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Some prior editions, maybe. I'd advise you to steer clear of B/X or 2E D&D if you like comprehensive rules mechanics.

Do you feel the same about fiction itself? Is the narrative drive of action-outcome the only thing that matters? For me, one of the main pleasures of both reading fiction and playing RPGs is to transport myself to other worlds. To conjure images and sensations in my imagination. I try to do the...

One straightforward way to make magic more magical is in spell naming. For the most part, D&D's spell names have always been generic. Light Sleep Magic Missile Haste Water Breathing Hold Person Cure Light Wounds Lightning Bolt Blindness Those utilitarian naming conventions foster a...

Theorycrafting about builds is a big part of the hobby, especially online. I'm not calling it out as badwrongfun. I'm just making an observation that issues regarded as a big deal in the online theorycrafting world usually aren't a problem at the table for most groups.

I doubt anyone here was making demands about Manganiello's group. However, given how social media works today, especially around anything to do with morally-charged issues of representation, it's disingenuous not to recognize that the spark of 'disappointment' could easily flare into an online...

Pretty much sums it up. If you enjoy running white-room data comparisons, sure, some classes will be worse than others. But in my experience, most players don't analyze and optimize to that fine gradient. Unless a class is way worse than others, it's not an issue at the tables I've played at...

I think it was successful because it blended action, humour, music, and special effects in a very appealing way. As others have noted, the GotG movies don't have much to do with the Marvel Universe, and could easily have been standalone films. That formula isn't necessarily easy to copy. But...

We already have a template for what a D&D movie should look like: Guardians of the Galaxy. Characters are a group of diverse freaks unknown to the movie-going public. With no audience familiarity the filmmakers will need to present vivid and broadly-drawn characters. Action is centered around...

Looks like most people are looking for more mechanical and PC options. What I want is setting material that's usable at the table. So in addition to the big-picture setting background, some boots-on-the-ground content. Like: Caravans, including NPCs, guards, goods, routes, etc. Rosters of arena...

4E did one particular style of play very well. But if it wasn't clear before, the reception to D&D among long-time players demonstrated that there are many ways D&D is played out in the wild, and 4E was a bad fit for some of those styles. WotC has more or less acknowledged 5E is a correction to...

I ignored 4E when it was released because I was returning to my roots at the time and playing an old-school style game. However, about six months after Essentials came out I leafed through the books at my FLGS and I was fascinated. Something about the layout, the way the stats were presented...

RPGnet is the most political RPG forum I’ve ever seen. By far. I have my doubts over how many of the most prolific posters and mods even actively play RPGs.

B1 In Search of the Unknown - Yes, I think this is a better starter dungeon than Keep on the Borderlands. Where B2 is basically a bunch of monster barracks carved into a ravine, B1 is a classic dungeon. That is, an elaborate and weird labyrinth that reward exploration. There are all sorts of...

So you weren't talking at all about third-party publishers? I guess my question then is how do you know DIY (which I interpret to mean homebrew) D&D content is used less today than it was in the past?

There are three sources of D&D content: A) Official WotC B) Third-party C) Homebrew You can use both A and C without being interested in B.

Yes. Outsourcing to professionals produces a professional-quality book. But several long-standing 3rd-party D&D publishers do not do that, unless by outsourcing to a professional they mean paying a gaming buddy who has Microsoft Publisher to do it.

Not really upset. I would buy more WotC books if they published more of them, that's all. It just seems odd that even though D&D is more popular than ever, the license-holders publish far less content to support it than they did 10 or 12 years ago. I get the move away from splat books, but as a...

I think we should remember that those of us who buy lots of stuff on DriveThru and the DMs Guild, or use kickstarter, are a hardcore minority in the RPG market. Hard copy books sold on the shelves of brick and mortar stores are the big part of the market. WotC and Paizo, who can fill whole...

IMHO, WotC and Paizo (and until recently FFG), along with a handful of smaller publishers like Cubicle 7 and Chaosium, are the only professional outfits publishing RPG books. Basically, employing professional full-time staff to edit, design, and lay out your books is the hallmark of a...

The assertion I was responding to was that WotC was heavily skewing the presentation of the books to children and families. I just don't see that. Compare the artwork of today's D&D books the artwork in 1983, and it's seems pretty clear to me that they're aiming for an older audience today. The...