If you'll kindly note the frequency of the phrase "ages 10 and up." I'm feeling bombastic today, so I'm taking a moment to defend THAC0 and descending Armor Class as a whole. Why? Because I was an ignoramus up until today, when I had a flight of whimsy and decided to learn how they work. I am here to report back that neither descending Armor Class nor THAC0 are confusing unless: You are illiterate and/or innumerate. You suffer from poor pattern recognition skills. You are les

Skill checks are bad! Fix them with this One Simple Trick!

The math in D&D 5e is pretty solid with a few rough spots, and most of your skill rolls should be DC 13. That's a great starting point when we assume that: Skill checks are only made in dangerous or uncertain situations. The average adventurer is reasonably competent at core adventuring tasks . Superfluous (non-impactful) d20 rolls are elided. 5e is built around point buy, with the assumption that your primary ability score will have a +3 bonus with a 16 or 17 base. (Clerics

Game designers obsess over probabilistic precision when designing their TTRPG mechanics. They'll run formulas through AnyDice and pore over the exact results, tweaking convoluted dice mechanics and numerics to achieve the perfect spread of results. Then they totally disregard how those mechanics play at the table. TTRPG mechanics need to "feel good" in play. You cannot design a good RPG around mathematically-perfect probabilities because RPG is not a math game. An RPG is a so

Ability scores worsen 5e. They encourage cookie-cutter point-buy characters and they slow the game down because you're calculating derived values like saving throw DCs and attack values. I don't know about you, but I'd rather spend less time mathing around and more time playing around. Moreover, there's the disparate impact ability scores have on the game: Dexterity influences Armor Class, melee and ranged attacks, and the all-important ability to move around without alerting