Search results

For me, the World of Greyhawk exists in Gary Gygax's particular voice and approach; his way of combining history, myth and modern fantasy fiction into something unique, which is AD&D and its assumed norms and style of play. The post-Gygax materials don't have the same sensibility; they're like...

Are there any reasons inherent to the medium of roleplaying games (as opposed to conventions of D&D) that make historical or contemporary earth less appropriate settings than they are in, say, prose fiction?

Why don't you read them? Except for Ruins of Undermountain II, that's some of the finest writing TSR/WotC have ever published.

And even the request for '"How to make a monster" rules' indicates misconceptions that this is a game about lots of surprising monsters (like D&D) and that systems need 'rules' to make up monster stats (like current D&D). As I said, it's entirely inadequate as a review. The actual negative...

The review is a time-honoured medium; unfortunately most online 'reviews' are nothing of the kind, these two among them. Ryan's précis of the Old World tacitly attributes its own simplisticness to its subject and entirely fails to discuss the way in which the Warhammer world combines its...

Surely the fact that the publisher is so often considered instead of the author, for instance here and with the ENnies, by itself indicates that publishers -- and their visible logos, trade dress, layout, etc., which we know are a big factor in purchasing -- do unduly influence people's...

I can't answer reliably either, not being American. But I think the best Old West RPG/sourcebook, bar none, is Mark Arsenault's Gunslingers.

#287–290.

In almost all online forums, the majority of people who read them don't post. This often surprises people who do post, but it's non-posting that's the norm (and therefore doesn't deserve the daft insult of 'lurking').

They certainly are Realms canon. All the early and mid-period Realms Dragon articles are presented through the framing device of a person from Faerûn, usually Elminster, coming to Earth through gates and speaking to Ed Greenwood (or Jeff Grubb or Steven Schend), and all Realmslore implicitly...

The highest density of detail -- millions of words, most still unpublished -- is for the places Ed's main campaigns were/are set: the Company of Crazed Venturers in Waterdeep and the Sword Coast North, and the Knights of Myth Drannor, mostly in Cormyr and the Dales. The rest of the Heartlands...

Yes, lots do it, not least Robert E. Howard's Hyborian Age. But the core Realms, from the Sword Coast to Thay in the east and the Shining Sea and Halruaa in the south, is not at all this kind of Earth-pastiche patchwork, but a vividly worked-out continuum of political, historical, cultural and...

To DM, probably with more than 'minimal tweaks', but in a recognizable form. To read as entertainment. And -- this should be an option in the poll -- for material on the particular campaign setting, both lore and as an example of play style.

I dare say most Greyhawk fans who buy these books do understand that. Technically, the core setting of D&D is not the World of Greyhawk per se, but a derivative called Greyhawk Light. Because they want material for their campaign setting, I imagine, and it's not clear that the default D&D planes...

Though it's a long time since I read the Qur'an, I don't recall anything against acting. If you want to find a medium which is forbidden by Islam, Judaism and Christianity, look at representative visual art. "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in...

?? Downloading books published by big corporations that you might not buy anyway is one thing. Downloading books published by small-press RPG publishers is stealing directly from people, in this case from Greg Stafford and perhaps Rick Meints. C'mon, you don't need to be the copyright holder to...

The HeroQuest rulebook describes Glorantha throughout, but look at the "Introduction to Glorantha" amd "Playing HeroQuest" chapters particularly, which can be downloaded here. The fullest, but complex, introduction to the whole of Glorantha is the Introduction to Glorantha book, which is...

I think not taking up the whole spotlight is good for the Realms, not a sign of decline. As long as it doesn't get less support. An object lesson in trying to read consensus into what posters say! On most messageboards people who post are in a minority; I wonder how it goes for poll voters.

The Player's Guide to Faerûn is mostly a collection of 3.5E rules updates, with a section on the Realms' planes and a rather inadequate timeline update focusing on two big novel series. It isn't a Player's Guide, and it's either indispensable or very dispensable depending on how strictly you...

The Realms adopted Roger E. Moore's demihuman gods, which weren't written for any setting in particular, in just the same way as the official World of Greyhawk did. No 'stealing' here, and not from the World of Greyhawk in any case.