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Nice catch. I woulda gone with the math joke, though. More geek cachet.

Well, I consider Kentucky more the Midwest than the South, but then I grew up in Lexington and Louisville, and have very little experience with the rural areas of the state. I moved here in '98, towing along my best friend (and ex-girlfriend) and my then-current girlfriend. A year later, with...

That's really interesting, and certainly fits his physique. (Not that there was anything unattractive or disgusting about him, at all. Just those damned spidery fingers. I do remember that one of my remarks was to the effect that I bet he'd make some kinda world-class pianist, able to play a...

BTW, I'm actually sort of at peace with this. I feel pangs of regret sometimes, but mostly I'm philosophical about it, because it almost seems Darwinist ... the people who survive, thrive, and give back the sort of casual (but genuinely friendly) antagonism are the ones that end up making the...

Assuming this question isn't 100 percent rhetorical ... (1) I think it's mostly the same everywhere. Back in Kentucky, there were good players, bad players, creepy players, obsessive players, laid back players, and on and on. It's the same out here. (2) This is obliquely contradictory to...

The question is mostly self-explanatory, but I will clarify that I mostly have in mind "a largely unobjectionable player," with the implication that your behavior was ... not ideal. This will come as a universal shock to the reader (you may want to be seated), but I can be an abrasive guy...

Me, too! Exactly. Firearms and psionics used to hold the same low place for me, for pretty much the same reason (shorthanded: "genre dissonance"), but for some reason my distaste for firearms-in-D&D lessened, while my distaste for psionics-in-D&D has not. I still don't accept firearms as a...

For a long time -- at least a decade of my GMing life -- it was very difficult for me to articulate exactly why I despise psionics in D&D. (And I'm pretty good with words.) So my response, by necessity, was, "Because I don't like them. They don't exist in my campaign." Players were free to...

Got the Westin. Sweet.

I'll be there. I'm shooting for the Westin tomorrow. I've stayed in just about every hotel within two blocks of the convention center, and the Westin is my favorite. (Managed the Embassy Suites last year for the first time, and wasn't as enamored as most folks. It's a good choice if you're...

3rd Edition -- and the fascinating idea of the OGL -- brought me back to D&D after an eight-year absence I had thought would be permanent. (I quit 2E in disgust in the early 90s.) As it happens, GenCon 2000 was one of only two GenCons I've missed since 1984, but my buddy bought PHBs for both...

Just be aware that the Elder Blue Dragon is a Very Rare, which means you are very unlikely to pull it unless you open five or so cases. And because it goes for $50+, you also are unlikely to be able to trade for it for fewer than three (two, minimum, and only a select couple) other Very Rares...

I answered "Not at All," and that's accurate as far as it goes. But I was pretty impressed with the quality of Lords of Madness, and bought more of that set that I had in quite a while. On the other hand, I was disgusted by the introduction of the Very Rare in that set, which makes some pieces...

Yes, the SRD is quite confusing (and confused) on this issue. What it should say is that you lose your Dex bonus to AC while balancing, but never mind. The point is that while in the area of a grease spell, you are not required to roll Balance checks unless you move. You are not "balancing,"...

Glitterdust is broken, grease isn't as powerful as some people seem to think (i.e., it didn't give the rogue sneak attack to anybody standing in the area, because "balancing" is a function of making a skill check, not a defined game condition), and web is unlikely to work in an arena context...

All of them could be mildly annoying, I agree. (I, personally, would want the d5, d7, and d24. And, BTW, what? No d30?!) Interestingly, the "reroll 8s" is the one I would probably find least annoying.

Uh ... d5? d10/2. d7? d8, reroll 8s. d24? d6 (high/low) plus d12. Not gonna be an issue, really.

In 2007, weren't Paizo and Goodman Games the two biggest third-party supporters of D&D? And in 2011, both will be actively competing with D&D. Pretty remarkable, IMO.

So why do we do this? Does it reflect well on us, or poorly, or both, or somewhere in the middle? I think I'll start doing that. I can't use dice, because my players (fools! mwahahahaah!) believe that I have everything prepared ahead of time. But the clock, with a second hand, is in my...

Recently I felt like I've been losing a handle on the details of my M&M campaign (mainly because of my propensity to improvise quite a bit and write notes on literally any flat surface), so I've started synthesizing a "Master Campaign Log." It's got entries for superheroes, supervillains, NPCs...