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Which comes back to one of my points regarding new players without veteran assistance. Which is more likely for a game of rookies, to learn and follow the general guidelines of the DMG or the specific example in the official DnD premade adventure? My point has never been that veterans of...

But that can contradict the concept of playing a character. If the player must "talk out" the social scenario, then he's really using his own charisma/skills and not the character's. Not that I'm saying every conversation should be dice-rolled. But the mechanics need to be there for the sake...

It's in either the DMG or the Rules Compendium. I can't remember. At the beginning of the section about travel. In my mind, to summarize the what occurs between combat encounters is going away from what rpgs are about. It goes from players creating a story to players just showing up for the...

I think the issue here is how each edition's rules structure addresses it.

Nowhere in the previous editions will you find a passage suggesting to simply summarize what happens between the encounters. 4E does just that. (And then gives some basic mechnics for travel, etc. just in case.) To say 4E "has more non-combat support than any previous edition" is flat...

I for one lived to become a lord and have a dominion! It was a great moment in my BECMI campaign to gain a dominion and rule it. It became about 1/4 to 1/3 of my play for the rest of that campaign (about 10 more levels). And sad is the campaign that ignores encumbrance. Encumbrance provided...

The 4E core rulebooks, as well as the Essential paperbacks thus far, read as if they are specifically designed for the Encounters program and not a traditional long-term campaign. Otherwise, there would be less emphasis on elaborate combat encounters and more on noncombat experiences. Anyone...

This gets to the heart of what I've been talking about. If the DM sets up a skill challenge, then it's a predetermined encounter that the party must get past. It is not organic. It is not chosen by the players, or the effect of players' choices. This restricts the "sandbox" nature of RPGs...

Use'em or lose'em has never been a part of DnD, and leveling-up THACO charts made wizards better with daggers even if he never used one--but your point is well made. Pre-4E, it was fairly safe to assume that a thief was using thief skills to gain XP, because he surely wasn't relying on combat...

I agree entirely. I have been trying to make this argument in another thread, albeit from another angle. The way I see it, the 4E game as published is about 95% combat encounter. Roleplaying is given a nod, but most of it is reduced to summary. Virtually all the rules are written in combat...

If all feedback was rational and courteous, the article would not have been written. Unrational and discourteous feedback is difficult to use. And can easily lead to a rift between producer and consumer. Better to hire a middle man to filter the comments into digestible form.

Sure, in theory there are no barriers. But in reality, it's different. It becomes impossible to keep the group together. First, the schedule becomes unworkable. The gang is almost never free to play at the same time. Second, playing keeps getting pushed farther down the priority list. Time...

I'm only sad that they didn't yet get around to a line of "Basic Monster" packs. I avoided the mini line because you always had to buy sight-unseen. I was not looking for "collectibles," I was looking for tools.

I think 4E is trying to be too much like a tabletop strategy game as it is. WOTC is desperately trying to find some angle where rpg customers are sucked into continuous purchasing the way Magic players and MageKnight/Heroclix players have been. Personally, I think buying the books is plenty...

For what it's worth, here is Gary Gygax's comments on alignment from 2003... "I would have been better advised to have explained alignment more carefully, stressing that is was mainly for the DM to use in judging a PCS actions, and not something that should ever be discussed in character...

Back to noncombat stuff... I HAVE FOUND IT!!! I finally found a spell that was not just another combat spell. In the Heroes of the Fallen Lands, page 239, is the spell "Otto's Song of Fidelity." It has the description line: "Requirement: You must be outside a combat encounter." And the...

In BECMI, they first appeared in the Gazetteers, many of which came out before the Rules Cyclopedia. And 1E's UA was out well before either. Before all that, all we had were "secondary skills" under the heading "Player Character Non-Professional Skills" from 1E DMG pg 12. Just a list of...

Whoa! That's a gross exaggeration. There were some roads that were somewhat protected, but the vast majority of travel was along small roads --barely more than a path-- that were by no stretch of the imagination "safe." There were ALWAYS brigands about somewhere (often in the form of local...

Can't agree with you at all. There is nothing in the earlier Basic or 1E books that even obliquely deal with Asian, African, or any other non-European culture. The Magic-User is pure Merlin and Gandalf. The fighters are pure Knights. The Clerics are crusaders. Elves, dwarfs...it just goes...

Um... except for Conan's northern origin, Conan' world was pretty much based on Africa and the Middle East.