TimLymington

898 reputation

110

bio	website
	location	Hampshire, United Kingdom
	age	48
visits	member for	1 year, 8 months
	seen	yesterday
stats	profile views	237

I live in Lymington, Hampshire, and work in the Law Courts, which may have made my English slightly pedantic. I realize that Americans and other ex-colonials labour under a disadvantage, and regard it as an holy duty to assist them in speaking (and thinking) clearly.

	898 reputation	bio	website		visits	member for	1 year, 8 months
110 badges		location	Hampshire, United Kingdom		seen	yesterday

summary answers questions tags badges favorites bounties reputation activity

56 Comments

suggestions reviews revisions comments badges posts accepts all

1d	comment	How To Divide Up Loot? I strongly disagree here. The fact that the characters are placing other factors ahead of party effectiveness isn't a problem that needs to be solved; it's called roleplaying. Encounters are supposed to be interesting and engaging for the party as it is, not 'a party of your level could have beaten that if they had done X Y and Z'
1d	comment	How to get new a new player to understand the time investment of a table top RPG I wouldn't recognize this experience as an RPG at all; more of a course of study. It obviously works for you and your players, so good luck; but it's not universal.
May 22	comment	In D&D, A PC became king. How do I keep him in check? I'm sure Conan and others faced similar situations. Normally, at the start of the next book (or arc), they were evading search parties from the evil lord who had usurped the kingdom (politics doesn't stop happening, you know) and a choice of filling the saddlebags with gold or with food and water...
May 18	comment	How effective would a mech be in a city environment? +1 for the first sentence. You need to match your forces to the intended objective; to destroy a city entirely, a salvo of tac nukes (or possibly a strategic nuke, matter/antimatter bomb...) is far better than any ground force.
May 15	comment	How should GM deal with 'standing orders'? 'Checking for secret doors or traps when he checks in for the night is reasonable'? Try it in RL and see what it does to your reputation.
May 13	comment	How can I screen new players to make sure they are a good fit for my game? Like the last point, but the rest seems far too controlling. The players should have (and in the end will have, willy-nilly) as much say in the shape of the campaign as the GM.
May 8	comment	What is a good system to play LOTR? I think you may have to compromise a bit here. LOTR is lower-magic than any RPG systsem I have ever seen (as in, there are no human, non-villainous magic users), but players tend to like using magic. The reasons for this are interesting, but off-topic; what you will have to decide is how mch magic you want in your universe.
Apr 24	comment	How do I increase resistance to drain? What about Brian's point that 'Errata clarified that NO focus can help with drain'?
Apr 17	comment	How does a DM correct the balance after accidentally giving the players too much gold? Related (near dupe): rpg.stackexchange.com/q/22786/2451
Apr 11	comment	3 novices, 1 Warhammer Fantasy. How do I make sure my friends don't have a bad first experience? Though this is all good stuff, I think the emphasis is wrong in your first point. Players (particularly novices) will always do what they're good at rather than what needs doing; if all you have is a nunchaku, everything looks like chaff. The trick is to ensure their actions actually do advance the plot, for example because an NPC is so intimidated by seeing the flail in action that he gives up the vital information the party were supposed to deduce.
Apr 10	comment	At what point did polyhedral dice become part of D&D? As I understand it the 'players' of the Prussian Kriegsspiel (more like umpires on a military exercise) cut cards to decide points that couldn't be agreed, since dice would be ungentlemanly.
Apr 10	comment	How to make players care about a community You need to be careful with the first point: a unique/cheaper/better resource is a good reason for the party to go there, not so much to stay or care about the place (except in a 'protect the source of healing potions' way, which doesn't seem to be what OP's looking for).
Mar 17	comment	What are some ways to increase melee damage? Are you thinking of the Hit Location maneuver (effectively a skill) in C1?
Mar 9	comment	Methods for round-robin style DM'ing? 1- IMO, it's always worth temporarily retiring the GMs character if at all possible (maybe incapacited by illness). It's very difficult not to subconsciously favour your character; even more difficult not to be thought to do so.
Mar 1	comment	Is It OK To Sic Assassins On My PCs? For any society to work, there must be limits on what assassins can do. "If they could wear any clothes, any disguise, then what could anyone do but spend all day sitting in a small room with a loaded crossbow pointed at the door?" T. Pratchett, Night Watch.
Feb 28	comment	Mind Control: What's a Dominate Person between allies? How helpful is this,actually? I entirely agree that a GM is under no obligation to allow a [chaotic] character into a [demonstrating human qualities to advance the wishes of the gods] campaign, and this GM should not have done so. But once you've started, saying "Actually that character doesn't fit; she dies, roll another one" is like what actually happened, but considerably worse.
Feb 26	comment	Problems Regarding a Mary-Sue type Player Character Not every character (in RPGs or RL) actually has a dark secret they wish to keep from the world at all costs. This may make it harder for the GM; but such is life.
Feb 25	comment	Is Coup de Grace on sleeping and bound opponents an evil act? -1 for 'why have the books put those rules in place?'; having rules for inflicting fire damage doesn't allow you to burn people alive. But +1 for the last paragraph; like most alignment arguments, this seems to have started because different players had different ideas of what is unacceptable.
Feb 25	comment	Is Coup de Grace on sleeping and bound opponents an evil act? Since you ask; the vital difference between shooting an armed burglar in your house and following him into the street after he drops his weapon and shooting him in the back. I take your point (which is presumably why the GM made his ruling), but this is still killing helpless enemies without giving them a chance to surrender. The act may not be Evil, depending on the situation, but doing it "gleefully" without justification almost certainly is.
Feb 25	comment	Is Coup de Grace on sleeping and bound opponents an evil act? Can't disagree with your first sentence, but the question is explicitly about the difference between 'Kill all those who don't surrender' and 'Cut their throats while they're asleep'.