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*giggles* Ah, how history loves to repeat itself. And nobody ever learns.

Eh? diaglo was quoting from Greyhawk? Really? What's this forum coming to?!?

Now, now. We don't call them "creatures." We call them "persons of differing genetics."

That gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "dungeon clean-up crew!" Actually, this doesn't sound like a bad premise for a game...

See, I just don't get that. The fun of role-playing games for me is the exercise of imagination. If we constrain our choices to what is laid out in the book, where is the imagination? D&D began this game form by taking a set of wargame rules and saying, "Okay. Here's how you describe your...

Mind you, I'm not talking about a dungeon full of nothing but random, deadly, unavoidable traps. See below. I agree completely with this. There should usually be some way of dealing with the traps, even if that way is simply "don't touch it, stupid!" But players should not be able to count on...

By "need to go adventuring," I meant "to improve their characters," not "to live comfortably." Not to mention the enormous bar tabs that adventurers are assumed to run up! This is the ol' plausibility argument. The level of desired verisimilitude of a campaign depends greatly on the people...

This is a good distinction, and I completely agree that the third edition rules are the most comprehensive set of D&D rules to date. More than just "Could a normal man do this?" a referee should look at the ability scores of the character and ask himself, "Could this character do this?" It's...

Then it should be easy for you to demonstrate it! You are not following the text of the article you quoted. Here is the first sentence of the article: "Freeform role-playing games, also called freeforms, are a type of role-playing game which employ minimal or no rules; occupying a...

It's a game. The challenge for the players is to "score" as many experience points as possible. The challenge for the referee is to make this as hard as possible for the players, but keep them coming back for more. That's what "game balance" used to refer to. If players have so much stuff and...

So you're not taking me up on my dare to prove this? Even to a "free-form role-player's" point of view? Instead of "prove," let's say "demonstrate." Demonstrate, from the free-former's point of view, that original D&D is too constricting.

I didn't say AD&D, I said "original D&D." I dare anyone to try to prove that the original D&D set is "rules-driven" or "too constricting!" :)

That's almost exactly what the original D&D rules did. "Here's the concept, here are some lists, you decide how things work out. Oh, you may want to use Chainmail to work out combat." There were a few rules, but it was mostly up to the judge to, well, judge what happened.

If you ask about how to judge GURPS combat effectiveness in a GURPS forum, the answer will always be: forget about character points; you'll learn by playing. In other words, playing GURPS is a skill, like any other. This idea used to be applied to D&D, too! (For instance, Gary's Role-Playing...

RE: DMs changing called unfair by players I didn't mean to suggest that this reaction was intentionally provoked in writing the third edition. I think the attitude was, "These rules make a lot of sense, and fill in the gaps where there weren't rules before." While this isn't necessarily a bad...

But everyone around the table can do this, whether player or referee, so it's no equalizer for what I said earlier. And D&D wasn't originally conceived of as a play-acting game, but as a 1:1 wargame-like game in which the rules did not prescribe your allowed actions. That was the real...

Back when the original D&D set was the only thing there was and there were no spells higher than 5th level, you'd be laughed at for claiming that you had a 20th-level wizard. The way the game was calibrated, anyone who claimed they had a 20th-level character was likely just a boasting munchkin.

As originally conceived, the job of the Dungeon Master is twofold: he is the creator of the game world, and he arbitrates the effects of the player's choices. The original D&D set provided a basic framework of rules on how things played out. For most actions the players wanted to take, it was...

No Voices of Reason! You'll quash the squabbling! A lack of rules telling me how to determine everything that happens is a feature. It's called freedom.

Just as a minor point, in Advanced D&D monster level isn't the on the same scale as character level (or dungeon level, or spell level). Monster levels range from 1 to 10 only. The monster level can be compared to the character level to some degree, but that's not to say that six 3rd level...