Fantasy Heartbreak Workshop

Rough draft of a game I've been working on, tentatively named "Dragon Teeth". This is derived from the Microlite branch of games and is intended to be very vaguely 5E compatible. Other goals: Fewer classes Instead of 20 levels, just six tiers encompassing common power levels games tend to center on. Warrior (fighter) class is very easy to play without a lot of extra details to keep track of. Expert (rogue) class is a skill monkey. Four magic classes: Adept - Innate magic Mage - Learned/academic magic Invoker - Magic provided by an external patron. Druid - Basically a nature invoker. Slightly different abilities. Spellcasting system largely derived from some experimental 5E ideas on how to make the system more flexible and powerful, yet arduous and difficult to overuse. Part of the idea is also that the system should be simple enough to easily add custom bits. Initial drafts can be found here: Dragon Teeth Draft

On Reddit recently, user wittmitin described a plane of existence : It is the realm of the Shapeshifters and is made of an ever-shifting forest of mist and reflection. It is very easy to get lost inside. And requested details which would make the place an interesting experience. This seemed like a fun opportunity to brainstorm, and below is what I came up with.

Logan (the DM) had posed question: @LogantheDM Bees would have to be a fey based fantasy race, right? Like say I am making bee people for #DnD and was trying to explain why they are more people than just giant bees? Fey, right? In my mind "fey" connotes things "liminal" in some way, an in between state. Like both familiar and strange. Or at the edge of cultivated lands (not deep woods or in town). Is it real or a dream?  You thought this person was dead, but (through magical thinking) they seem alive-ish. So the thing is to find some way that bees fit this vibe. The Fey Bees On a drowsy summer day, if you go to check furthest hives at 5 minutes to noon, the skeps seem larger somehow, though they measure the regular size if one has the tools to check. If you tarry for more than a few seconds, the soothing buzz makes you fuzzy in the head and the cloying sweet smell is overpowering. And you find you can go inside the hive, even though it should be too small for you.  ...

Originally in response to the question: In D&D is there a creature that is the good or neutral equivalent to a hag? I don’t know of any such creatures canonically in 5th edition which are good or neutral versions of the hag. Swanmays The closest equivalent I can think of from previous editions are Swanmay. The Swanmay are a secretive sisterhood of shapechangers (swan specific) with ranger-like abilities. I knew of them originally from the AD&D 2nd Edition Monstrous Manual , but they also show up as a playable race in the Complete Book of Humanoids . Swanmays are not exactly the same concept as hags, but kind of have a  magic women of the wilderness  type thing going on. I strongly suspect that Gygax (or some other creative person working in the D&D sphere) got the idea for Swanmays for them from Poul Anderson's novel Three Hearts and Three Lions , where one of the primary characters is a Swanmay.

Someone on Quora had inquired if there were a Star Trek RPG like AD&D (not sure if they meant AD&D in particular, or just used that as a generic stand-in for RPG). In response this was just a roundup of all the Star Trek RPGs I could think of.

Previously I suggested ideas for how to run a 5th Ed. D&D game with lower availability of spellcasting.  Weirdly however, even though the idea of trying to run low spellcasting games of 5th Edition holds some interest for me, I've sometimes been at a loss what sort of game I'd find that combination a useful fit for, or (if I was a player) attractive to play in. This post is a follow-up, brainstorming various settings which might make use of such a lower magic system.   In these settings humans (and maybe other creatures) might have access to a few spells, but spellcasting classes as such are not available. Spells are mostly cast either through artifacts or rituals except maybe a few cantrips. Hyborian Age The obvious default seems like it would be something Conan-esque. After all, that is part of the inspiration behind D&D. A world build on the crumbling ruins of older things, but now largely a land of decadent city-states and harsh lands in between. Legendary/...

The following are a set of rules (limitations mostly) I came up with which would allow 5th Edition D&D to be used for lower magic settings and types of games.  Maybe something closer to historic-fantasy, though this might work for other kinds of settings as well. Note that each of the elements below is essentially a separate toggle, you can use some and not others, as the setting dictates. Races Players are generally only allowed to play human characters.  However, DMs might allow one of the following options: Option 1:  Quirky Humans  - Certain other races may be allowed, but are reskinned to simply represent slightly unusual humans. Option 2:  Shunned  - Certain other races are allowed, but represent weird beings from outside human civilization, shunned by most decent folk. Some individuals and organizations may view them with sympathy, but there’s every chance of a mob rising up against them. Option 3:  Dying Race  - Alternately, other ...