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I'm not even sure the market analysis was bad, per se, but I do think that WotC did not anticipate the emotional valance the OGL had (or has). I think they assumed (perhaps even rightly), that for the vast majority of their customers, the OGL was a non-factor, that the minority who made vanity...

The quoted statement is not my own view, but I view I can see reasonable people holding. It’s also a view we have to deal with if we want to convince people outside the D&D/RPG playing sphere.

I enjoyed their analysis, even when they got some things wrong, or I disagreed with their take. It was good to get an idea of how the situation might look to someone from the outside, without skin in the game. It was also brought home just what an out-of-context problem this is. It occurred to...

It's not an actual play show, they just got some rather well-known voice actors to do the character voices for the promo. They're introducing these original characters as sample characters in the Starter Set. The character designs are by Hisashi Momose, a well-known illustrator. The characters...

100%. The original Dragonlance trilogy was translated by Hitoshi Yasuda, president of GroupSNE, and executive producer on every edition of Sword World.

Here's a summary of the contents of Rulebook II: New races: Grassrunners are a legacy race from the first edition of Sword World. They are meant as halfling-analogues. However, they are extremely curious, are perpetually wandering, and have a bad habit of taking and walking off with things that...

True, but I was looking for possible antecedents to the JRPG dullahan, which first appeared, as near as I can tell, in 1990.

So how is the Monster Data presented? First, the monsters are organized by the categories mentioned before: Barbaros, Fauna, Flora, Undead, Magical Creatures, Magitec, Mythic Beasts, Demons and Humans, and within those categories listed in order of Level, then alphabetically (technically...

Only since 2.0, which came out in 2008.

Next we have the Monsters section. As a linguistic side note, "monster" translates the Japanese term 魔物 mamono. First, it notes that each monster belongs to one of the below eight categories: Barbaros - The races of Ignis, the Second Sword. Have been given increased power through Impurity...

See, I find the aesthetic of Seven Samurai and Yojimbo to be completely different. If I were to put in Northrop Frye's terms, Seven Samurai is low-mimetic (heroes are not superior in degree or environment) with flashes towards high-mimesis, while Yojimbo is high-mimetic (heroes are superior in...

Agreed on both points, but I would say that LMoP, as much as I love it (I've run it about four times!) does not teach the DM the core competencies that I'm talking about here. It gets the DM and players familiar with the rules and common procedures of the game. It provides plenty of content for...

It’s not even WotC. If WotC came out with a version of Mentzer Basic for the new iteration, they’d get pilloried on these and many other forums. “People are watching Critical Role/Stranger Things/Honor Among Thieves and wanting to get into D&D, and your introductory product has gone all-in on...

The interesting thing about this is, the 80s Basic Sets have pretty good reputations as introductions to the game. I, for one, think they are excellent (that's right, I used italics for emphasis!). But what makes them so good is just how extraordinarily constrained they are. They don't examine...

It seems to me that the Sample Scenario included in the ruluboo has two primary purposes: 1) outline how a scenario should be constructed, and b) provide an opportunity for the players to get used to how the various systems in the game work. To that end, it is extremely linear. The book also...

The book then covers advice on four subjects: playing NPCs, judging Action Checks, playing Monsters, and Ending the Session. Playing NPCs: The game explains that while technically "NPC" includes all characters controlled by the GM, in practice it doesn't include most monsters, which can be...

Thank you for saying all that I wanted to say, but have not said.

The sample scenario in Rulebook I is exceedingly linear. So much so that much of what I say here wouldn't apply, and if I hadn't seen some other materials, I would have assumed that SW2.5 truly recommends extremely narrow and linear scenarios. But reading the first official replay, and seeing...

Exactly, with the caveat that the general mode of play is really an extension of dungeon play. As I'll explain in my next post, even when doing an urban or wilderness adventure, scenarios are for the most part location-based, with encounters keyed to a map. Thus, during the session player choice...

I've mentioned this before, but historically, playing an ongoing campaign over weekly sessions has not been the usual mode of play for Japanese TRPG players, outside of university clubs. Small apartments with thin walls are not conducive to having 4, 5 or more players over. Even if someone...