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They did release a starter kit that included some stuff from The Force Awakens, as well as a few sourcebooks covering different time periods. Dawn of Rebellion has some Rogue One material (as well as Rebels). A couple of books covered the prequel era as well. They never got deep in the sequel...

This is pretty well-attested to in the historical record. I recommend Bret Deveraux's excellent series of articles about it, found here. That link goes to the first in a seven part series, so it's not a short read, but it is informative. The first few parts focus on Spartan society and its...

I've started to dip my toes in the world of paid GMing, and I'm starting off with a bang: the Dracula Dossier for Night's Black Agents. Here's the link. The pitch: In 1893, a visionary spymaster in the British Naval Intelligence Department launched a plan to recruit the perfect asset: a...

Timewatch does time travel quite well, IMO, and Continuum does it very thoroughly. There's also Time & Temp, in the more indie-affiliated space, and of course there's a GURPS supplement or three on time travel as well.

Personally, when I'm just looking for information so I can provide color/better set the scene, I say so explicitly. When I've asked similar questions of players, I try to phrase it like "What time do you set out? This is just so I know how to describe things." My players also ask me from time to...

That's fair, especially if you're thinking of the colonized east coast of the USA, where you have people importing an agrarian, bordering-on-industrial lifestyle after/during the removal of the indigenous people.

Just as a matter of historical fact, I don't think this is true outside of non-agricultural societies. As soon as you get agriculture, you get cities and specialization. q.v. Bret Devereaux on pre-modern cities and specialization, here, here, and here. You definitely have a division of labor...

If it neither explains nor exonerates, then in what way does it matter?

I think one issue here is that trying to explain things in this way looks basically indistinguishable from attempting to offer a justification or exculpation of Gygax. The very same argument gets deployed in both cases, and it is difficult-to-impossible to tell them apart, unless the person...

An issue not related to the topic. It's exactly what it says on the tin. But that isn't the question. The book is called The Making of Original Dungeons & Dragons 1970-1977. Wizards of the Coast did not even exist until 1990, 13 years after the time period covered in the book. It did not...

In what way does bringing up unrelated issues serve to test the fairness of the original criticism? Consider the context. Peterson and Tondro put together a book, ably described by @MNblockhead here. The book is primarily a collection of reproductions of original documents from 1970 through...

I was initially replying to a different poster who seemed to be suggesting that Riggs had crossed some sort of line between "historical" works and "political" works. I made the claim that this line does not exist and that the work of historians is intrinsically political. Then you came in...

Who said anything about fairness and bias? I was talking about whether or not a distinction can be made between quote-unquote "historical" works and "political" ones. If you're using "political" to mean unfair or biased, then you should say so explicitly. If you think Riggs is being unfair to...

The notion that there's some sort of dividing line between "historical works" and "political works" is deeply mistaken. All historical works are political works. The work of historians is intrinsically bound up with politics. What gets discussed, what gets left by the wayside, the manner in...

I take some issue with this. Return to one of the more odious quotes from Gygax: I've bolded the beginning for emphasis, as it shows that Gygax was in fact being called a sexist in his day. This was in 1975, only ten or so years from the first uses of "sexism" in its modern form. Given the...

Actually, I quite enjoy having the BBEG attack the PCs early on, as long as you can make it happen in a way where PC death isn't the inevitable result. In Fellowship this is even one of the suggested campaign openers, but I've done it in D&D too. In my last 5e campaign set in Eberron, the BBEG...

I think the way Fellowship plays it makes sense. In Fellowship this is sort of hard-coded into the rules. One player takes on the role of the Overlord and is the BBEG for the campaign, but all Overlords have three foibles. The Overlord is arrogant. Every setback is minor and can be dealt with...

What @MarkB is describing is basically the 4e Elemental Chaos, which I prefer over the way the elemental planes are portrayed in Great Wheel cosmology. I like it because it is somewhat more hospitable to PCs than the standard planes are; dangerous elements are discrete hazards to be overcome...

Forbidden Lands has pretty rough encumbrance rules, as I recall; maxing out your supply of arrows might mean being undersupplied on food and water, and settlements are very rare. Also, rereading the rules, you actually are supposed to roll it every time you shoot an arrow. I didn't actually play...

In Forbidden Lands, it was capped at d12, and when you were in a settlement you could spend cash to increase the die size up to that point. Forbidden Lands actually uses this for pretty much all supplies - torches, food, and water are all tracked this way, though the conditions that trigger a...