Scott Ruggels

Apparently, WoTC has failed Market Research 101. Their survey of recent changes may pull One D&D on a different direction. 
 

Maybe that's the reason why Humans are tolerated, respected or even loved by the other races: outsourced labor.
Does a dwarven stronghold need to retrieve their lost/stolen sheep? Head to the nearest reasonably populous settlement and hire a Human Ranger. Does an elven clan require a holy warrior to rescue their princess from the clutches of a foul demon? Petition for the best Human Paladin around to save her (which may explain the presence of Half-Elves). Does an elven clan find itself without a performer par excellence for an upcoming party? Retain the services of the most renowned Human Bard (this DEFINITELY explains the presence of Half-Elves). Does a cadre of gnome illusionists discover that their collective prowess is wanting when confronted by a monster that desperately calls for a conflagration? Pay a Human Evoker capable of pointing in the right direction.

Again, 20 year campaign, and I never cared/worries about balancing mages against fighters. That would have been dumb.  What I did do, was to balance "camera" or "spotlight time" So that each character got their turn in the spotlight, and contributed to the sessions. When I ran large groups, it was small teams of characters that got attention. This satisfied the players, a lot more, and other character were appreciative of having an Artillery Mage, or long range sniper in the party, and the mages were appreciative of party members that could trade3, and avoid having the party swindled, or ambushed, or otherwise disadvantaged, due to the Military/ Academic nature of mages in my old campaign. worrying about character balance may be something to worry about in Champions, but in Fantasy, it's far more situational.

The current campaign, which is a PBP on Discord, has no magic. So the players got free stuff from their employers. Mostly bronze tipped spears, and salvaged bows, but they had to pay a few silver for these  thick, gray wool, blankets, which most people wear as cloaks against the cold, and roll up into burritos under the carts of the caravan they are guarding, when it's not their shift. 

(I really don't think my comments spoil anything at all, but I've hidden most of the below just to be on the safe side...)
 
My wife and I have so far watched the first two episodes of this, and...
 
 

...and the artists!
 
(

Need ideas for Christmas gifts?
 
 

Also I think some dungeons should be alien in nature and thought. There seems to be this idea that everything in a Fantasy has to make sense. Heck even in the real world we don’t know really why people did what they did. 

Setting up Tabletop Simulator for the game 
 
Me: What the HELL is standing behind you?
Shev’s player: Wha- Oh, that’s Skave.
Me: Ah - so you're using the custom asset you made in HeroForge, and he’s using an actual gasmasked Skaven asset. 
GM: Yep. Which explains why the villagers react to him the way they do.
Me: At least he’s wearing appropriate safety equipment for the lab.
Shev’s player: Yeah, but he doesn’t have appropriate safety PROCEDURES for the lab - that’s half the problem.  
 
Miya’s player: How adorable.
Me: Look behind him.
Miya’s player: …..ah. 
 
Arram's player: Honestly Shev is more alarming - THOSE EYES
 
Skave’s player later creates a much cuter asset to use as the ratman.
 
Skave’s player: the temptation to add tiny little horns is really powerful, but I shall resist
 
GM: Hang on, my notes have vanished into the ether.
Me: That’s why we switched to safer anesthetics. And besides, anything that can vanish into the ether is way too high a combat level for this party.. 
 
The aforementioned rodent is down at Selversgard’s docks buying some fish, when there is some commotion in the water. A small boat is being rowed by a young man, with a blood-covered young dwarf as a passenger.
 
Skave: Ah, codfish, tastes like elf. Don’t ask me how I know that. What’s going on over there?
Shev OoC: Alas poor dwarf, we barely knew you.
Gonno OoC: I wonder if Skave has heard you can use gunpowder as a cauterizing agent yet.
Shev OoC: … he just admitted to cannibalism in public. That which speaks is not food!
Gonno OoC: For one thing you can get psittacosis from parrots.
 
The adolescents were fishing when they were attacked by a giant pike.
 
Gonno OoC: From context I’m guessing the fish and not an animated weapon. 
 
Unfortunately, there was a third member of the party - Mari, who got to shore OK, but south of the old monastery that everybody avoids. The whole area has a bad reputation, not least because the god in question, Aroden, died under mysterious circumstances a little over 100 years ago. 
 
GM: There’s rumors something nasty happened at the monastery at the same time. 
Gonno OoC: Well, all the monks were out of a job for a start.
 
Shev is quite impressed that the kids rowed 15 miles upstream to get help.
 
Shev: Damn, kid, you have some guns on you. 
 
On the other hand, the pike was merely 6 feet long, so merely a large pike rather than a Giant Pike. 
 
Arram: That said they ARE supremely aggressive and will have a go at anything, The kids just panicked. 
 
Shev commandeers the nearest boat, and intends to use his giant rat to tow it as necessary. Arram is currently childfree as all his students are at work in the fields, and Gonno comes along despite being very uncomfortable in water more than neck deep. He’s certainly happy to be back on dry land, although the banks are so thickly overgrown and tangled that the missing girl would have to head away from the river to make any progress. Also, that pike is still hanging around.
 
Gonno OoC: At least it’s not a shark with freakin’ lasers. 
 
It certainly looks as though Mari’s taking a large detour around the ruins. And it’s such a lovely day that the miasma of evil coming from the ruins barely registers. Happy laughter coming from a stand of fruit trees on a nearby hilltop is much more distracting. The girl is sitting under a huge oak, next to a fire, while her clothes dry. Whoever rendered her assistance has their back to us, and a distinctly nonhuman head. There’s also a human? Woman with intensely red hair peeking out as us from behind the oak.
 
Arram: Mari? Had a fun adventure this afternoon?
Mari: Mr Arram! You came to find me!
Arram: I hear you had a run-in with a rather large fish.
Galiante the Tiefling: She certainly did.
Shev: It’s getting late - may we share your fire for the night?
Galiante: Best ask the actual owner. Kayla! Ah just a minute, she’s shy.
Shev: Fear not fellow child of Erastil, we mean no harm.
Kayla: Well, not exactly Erastil, but.. *literally steps out of solid wood*
 
The dryad lets us stay in her grove as long as we are no threat to it, her, or her guests.
 
Shev: *leans in close to Skave* Brother….
Arram: Literally do not move for the next 8 hours.
Skave: Yes yes, I’m not going to set fire to the tree.
Shev: You’re not going within 20ft of the tree. It’s not that I think you’ll set it on fire, I’m afraid you’ll want to investigate its alchemical properties. 
 
Shev: How come you to the woods?
Galiante: Well, that’s a long story..
Shev: We have a fire, and I brought stew.
Galiante: *brightens up* I do like stew.
 
Galiante is from Cheliax, and tells us her life story suitably edited for her presumably innocent new friend Mari.
 
Shev OoC: She’s a 14 year old country girl - she knows. 
 
Despite her Tiefling heritage, Galiante was the mistress of a Chelaxian higher-up who tried to move higher in the pecking order and ended up just as high as the top of a pike - weapon, this time, not the fish. 
 
Skave OoC: I didn’t know Barzillai Thrune had a girlfriend? *takes notes*
 
She got out of town fast, but not before kicking in the head of an overly proactive government employee, so she now has a company of hellknights hunting her down. Despite that, she would probably be welcome enough in Selversgard. 
 
Galiante: Really? I’m a tiefling and a prostitute. 
Arram: Honestly I don’t think the first thing will matter.
Shev: They put up with us.
Arram: And that’s the second oldest profession, probably just after murder-hobo.
Galiante: And that’d be you guys?
Shev et al: Oh no, I’m a scout/carpenter/schoolteacher/parcel delivery man.
Galiante: Huh, and he was me thinking you were adventurers.
Shev: No, we have real jobs, and we are good at them. With a few notable exceptions.
 
Well, if we’re competent maybe we can help the dryad with a problem - an unpleasantly pushy Twigjack that won’t leave her alone. He’s even made a copy of her grove, that’s wrong in every possible way. 
 
Gonno OoC: At least the tree in the middle isn’t a Gympie-Gympie.
 
There’s no sign of the malign occupant. 
 
Gonno OoC: I bet that’ll change the moment I get my axe out. 
Arram OoC: ‘He’s a lumberjack and he’s ok’
 
In fact the furious fey doesn’t show up until Gonno actually swings at one of its trees, and the entire party is waiting with suitable weapons. Unfortunately the Twigjack can teleport and blast us with splinters. Fortunately our suitable weapons are Arram’s Fireball spell and Shev’s blunderbuss loaded with a Dragonsbreath round, and the creature is reduced to ash. 
 
Skave: Well, while you guys make sure there aren’t any more about, I’m going to sit over here. And start pulling out all these splinters. Ow. Ow. Ow. 
 
Hopefully not where all the poison ivy is growing. 
 
Mari’s parents are very pleased when we get back, although they are very not pleased that their daughter went so far downstream with her friends. Galiante can probably stay at Gonno’s place for a while - his new house has room for a second person now, at least, and he can make her a bed easily enough. 
 
Gonno OoC: At least I’m a quiet housemate.
Arram OoC: Unless you’re working.
Gonno OoC: Yeah good point - if she’s working nights….
Miya OoC: Let’s not make any assumptions about her future employment. 
 
Galiante does spend the rest of the season working in the fields, then gets a job at the Yellow House, Selversgard’s only brothel. 
 
GM: She’s doing what she knows. 
 
Arram finds an old map of the monastery, which he adds to his collection of local historical documents. Maybe he can start a small museum, one day. Skave hears from some relatives that want to move into the Warren, and Miya, sadly, hears that one of her adoptive parents has died.
 
To their mutual surprise, Gonno and Galiante actually develop an attraction to each other, and she moves back in. 
 
Gonno: *basking in the daily pleased surprise, and planning the better furniture he’ll make for her, to go with the chest of drawers he’d made as a moving out present*
Shev OoC: She was probably amazed that he offered her a bed with no ulterior motive. ‘You literally just wanted to put a roof over my head?’
Miya OoC: ‘I’m gonna keep you!’
 

A lot of the stuff below is for my own use; apologies if it bores/confuses anyone.
 
Based on things suggested above, for my setting I think it's best to define a "Scrying Powers" category and say, "If you're doing anything that I-the-GM consider scrying, regardless of the means (Clairsentience, Enhanced Senses, Mind Link, Mind Scan, whatever), I'm calling it a Scrying Power, and it falls into the Scrying Sense Group."
 
For my purposes, I'm going to use:
Change Environment to simulate scrying resistance, for individuals, objects, or locations
Invisibility to simulate "immunity to scrying"
Images to simulate scry-spoofing
 
Mind Link and Mind Scan, when used as scrying (as opposed to being some psionic thingie) will not be considered Mental Powers in this case and fall under the "Scrying Powers" category.

Depending on the setting the GM may create a separate sense group for certain things.  For example, in a Fantasy Hero or other magic heavy game the GM could create a mystic sense group and require certain spells or abilities to be from this sense group.   Most often these senses would normally be part of the unusual group, but it may make sense to split them off.  In some cases, it will even change the default sense group of a power. I can see requiring a mind scan spell to be part of the mystic sense group instead of mental.   
 
If the GM does something like this, it becomes a lot easier to block a lot of things.  That is actually not a bad thing as it makes it easier to defend against a lot of things that would otherwise be hard to defend against.  
 

From today’s Pirates of Drinax/Traveller Hero session.
 
”A man that can punch a gorilla in the nuts can do anything.”

Happy Birthday!

If you get a chance, read the Scarlet Citadel by REH. I just re read it and I was going “man that a D&D trope, and there’s anothrr one”.

Repairs to armor in the field will be hard but not impossible, in fact light repairs should be possible by any who wears it. If he cannot, he should not be wearing same. For repairs like straps, buckles, and popped rivets simple tools are all that's needed -- leather, buckles, rivets, a good sharp knife, a punch and a good mallet. 
     This Mr. Ruggles is a partial answer to your question, and I apologize for the late reply I have been down with flu for two weeks. Stopping for a couple of days would allow for greater repairs on leather armors. For metal armor (chain excepted) you will need a smithy to effect repairs and that only needs a village smith. With chain, carrying extra links and a pliers to knit up minor tears and rents. For plate damage a major smithy will be required to repair. Even a small dent can be excruciating to wear although an armorer friend of mine said that a good suit of plate was easier to wear than to carry. He built a suit of plate that was so well articulated he could drive a firebird while wearing it. He lived in Calgary his girlfriend in Lethbridge about two hours south. (200 - 220 km.) The thing is ,, plate is expensive. I know a set of twins who bought suits of plate to order, that were $3000 apiece, during the medieval period a suit of plate could easily cost the output of a large villages production for a year. 
      I belong to a recreation group called the S.C.A. and most of those that fight sword and board (shield) wear cuir-bouilli (boiled leather) 9 - 12 ounce. I have taken part in more than a Hundred battles as an archer using a light bow (max 30 lb. draw - 12.5 kg draw) using wooden arrows with bird blunt style heads. (.75 inch diameter) It was in doing this that I realized how badly most systems dealt with missile weapons. From range to damage to accuracy they are universally underrated. I also found even in a hobby that money talks, plate was only used by those with deep pockets, chain and plate less expensive, straight chain even less and finally those on a tight budget leather only. AS for wearing it, I have seen persons put on their armor at 9:00 AM and not take it off until 5:00 PM, although you would want to be upwind of them. Admitted I live in Canada, Alberta actually and we do not get as hot as SoCal.

Give it a go!

Orion Capsule has successfully performed a 1 minute burn to drop out of the "Distant, Retrograde Orbit".
https://www.upi.com/Science_News/2022/12/01/nasa-orion-capsule-performs-burn-leave-distant-retrograde-orbit/1341669933799/
 

Wow!
 
and beautiful artwork!

There is an interesting dichotomy here, in my view.  There are various ways to view character points.
 
Of course, we start with "here is how we will balance PCs against one another - they all have the same resource to spend".  Point balance isn't perfect, but it's a starting point.
 
We also know that the value of many abilities differs between games.  A game focused on combat devalues non-combat skills and abilities.  There is little point buying interaction skills if a group's mantra is "role play it" and the success of such interactions will be judged by the GM's interpretation of how persuasive/charming/whatever the player is. Drill down to individual abilities and their utility becomes even a broader spread - Breathe Water in a seafaring pirates game seems a lot more useful than playing in a Dune campaign, and is essential if we are playing in Aquaman's Atlantis.
 
But there is another angle, which is where I think Scott ends up. As a player investing, say, 20-30 points in skills at trading, I am not going to be happy if the game revolves entirely around monster-hunting and dungeon-crawling.  As a GM, I will suggest that part of my job is to look at those 20 - 30 points and either figure out how I am going to build in game aspects that will allow those abilities to shine - to be worth their cost in-game - or to tell the player "really, based on the themes of this game, those abilities are not going to come up much - why don't we just call PS: Trader a background skill - no point cost, but if it comes up once or twice in the campaign, your character will be a master trader". 
 
We talk a lot about only saving points from limitations that truly limit, and not getting points for complications that don't cause issues.  We don't, in my opinion, look at the other side nearly as often - points spent need to carry in-game benefits commensurate with their spending.  The GM's job includes both sides of that equation.
 
By contrast, we've all heard some variant of the poor GM who runs a game for the Master Trader and the Artillery Mage that focuses entirely on close-quarters combat, frustrating both players because their abilities are almost never useful.

An example of World Building I haven't seen the likes of since the 1990s.
 
 
Artist’s Tumblr: https://iguanodont.tumblr.com/
Artist’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/iguanodentist
 

Again, 20 year campaign, and I never cared/worries about balancing mages against fighters. That would have been dumb.  What I did do, was to balance "camera" or "spotlight time" So that each character got their turn in the spotlight, and contributed to the sessions. When I ran large groups, it was small teams of characters that got attention. This satisfied the players, a lot more, and other character were appreciative of having an Artillery Mage, or long range sniper in the party, and the mages were appreciative of party members that could trade3, and avoid having the party swindled, or ambushed, or otherwise disadvantaged, due to the Military/ Academic nature of mages in my old campaign. worrying about character balance may be something to worry about in Champions, but in Fantasy, it's far more situational.

The current campaign, which is a PBP on Discord, has no magic. So the players got free stuff from their employers. Mostly bronze tipped spears, and salvaged bows, but they had to pay a few silver for these  thick, gray wool, blankets, which most people wear as cloaks against the cold, and roll up into burritos under the carts of the caravan they are guarding, when it's not their shift. 

Looks like Hasbro realized they done cocked up...
 
https://www.belloflostsouls.net/2022/11/wotc-confirms-third-party-support-for-one-dd.html?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=Social

The LA Times gathered up a ton of demographic and economic data, and broke it down all the way to neighborhoods or sometimes smaller cities, in the LA metro area.  It's a wonderful resource:
 
https://maps.latimes.com/neighborhoods/index.html
 
For example, for a character concept I'm fleshing out...I wanted a fairly high income, but also very diverse neighborhood.  Hmm...flip round...yeah...South Pasadena will work.  Good combination of very diverse (white, Asian, Latino anyway) and high income.  
 
It is only LA, but it's a wonderful resource if you're ok with that being where the character grew up.  Most neighborhood guides don't go into anything like this kind of detail;  it's more like visitors' points of interest, and not a lot more.  But if anyone happens to know of other major cities, where someone's done this kind of breakdown?  I'd love to hear about it.

Oh , you are one of those that think math is fun.  I see. 
 
In all seriousness, I ran a Fantasy Hero campaign for nearly 20 years, and equipment handling became detailed. I  ROTC on the 1980s and WW2 re-enacting in the 90s an no matter the nation, combat and sustainment gear was between 70 and 120 lbs. so for most normal people, that was their hiking carry limit.  Generally, what wasn’t weapons or armor was sustainment equipment (camping gear).  I just carried that through to FH.  So this kept encumbrance reasonable. Anyone wearing heavy plate had animals to carry the sustainment gear, and sometimes servants to set it up. But often a long cloak, was all one had for sleeping rough.  

If you paid points for something you could reasonably expect to retain it or get it back with a little effort.  If you bought it, you had to account for it, but it could be taken or lost permanently due to circumstance. A lot depended on the skills and attitude of the party.