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I agree with Celebrim's view as a way to view Aragorn. I've always said that Aragorn exhibits Paladin-like qualities in the text. Glorfindel is a Paladin, too. Similarly in D&D terms, Gandalf, Elrond, and Galadriel are Clerics. Going by function within the milieu those class roles fit the...

I never was in the Forum, but I once wrote to Sage Advice when I was first learning AD&D. Skip Williams used it in the April Fool's issue, since it was such a "dumb question." :eek: It was about monster lairs, if anyone wants to look for it . . .

Is his nickname "Nigel," have a big bottom and live in a hell hole?

This is demonstrably false in the case of Aragorn. He was the 'greatest traveller and huntsman in this age of the world,' responsible for tracking down Gollum in the years before the War of the Ring, leading the hobbits through the wilderness, foraging for Kingsfoil by its sent in the dark, and...

Cugel forces himself on his wife, whose family and town had tricked him into imprisonment in a tower (the marriage being part of the scam on Cugel). Cugel isn't an anti-hero. He's not a hero of any kind. He's a good example of Neutral Evil alignment. When I play old-school D&D, when...

How could I forget Vance?!?! Also, the "Harold Shea" (typically collected as The Incomplete Enchanter) stories of Camp & Pratt. The story "The Roaring Trumpet" was the direct inspiration for Against the Giants, as well as the sympathetic spell components (Verbal, Material, Somatic) of AD&D magic.

There is no such thing in Tolkien. This is a sign of our (collective) poor modern taste: we no longer appreciate (narrative) poetry, and can only handle prose. For me, Illiad, Odessey, Aeneid, Beowulf, Divine Comedy, Paradise Lost, etc are pure joy.

More immediate to the need of "gaming" inspiration, read Tolkien if you want to learn what good world building looks like.

Also, E.R. Burroughs.

At least read The Hobbit. It was written for children should be at your reading level... :p

May I amend to your cry: Fewer magic items that just give a bonus to a die roll! Make magic items do *something* cool, out of the ordinary, not just give some kind of buff to a skill check, etc.

"We return to the Keep on the Borderlands to hire more mercenaries."

If you also haven't seen Monty Python and the Holy Grail, turn in your gamer-card.

The point of a role-playing game is to play a game. Participants may layer other goals on top of this, or make other objects the subject of the game, but these are not inherent to the game-form. To illustrate: D&D from the beginning was gamist, through and through. The Dragonlance series of...

When I was a kid, I used to build my own Transformers out of Legos. You had to take them apart to transform, but they worked! :) Legos are the greatest toy ever invented, just like role-playing games are the greatest game-form ever invented.

Brings back memories... was anyone else part of the D&D email discussion mailing list that preceeded Eric's site?

I'm fine with that.

*nods* In order to obtain greater spell capabilities, the spell-caster must do considerable studying, and he or she must also have source material to study. The AD&D system assumes that such material is hard to come by, and even if a spell-caster is capable of knowing/memorizing many and...

I think it's fair in the same way as referring to Unearthed Arcana as "1.5E."