Twelve Parsecs cover art!

Well, folks. Here it is: a preview of the cover art for Twelve Parsecs. Enjoy!

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The Darkness Spell in 5e is Pointless

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 Here's a fun observation. The spell darkness, in 5e, has absolutely zero mechanical effect in 5th edition D&D. Darkness creates a heavily obscured area .  Creatures within that area effectively suffer from the blinded condition. Blinded characters suffer disadvantage on attacks, and creatures attacking them have advantage. The spell negates darkvision . All characters within the sphere of magical darkness have disadvantage to attack, but advantage to attack other creatures in the darkness. This advantage and disadvantage cancel each other out . All creatures within the space of a darkness spell battle as normal. The spell is, from a mechanical sense, pointless and negated. Certainly this discounts a proper GM who looks past it and says, "no, that's stupid," but yeah, strictly BY THE BOOK it's a pretty gross oversight by the designers of the game from a mechanical standpoint. Also, I pointed this out to the Sage Advice people some time ago and they confirmed ...
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Psionics in Dungeons & Dragons Part I: Original D&D

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Psionics in Dungeons & Dragons, Part II: Advanced D&D

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Like a great deal of gamers in this day and age, I have long been enamored of the idea of a so-called "unified mechanic," that is, a single die roll approach to resolve most, if not all, issues in a game. Current versions of D&D, for example, use a d20 ability check approach for everything--even combat is a Strength or Dexterity check. The only things that don't use the d20 are random probability rolls (which use straight percentile) and damage. The Unisystem is another universal mechanic system, using d10 + attribute + skill vs. a target number of 9, and the cinematic version uses this for everything; there aren't even damage rolls, as damage is a flat number. Even my own Spellcraft & Swordplay original ORCS system used 2d6 for everything, with damage rolls using xd6. The Elegance of Non-Unified Mechanics There's a certain ease and straightforward-ness to this approach that's easy to appreciate. Recently, however, I've come around to a new...
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