 10th level.


  • While my players will easily kill 30 minutes collaborating on what to buy, a session like this is definitely more fun if there are NPC’s involved.

    We had a memorable session when the PC’s found the Emporium of Evil, where they tried to find the magic items that weren’t TOO cursed, speaking to all manner of morally questionable merchant. (They bought a lot, actually.)

    You can also brainstorm the next quest this way. Whether or not the party wants to take a quest from a one of these merchants, they can certainly hear rumors. You can see what they take interest in, and build your next plot arc off of that base.

    Some trouble can always pop up when the shopping is winding down, requiring decisive action by the party.



  • Fair points. I’m a walking rules encyclopedia type, and I’ve been in a number of games where I was like, “What the hell am I supposed to be doing?” And not having any fun.

    On the other hand, I’ve brought “D&D only” people along for the ride on other games with good success. The trick is running a good “tutorial level” introductory adventure, where nobody is either bored or frustrated. That’s going to involve introducing the mechanics in digestible bites.

    Funny thing about a D&D only mindset is that there are games that are much simpler, where thinking tactically is much less important.