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Most of the topics in the general area are general enough to be equally interesting for 4e fans and those rose-coloured-glass-wearing 3e Neanderthals who will still be sticking around. Not to mention other retrogrades, like me. ;) Splitting the rules forum may be a decent idea, though.

More or less my picks. Not the best of the best (especially not Tragidore), but they are sure definitive. Although I'm positive White Plume Mountain is another one - although I'm sure many consider it a prime example of how AD&D is a horrible, horrible game. ;) For 3e, Sunless Citadel and...

When I'm playing, I map, not just for navigation, but for notekeeping and the fun of producing a visual artifact of the game. When I DM, I don't require my group to map, but it is in their best interests to do so. Now, since my descriptive skills are pretty deficient, I stick with making...

I am strongly in support of Sword&Sorcery. High fantasy simply isn't my thing, either in literature or in my games. Most of D&D's traditional assumptions hew closer to S&S; indeed, the entire "adventurer" concept has more in common with the flawed protagonists of Leiber, Howard and Vance than...

Also, for the record, I don't get the anime accusation either. It is usually mentioned by people who don't know jack about anime. If anything, 3e art resembles modern American comic books (while, of course, a lot of the old stuff resembled American comic books from the 70s).

Well, speaking only for myself, I love the "D&D as a dream" look, and would like to see more of it - less stuffy "realistic looking oil paintings about kittens playing with balls of yarn dwarves hacking at orcs", and more surrealism, dreamscapes, abstract images and so forth. How about...

Irda Ranger brings up a good point. Random tables are my most reliable practical tools for generating a sense of wonder. Using them keeps me from falling into my usual tracks; it stimulates the imagination in directions I don't usually go. It is precisely their unexplained inconsistencies which...

Most certainly. Augury is only 2nd level, in 3.* your cleric can memorise (ahh... prepare? :heh: ) multiple copies, and it answers most of your "should we go in there?" questions. It is very, very useful. It has to be noted that if you populate most of your world with a set of random tables...

Not that I miss them, since the PCs in my campaign have four or five among them right now, but I can get behind the sentiment! :D

The last WotC product I bought was the Hungarian edition of Defenders of the Faith way back in... well, a lot of time ago. I just realised they were not for me, and moved on to other things.

Edition Wars in 3... 2... 1... ;) That said, I prefer B&W line art, like in the old stuff and the 3.* DMG's dungeon features illustrations.

Well, I certainly agree that Wilderlands of High Fantasy is not a pure sword&sorcery setting because of the numerous D&Disms. However, it is probably the most S&S-friendly d20 settings out there. Myself, I stripped out most of the elves-and-hobbits stuff, and it wasn't too much work. I didn't...

And of course, sometimes you just randomly happen upon a group of spectral undead kings summoning the great god **CTHON**. They haven't noticed you. Yet. As some of my players found out to my detriment, the proper answer to that is "RUN!", not "I stick around to see what happens." :D

Completely outside the question of 3.*'s merits - that's one great point. If you standardise it, measure it and dissect it, it is no longer wondrous. It is a commodity. That's why I don't like overregulated magic items, ecologised dungeons and settings which are too "colour within the lines"...

A very good point. Or, in one sentence: "Things don't happen in a vacuum." :D

Unreality and surrealism versus ecology and detailed societies. Mosaic-like worlds versus systematic building. Gameplay based on a desire to adventure and see wondrous things versus following a set "epic" story. Exotic stuff. Sense of wonder is a common thing in my game - hell, it is probably...

Yes, I use random encounter tablesall the time, both to get inspiration for fixed encounters and randomly in-game. Not always in a "gnolls pop out from behind some trees" way, though... even if the resulting encounter will definitely include those gnolls. I also use random tables for ruins...

Beyond a certain level, though, it is sometimes more economic to say "You have mopped the floor with them. Joe, you take ... roll roll ... 3 points of damage. Now, Tom, ..." And of course, if the PCs can surrender, so can the enemies.

Not only this. More significantly, it damages the players' ability to assess their chances, especially when there are no tell-tale signs (like the place being called "Valley of the Vampire Kobolds"). It is good to spice up things now and then (and in my mind, this is the proper use of...

In sandbox play - as opposed to a cop-out/hybrid where the severity of challenges is scaled to the party - the responsibility for managing threats rests on the shoulders of the players, who have to make choices whether to explore a certain hazardous area, range far from civilisation centres or...