Trick as old as the game Wizardry.

It's often better than making them fight their way back up.

It's a great feeling.

But I have to admit, the good booze may have had as much to do with it than anything else.

And be careful not to bask in the feeling too much. Eventually you do want to get the party moving again. Once the weekend is over, folks may notice they "didn't do anything."

You're not dead when you're petrified, either, which can lead to some pretty interesting exploits, rules-as-written.

Petrified creatures count as creatures, not objects, so rules-as-written you can determine if a statue is a petrified creature by trying to target it with a spell that requires a creature for a target.

With the cantrip Poison Spray, you can check for petrified creatures without using spell slots or risking damaging the creature, since it would be immune to poison while petrified.

If you think they’ll be too simple then it should only take your players about 20-30 minutes to solve.

That being 15 minutes to tell stupid jokes, and 15 more to burn down the building and leave.

Goth girls are drow.

PSA: DM's, never imitate this

Back in the day, PC's would get strongholds and followers when they hit a certain level. Every crap DM (myself included) would think is was a great idea for monsters to sack one while the PC was away. It was never any fun.

When a player puts a little effort work into something, like a castle, house, or cart, don't trash it without their buyin. It's like a thief stealing their items when they were sleeping.

There are better ways to use these new settings in the campaign.

That's the DM's wife.

Rebel shareholders such as Alta Fox have been touting the radical concept of investing in the business, creating good products, and selling them.

You know, instead of screwing up relationships with long-term business partners, sending hired heavies to their fans' houses, and driving their customers to their competition.

So crazy it just might work.

A group of my players brought this up. I let them know that was fine, but the monsters would be able to return the favor.

We decided "the weave" determines the angle of squares (no diagonals).

Or step it up a notch. (And ya gotta wait until this comes up in conversation.)

Session 1: My Chaos Paladin tells party his goddess' name is Beth.

Session 2: Find magic sword, name it Beth.

Session 3: Tell party my goddess wants to be called Kate now. (Chaotics, ya know?)

Session 4: Explain that the goddess is OK if I still call my sword Beth, but I should name the next one Kate.

Session 5: Utter a vow of enmity: "For Kate's sake I stick my last Beth at thee!"

I'm a simple man, and will just ask for a AD&D 1e Unusual Sword +5 Holy Avenger, with an Intelligence of 17. Love me that 50% magic resistance in 5 foot radius, dispel magic at will, and +10 damage vs. Chaotic Evil.

Since I'm choosing, I'll assume optimum rolls for an "unusual sword", and take: All 14 extraordinary powers: charm person, clairaudience, clairvoyance, determine direction and depth, ESP, flying, heal, illusion, leviathan, strength, telekinesis, telepathy, teleportation, and X-ray vision.

Its Special Purpose should be slay "non-human monsters" disintegrating them on a hit unless they save (sure its special purpose should be slaying evil, but that's so restrictive. It should speak 10 languages.

Before I forget, it ought to match my alignment, so its ego doesn't overwhelm mine and make me stab myself or something. But maybe that's where the fun for the DM comes in?

They sure don't make 'em like they used to.

This can happen with new players who are native English speakers too, as D&D has a fair deal of vocabulary not everyone knows. Words like charisma and melee really got popularized by D&D.

Deep cut here: When I was a kid (ages past) and first heard friends talk about D&D, I thought there was a lens to keep you on the border. And without it, you might go straight Into The Unknown.

I ran 2 tables in 4E, but when 5E came out they never wanted to go back.

It all came down to keeping track of all the powers, nobody liked that. They also hoarded their encounter and daily powers, rarely using them (and hoarding encounter powers doesn't make a lot of sense).

I was a little disappointed because the one table was about to hit their paragon paths, which seemed like fun, and the players seemed excited for. It's a concept I wouldn't mind seeing in a new game – it was a little like choosing a subclass at 10th level.

Had me until your last sentence.

It's always going to be mixed, to some degree. The challenge is making it work anyway.

This is just another way to out yourself, gamer.

"You don't surprise people just by being insanely violent. Everyone already knows you're insanely violent."

Gygax also elevated Jean Wells in the company before the subsequent management basically made her a secretary. Wells had a decent working relationship with Gygax, which you can see if you read in Dragon magazine "Sage Advice" column from the mid 80's. Gygax should have listened to Wells more often than he did, but he did try to empower her to make the game more friendly to women.

Still, his legacy towards women in gaming is mixed at best. In the 80's, TSR games which Gygax was less involved in tended to do better with women, notably Star Frontiers, but also "Basic D&D" which did not include rules making it disadvantageous to play a female character, unlike Gygax's Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, which capped female strength below male strength for each race. And I think telling a new D&D player their character would be a lousy fighter is pretty rough.

Yes, there was a pattern in Gygax's creations of evil female power that went beyond the dragon example. Most notably drow were the only evil elves, and the only matriarchal (he would have said "female dominated") ones. This pattern wasn't his invention — it's as old as Snow White, Cinderella, and the rest — but even in his own time, others (for example, Tom Moldvay) created more inclusive games.

You can also safely check with Vicious mockery. The spell can target any creature, but only damages the target if it can hear, which "inanimate" things cannot.

On the other hand, Dissonant Whispers causes the target to hear (rather than hearing being a precondition as it is with Vicious Mockery) and with this you can kill petrified creatures, thus ensuring no spell casters return them to flesh-and-blood, without damaging the statue.

You can be the first type, and some players will still see you as the second.

Like, they attack the king's castle for no reason and are upset the guards don't lie down and die, then refuse to surrender when things are entirely hopeless and they're offered mercy. Such a mean DM!

Ares, the God of Special Operations.