A significant part of the culture that has formed around 5e is about “having it all”. And usually by ignoring the (admittedly weak) rules that do exist, rather than exploiting actual gaps. So, you can frankenstein together a caster that has martial proficiency in armour (or even melee weapons), with the only compromise being your capstone abilities (which often are very expendable). And then you can metagame away your shitty social abilities by “roleplaying”.

I’m not going to defend 5e – I genuinely think it’s a poorly made game, and place the blame for that entirely on the execuitives – but the reason why so many people refuse to try something else is because they like the exploits that they believe exist, even though they are totally socially constructed.

Spent all night at the ER for what turned out to be a pedestrian inner ear issue. Not going to make it even to the first pitch tonight, I don’t think. But Go Jays Go! Give me a higihlight reel to watch in the morning!

My guess would be the critical fumble deck.

I work in gaming, and I can say with some confidence that, at least at the big publishers, it doesn’t actually work this way. The C-suite, in particular, isn’t talking to developers at all, and aren’t making decisions about products beyond which IPs that they have in their catalogue that they want to put a bunch of money into.

Where the problem is is in the marketing and editorial departments. Most of the big publishers have a department whose job it is is to assess whether unannounced games in development have a viable market, and how to better appeal to that market. The problem is, the people in those deparments don’t use anything but what’s trending right now to determine this, and so you get studios being told that their current game a) should be shoehorned into franchise X or Y, and b) should adopt this mechanic, tone, or aesthetic that doesn’t really fit with the core idea, amd that will be dated by the time the game launches in 2 years.

These are deeply conservative, risk-averse departments, and they gatekeep all of the major development and launch milestones.

I’ve been listening to the Narrative Declaration playthrough of Kingmaker, and they don’t seem to be anywhere near making anyone a king! They seem to have some sort of council-based thaumocracy going, instead!

My players have yet to discover any paths. They just keep following the ones that are readily visible on the map!

Yes! Exactly! And some of the aliens in those caves might be somewhat monstrous!

I bet you could build something off of Starfinder.

It also involves lowering your guard, so should trigger AOps.

Yamamoto is another swing-and-miss pitcher. Hopefully they can show the same – or even more! – dicipline at the plate tonight, and wear him out early. That Dodger’s bullpen is juicy! And the more run support they can give Gaus, the less we have to worry about our bullpen.

Well, that was fun. Let’s do it again tomorrow!

Bo at 2nd in game 1… I wasn’t sure they’d do it immediately. Wow.

This’ll be interesting.

Those are Social Justice Alchemists, I think.

When my players’ party (of 3) was Level 2, I ran them through the core of the DCC module Legend of the Ripper, which culminates in a battle with a Redcap. I ran the module, and the Redcap, as written, just substituting in PF2e versions of the monsters and hazards (the conversion was buttery smooth, really), which meant I was putting the party up against an Extreme encounter. The players had circumvented a fight with a ghost earlier, and in fact had managed to befriend it, so I decided to use it as an intervention if and when the party got the Redcap down below a certain HP threshold, or if the fight turned totally sideways.

Well, the Redcap managed to down the party’s only melee character – a Champion – in the first round with a critical hit, which turned the party into a little bit of a reactive mess. The Cleric had recently respec’d into an Oracle, so they were lacking a dedicated healing option, but I gave the Oracle a custom Celestial Relic with Word of Faith so that they’d have some sort of free and easy healing. So, they locked themself into the roll of keeping the Champion alive, and the Champion locked themself into the role of keeping the Oracle alive, while the Druid did what they could to pick away at the Redcap’s health and outpace its fast healing, and the Redcap skirmished with the Champion and the Druid. This went on for a few rounds, with the Druid doing most of the damage, and the Oracle and Champion doing chip damage where they could, until they were just a few HP away from the narrative trigger I’d decided on.

Then the Champion managed to catch up to and trip the Redcap, while the Druid walked over and pulled out Horizon Thunder Sphere.

Natural 20, with a high damage roll. More than enough to kill the Redcap.

It was a great encounter, with a mobile enemy, in a setting with lots of crates and boxes that it could take cover behind, and a party that felt pretty consistently on the ropes, right up until the dice gods blessed them into a decisive victory.

The number of APs that qualify as “remastered” is fairly limited. We’re really just talking about Wardens of Wildwood and later. That means Wardens, Curtain Call, Triumph of the Tusk, Spore War, Shades of Blood, and Myth-Speaker. Of these, I don’t think any of them easily follow from Menace Under Otari or Trouble in Otari.

Seven Dooms of Sandpoint, though, is a pretty good fit level-wise, but it’s not remastered, and it has enemies in it that utilize alignment damage. Some small efforts would need to be taken to adjust for the removal of alignment from the game.

Hoffman waited until the clock rolled over to my wife’s birthday. What a nice gesture!

But seriously, I was 11 the last time the Jays were in the World Series, and I feel like I’m right back in my parents’ living room.

I feel good about facing Kirby again. I hope they light him up like a Christmas tree!

Good game! Let’s do it again tonight!

Good game! Let’s do it again tomorrow!

They’ve won everymust-win game this fall. Here’s hoping for 2 more!