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A cheap hobby isn't necessarily a dead hobby. There was a business model in which a few rulebooks were sold to players and many modules and settings were sold on an ongoing basis to DMs. This can keep generating new material at a fairly low level of revenue for an indefinite future, and...

I think you're right, but what fraction of actual campaign time, among all the 3.5 campaigns that have been played, includes Scry-Buff-Teleport as a routine tactic? I'd guess less than 10%. It has been used in ONE 3.5 gaming session that I've been involved in (out of 70 sessions that I played...

Two reasons: 1) my friends had just opened a gaming store, and 2) I was looking for some ideas for the campaign I was running (not the one I was playing in). I bought CW and CAdv because I was worried the PC fighter-types would fall behind without those (with them, they were utterly...

Not exactly. What's best for the hobby is how often people play it and how much fun they have. What's best for WotC is how much money they spend. They are not necessarily the same thing. Playing D&D as a kid, we had two rulebooks for 6 players. We had no minis, and just the modules that...

I worry that the more the fanbase fractures, it will be increasingly hard to find gamers for the games I want to play. I could do B/X-BECMI or core-only 3.5. Those are my favorites and I could imagine happily playing in and running campaigns under those rules for the rest of my life. I don't...

True, but I imagine that if I had gotten to play 5 or 6 campaigns, bringing a different PC from 1 to 10+ in each one, I'd feel that I had gotten much more mileage out of my 3.5 material. Not enough to see everything, but enough to decide whether or not it was the system for me. I played in one...

Core 3E had a feat with a setting-specific name that had to be changed in other settings. Improved Bull Rush, which became Improved Bantha Rush in Star Wars. Probably would have also needed a new name for the Dark Sun setting.

Well, I was responding to the idea that games must continually "improve" or die. That isn't true for board games; there are several long-lasting ones that are popular because their rules are standardized and stable. The non-commercial games (chess, checkers, backgammon) most clearly so, but the...

Hey, you can go on to 4E if you like, whether or not you've gotten to use all of your 3.5 material. I'm just not going along. If I may ask, how many characters did you get to play in 3.5, and for how many levels? Do you feel that you had enough time to really explore the system?

I was a sheep who loved the shiny. I bought 2E splatbooks because I was 15 and liked getting new stuff for my game. I bought some 3.5 ones for the game I was running, looking for some new ideas for NPCs and for a way to give the PC fighter-types a bit of a boost. It was after running a 3.5...

I'm not saying that the rules of Monopoly became standardized because it was "perfect." Nor am I saying that it gained widespread popularity because it was "perfect." I am saying that the game became standardized because it gained widespread popularity. Once it got big, it became...

8 Int isn't that dumb.

I look at as a game that standardized its rules AS SOON AS it went into mass production, and has since become an extremely popular board game. You see "rules changes every 7 years"; I see "NO official rules changes since it went big 70 years ago." I think that consistency has been a huge...

Rules changes in the nascent stages of a game are normal (also see baseball); but once a game is established, they normally slow down to an imperceptible pace. Monopoly has been ONE set of official rules with two minor house rules for the entire time that I've been playing it. D&D seems to be...

It's not about the money. It's about never having had the chance to use so much of what there was. I was excited about the chance to play an Aristocrat1/WizardX, solving problems with his Knowledge skills or social skills as much as with his spells. I was excited about the chance to play an...

A 1st-level wizard with an inexhaustible magical attack is both a mechanical change and a flavor change. It fundamentally changes my conception of what a 1st-level wizard is.

But people also get frustrated with the constant revision, of losing things that they used to think were cool. I'm guilty; I fell for the shiny and bought 2E splatbooks and the early 3.5 splatbooks. Never again. I'm ticked off at myself for falling for the lure. I AM one of those people who...

Different pieces and different boards are in fact the ONLY way that anybody makes money off of Monopoly or Chess, since they are too well-established to mess with the rules. But's it's still a business line, it still makes money, AND you have a widely-understood game. I consider this...

I consider myself quite lucky to have generally avoided such groups in my 23 years of gaming. I know they're out there, but it's just not my style. Improvising a plan on the spot in response to some unexpected development -- that's fun. Having your PC do something impulsive, daring, and...

This might be true for technology, but I just don't agree that it applies to games. I've made the point before about sports, card games, and classic board games -- from the really old (Chess, checkers, backgammon) to the relatively new (Scrabble, Monopoly, etc.). Games don't have to keep...