Jokemeister

I love that. I'm a massive fan of cramming variety into the experience rather than having to face the same enemy again and again. In my opinion, all you need is a fairly flimsy excuse to get away with it too (this group were hired by the others etc).

Nope. As with others, I never really got into the habit.

I didn't even know this was a topic of discussion. But then, I don't know much about the etymology of "Xmas" and just assumed it was created by a marketing department looking for a way to spell Christmas using less space.

*** I don't see him but I'm afraid to go out and look in case he's waiting to ambush us.***

Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5 Day 6 Day 7 Granted, I may be biased but the Chinese are the closest to getting this right! http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/primarylanguages/mandarin/my_calendar/

Funnily enough, while I've known about the sequence itself for years, it's only been in the last couple of years that I found out it was called the Fibonacci sequence (my old maths teachers are probably screaming at the monitor right now...). Feels as if the sequence and it's name have been in popular culture recently.

Yes I do! I assume I don't have to prove that...

It is called this land and I will never divulge the secret of it's location!

Big fat zero in my case. After putting on the last bit of paint on a mini, I always wait for at least a day before I put on any varnish and I don't consider the mini finished until that varnish goes on. If I don't count the varnish step - still a big fat zero. I'm a slow painter.

As long as the players don't know military strategy themselves, I don't think you need to worry too much about guard activity that is realistic and authentic. If you can come up with something that feels realistic (based on the various tropes the players may have previously encountered), then that is probably enough. To answer the actual question though, what I would do would depend on whether the hobgoblins were expecting an attack. If they were on a war time footing and expecting an attack, I would have at least 20 guards at the keep portcullis at all times and have them rotated out on a very regular schedule. In addition, I would have guards stationed within eyesight of each other at regular points along the walls. Naturally, these guards are also rotated out on a regular schedule. There would also be regular patrols around the keep walls and within the grounds itself. All of this would put the guards very much on edge and on alert and I would try to make it very difficult to sneak in. Naturally, the grounds around the keep have also been cleared so there is no cover on approach to the keep. If the keep has a moat, stuff that moat with dangerous animals. If the hobgoblins aren't on a war time footing, I would basically have less guards standing around at any time. Also, while they are still rotated regularly, they aren't rotated as quickly (so they would have to stand guard for longer hours before the rotation). While not on guard duty, I would put the guards as lounging around inside the keep in various activities (some sleeping, some practicing, some lounging around gambling, some grabbing snacks etc). Ultimately, the point is to give the impression of bored guards. If you want, you could even have the guards spending less effort in maintaining the clear ground around the castle. In case it's not clear, the above is simply what I would do and is not based on any knowledge of military strategy.

Looks around guiltily. I have a confession. I don't actually know much about the muppets as I never watched their show or the various movies. Obviously, I'm aware of them from the cultural impact they have had. What I'm saying is that my knowledge of the muppets can be summed up in 3 lines. Kermit is a green frog. Miss Piggy likes Kermit. Cookie Monster likes cookies. Edit: Wait. I think Cookie Monster was on Sesame Street. Does he count as a Muppet?

I have no idea what is in my fridge. I try to avoid going in there. Without knowing what the shelf life of a dragon head is, it's hard to say. What is the date on the packaging?

I have to say that it's been fascinating to see what people consider as an unconventional breakfast. Kudos to TGP for a great question! As for me, I don't eat anything I would consider unconventional for breakfast. Very often, it's a day-old bun of some kind from the bakery (day old because I purchased it the day before - hope it isn't day old when I buy it! ).

I don't have a favourite item of clothing. I have no fashion sense whatsoever so what I wear tends to be whatever piece of clothing is on top of the pile of clothes that I'm grabbing from.

Was thinking of an answer - then I saw this: I'll post something after I stop laughing (which will basically be never!).

Wow - this thread exploded over the weekend! Anyway, some random thoughts below. I'll agree with this. If the players are clever and think of an easy way to get past an encounter, they should be rewarded with that encounter being easy. As a player, I would absolutely hate it if the DM "cheated" and pumped up the difficulty simply because we were clever - it would effectively make me think that there was no point in thinking about what we should do as all decisions are meaningless. My point was really that during the initial design, encounters should be designed so that they are dangerous but not so dangerous that you expect a TPK. Basically, the party should be concerned when they see what they are up against. Obvious caveat here is that encounters should also be varied so not every encounter should be life threatening. To be clear, I'm not saying that character death is to be avoided at any cost. Even with my principles of trying to avoid TPK, if you do something stupid - I will absolutely kill your character. And if the party does something stupid - I will absolutely kill the party. If the decisions of the party result in a TPK then so be it. The key difference is that I'm not setting out to kill the party. My view is that having a goal of actively trying to kill the party is pointless as getting a TPK is trivially easy. For me, designing adventures/encounters so that the PCs get beat up badly but still survive doesn't count as the DM pulling punches because, as mentioned above, getting a TPK is trivially easy. I would see the DM pulling punches as a situation where the DM deliberately only designs easy encounters or "cheats" during the encounter in order to keep the party alive (eg if the DM rolls their dice behind the screen, then the villains suddenly start missing a lot). Wow - I didn't know that much about the history of Paizo. Had no idea that WotC effectively created their own biggest competitor (at least, it feels like Pathfinder is the biggest competitor to D&D currently).

I'm based in HK and I don't have a preference on posting time. I'm on here during my mornings (while eating breakfast in the office) so I'm generally one of the last people to post on the question. It's good though - lets me get the last word in.

I'm with Sylverthorne on this. I have no problem with Tomb of Horrors but I would only run it as a one-shot with the players fully aware that it was a grindmill scenario and that the whole point of the one-shot was to see how long they survived. It wouldn't be for the purpose of rewarding the DM with a chance to win because honestly, if winning is a TPK, I can win at any time. Seriously, getting a TPK is trivially easy (I've even managed it when I wasn't even trying!). Can any DM here honestly say that they couldn't find a way to kill their party of PCs if they were really trying? And you don't even have to resort to ridiculous insta-kill traps ala the original Tomb of Horrors. Getting a TPK can be achieved as easily as putting the PCs into a level inappropriate encounter. The difficulty of the DMs job is not in killing the PCs - it's in taking the PCs to the point of death before they heroically succeed despite the odds. Trying to find that thin line where the players feel as if their characters are really in danger of death - where the player starts to feel apprehension for their characters - but yet are still able to win through in the end.

I have never painted anything that big and don't really have much interest in doing so at this time. Even if I did paint something bigger like that, it would probably be a bust. So I guess my answer is - not interested. As to how popular something like that would be... I honestly have no idea!

How big an issue is it to have a clean welled palette? I use a cheap plastic welled palette and don't bother cleaning it anymore. It's now got multiple layers of dried acrylic paint on it but it doesn't seem to have any impact when I use new paint there. Am I missing something or should I be cleaning my welled palette regularly?

Didn't see any but then, I didn't expect to either.

Even when it did apply to me, it was only ever an inconvenience. Nothing I could tell a story around. I guess my answer to this question is a <shrug> and a "meh".

One of the great things about Hong Kong is that we don't have any time adjustments.

All hail the Grumpy Griff! Also, no decorations to begin with so nothing to take down.

Honestly, I'm not sure I would want any visitors from the nether realm. I don't think I've ever seen a movie where that ever went well!