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This is actually something we talked about at the office on Friday. In some games, it makes tons of sense for monsters/opponents to use the same exact rules as PCs. In Mutants & Masterminds or Champions, the only difference between a hero and a villain is that the villain is a bad guy...

A few points: 1. The divide between monsters and PCs isn't as big as everyone thinks. Monsters have the same ability scores as they do in 3e, skills, any feats that are appropriate, and so on. This won't be 2e or 1e. 2. Though monsters don't necessarily use spell-like abilities, monster...

Let me assure everyone that, if the fighter in the example actually did do 500 hit points of damage in one attack, development will ambush him on his way out of design and soundly beat his damage back to a real D&D level. (The example combat cannot possibly start on round 1. It's more likely...

D&D doesn't need to become more like other games. D&D needs to become more like D&D. Up thread, someone talked about getting people into AD&D even though they pester him to run 3e. I think there's something inherently fun, interesting, and humanizing to RPGs that makes them appealing across...

I posted to Ryan's blog, but I might as well post here. I don't think the solution to the problem of "DMing is too hard" is necessarily "Distribute the work amongst the entire group." A more elegant solution might be, "Make it less work to DM." There's no magic, minimum burden of work...

I believe it does. Heroscape minis are a bit larger than "heroic scale" 28mm, and I think that makes them about the same size or slightly larger than standard BattleTech hex.

I wonder if gaming companies are simply looking for more diversity in their cons? I hear a lot about RPG companies hitting comic cons, DragonCon, stuff like that. Origins might be caught in a bit of a squeeze. That said, I've always enjoyed Origins. I'd love to go again.

FWIW, I'm on the design team and I pretty much find WoW as fun and interesting as banging my head against a brick wall.

I can personally assure you that, due to my diligent efforts as a playtester, effemminate Duros fops will be fully supported by the campaign. You have my pledge!

It's interesting to watch how RPG discussions have evolved online. I remember back in the late 90s, and the early part of this decade, people would go on and on about games, but you rarely saw actual play reports or discussions. Say what you will about the Forge, but the focus some designers...

I sort of do this, then I stick the encounters I design into a dungeon. For instance, I just ran a fight last night with the PCs trying to cross a bridge across a chasm while goblins fired crossbow bolts at them from the side. It was pretty fun (especially when a dragon swooped by and dropped...

It's been years since I looked at the module, but IIRC the party knows going in that they're up against an ogre holed up in the cave. Most groups I've heard about fall into one of two camps: they either prepare for the ogre and kill it easily, or they don't and die or get knocked around. A lot...

That's probably the most accurate depiction of what D&D actually is that I've ever seen in the press. I mean, seriously, talking smack and rolling dice, that's D&D in a nutshell.

There's an interesting paradox in listening to customers, particularly when it comes to RPGs. There are basically three customers for D&D: people who play lots and lots of D&D, people who play some D&D, and people who don't yet play D&D. The problem you run into is that, of your three groups...

I think that's the key, and I believe that in some ways MM IV's approach is too late to the party. By this point, veteran DMs have statted up low-level NPCs. Newbies are buying MM I - they might never actually see MM IV. The MM V approach is something more like adding new types of giants or...

There's a few key reasons. The first gets back to the design intent of the monster. If a humanoid is meant to take class levels, it makes sense to present it that way. If we split the books, we probably just split our audience. It's also hard to communicate to people that "Monster Manuals" have...

No, I don't think they are in the book. Sorry!

There's a few reasons to try it in the first place, and a couple more to keep doing it. The most important factor is that, while there were critics on message boards, plenty of other people liked their inclusion. AFAIK, we didn't see signs anywhere else (customer surveys, sales) that indicated...

In response to the criticisms that monsters with class levels are boring, we did things a bit different in MM V. You have new hobgoblins, but they aren't necessarily hobgoblins with nothing but levels in a class. I don't have the book in front of me, but in a few cases we tried to design them...

I think there are a lot of reasons that RPGs can stumble over the 20 minutes of fun in four hours thing. Many of them go beyond the game mechanics. For instance, I think LostSoul's comments echo many of the worst sessions I've played, particularly at conventions. The party wants to do fun stuff...