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I get the feeling that "I can do a game that is better than D&D" spawned the entire RPG industry, in a way. But making D&D as abstract as a card game or board game in key places moreso than it ever was before is simply bad design for a game that purports to be D&D. We have to visualise and...

No, but if I wanted D&D as a board game, I'd play something like Descent, Talisman or Heroquest. All three are great fun, but they don't replace pre-4E D&D, and nor should they. Not this abstract. This is as abstract and in places as difficult to map to anything believable or visualisable...

A sandbox for kids is an area designed for playing in. It might contain things to play with (e.g. bucket and pail). I think the connection to a game without a linear story is pretty obvious - "here's an area full of stuff to interact with and play with at your discretion - go to it, have fun...

Not "boardgame level" abstract to this degree. Even HP weren't as abstract as they are now. Sorry, can't wriggle your way out of this one.

Nice attempt at obfuscation. Of course not, else merely using miniatures would constitute "not an RPG". No, it's a level of abstraction codified into the rules that is difficult to resolve with being an RPG that is boardgamesque, not the mere presence of a map.

That's because it's presented that way, and probably even designed with the intention of trying to make you think that way, despite the protestations of the 4E apologists about mistaken impressions. Why? Fairly obviously they want to sell books, and optional splits the market. It's good for...

It's usually naive to assume that your argument is so perfect that anyone who completely understood it would automatically agree with it.

The human condition weighs much heavier on some of us, Aus Snow, and makes us long for the Shakespearean pathos of roleplaying a monotreme dragonman with dragonmanboobs. Personally, there's no other outlet for the angst I feel every minute of every day, in this mortal coil, living like Conan...

I don't think you understand what an implied setting is. The implied setting is not POL. It's the setting that the rules imply. It just happens to fit POL - a specific setting. The fact that the core implied setting is so specific that it doesn't fit almost anywhere else and lacks...

I never said I considered 4E to be a legitimate version of D&D, not least because the implied setting doesn't fit D&D settings, and am unsurprised that it doesn't fit these D&D worlds without cataclysmic handwaves and awkward, easily disbelievable retcons (with the possible exception of Eberron...

Absolutely. You've got non-optional wacky PC races coming out every year that you're supposed to adapt your world to, of course it's hostile to worldbuilders. Yes, you can ban things, you can also add things to fix the system, but that doesn't get around that as written, the game is a step...

No, core is an excuse still, just in the opposite direction - "It's core, allow it." And the fluff attached is specific enough to be hostile to worldbuilding. On one hand we have specific fluff removed from monsters, where it does no harm, and attached to PC races, where "tieflings had an...

Another 4Eism. You've got that in eladrin, no other edition is afflicted with this elf/alf/eladrin stuff, because of subraces, so you could still call an elf variant an elf. It's only your own game that you're mocking, there.

LOL. You're kidding, right? Ever heard of The Day of the Triffids or The Invasion of the Body Snatchers? And that's just contemporary culture. Older editions have more creepy plant monsters than you can wave a branch at, from needlemen to yellow musk creepers, assassin vines to shambling...

Given the rush of interest in the retroclone movement and how hard reasonably priced rules cyclopedias are becoming to find, I think it's also made people stop and see past works in a new light. It's certainly interesting to look at Dungeon and Dragon magazines in terms of "this is the full run...

Definitely too much to ask, as it would resemble something vaguely medieval, and restore monsters to a status of being feared and exotic creatures. I think you need to get with the program.

So warforged aren't going to make PHB?

If it were optional splat, sure. But it's as "core" as humans, and will be treated as such unless specifically banned. Therein lies the rub.

And ugly dragonpeople who breathe fire and can burn the tavern down, and teleporting elves who aren't even called elves who just shift from the bar to the table all day long are? And the robots and the ramheads are regulars...if it's a tavern, then either it's the Star Wars Cantina, or...

Yeah, it appears that way from the way designer anecdotes announced it as if it was something very special to them.