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<sarcasm> Right. My copy of Monopoly spontaneously imploded the other day because of lack of support. Likewise, I haven’t in recent years played successful Marvel SuperHeroes, classic Traveller, or classic D&D campaigns due to their lack of support. Might as well include that I didn’t have a...

All my signs point to “Yes”. I don’t think I’ve met a new gamer in years who wasn’t introduced to it by other people. I know a lot of gamers who tend to know very close to nil about the industry, what products are out, and such. The “to stop growing is to start dying” slogan hints just a bit...

Yeah. I agree. Role-playing doesn’t need mechanics. But here’s the thing for me: When my group has more rules for something, we like to use those rules. So, if there are more combat rules, the game will tend to be more combat focused. 3e and 4e have a lot of combat rules. Now, I’m not saying...

Yeah. One opinion I see expressed a lot is that the older Basic Sets were a much more effective introduction to the hobby than the ones Wizards has produced. That’s part of the inspiration for this poll. Previous polls have suggested that most ENWorlders started with one of the older Basic Sets...

The FLGSs are already dying or getting creative. ’Cause the challenges of being a brick-and-mortar retailer these days are big enough on matter what you’re selling. We can buy dice online. We can find new friends online or through age-old networking. How many of us really have any need for...

You know, I don’t know that these polls serve any purpose, but I’m a bit surprised by the results. I mean, I kind of thought that ENWorlders would tend towards the “no” side, but maybe not quite so much.

FWIW, the D&D Adventure Game was released in August 2000. I bought it to use the counters in my first 3e campaign. Whatever my own opinion of the product might be, I think they were smart to get it out early.

My path wasn’t very different. But—after a year or two of 3e—I realized that, for me, playing 3e was like playing Rolemaster. It’s a fine game. It’s similar to D&D. But it doesn’t “scratch my D&D itch” like the earlier editions did—just like Rolemaster didn’t. Like you, I play 3e, I’m going to...

I was kind of thinking along those lines. Once I have enough people in my group, I’m not terribly interested in continuing to recruit new players...until the situation changes. My two favorite games: classic Traveller and classic D&D (specifically the 1981 edition). A decade ago? 1998? Yep...

Yeah. But that doesn’t put me off as much as doing everything differently than D&D solely for the sake of doing it differently from D&D.

Well, I’ll take your word for that. Last time I went looking for a group that way, I don’t remember D&D having such a significant presence. (In fact, I joined a group that advertised that it was playing GURPS.) Likewise, when my groups since have looked for new players, we’ve never present...

The 3e “basic sets” If you started playing D&D in or after 2000, were any of the “basic sets” significant in making you a D&D player? The D&D Adventure Game or the D&D Basic Game Were there others?

The thing is—no matter how much I read about this kind of thing online—I’ve never seen this in real life. Every group I’ve played with has played all sorts of systems. I’ve very seldom seen a gamer refuse to play whatever system a friend wanted to run. In fact, the few times I have seen it, it’s...

A common element to much fantasy, sword and sorcery, or even myth and legends is to have the hero(es) begin in a “conventional world” before moving into the fantastic “unconventional world”. This can be as subtle as The Shire vs. the world at large or as obvious as “the contemporary real world”...

Number one is business planning and market research. Figure out how much money you can expect to make off this game without the cycles. That’s going to mean a moderate amount early (the first month or three) that quickly slows to a trickle. Size your business around that trickle. Even building...

4e doesn’t bother me because, when I play it, I’ll accept it for what it is—just like I would any other game one of my friends brought to the table. Besides, with all the great systems that are out there, who knows when we’ll actually get around to trying it? There’s too much good gaming to be...

When I’m DMing, the thing is, I don’t want people to feel like the time and “points” (skill points, character points, whatev) they invested in their PC was a waste. No matter how silly I think an ability is, if the game has it and the PCs invested in it, I’m going to be looking for chances for...

Some other retro-clones to Google for—if you’re interested in such things: Four Colors, Double Zero, and Legends of Ancient Earth.

If it’s D&D, I’m handing out the XP. No rationalization necessary.

This is one of those things that really kept me from getting the most out of the game when I was younger. I had a very simulationist bent, and I too often tended towards the “if it isn’t explicitly permitted, it’s prohibited” mindset. I’ve found I enjoy the game a lot more since I’ve tried to...