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In 2e, monsters had unified mechanics. All monsters of a given HD had the same attack matrix/Thac0, and saving throws follow a regularized theme. They had few special abilities, and these would be spelled out in small paragraph formats. 2e introduced the one monster, one page format, as well...

3.5 definitely advanced that aesthetic, but it wasn't even true in 3.5, not entirely. Monster types are not classes, for instance, and don't grant per level abilities for advancing. But that was definitely not true in 3.0. Most monsters had an entirely different method for generating skill...

It's the process of reification. That is, treating some representation of a thing as the thing itself. A simple stat block simply describes the creature in its basic terms and gives it measurements. But once you start assigning special moves, it becomes increasingly less a creature you are...

It would also be a strange choice for something called an "angel," considering angel means messenger or emissary.

In the D&D I cut my teeth on, fairies and pixies were considered humanoid and susceptible to charm person.

At some point, D&D gave us the hamadryad, a dryad who isn't bound to a particular tree to survive. That's reverse, and I am far more keen to see that reversed than I am concerned about what genders a dryad might have. I don't particularly like the idea of male hags, because I don't have a...

I'm not setting out how "big of a deal" it is. As I said, gnolls don't really closely map to a specific example or trope or representation of a real human group. However, they do overlap considerably with "savage" tropes, and they are factually situated in Africa. There is simply no way of...

It is weird that hyenas are distinctly African, and gnolls are saddled with tropes about savage people, the worship of Chaotic entities, and other Lovecraftian stuff about non-Europeans. It's not 1:1 but the tropes are there.

Things I don't like about 5e: It's complicated. Blood dice? The clan flaws can be severe and I'm not sure how some of these guys have survived a decade, much less a millennium. Even though some really patient people have tried to explain it to me, I don't understand the Ministry, and how they...

I would rather leave hags "broken" the way they have been, and try to fix the setting in other ways, than to just say there are male hags and call it a day. I also don't think it really fixes anything.

I personally think the handling of DR, weapon sizes, and monster building all went backwards for 3.5. DR became complicated and made characters carry around more weapons. Bilbo takes a -2 to attack with Sting. Dinosaurs with 12 HD now suddenly have a bunch of feats and need to spend some skill...

Early on, when it was specified at all, orcs were brown or green, and almost certainly looked very similar to the orcs drawn by the Brothers Hildebrandt for LOTR book covers. In my youth, I was informed that goblins were yellow or ochre. A lot of things were ochre back then. Kobolds were...

My pronunciation is a lot closer to "draw," but in an American way, without a phantom R, but also not a Texan way with a flat vowel. Or I could say it rhymes with Nassau, the city, not the place in New York. I could say the vowel sound is the same as in bout, but then I would have to tell you...

"Intelligence" in the sense of a D&D stat that relates to skills, knowledge, and mental clarity doesn't really correspond with the idea of intelligence as a general, everyday construct. A lot of intelligence, in the real world sense, would include WIS as well as INT. While there could be a high...

The word I would use to describe my distaste of many of the changes is "overprocessed." Thematic things are too consistent. Mechanics based on play are focused on play-itself rather than the core pillars of combat, exploration, and intrigue. There's too much, "oh this is for XYZ players" and not...

It's not really the Ship of Theseus. If anything it's the Sorites Paradox. But my point was that "edition" has a commonly accepted meaning in the book trade, and a related meaning in the board game trade. The RPG industry largely ignores both definitions and tries to make it mean something like...

You can't play your current character in the old version.

Every one of those patches is a different "version," it will tell what version number right on the screen.

That's an interesting linguistic shift. In fact, we were not talking about new games, but new editions of the same game. The video games I play will tell you what edition they are to the third decimal point.

Only in RPGs could you change the rules and then claim it's not a new edition.