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I'm not sure all of your examples are good ones either. * Roles are about half refined versions of character classes and half the kinds of builds described (with similar names) in Champions supplements c. 1986 for kinds of superhero characters, with similar descriptions. That's the first thing...

In the 28 years that I have been gaming, the industry has expanded and contracted multiple times. Much of that time has involved times when I and my friends have turned away from D&D to try new things. I started with 1e, I returned to D&D with 3e, but in the meantime, I have played many many...

I am baffled that anyone would argue that a company trying to take risks to make more money is a bad thing. Sure, if they were being unethical to make money, that's a problem. But for a game company to produce what they think is a superior product that will expand their customer base seems not...

You know, the more I think about it, the more I'm guessing that the reason the leader slides characters rather than giving them a free shift is because characters can on shift on their turn. To avoid the messy mechanical discussion of giving other characters a free out-of-turn action, the...

I actually think that the focus on miniatures theory sounds pretty shaky. My theory is that the designers had this idea for a class and fell in love with it and put in in the PHB. I don't sense malice or desire to force a style of play onto players, just a sense that they had an idea that they...

This is a tough call. The things I have seen about the warlor so far have some promise, but I'm not sure how the class would work out in practice from what we've seen. The control over positioning has potential if it moves quickly in play. Of course, this is all academic to me right now...

Ah. Light bulb over head. I see the train of concerns here. Hard to see how much the movement powers of the warlord will lead to this sort of picking at minutiae at this point, but I can see this concern. Not sure that what I see so far will lead to this, but if the Warlord has five or more...

But does it make sense for the wizard to hit the opponent with a spell under the direction of the party tactician to create a distraction that will let a colleague to make a tactical retreat?

I see some of this, even if I don't see the items as issues in the way play has been at my table. The issues of character "omniscience" and in-character action run into several problems, though-- including character knowledge vs. player knowledges (e.g., the character is a skilled military vet...

I don't really follow this as a direct correlation. But to play devil's advocate, wouldn't an expert tactician seem likely to see the combat more like a chessboard and try to manipulate the tactical opportunities of positioning to best advantage and guide allies to those positions as an...

But what I keep reading in people's complaints about 4e -- including in some comments on this thread -- is that one of the problems about 4e powers is that they encourage metagaming. I don't think everyone is discussing metagaming in the same sense you are. There seems to be a concern that...

Not to sound like an idiot, but don't all uses of rules involve metagaming? Any use of a power, spell, skill, etc. involves the invocation and application of rules in an abstracted sense. The only way to avoid metagaming at the table seems to involve describing actions and having the DM...

D&D encourages independent heroes? Since OD&D, the rules have seemed to be hardcoded for just the opposite, if only based on the class system. I'm not following here.

To play devil's advocate, should we eliminate bonuses from 3.x bless spells if a character does not have the same religion as the cleric casting the spell? Should 3.x bards not be able to inspire a character with song unless they have similar cultural background? Where does suspension of...

A dear (and departed) friend was famous in our group for never, ever remembering the modifiers, the math, or even which dice to roll. He was a great role-player, but he didn't have a head for the minutiae of rules nor an interest in figuring it out. He'd say what he wanted to do or how he'd...

Well, the audience is a group of people not familiar with these rules, and who may be making assumptions about using other rules. So clarity is sort of important. And since the audience can be a variety of ages, including age 12, clarity is also important. So reaching all your audience is a...

Obviously, they're just turning Risk into WoW.

And it seems weird to me that you think the problem of D&D devolving into Tactical Combat Encounters hasn't been an issue since day one. D&D has always leaned heavily toward tactical tabletop gaming owing to it tactical tabletop gaming roots, and this has been a complaint of critics since I was...

Wow. About a month ago I posted in another thread that I was surprised that people were comparing 4e to WoW and not Exalted. I suppose I just needed to wait longer....

Once upon a time, when I first started playing D&D 26 years ago, I might have said exploring empty rooms built tension because we didn't really know what would happen, and the way we played was so random that anything could have happened. As I have gone from teen age to creeping into middle age...