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Yes, I agree. I guess my suspension-of-disbelief issues come from the commonness, not the market. I've never run a campaign where magic items are common enough to create a market.

Outside of lower-level expendables (healing potions, etc.), in 30+ years of gaming, I've never once run a serious game in which there's an open market for magic items. Like psionics and oriental monks, it just utterly destroys my suspension of disbelief. But then, I don't gravitate toward...

I'm going to dig back into the thread and quote this one for truth. Many people have said this is a red flag, and they may be right. But if she's simply seeing this as a high-school-aged activity that you haven't let go of, she might not be too unreasonable in wondering why not. Making the...

I think there are too many variables in the original question to get a meaningful answer. There's a huge difference between the maximum distance an individual can accomplish in a 24-hour period, assuming he or she can just collapse at the end and rest for a few days, versus what can be done on...

Mistwell's points are dead on. WotC's budgeting cycle is based on a calendar year, which means budgets for the next year are put together, honed, and approved in September, October, and November. At the end of that process, whatever cost-cutting measures are indicated are then carried out. For...

Interesting that they didn't promote from within. I have no inside info, but that tells me they were looking to complement their existing talent with some outsider insight. Interesting also that he made a lateral move (VP Marketing --> VP Marketing) from what, presumably, was a pretty sweet...

And not "you're ugly and your momma dresses you funny." I get enough of that at home.

OK, I get it, everyone has their favorite paper size. (I have to confess, I prefer A4. But that preference does me no good here in the US.) Any comments on something other than page size?

Just to let you know, I've posted a revised version that smooths out a few bits and adds some examples. (Still A4, I'm afraid; forgot to make that change. Next version will be letter. I swear.)

If you self-identify as a person who currently plays D&D, you'd show up as an active player. You may also have been asked which edition you play and how often you play and what other games you play (depending on the study and what we were trying to drill down to), but generally our top-line "X.X...

Actually, to be clear, that's not what I meant to say. I meant that it's a success in the sense of bringing lots of players into the program on a weekly basis, seeing lots of NEW players in those sessions, and having the numbers grow over time. An OP program's goal is to increase trial and...

So you don't personally enjoy the play style or the edition. Fair enough. But the evidence from where I'm sitting (and I organized the launch and first three seasons of Encounters for the entire UK market, which included all the play data) is that Encounters is a runaway success. Far and away...

This is not true. At least, it's not true of the data I worked with when I was the guy making the decisions. Given that the numbers currently bandied about are directionally similar to those I dealt with, I'd say it's not true now. When I talked about "lapsed players," I was talking about...

Actually, it's like whining when the protagonist in the movie you're watching gets beaten up or captured by the bad guys or has his first plan foiled. If these things didn't happen, the movie would be really boring. And short. As Rel said, setbacks are what make the game interesting. It...

Yowza! That would make my list very, very long indeed!

Chrono, you are absolutely right that WotC would be foolish not to develop and exploit the excellent resource that is the dedicated D&D DM. These guys do more to get players in that a million ads. But isn't that what they're doing with Encounters? Every Encounters DM is a local volunteer; the...

I found the definitions a little vague in this poll: What is meant by "play?" Games that are ongoing right now, or games I generally play? I just moved and haven't yet put together a new gaming group, so technically I'm not playing at all right now. But based on my general habits I chose "a...

In an ideal games shop, there'd be an abundance of clean, pleasant play space available for organized events and general player use. And, because availability of this space is useful and valuable to gamers and the community, there would be a small fee for using this space (outside of strictly...

The market research is pretty unequivocal: Very few people leave D&D because they stop liking it. The overwhelming majority leave because of lifestyle changes that separate them from their established group or make the RPG time commitment impractical: Changing or leaving school, moving, getting...

If you were old guard and you picked up the box, you're probably thinking "Wow! I remember this!" You admire the box as nostalgic memory rolls over you. And then you turn the box over and see the back. You then think one of two things: Hey, this isn't the same thing. Oh, well. Or, Hey, looks...