SevenSidedDie

37,219 reputation

374194

bio	website	d7.pipemaze.com
	location	Vancouver, Canada
	age	32
visits	member for	2 years, 8 months
	seen	3 hours ago
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Roleplayer, lapsed blogger, and full-time dad.

Started playing with AD&D 1st edition and started GMing with AD&D 2nd edition. Ran D&D 3rd edition, D&D 4th edition briefly, then became a fan of indie games and the OSR. Particularly fond of GMless and short-form games because they fit nicely into a busy schedule, and are very good for enticing non-gamers into the roleplaying hobby.

@sevensideddie on Twitter
The Seven-Sided Die blog

Running Savage Stonehell • Playing nothing • Scheming Savage Worlds in Shaintar • Reading A Game of Thrones

	37,219 reputation	bio	website	d7.pipemaze.com	visits	member for	2 years, 8 months
374194 badges		location	Vancouver, Canada		seen	3 hours ago

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Jun 19	comment	How is the Dragon Age RPG combat supposed to be played? A question about the pros and cons of using mats and using only narration: Narrative Combat versus Use of Miniatures. It's worth noting that you can switch back-and-forth between mat-based and narrative-based combats, depending on the strengths you want to take advantage of for a given combat.
Jun 19	comment	How is the Dragon Age RPG combat supposed to be played? It's not actually that hard; it just requires skills that aren't commonly developed by people who've played mostly mat-based combat systems. There's a good question on how to handle positioning-heavy mechanics in narrative combat in the question Without a map or miniatures, how to best determine line-of-sight, etc?.
Jun 19	revised	MUD-based game books? edited tags
Jun 19	comment	What's a good text only adventure game to improve my storytelling for DMing? An alternative would be joining an RP-focused online multiplayer text-based game (MUD/MUSH/MUCK/etc).
Jun 19	comment	Differences between D&D 3.X and previous editions So far I've seen answers of the "I grew up with WotC D&D and it's better" and "I grew up with TSR D&D and it's better" sorts. I really hope that this Q eventually attracts a good, neutral answer that addresses the differences without taking one of those sides, but I'm not too optimistic.
Jun 19	comment	Any advice for writing a historically accurate adventure? This looks better. My inner editor can sit down now.
Jun 19	revised	Whither the Warlord? corrections about traditional vs new classes/races; added 46 characters in body
Jun 19	comment	Whither the Warlord? @GMNoob I'll edit my answer to be clearer about what I meant, but you're right: Dragonborn are in Essentials. They weren't in the first release, but were added later in a Heroes of ___ book.
Jun 18	comment	Whither the Warlord? There's a lot of insight to be had by noting that Essentials marks the beginning of the Mearls Era of D&D 4e, and going and reading his blog posts and other articles. He has talked a bunch about the old-school inspirations in his 4e design work. (Hello, rust monster!)
Jun 18	comment	Weapon that does 5 damage vs. one that does 1d10 damage: What characteristic of the weapons causes this difference? D&D-style "abstract damage" is actually not the norm or even common among games, and rationalisations of the concept aren't really meaningful outside of D&D and its descendants. Many early games inspired by D&D aimed to "fix" HP by making them concrete, and more recent games overwhelmingly use a variety of non-HP or concrete HP systems for which "abstract damage" is meaningless.
Jun 18	revised	Whither the Warlord? added 247 characters in body
Jun 18	answered	Whither the Warlord?
Jun 18	comment	Any advice for writing a historically accurate adventure? ahem… You appear to have bullet-pointed your paragraphs and paragraphed your bullet points. >.>
Jun 18	comment	Differences between D&D 3.X and previous editions Sadly, your personal favourite is just wrong. AD&D fall damage is 1d6 per 10', capping at 20d6. Perhaps you're thinking of the (unrelated) massive damage rules? Or an old DM's house rules?
Jun 18	comment	Differences between D&D 3.X and previous editions There were more than significant changes in the system. There were also emergent changes in what playstyles the system was suited to, due to how it highlighted different gameplay aspects than AD&D.
Jun 17	revised	How do I keep a long-range plot cohesive and coherent? edited tags
Jun 17	comment	How do I get better at narrating/storytelling as a GM? +1 for checklists! They can be NPC-independent, checked off as various NPCs divulge in the info.
Jun 17	comment	Weapon that does 5 damage vs. one that does 1d10 damage: What characteristic of the weapons causes this difference? I think you can safely assume that a system that gives a weapon a simple flat damage (i.e., no other randomising, like wound tables) doesn't subscribe to the philosophy that "all numbers in an RPG need to translate into a characteristic or feature of something in the game world."
Jun 17	comment	Weapon that does 5 damage vs. one that does 1d10 damage: What characteristic of the weapons causes this difference? "If the 5 vs. 5.5 difference bothers you, just assume we're using the statistical equivalent of a d9", i.e, the Q is framed such that the .5 is not of interest.
Jun 16	comment	System for Setting: Joe Abercrombie's The First Law The Riddle of Steel is excellent, if you can find it. It has a a mechanical focus on character-driven action, similarly to BW, but with much simpler and more straightforward (but less nuanced) reward cycle mechanics.