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It would have been unthinkable to even write it. Which shouldn't be blamed on the people who published the first D&D novels. Who knows how they would have reacted to such a manuscript?

I'm being specific in what I mean by imagination. I mean literally making pictures in your mind.

Actually, lego is a prime example of the decline of imagination. The overwhelming proportion of lego kits today are basically modelling kits. The picture of what you're supposed to build - almost always an object from lego's licensing partners like Star Wars or Harry Potter - is right on the...

I run a gritty fantasy D&D where death is on the table. Even routine combats can end in PC deaths if the PCs are weakened, or just have really bad luck. I enjoy the tension you get in games when there are stakes on the table - I find it focuses the minds of the players and inspires them to think...

I doubt you'll find a police force in the world that hasn't been involved in the questionable killing of a suspect. Humans being fallible and all. We shouldn't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. When it comes to violence, corruption, and training, I'd prefer Canadian police to 95 per cent...

Reasons I've experienced, and seen others cite: Group breaks up. Players move away. Players no longer have time due to family, jobs, etc. DM burns out. Players want to move on to another game or campaign. They find combat gets too bogged down. They get bored of their PCs or the campaign...

The D&D Beyond data isn’t the only source that few campaigns go beyond level 10. WotC conducted a major market survey and analysis for D&D Next. And while I don’t recall seeing any hard numbers posted, Mike Mearls commented in various forums that the average age of players was younger than...

According to data collected on D&D Beyond, only 10 per cent of campaigns make it past level 10. In my 40 years of experience DMing and playing, only three campaigns have gone beyond level 10, and none past level 12. Lots of reasons why. More than half of that time was spend playing AD&D, which...

For reasons that aren’t entirely clear, WotC and Paizo at some point decided that the max level should be far, far higher than most groups ever reach. Content for play beyond 12th level is largely theoretical. IMHO, definitions of low/med/high should be based on practical actual play.

It is odd. In my part of the world, having a drink or two while socializing is perfectly normal. With my group, you could make an argument that it’s a craft beer club that plays RPGs at our meetings.

I agree with the general sentiment here that in a densely populated region, settlements should be around 5 miles apart, with double that for a frontier region. With those guidelines, a 30 by 30 mile starter region on the frontier would have a city, two or three towns, and a half dozen or more...

9th. Fifth level spells are game-changers. And since few campaigns make it to 10th level, I'd guess only a fraction of D&D sessions involve PCs level 9 or higher. Low: 1-4 Med: 5-8 High: 9+

WotC has said their surveys show the great majority of campaign wrap up before level 10. Of course, that doesn't stop them from making almost all of their published campaigns for levels 1-14 or so. RPGs are a weird hobby that way. So much of what is published and what people talk online about...

The people making that claim are big into character optimization. They’re much more common online than out in the wild.

The AD&D Thief was not good at combat. He had bad armour, bad to hit tables, bad weapons, and his backstab wasn’t great and it was hard to pull off. His main role was scouting, sneaking, and trap disarming - basically stuff in the exploration mode. And yet we never had any shortage of Thieves...

The move away from fiction about exploring exotic realms is strange to me. Even Star Trek - whose entire premise was about exploring 'strange new worlds' - has abandoned exploration. For reasons I don't quite understand, it doesn't appeal to younger audiences.

But in YA dystopias like the Hunger Games, the protagonists are striving to overthrow the oppressive regimes and restore freedom. In S&S stories, pretty much all civilizations are decadent by their very nature. The protagonists don't overthrow oppressive regimes, except incidentally in pursuit...

The Gate of Ivrel by CJ Cherryh qualifies as sword and sorcery in my eyes (though it's technically science fiction). It's definitely not 'white dude saves damsel in distress.' Two classics of the genre (and personal favourites of mine) are The Broken Sword by Poul Anderson, and The Swords...

Yes, S&S was a product of its time, but there's nothing about the genre itself that leaned on retrograde attitudes. You would find those same stereotypes in all popular fiction from the 40s through the 60s. The decline in prominence of S&S over the last 40 years isn't due to more enlightened...

Authors like Mervyn Peake and Gene Wolfe have never stopped being regarded as influential and great. And few of the works on the list published in the last decade have had enough impact to be regarded as great, and they certainly haven't had time to be regarded as influential. Brandon...