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Let's see...D&D innovated the OGL (I won't count 3E as innovative by itself, although it had it's innovations, especially by virtue of being D&D). Pre-painted plastic miniatures started with Mage Knight, as I recall. There may have been some before that, but it was certainly the first popular...

They were a set of abilities you purchased together (typically with a small discount) to represent certain bits. For example, in Fantasy Hero you would buy the "elf race" package which gave you the racial abilities (which included raised and lowered statistic "maximums") and you could also buy...

Hero System had kits, which were there pretty at the beginning of stretching into the non-superhero genre.

Innovation is so tricky, because it depends on the time. Back in the 70s almost anything that was an RPG that broke with D&D was an innovation. I do have some highlights below. I may list some innovations as coming from certain games. That is solely in my experience, as I do not have...

I think I understand where you are coming from. I have an attraction to the idea of playing an "old school" game. However, when I think about the various games I used to play in the 70s and very early 80s, I don't really want to play one of them for any length of time. I just want a game that...

I see your point, and disagree with the premise. I do believe that tabletop RPGs are not going to innovate by becoming "another electronic entertainment form." At least, not if it's like what we have today. However, I also don't believe that tabletop RPGs will reach the next level by ignoring...

I agree with Ari. I don't want to study a setting bible to be able to function in the world. A few such words are fine, as long as they can be conveyed to the players within the game. Of course, there are other opinions. I have found that most players are within a step or two of my view...

I know it's a hard thing to do, but if Character Builder is the problem, why not just throw away Character Builder? Once you have a house rule that can't be worked around when using the Character Builder, then just disallow it's use. I suspect one of two things would happen. Either your group...

I am not necessarily suggesting changing the game to limit the effect. It's not good or bad overall. However, it's something that really has to be considered when looking at the system, especially with how it affects the world. If you don't like the level system of advancement, you probably...

True, but there are two issues here. First, as you mentioned the game has, over time, gone very far towards having campaign limits. That caps the amount of damage you do. Today you really don't see the superheroic game with characters whose max damage is 8d6 (normal) in the same group as...

I have been reading a lot of discussion lately about certain problems people have in their D&D, things they want to change to make it fit their preferences with style, and even some discussions about what D&D is "about." Thinking about my experience in other RPGs (which is pretty extensive...

In my experience, in the attempts at so-called sandbox games you usually end up with a lot of inconsistency. The GM often will forget some detail he made up on the fly (especially if it was months ago in real time) and at times directly contradict it. Usually it's just a minor bump that hurts...

I heard from at least two different sources that they thought the beginning of the movie was too much like an episode of House. Given that the main inspiration for House was Holmes, I suppose that the comparison would be made. Personally, I liked the characterizations. I did dislike the...

Remember that these quotes were about OD&D. The first TSR modules were all AD&D, which used different advancement rules (xp for gp gained being a major turning point). Using modules to gain assumptions is pretty tricky. The only OD&D modules were third party (principally Judges Guild)...

I have said since at least the early Code Monkey days of eTools that the only way to have a stable character generator would be to limit the ways it can be customized. Look at all the work that eTools and PCGen needed to update to handle many of the popular additions to 3.X. Look at how badly...

How ironic that what many are calling a drawback to 4E is the fact that it is the first D&D edition to have a functional computer character generator for most of its lifespan. 2E had the last interation of the Core Rules generator (I don't remember how good it was for customized classes, etc)...

I worked for a company that laid me off the day before Thanksgiving (note this was a seasonal layoff and I was back to work in January). The holidays happen to come at a time where layoffs are common in a lot of industries. Just for the record, this is an urban legend and is false.

The savings is in the brevity of statblocks. Books that were heavy with statblocks could fit in a lot more data. Weren't their books that were mostly collections of characters?

4E works exceptionally well for Eberron. I say 4E vs. 3.5 is mostly a matter of which you prefer. As for fluff, nothing really has changed except for a handful of additions. All the non-mechanical bits in old Eberron books works fine in 4E. Given that, the general consensus is that given a...

My understanding is that was because science fiction paid a lot more than "fantasy" (and also would probably have an easier time being published at all). Authors who wanted to write fantasy would dress it up as science fiction, in order to get a better check.