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"Intelligence" in the sense of a D&D stat that relates to skills, knowledge, and mental clarity doesn't really correspond with the idea of intelligence as a general, everyday construct. A lot of intelligence, in the real world sense, would include WIS as well as INT. While there could be a high...

The word I would use to describe my distaste of many of the changes is "overprocessed." Thematic things are too consistent. Mechanics based on play are focused on play-itself rather than the core pillars of combat, exploration, and intrigue. There's too much, "oh this is for XYZ players" and not...

It's not really the Ship of Theseus. If anything it's the Sorites Paradox. But my point was that "edition" has a commonly accepted meaning in the book trade, and a related meaning in the board game trade. The RPG industry largely ignores both definitions and tries to make it mean something like...

You can't play your current character in the old version.

Every one of those patches is a different "version," it will tell what version number right on the screen.

That's an interesting linguistic shift. In fact, we were not talking about new games, but new editions of the same game. The video games I play will tell you what edition they are to the third decimal point.

Only in RPGs could you change the rules and then claim it's not a new edition.

I just keep coming back to these videos with the same complaint: yes, each class should have a distinctive feel, but the most important thing is that each class be playable. I'd rather have three classes that are basically just the fighter, but work, then three classes which are distinct but...

I like swords.

JRPGs agree with you. Various vintage RPGs agree with you (Dragon Warriors, for instance). Plenty of folklore agrees with you (Snow White and the seven knights). A lot of early 20th century sources prefer "boxer" for Chinese fighters, but fighter was also used. Whether or not they "should" be...

There are limits on what you could spend. The upshot was that you could put characters up against each other with a pretty serious power gap, and it would still work, but the person with the lower stats would just leak HP so fast, it had the feeling of a serious threat.

Best overall supers system is probably still DC Heroes 3rd edition. It has scaling (even better than M&M), a good combat system (and quicker than Champions), a mix of old school roll-and-go mechanics with a Hero Point economy that allows a more dramatic focus, and really clean character sheets...

I think we can generally agree that most fantasy literature does not use the D&D magic system. Heck, plenty of official D&D books don't seem to. But Elric is not simply a fighter. He's one of the most capable sorcerers of his day.

I'm aware of the etymology. I just remember there was a specific day on the WotC CharOps forum where someone said, "Hey, I have an idea! Let's start calling FMUs 'gishes'!" and I was like, "That's a terrible idea, please don't do that," but a significant number of people did it. I really hoped...

Why do we say gish? I remember the first time it was said on the old Character Optimization board and I didn't like it then and I don't like it now. It's a pointlessly opaque phrase, a shibboleth. It can also lead to funny situations with actual githyanki where you have gishes that aren't...

Well, in older editions, orcs and goblins were weaker in direct sunlight.

My all-time favorite:

Dracula, but what if played by John Travolta?