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Agreed. An industrial work discipline routine would have created a very modern-feeling Roman world even if everything ran on ethanol and charcoal. Ronald Wright mobilizes the term "social technology" to describe such things. Here, we part company. Irrational superstition about the essential...

Diamond's reasoning is deeply flawed. He argues for over-arching rules based on single unique cases. He is essentially saying, "Because it happened this way this time, this is the way it must happen."

The thesis that technological advancement is dependent upon a post-feudal centralized state is one that I think is made on little evidence. While it is true that recent spurts of industrial and technological development have been coupled with post-feudal nation states, it is a mistake to...

If you're going for something a little more whimsical and less about replicating the real world, I must highly recommend Italo Calvino's book Invisible Cities.

I tend to find that the 19th century idea of how different human races acted has simply been transferred to non-human races in fantasy settings. 19th century racial theory has had a gigantic impact on RPGs and underpins a lot of people's assumptions. The idea of culture as hard-wired is an...

Isn't this setting-dependent? How long have 9th level spells been around? Were they always around or are they new tech.? As much as many cultural and philosophical traits in our society have changed in the past 3000 years, some have not. Some have and have reached different conclusions than you...

I evaluated Autumn Arbor when I was an ENnies judge and found it very disappointing. I found that even the good ideas were buried under a dry, lifeless writing style. The heroes and villains seemed surprisingly uninteresting, given the possible scope the deconstruction thing offered and much of...

Good -- I can give you back your vintage D20 that you got in the Basic set in 1980.

I'll take Thursday morning.

Clerics have to spend a way larger portion of their time foregoing to chance to do cool things in order to help other party members. Unsurprisingly, they are therefore crankier about it.

I laughed until I stopped. Kudos Campbell.

Just a warning: don't do it. In my experience, romance is a bad idea to role play out and is largely pointless when it proceeds off-frame. The RPG social dynamic is good for doing a lot of things; representing romance is not one of them.

Go picket Random House, Penguin, Norton and Knopff while you're at it.

I just want to add: often, gamers are easier to make than to find.

Actually, I think it's pretty analogous to the systems I was using. In religion, there are a few core canonical texts; orbiting around them are respected declarations that are quasi-canonical -- think Mormonism's statement on the family or Catholicism's Humanae Vitae; at the next orbit out are...

It's difficult to guage who is in the right here because we don't know what the arguments are about.

I've been in some gaming groups that have centred around that dynamic and, I agree, I wouldn't invite a female adolescent (or of any age for that matter) to be part of that scene. But this is true of a minority of groups. Totally fair. I once nixed adding a female player to a game for exactly...

So, aside from fear of modern witchcraft allegations, are there any reasons of substance that have been raised here for not including a mature adolescent?

I'm quoting this post in case the ban prosfilaes receives also results in his post being deleted.

Judging by your writing style, it seems like Edena of Neith would be a compatible contributor.