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Hardly official, but from my house rules document: Unsatisfactory? Perhaps. But is it less satisfactory than the explanation for the origin of the owlbear?

I don't know... Ticket to Ride is one of the very few games I can get my whole family to play. I introduced it to my parents, and they introduced it to their bridge playing friends. And everyone loved it. It really only take 10 minutes to learn at tops and only lasts 45 minutes to an hour...

Your recollection is correct. From B11

Alignment language was in the original edition of D&D. AD&D came a few years later, and is where things (with regard to alignment language, at least) got all screwed up.

I think you're trying to be funny. But it was originally an actual language with words and vocabulary. The idea that you could only communicate concepts related to the alignment came later.

Alignment language originally existed mechanically as a means for the Int 9 evil high priest to talk to his orcish minions or for the good guy elves to talk to the good guy gnomes. It was a good way to make sure the pcs could communicate with the Lawful and Neutral creatures on the low-level...

You're not thinking like the medieval wargamer that it was written by and for whom it was written. At some point (when the pcs have ticked off the bugbears in the Temple so much that they mount a punitive raid against Hommlet, for example), the pcs may want to know who's available to be levied...

The question, though, is why should the DM care if the pcs leave the path? That's why the 1e DMG had procedures for getting lost and wandering monsters.

Gamma World debuted in 1978 and Thundarr in 1980. So, I suppose it's possible. However, the post-apocalyptic world was a pretty major part of the cultural zeitgeist back in that era of late Cold War fatigue. (Road Warrior and Mad Max, for example.) So, I think it's more likely that they both...

Nice way to take my statement out of context. If you read the entirety of what I wrote, you will clearly see that I was referring, not to whether system effects what games people play, but rather how the system effects how the game will be played. Or maybe your D&D, CoC, and V:tM games all...

For what it's worth, in a thread at K&K I broke down the "ages" of pre-WotC D&D this way: 1973-1977: Ramp-Up, moving from xeroxed copies of play test rules to the "we're in the big leagues, now" products of the Monster Manual and Basic set. 1978-1982: The Golden Age Plateau, solidifying what...

Another vote for B2.

Heh. And my biggest problem with C&C is the "sliding difficulty scale" on saves and other actions.

To the extent that there has ever been "required reading" for D&D, Lovecraft has been it from the start... Lovecraft's basic oeuvre, Howard's Conan stories, The Hobbit, the first two Dying Earth books, the Harold Shea stories, Lankhmar, Elric, ERB's John Carter books, and Poul Anderson's...

There are few different issues here: 1. System does matter more than I think a lot of people will admit. The mechanics of a game will have a ton of input into how the players want to play the game. A simple example: Game A takes 5 minutes to create a character; Game B takes 45 minutes to...

I think my experience is fairly typical of D&D'ers my age, who began playing D&D in the early 80's... We didn't play AD&D by the book at all. We played Basic D&D pretty close to by the book. Then we got the AD&D Players Handbook and Monster Manual and grafted those onto our Basic D&D game...

The key sentence that needs to be uttered at the end of every session for me is, "What do you guys want to do next time?" "We want to go back to the Caves and finish wiping out the goblins." "We want to explore the Marshes and see if we can't track down the missing elf and his magic wand." "We...

I used to pour over that book, obsessively. One of the finest books of Mythology ever written for younger readers. It's not watered down, but still written in crisp, clear language... perfect for kids. It was a major influence on my gaming as a kid. I think if I'm being honest with myself...

"Why don't you do it?" doesn't have to be an F-U to the DM. It's actually a pretty good information gathering question. I had a local bailiff posting a bounty on a group of bandits. My players asked, "Why don't you take all your guards and go get them yourselves?" The bailiff had to admit...

This "horrible" game, the one that's sold over 750 million copies... It's actually quite fun, especially with large crowds. I play it with my six-year-old daughter. She loves it. Nice news story. I think I'll have to track down Anti-Monopoly at some point.