Recent content by Tarek

They're moving into a *very* crowded space. Fantasy-based MMORPGs are very common. World of Warcraft certainly leads the pack, but you've got RIFT, TERA Online, Dungeons and Dragons Online, Everquest, Everquest II, Guild Wars, Guild Wars II, Lineage, Lineage II, and dozens of lesser-known "free...

All the ideas that have been posted so far.... ... are subsumed under the "chance to spot secret doors roll." Really, the roll is shorthand for "I've noticed these scratches on the floor, and there's a faint draft coming from around her, and that stone seems a little out of place. I think...

Wet-erase non-permanent markers. Dry-erase will be permanent on a vinyl mat.

Electronic Arts pushed Bioware to produce Dragon Age 2 as fast as possible, hoping to cash in on the success of Dragon Age: Origins. They have since learned (from the absolute trashing DA 2 got from the fans) that the old adage is still true: You can get something fast, good, or cheap, pick...

If I remember correctly, it was originally a 1e magic item. Hornblade, a dagger that would turn into a buckler, first appeared in EX 1 or EX 2 (the Alice in Wonderland homage modules). I don't know where it first appeared in 3e.

... FASA had a version of Star Wars?! When? Are you sure you're not mixing it up with Star TREK? Or conflating FASA with West End Games?

You'd be correct, except that's not how it would be presented to the Hasbro execs who control the funding. "So, what's your new boardgame about? Why should we fund it?" "It's basically Risk only with dragons as threats and dungeons as added resources." "Okay, Risk sells pretty well. You have...

Hasbro understands boardgames. WOTC makes games. WOTC will now make boardgames. Because that's what Hasbro understands. Hasbro does not understand roleplaying games. WOTC will now move to make roleplaying games understandable to Hasbro. By adding cardgame and boardgame elements until it is a...

Not really surprising, considering Atari's new direction as a game publisher. Cheap, fast, minimal development cost, minimal development time, oh, and they're dumping Cryptic onto the market.

There are two general categories of stories. Event based plot and character based plot. DA:O was mostly event-based plot. Most CRPGs, in fact, have event-based plots. Something happens, and you as the player react to it. DA 2 is a character based plot. Every major character in the game has...

In my opinion, most of the complaints about the game being "dumbed down" are groundless. As one example, I still spend time in the inventory screens looking over gear and outfitting companions. Literally the only thing I can't do is equip armor/robe items on them, and that just means more...

Wizards of the Coast is under severe budget pressure right now. I'm not surprised that they did, IN FACT, eliminate the RPGA as a separate entity, first folding it in under the DCI and now apparently putting the remnants of both programs into the renamed Wizards Play Network. I have no doubt...

There's a saying in the fandom: "The Doctor you're likely to be most fond of is the Doctor that you started watching the series with." Maybe it's changed a bit. Some of the later doctors I find rather.. forgettable, really. But it seems to be holding true in this thread.

I've rolled an 18/00 strength. Once. That particular combination will come up one time in twenty thousand rolls, approximately, so it's not at all unheard of. I routinely had characters with an array of stats all of which were twelve or higher; typically with seventeens and sixteens in there...

This sounds very familiar.. Oh! Now I remember. Is Lee Garvin the author, by any chance? Wait.. You ARE Lee! For everyone else, I can safely say that if this is anything like what I remember from playtesting, it's a very imaginative take on the "Evil Emperor vs. Band of Rebel Heroes" story.