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One potential problem is that in Christianity, God is much more powerful than the Devil. D&D otoh presents a dualistic world where either the forces of good and evil -- terrestrial and cosmic -- are evenly matched or evil has the advantage. Admittedly, within Christianity there have been varying...

I've played and run a lot of Champions and I agree with this completely. It contains one of the best combat mini-games in roleplaying but what I want from a superhero rpg is primarily emulation of superhero comics.

I definitely dread running combat in the HERO System, in fact I quit GM-ing a game because of it. After running one, zero combat, session quite successfully, there were upcoming battles against very large numbers of foes in the next one. I decided there was no way I could run the game I'd...

Little Cthulhus.

Reverse dungeon: PCs are monsters defending a dungeon from a party of adventurers.

Another possibility is that some of them could be used as alternate or local names for pre-existing D&D monsters. For example: Affright = banshee Dweomer undoer = disenchanter Favonian picaroon = air elemental or aerial servant Lord of the Unerring Bow = title of Corellon Larethian...

Just names.

It's like D&D but with the thesaurus abuse turned up to 11! All the words used are real, or are made by combining real words. For example in Favonian Picaroon, "favonian" means "of or relating to the west wind" and "picaroon" means "rogue" or "pirate". The "pilliwinks" in Pilliwinks Devil is a...

I started in 1982 and I've only once encountered the player with a binder of characters -- in the very early 90s, at university. "Stan's folder" became infamous in our circle as Stan would always pull out something more powerful -- higher attributes, more magic items -- than the other PCs.

The tables of contents for Volumes I to V are attached as PDFs.

My experience, starting in 1982 in the UK, was the same as @GuyBoy's and @Lyxen's. We always roleplayed, in the sense of developing and portraying a distinct character for our PCs. I wonder if there was a difference in rpg culture between Europe and the US in this respect. In fact I have the...

Bard: Useless. Just sings and plays the lute. Cleric: Religious fanatic. Tries to convert everyone. Druid: Embodies the worst stereotypes of an environmentalist. Fighter: Doesn't say or do anything except hit things with their sword. Paladin: Religious fanatic. Kills anyone who detects as evil...

The table of contents for an imaginary D&D monster book published in the 1980s. Volumes I-IV also included as PDFs.

I was wondering about that too. You're right about sticks to snakes. Its original source is the magical duel between Moses and his brother Aaron and the pharaoh's magicians in Exodus 7:8-13. Lots of other clerical spells have Biblical sources. This blog post argues, I think persuasively, that...

I can give an example of the opposite -- my favourite reference to D&D in pop culture. That's the D&D cartoon adverts in early 80s Marvel comics.

Here are some suggestions, taken from the Imaginary Bestiary Vol I-III: Ape, Laser Archaeopteryx, Acidic Baboon, Phantom Barracuda, Land Bat, Orc Beetle, Alchemical Beetle, Mesmeric Caterpillar, Famine Centipede, Dreadful Cetacean Telepath Crocodile, Blade Crow, Murderous Cuckoo, Cloud Doom...

Well, I could be wrong! I didn't know I was going to come to that conclusion when I started writing -- I just looked back over my list of features and thought, "Hmm, good and evil are totally irrelevant here." As @pemerton has pointed out, OD&D and AD&D 1e have several features that are at odds...