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I know little of Rand and dislike what I do, but I've wondered for several years now if her philosophy--the independence, emphasis on profit, and contempt for the weak--is well suited to old-school D&D PCs. ;)

I own multiple copies of several key Ravenloft products, but all the secondary copies (and several of the prime copies :) ) were purchased secondhand and cheap. They include: Ravenloft: Realm of Terror boxed set (picked up an incomplete 1st printing for a few dollars to combine with my second...

Ravenloft 3rd Edition made the connections and parallels between Otranto, the Gothic genre, and D&D explicit in its introduction. :)

I prefer the idea of removing stat modifiers from attack rolls altogether, myself, but that's definitely a 5E-level change.

Well, some of this is that D&D is the 800-lb. gorilla, so even a small portion of its fanbase getting irritated looks big in this hobby. But I think it should be noted that it's only been two changes that have been dramatic--the two full edition changes shepherded by WotC. 1E->2E caused some...

There is a difference, though. The ring of humanoid influence appears to make the diplomats better at what they do, rather than providing a way to bypass Diplomacy or Bluff entirely.

Unfortunately, it sounds like the mess left behind by Guardians of Order's collapse has left the rights to the material in such a mess than no one is ever likely to be able to professionally revive it. There's a fan community out there, although I don't have the links offhand, and DriveThruRPG...

Introduced in Unearthed Arcana, which is arguably the '1.5E' supplement.

Feels to me like a hybrid of D&D/C&C/the old SAGA System (training levels in ability scores, for example). I'd really like to see where this goes, but I think it's better as a variant of D&D rather than a uniform way. Then again, I think D&D is too big for 'one uniform' game at this point. :)

Aaron Allston was working on designing an official one in the late 80s or early 90s, but the project fell through. (I'm don't recall why, and the old version of Allston's web page appears to have vanished into the Stygian Abyss. Apparently a 'Savage Empire' game he designed did get a limited...

I'm beginning to wonder what 'minimal' support means. Sometimes it seems to mean "30 different builds, each with three unique power choices or feat choices at each decision point, all of them designed with bleeding-edge hyper-optimization in mind." ;)

Almost everything. There were a few odds and ends that never went up--I remember waiting for GAZ10 The Orcs of Thar and Wrath of the Immortals to show up, for example. Now, IIRC, reports from the DDI seminar said that they were working on print-on-demand for maps and "other things", so...

My kneejerk, semi-serious answer? D&D nowadays (whether it be OSR, 3E/Pathfinder, or 4E) is about the Triumph of Brute Force and Cynicism. :)

In a passing reference in the new Star Wars novel Choices of One we find out that Palpatine expected the Ewoks to cause as many problems for the Rebels as they might for his stormtroopers. It makes sense--it was only because of Threepio that the Rebels didn't wind up like the Imperials. And...

Curiously, Dave Gross identified this as one of his favorite articles in the interview done for last month's Dragon. I have a lot of fondness for his work and his handling of the magazine (for obvious reasons :) ), but while this article was a fun read and full of inspiration on places to look...

No comment on the rest, but doesn't anyone else remember that the "traditional Christmas layoffs" are a WotC 'tradition' (more like an occasional habit) that not only predates Hasbro's acquisition of WotC, but WotC's acquisition of TSR?

I know effects-based design. Effects-based design was one of the first things I discovered when stretching beyond D&D, and many of the systems I own material for and would like to try (HERO, M&M, Tri-Stat, Savage Worlds) are effects-based systems. 4E is an effects-based system--but it's a...

Actually, it appears that BECMI appealed more to older gamers in some respects. "The players who wanted simplified rules with less structure (like those in D&D Basic) were not the beginners who hadn't yet mastered the intricacies of RPGs but rather the veteran players who had the experience and...

What's the system for campaigns meant to feel like a Final Fantasy game from the SNES, or Dragon Quest (which has remained fairly constant in feel across five systems)? :)

What if you got rid of the one thing that I think has really distorted the character creation process in 4E--the ability score modifiers to attack rolls? Score synergy becomes more an extra than an essential if it's only modifying damage rolls and rider effects. On 5E in general, I like Jack...