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You know, given the unexpected response My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic has received from older audiences, I have to wonder if WotC isn't giving an updated version of this serious consideration right now.

I strongly suspect 2014, to coincide with the 40th anniversary of D&D. I also think brainstorming and 'blue-sky' design work has already begun, and that Mearls' columns are part of that process, trying to get a sense for what the fans want. Similar things happened in the lead-up to 2E and 3E...

Clerics. They hardwire too many things into the game's assumptions about the world, magic, and religion.

Actually, I just noticed that they corrected that when they transplanted the sidebar into the Rules Compendium--it lists the first campaign settings as Greyhawk, Dragonlance and the Forgotten Realms. Granted, there was a bit of a 'get out the vote' effort on the DL boards, which may have...

Glad to help. The pricing objections are reasonable enough, but I would note that for the core rules, at least, you do get what you pay for--two full-color, hardcover books with a total page count of nearly 800. It may be too much money, but it's hard for anyone to call it a ripoff. :)

$50 is for the genre book--the playing and campaigning advice--not the game rules. I think the only substantial update in the 6E Champions genre book, beyond bringing it from 5E to 6E rules, is the Quick Superhuman Generator, which allows you to build a starting Champions character with a few...

Yes, but as mentioned above, XP for treasure was downplayed to the point that many people never even realized it was an option until exposure to 1E or the rise of the OSR. I imagine that groups that transitioned from 1E to 2E were more likely to keep it, but those of us who started with 2E never...

It's an optional rule, but it is in the 2E DMG, at least the original version. However, since it's a blue-shaded paragraph in the standard text, instead of a distinct sidebar or subsection, it's easy to miss. (The same goes for the 'fighters get extra attacks against opponents of less than 1...

Ah, but WotC was surveying an environment dominated by 2E, which downplayed treasure as a source of XP. Thus, the B/Q figures would be about 15-20 years out of date in regard to most of the data WotC was taking into consideration.

That was a design choice--Dragonlance was always focused around the One Story (and has struggled to escape that problem, with varying results, for over a quarter-century); the Realms were intended as a broad-spectrum setting where you could have a whole bunch of different things going on at...

I don't know if it's a difference between 'fantasy-novel' and 'fantasy-world' play as much as a difference between definitions of a campaign. As I understand it, under the Gygaxian/early D&D model, campaigns often involved multiple and fissiparious groups that all adventured in the same world...

Who wrote it? That's not an idle question. I'm coming to think that what's called the "Old School" movement might be more accurately called the "Gygaxian Tradition" movement--it seems very much concerned with the Game As Gygax Intended and Played It, passed down by word of mouth and the...

I'd need to take another look at the article, but I wonder if what he meant might be something closer to 'effect-based'. I'm enjoying them--but I'm becoming more and more inclined to believe that he's doing brainstorming and soliciting initial opinions for what will, in 4 or 5 years' time...

I should clarify: I was referring to the card-based SAGA Rules System used for the Dragonlance: Fifth Age game and Marvel Super Heroes Adventure Game, from 1996-1999. I'm pretty certain we'll never see any hint of it again, but the one hope lies in the fact that Mike Mearls was a fan. :)

See if you can find a copy of Morgoth's Ring, Vol. X of the History of Middle-Earth series. It includes numerous philosophical and theological speculations of the Professor on elements of Middle-Earth, including the difference between Sauron and Morgoth, the problematic nature of Orcs, and an...

I'll have to pay it a visit--but as a veteran quasi-DL fan, I know that even settings can get divided and hostile. I'm also not certain that attempting to impose a unity on the fanbase by new events helps--it usually winds up privileging some and alienating others. It would--but I think...

3E has the edge in mechanically customizing characters (although it also suffers from the presence of 'trap' options), but 2E, IMO, is more open when it comes to customizing the game itself--the way it unfolds in play.

A supporting witness to this fact showed up in a thread on RPG.net today: I found it an interesting and valuable reminder that, despite the claims of some of the more strident OSR folks, that mode of play is not the only 'old school', or the One True Way To Play D&D As Intended by Gygax...

IMO, unity is more of a pipe dream than anything else. This hobby has never been 'unified' beyond the broadest strokes. Remember all those house rules and variants the game was famous for in the 80s and 90s? I think the only reason 3E looked as 'unified' as it did was due to 2E burning out...

I thought it might be--about a year or so ago, I was doing some random Googling and dug up a post by you from rec.games.frp.misc singing its praises. I wish I'd known it when we met briefly in 2007. :) Any hope of seeing any kind of revival? :)