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Um, pretty much the only thing modern security and programming has concluded is that all security can be bypassed/compromised/hacked. There is no such thing as security through obscurity (that is, it doesn't actuall provide security). The only difference is that publicly-discussed security will...

I like his artwork. I generally can't stand his dragons--way too humanoid in proportions and articulation, to my eye. Though this one looks okay. edit: I should be clearer. (1) I think that Elmore is an exceptionally talented artist, and generally love his artwork. (2) Except the fact that the...

Um...most of them? Maybe i'm giving the players too tough of challenges, or maybe they or i am not very efficient in using the character's abilities, but if combats typically ended in 5 rounds, i'd probably find them much less boring. The only ones that seem to be that short are encounters...

Unless there's been a change in copyright law that i missed, posting something publicly doesn't negate your copyright. In fact, in many cases, you don't have copyright control over something *until* it's been made publicly available in some fashion. IOW, while it's sitting in your notebook at...

Well, i said that i know and care, but that's an oversimplification. I care to the degree that the world cares. So, if it's supposed to be a pretty-much-like-our-world-but-with-some-magic-on-top world, then i expect it to follow the known laws of physics and geology and so on, except where there...

Not that I'm Imaro, but i'm gonna have to go with "it's the material that's changed, not me". I'm still buying and loving tons of RPG stuff--and even tons of stuff that i consider "D&D", just nothing from WotC. Malhavoc, Green Ronin, Goodland Games, AEG, and others--all have managed to produce...

A single company, as an economic entity? Nope. But it's pretty much what the Forge folks and IPR are doing, collectively. That is, a new Forge game shows up every month or so--actually, on average, way more than that--and the market is roughly the same as for a lot of the other Forge games. This...

I have some thoughts on other parts of this topic, but just wanted to grab this one right now: i doubt that. That assumes that the market for campaign-length D&D games is any more monolithic than the market for shorter D&D games. Now, releasing two similar campaigns at the same time doesn't make...

The relevant info actually did make it into the book, just not anywhere super-obvious: it's in the [brief] appendix on alternatives to Jenga. Anyway, in our experience, the tower is generally good for 35-55 pulls before it falls. With beginning groups (and, thus, most convention games), it'll be...

You missed an option: new games. How does a video game or boardgame company make money? Not, primarily, by producing add-ons to existing games, or new editions of existing games (though, in both cases, there's some of that), but by producing whole new games. Yes, in both cases, they are often...

It depends on what style of campaign you want. With no significant alterations, it will be high-lethality. So you'll never get a game with a feel like Supernatural, X-Files, Kolchak: The Night Stalker, or Friday the 13th (the TV series), because you can't count on the main characters being...

Well, Eppy answered most of the questions before i even discovered this thread existed, so i'm just doing a bit of cleanup. In our experience, this is much less of an issue than most people think it will be. First of all, plenty of people at convention games over the years have had a...

What if that mastery/internallization process took, say, one night's play? one hour's? 5min's? There are definitely RPGs that are simple enough to be mastered in an evening, and, at least for some players, those that are simple enough to be mastered in 15min or so. And i don't just mean...

Sure, but i'm not talking about that bit of confusion. I'm talking about the fact that some people include Blue Rose and M&MM when they say "D20 System", and some consider those games to be something else. Hey, if when people were referring to a D20 System game that uses the WotC OGL and does...

Um, i may have failed communicate: I'm arguing *against* using "D20 System" (or, "d20", if you insist) to mean only D20 System games that bear the D20 System logo--it is precisely those who attempt to limit the term "D20 System" to exclude D20 System games that fail to bear the logo that i'm...

IOW, "D20 System". If you need to distinguish between D20 System games that abide by the D20STL and those that don't, there are several handy terms you could use: "D20 System-logoed", "D20-logoed", "D20STL" (as in shorthand for "D20STL-using"), just to name 3 that come immediately to mind, and...

Yep, and relatedly: is it really less work to figure out exactly which of your D&D3.5E assumptions do and don't apply to Iron Heroes or Everquest D20 or Spycraft 2.0, unlearning the old and learning thenew, than it is to just learn outright Buffy:tVS RPG or Savage Worlds or Over the Edge?

Um, no. Action! System is OGL. I believe the new RuneQuest is OGL. Four Colors al Fresco is OGL. And if by "OGL" you mean "an open-content [game] license" rather than "the WotC open-content game license", then the pool gets a lot bigger, and a lot less homogeneous. Off the top of my head, i know...

Oh, that's exactly my experience, too--i've had 2 players (currently, in fact) who love fiddling with eth rules, and optimizing character builds, and all that. The rest just want to play. Which is precisely why they hate D20 System--too darn much rules to "just play". They want a ruleset that...

Well, considering it took nearly 3 years [from the original publication of D&D3E PH] for someone to publish a D20 System that i would willingly play, and it wasn't until the 3rd(?) generation of D20 System games (Blue Rose) that i found one i really love, no, i don't think i'd be content with...