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NO! to classic Vancian magic. Why? Because magic-users were so WEAK. It's bad enough to have only ONE spell in a whole day...but to have to predict which spell would be useful was absurd. It ruined the flow of the game. And it pushed everyone to just choose "sleep" all the time. At the...

Die rolls for ability stats? Maybe for noobs. I haven't rolled a character's stats since the mid-1980s. I create a character and his basic abilities as if it was the protagonist in a novel. I develop the personality and how I want to play the campaign (combat or role-playing). Advantages...

Agreed. Race should be as big of a decision as class.

POSITIVE. I want D&D to feel like D&D again. I enjoyed 4E well enough, but I felt like I was playing... something other than D&D. I believe Mearls & co. really do want to make a version that we will all want to play, and that simply must have appeal to fans of older editions. If 5E fails, I...

As a high school teacher, one who connects with the gamer types, I think their problems with paper and dice based RPGs are simple: 1) Video games require no set up time. 2) Video games require no significant reading (or abstract thinking). 3) Video games can be played solo, and at one's...

Couldn't this all be solved by simply using lower-level characters for those adventures? All that adjusting is way too much work compared to simpy beginning E1 at level 15-17...

Now if 4E would ditch all the miniature-scale maps... Seriously, all we need is a blank map and some erasable markers. WOTC's obsession for having a miniature-scale map (and the tokens are also that scale) is what forces published adventures to seem restricted to just a few combat encounters...

And isn't that what every DnD edition and campaign should always be about? If I could keep only one edition and/or campaign setting, I would take BECMI and its "Known World"/Mystara any day.

Unless my memory has failed, the two were independent of each other. Weapon proficiency advancement was self-contained and automatic. You got x weap prof per x levels. Aside from that, players also got x non-weap proficiencies per x levels. If a player chose, he could sacrifice a new weapon...

You touch on something very important. Writers have Superman rescue cats not because it is an entertaining challenge, but to lay a public foundation as to Superman's humble and generous personality. So maybe DMs should start throwing in the occassional walk-through scenario just to increase...

With other editions, a player did not have to choose between expanding his character's skill abiities and combat abilities. There were many more skill types and leveling up in skills was its own mechanic. 4E gives certain skills at first and then any further skills requires using a feat...

Given that it hasn't been wrong for a single second since WOTC took over (they began with reimagining DnD as a miniatures combat game from the start), there is no reason to "give up on" the plain-as-the-nose-on-your-face truth.

I don't know the sales of the Anniversary boxed edition with all the reprints in it, but the one original adventure--Deep Dwarven Delve--sells very well on ebay. Sellers are breaking open the box set just to sell that item individually. It does suggest that it might be worth trying. And...

I don't read it that way. Sounds to me like supporters want WOTC to produce for ALL previous editions (I know I do), not just the one the poster loved.

You otherwise make good points. But not with this one. When the creators say themselves that they have changed the focus to combat encounters, there's not much room for debate. 4E feels very narrow, and because all the changes shifted towards combat. Is there any new feature of 4E that...

Obviously, WOTC desperately wants a business model that milks its customers on a weekly/monthly basis. They want DnD to be an Xbox Live product. Since they can't have that, they want a collectible-game model like MTG, YuGiOh, MageKnight, Heroclix, etc. And they are doing everything possible...

Goal: Faster play, more long-view content. 1) Advanced abilities should not appear until after the intro/basic set. Powers, feats, etc. should appear around 4-5th level. That gives new players a chance to become familiar with the game quicker, and then add on the complexity they want later...

The cards are just too crass for me. Just a gimmick to get people hooked on constantly buying something. And WOTC' duplicity on whether they're a collectible sounds like they're trying to deceive their customers. Preparing a set of advantages does not in any way reflect any definition of...

Don't get so haughty so fast. Because you are wrong. I said virtually all spells are constructed for combat. Meaning, they are created in that context. (I never said they couldn't be used outside of combat, just that combat is central to their structure.) Combat occurs within an encounter...

Another puzzler... are you saying the old jump spell was really supposed to be a jump skill? Wouldn't the purpose of creating a jump spell be to overcome the fact that the wizard simply could not physically accomplish such a jump? I'm not keen on putting ANY actual magical casting within a...