Recent content by M.L. Martin

Demons and devils, perhaps, but it's a close-run thing.

Agreed; Masque was great at the time, but there's plenty of other stuff filling its niche today, such as Triple Ace Games' Leagues of Gothic Horror and Pinnacle's Rippers for Savage Worlds. Trivia: According to TSR's 1994 Catalog, Masque of the Red Death was originally intended to include...

Revised Third was the original nomenclature for the 2003 revision. "3.5" was adopted because everyone kept calling it that online even before it saw print. (This was back in the days when we had typically 8-12 months warning of new products.)

Same age, similar length of time thinking about it, and I haven't nailed down the ultimate source either. D&D has just enough influence at the right time that it might be to blame, but I think there are other factors. I'm inclined to suspect Morcoock and pop Eastern religion combined with rising...

The closest I think we ever get are in two sources. First is the explanation of the Law of Gilean in Dragonlance Adventures; while I don't have my copy to hand at the moment, it talks about a need for contrast and 'unity in diversity.' Second is the material on souls' progession in Holy Orders...

I'm afraid I have to go with the 'hogwash' answer to the question of True Neutrality/Active Balancing Between Good and Evil, since it's tied up with another one of D&D's very silly ideas--the moral and ontological equivalence of Good and Evil, which is probably both root and fruit of the game's...

Disney Star Wars (The Last Jedi killed it for me, and it was already on life support after Aftermath, The Force Awakens, and Rogue One.) Amazon's Rings of Power (I have extremely persnickety standards for Tolkien adaptations, so much so that even Jackson's The Two Towers and Return of the King...

Correct, although a domain named "Markovia" showed up in the 1990 Realm of Terror boxed set. Said boxed set is also where Vallaki was introduced to Barovia.

The HR books and the 2E settings come from an older model of D&D, where the game was considered in part a toolkit for running various types of fantasy games. At least one prolific poster on this thread has criticized this as a bad model for D&D, but I think it can be safely said at least that...

WotC has been pushing "D&D as its own distinctive genre/game/brand" for a quarter-century now, from the design of 3E to the 'make it more distinctive' redesign of 4E, and even the nostalgia push of early 5E. The toolkit element is a dying older segment at most, IMO.

I was starting to wonder if I was the only one looking forward to Twilight Sword. :)

That looks like a collection pretty tightly focused on core characters in both cases (Swindle's the oddball on the TF side).

Which is why there's no real point to playing D&D unless you're looking for that specific blend as interpreted through WotC's lens. (Or if you've sold your soul to WotC and are now committed to furthering the dominion of the One Brand to Rule Them All, I suppose ... ;) )

Unfortunately, they're in storage bins at my parents' house, and show the marks of having been well played with both 40 years ago and now (we've broken them out a few times for my nieces and nephew). There are far more impressive collections and displays online.

I have two Battle Cats (original and 200X) and two Panthors (ibid.). But then, I have everything released as an official Masters of the Universe toy in the US in the original 1980s line. :)