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You're missing the point, wistful vampire. What you chose to address is by far the least interesting part of my post. In fact, I'll give it up now. Yes, I was wrong. So many people on this thread recognize old rule sets! The real issue is the witlessness of so much of RPG discussion. I dunno...

Yes, actually. Barrier to entry isn't the rules, REALLY. It's finding a DM, first, and having time and friends to play--which every edition after 3rd has considered a top priority to solve. As I often say, 5e (anything after 2e) is not necessarily a better game, but it's a much better product...

Here's the thing--the "boom" in Dungeons and Dragons is an echo of the first boom--a baby boom, actually. The game took off in the early 1970s largely because of a demographic bulge of early-20s Americans, many of whom were going to college (a "petri dish" for the spread of the game). We're...

So why has the estate finally kicked loose the rights? Has there been a death? (The main reason Amazon got the Lord of the Rings rights is Christopher Tolkien's retirement earlier this year, at a truly jawdropping age.) What's the scoop?

I'd love to hear more about how you structured the Realms--how did you create them? Any tips to pass on? How did your library day job deal with what must have been a time-consuming endeavor?

And as an aside--it's a truism that D & D has too many apex predators. Like the nerd that I am, I wondered about that. So I did a little digging. Around 1875--I'm trying to remember the source--a British explorer on an African river steamer counted 2,000 Nile crocodiles along a one-mile stretch...

One issue with RPG magic is that most "spells" are simply scientific/mechanical processes. I'm not sure when the fireball was invented, culturally, but it predates Gygax. Comics? Howard in the 1930s? Tracking that down would be really interesting; fantasy before about 1930 has a much different...

This is awesome. So was there no way to get off the Warden/get back to Erelhei-Cinlu? Was it planned that way, was there an exit your PCs didn't find, or did you the players just move on from that particular game instance after a while?

This is awesome. So was there no way to get off the Warden/get back to Erelhei-Cinlu? Was it planned that way, was there an exit your PCs didn't find, or did you the players just move on from that particular game instance after a while?

Nowhere near what it was, of course, and has been dying slowly for 15 years. Many of the players that are left have played it for 20 years or more; some of them have literally given their adult lives to it. A truly unique phenomenon in online culture and gaming, worthy of a book.

I dunno, man, they were all trained at Columbia before they did stints at NYT and Reuters.

Loewy's train wasn't influential because of the bullet design, although that was what naive people paid attention to. It was because he fixed the toilets and the food. I consult on product strategy professionally. For the first time since I got the Blue Box in 1979, Dungeons and Dragons shows...

THACO rhymes with Thwack-O. Easy to remember. Now if you'll excuse me I'll find a jif that expresses this in amusing pop-culture form.

A lot of roleplaying history debates can be settled by looking at demographics, something nobody's really mentioned so far. Situate yourself, reader, in terms of when you were born and your roleplaying history. 1e's boom coincided with the teendom and early maturation (to mid-20s) of the Late...

The issue as I understand it was that the works were actually in the public domain from the time of death. Copyright as life +75 (or whatever figure) is dependent on copyright assertion in the first place. While we tend to think of this as a foundational truth now, to struggling pulp writers in...

The issue as I understand it was that the works were actually in the public domain from the time of death. Copyright as life +75 (or whatever figure) is dependent on copyright assertion in the first place. While we tend to think of this as a foundational truth now, to struggling pulp writers in...

I read the post in detail. The larger point was that the "TSR Legal" group decision was, as far as I can tell, a mistake based on insufficient research.

I read the post in detail. The larger point was that the "TSR Legal" group decision was, as far as I can tell, a mistake based on insufficient research.

Ironically, I would have kept the Cthulhu stuff in. Who did you contact for the "rights"? Sauk City/August Derleth? They didn't actually hold them as far as I'm aware, even though Arkham House acted as if they did for many years. HPL's copyrights were a mess. Lovecraft is now in the public...