I find it hard to see how this can be that useful, it is just a fluffing up of nothing.   "Make villain a superman, or make your mayor behave like Miss Havisham. " It would be better or more useful generate a list of archetypes, that states clearly root motivations and physical features.   Furthermore, as an article it tackles no topic and presents no thesis or idea.    

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Solid Advice, this is generally how I prefer to run combat, with diagram of possible outcomes and NPC choices based on the likely PC choices.  Of course in the best games they always surprise you don't they...

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I like this idea, particularly the culture shock section. But DMing can already be so surreal and the idea that "Furdoor" pint, would be ten times the size of a "Doorfur" pint would make for classic in game gags. Particularly when the PCs get the bill. I also like the suggestion about using the riddles. A Nicely developed take on this, Go to Comment

"An inspiration piece" I wonder what piece of RPG focused work isn't supposed to be inspiration.

Overall, this is rather a week repackaging of eastern philosophy This take on the secular origins of taoism confucianism and how they differed from other deity based philosophies of ancient times brings nothing new to the table. A more inspirational work have been a fact based essay eastern philosophy. The mind over matter skills that are eluded to in this post are not developed thus all it does is repackage historic events and doesn't build on them well. I also found the intro clunky.

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It doesn't really get into why the world is the way it is, maybe I missed it but if the gods had behaved differently how would the world be different? Go to Comment

The not realistic argument always jars me. What people generally mean when they say it isn't realistic is that it isn't intuitive. I want to expand this beyond fantasy settings and apply this attitude to the community of speculative writers who feel the need to tackle issues of science, politics, culture and psychology; so all of them.

But before I can do that perhaps there are some questions to answer that would address dark_dragon conceits about humanity and history. First, I do suppose that dark_dragon would not suggest that logic or reason could be used a predictive meter for individuals. We all accept that individual behavior is varied and complex enough to be about as predictable as the weather. To describe you have to speak in likely hoods and thus when saying something isn't realistic what you are most likely saying is that things are not probable. A perverse, and by that I mean unpredictable, human being is so common that it no longer suprises us.

What dark_dragon is suggesting is that on a large scale humanity is extremely predictable, and on a large enough scale the observation of improbable behaviors is pratically impossible. Thus two intelligent species could not share a continent or at least could not share it with humanity.

On the whole I agree, but dark_dragon's conclusions do not include time in their equation.

At some point in time their is going to be co-habitation, cultural exchange and perhaps tolerance. The outcome may always be the same but culturel pluralism does exist , just not stably. Early Chicago was inhabited by indians, freed slaves, french-candians and frontiers men all living together and hanging at the wolf point tavern (not ideally for sure, violence was common, but there was not dominate culture). It wasn't until the new england yankee's came in and divided into lots that the frontier life was forced out. So perhaps before you look at your beloved world with its hobbit's, fairy folk and stranded aliens all living together in the Ghetto of a post-apocolyptic bronze age city at berate yourself for you intellectual simpleness (as dark_dragon and his kind would), you could

take comfort in the fact that you also capturing a moment in make-believe time.

Additionally, you have to decide if your species sharing an area are biologically compatible, because when ever there are two populations capable of interbreeding in contact there is interbreeding. There is data from the Levant that has been interpreted to suggest interbreeding between neandrethals and modern humans. The Bantu may have wiped out the Khoisan way of life, but was there not interbreeding? Certainly there was evidence of genetic and cultural exchange between the surviving !Kung tribes and the Bantu tribes as late the 1960s. The result of you a hetrogenous populations within an area of limited resources may be a homogenous culture, but there are many ways to get there and they may not all be dominance. It could instead be the de novo generation of new culture generated from the interface of multiple cultures, the Swahili are an example of such a culture. (If somebody says tries to tell you the Swahili are not a people, but it is just a non-tribal language tell him or her that as much truth to as the moon of cheese theory. Yes is there is a moon and there is cheese, but the similarities end there.)

Finally, Moonhunter already knocked this idea that magical travel would break down cultural barriers, but I want to knock it a different way as well. Geography is not the only thing that maintains cultural identity. That is so well know that I don't even need to give examples. But without things like formal education, transferable media and/or a highly inter-dependant economy cultural conversation would not be as easy as we observe it to be today. Go to Comment

D&D is gamer common. You travel to a new city-out of character, you got to meet a new group, you go to the standards. Trying to push the world and system you and your hometown friends worked on for years on is something you should really save for the 3rd date. Go to Comment

the public isn't really consuming this as much as coughing back up. Go to Comment

Well role-playing is a lot like sex, everyone who enjoys it thinks they're good at it, and most people are little worried and doubtful when people try to something new and different. When you get new group, unless they are new to gaming, they likely have a lot of ideas about how they want the game to go down. I find it best to try a few neutral or warm up games first, and then drop your Henry Darger stuff on em. Go to Comment

Very nice, again I like the imagery of your settings, and I like how this was written with a purpose to expand another list,

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nice item, could use a touch of personal perspective to bring it to life Go to Comment

very nice, you have a Lovecraftian take on locations, but with shorter sentences Go to Comment

I won't change my vote but this seems to have lost something since my last reading of it. 

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What scras said Go to Comment

I like this, and I am glad I got to read it. It is short, and has the feel of city image post on a smaller scale. I also liked that much of the was communicated by the tone of the piece and the scattered prose of the later paragraphs. This would be a fun place to lead the characters of almost any story. Go to Comment

Using the black arts for good . . .ah that old hat box.

Looking at this old post, makes me think that one could link posts on troupes or themes not just content. I think this post is the simplest form of a classic idea of morality explored with very little detail or packaging. Let say you want to put a message in you campaign about the corrupting influence of evil no matter the context, well this group of "Black Robes" could the carrier of the cliche. I am sure their are other items and society with similarly common and often used messages; the dangers of being a presumptive messiah, the dangers of being taken by the glory of success, the cost of trying to play angles rather than trusting people and so on.

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I don't see anything really wrong with this, a lot people critique things as "unrealistic" because they think it won't be as effective as another weapon or concept. These sort of argument ignore that technology is both human and aligned over time. Yeah this may be a crappy weapon, and its use may be a poor tactic, but that doesn't mean it would n't be used. Rather all it means is that the forces of natural selection that drive warfare and invention would eventually phase this out. I also don't think it would be over complicated for fantasy race to make large metal hinge with handles. Go to Comment

This is a great sub describing an interesting tool that could add some flavor to a scene, character or setting. Go to Comment

A little over brief for a full sub, but I really like the idea. Is that true about Pear wood in chinese mythology, have you seen the Mr. Vampire movies and TV show in which the master uses a peach wood (I believe) sword to fight the undead. Go to Comment