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I think artistic orthodoxies like the one you refer to are similarly not objective, don't represent the views of more than a few academics, and are usually poisonous to discussion and artistic creation. What use do you think an analysis of a work disconnected from the experience of it has?

I love subjective opinions, I just think it muddies discourse to frame them as objective 'good design'.

I've read scores of pages of Gary's threads and am well aware of his RPG philosophies. Like grodog, in practice I'm happy to supplement the baseline sources, change them or ignore them completely. Similarly, having some regard for what's 'canonical' in no way makes one beholden to it.

Valuing legal ownership of trademarks above authorship is popular in D&D circles but not universal.

In any case, Wizards hasn't published any SWRPG sourcebook as narrow as covering a single series of EU works. As wingsandsword says, the book we're waiting for is the Old Republic Era Sourcebook, though as one of the game's three main eras the Rise of the Empire Era Sourcebook would take priority.

From my point of view, a writeup of the D&D City of Brass by Gary Gygax or Rob Kuntz is definitive, where one by Wolfgang Baur or Scott Greene, Casey Christofferson and Clark Peterson is not.

The norm for D&D campaigns, which works really well, is about adventurers starting as novices and advancing through name level. If this is the idea, skipping the earliest levels is depriving players of some of the most exciting and formative experiences for their characters. There are other...

In actual use, 'good design' and 'bad design' (like 'broken' and other voguish terms) almost always mean nothing more than 'I like it' or 'I don't like it'. Their function is spurious universalizing, and I don't see the point in trying to rationalize such dubious concepts -- there is no single...

That's what the studios and networks want you to think, but I don't see any evidence for it. Remember, "Nobody knows anything."

It's sad that we won't get the whole of Rob's City of Brass, but failing that, the published Kenzer book is the closest to definitive we're going to see.

As a player I will insist on assuming 'damsel' despite apparent statistical evidence to the contrary, because 'damsel turns out to be XX' is fun and 'cynical adventurers leave damsel in jail' is not.

Mike Mearls's 'review' of B2 is bizarre. Some kind of satire? It's a collection of personal and above all theoretical nitpicks in place of any discussion of what the module's like to DM or play.

Both your examples are clearly set in specific, known settings -- and no less easily dropped into your world for it.

Concerning the supposed lack of SWRPG adventures: about 60 were published.

As has almost all of fiction in general. I also don't see what's specifically 'pulp' about stories abbreviating certain journeys.

I didn't mean you were using it derogatively. But most fiction of whatever category is written to appeal to fans of a specific genre -- certainly the contents of the slicks were as much as the pulps, and 'general fiction' as much as fantasy/horror/SF.

Ah, 'genre fiction', a cheap insult used by fans of certain genres to marginalize other genres.

Arnwyn, I'd like to hear more (maybe not on this thread) about how you used those adventures in the Realms.

You can play in a way that's less fun/fulfilling/etc. than another way would be, especially in the long term. I wouldn't say that's playing wrong or incorrectly, but I also don't go along with the 'all play styles are equally valid' idea.

I agree with Steveroo. Loaded questions are usually not so good in research.