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An MMO with user created content could be very, very interesting. I think the users would tolerate a lot of flaws if the base content was rapidly expanding. Having played WOW for many years, the problem with WOW was the content. Leveling was fun. Being max level for a while was fun but then it...

Yes, for sure. We haven't played a ton with animal companions in 4E and while they seemed effective enough, they didn't seem the best build. Anyone going for that build seemed motivated more by a desire to add a little color to their PC then to min/max it. So, I'd certainly let a player get...

Setting and certain situations can be readily purloined but entire plots? That's only possible if you railroad your players. Any decent set of players will find other ways than the author's to address the decision points in a story, quickly resulting in a divergent plot. In fact, throw a novel...

Well, that is the distinction in my post. In the real world, I can't get into people's heads as I am not God nor does he talk me. In the game world, I can get into the NPCs heads. The point being, a game system can use an alignment definition that requires access to the "insides of heads" but...

I think that's a fundamental philosophical distinction :) For me, in the gaming world, alignment is about "why". As a ref, I can get inside the NPC's head and I know why they act. Alignment serves as a useful predictor/aid in determining their actions. They are good because they consider the...

It's usually pretty quick for me but it depends on the setting and the character. There was a time when I had trouble getting attached to fighters or clerics for instance; I was determined to play wizards. In general, I do game for a certain fantasy experience. The closer the game is to that...

I like the 4E core design goal that every class has something interesting and useful to do each round. SOme of the core mechanics like defenses, at-wills, encounter and daily powers are great. I think they "over leveled" and "over homogenized" things though. I'd like to see less stat...

I think many people play paladins as LAWFUL/good, meaning they feel compelled to stress adherence to rules and conventions over anything else. L/G is as much good as lawful (and maybe more so if you lawful/GOOD :)). One way to break out of the mold would simply be to stress your goodness over...

For self-created puzzles, I might go with working off a series of some sort (color, numerical, etc.) Scattered codes and keys can work well. I think it's important to integrate it into the particular situation then to just have an arbitrary puzzle (that is both annoying and smacks of the old...

Very likely true; we're all human :) Gradual is good. Even abrupt is fine. If you have a new vision you want to try, go with it, just be considerate of the players as they adapt to the new style. Not really fair to malign them for playing by the "old rules" during the transition. The only...

I agree. I think a little give and take with the players is the only way to go. For one thing, they may find an important aspect of the rule you over looked. But more fundamentally, we the gaming group rarely have a way to "prove" the validity of a rule. We don't do mythbuster type stuff and...

Meh. The referee better have done a very, very good job of presenting the full context before we the players made our ill-fated choices before I'd take that kind of response from the ref with good grace (assuming it was made seriously and not just as a jest). Sure, the referee has a good idea...

I don't think the landscape versus portrait would in and of itself make much difference to me. I guess I'm not as opposed to softcover although you are right it can be a pain. Another way to look at it: I would be less inclined to pay hardback prices for a book from an unproven source. The...

Well, there aren't any unnatural pesticides and fertilizers in my setting so all the creatures the party kills are organic. And they just let the corpses rot in place so that seems kind of organic too :p More seriously, it's been a very long time since I wrote a script. I like to capture...

All of my campaigns have a clear "done" point. It might be something planned from the beginning or it might have been a more open campaign where the players found their own goals but at some point they accomplished something big enough and important enough that it felt like a good place to stop...

My co-ref loves the idea of turning someone to evil. Kudos for succeeding; he hasn't managed to do it yet :) My favorite setting was an elaborate one where the surface of the world had been set into the heavens as shards and the PCs were a mix of half-angels, half-demons, saints and the like...

I guess it depends what you mean by monster but if we've had good luck with some of the more exotic half-devils, dragons and such. In 3.5E it meant that we had to start the campaign at higher levels so that we could accomodate the ECLs. We've only done it in campaigns designed for it though...

1. How long have you been playing RPGs? 33 years 2. What systems, editions, and different campaigns did you play in? I've played D&D since the original books moving to the next version of D&D as it came out. Early on I dabbled in Traveller as well. (And maybe once again now that my son seems...

I think the narrow-wide-narrow approach is a fine way to model the course of the campaign. But beyond that, I guess it depends what you mean by epic. If by epic you mean, a campaign that lasts a long time, that's probably all you need to do. You can work out the middle bit after you are ready...

Cheers, you swashingbuckling feline!