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For what aspects of "realm management" do you want more rules? There are in fact rules dealing with the subject in D&D books (Original, Advanced and Expert). Naturally, there are also more complex treatments by people who are especially fond of this or that subject. Chivalry & Sorcery...

It All Comes Down To This ... An old, oddly youthful man turns toward you slowly. His long, silver hair dances about him as a fresh breeze blows. "You have reached the final test, my friend! You are proved clever and powerful, but this is not yet enough! Seek me when you feel yourself worthy!"...

I gotcha, Y.R. -- It was just that the words to me didn't mean what you mean. I just don't squeak your linguish, I guess.

I don't know whether Palladium is thriving, but its own market might not be shrinking rapidly or at all. It keeps on selling, not just new books to old players but also old books to new players. At least, that's what it does at my FLGS. Wizards and White Wolf do that, too. WotC at least does...

Put down the Wand of ESP and try reading what people actually write. What Korgoth wrote was, "before you had to say where you were searching. Now it doesn't matter what you say, all that matters is that you roll high on the D20 and have a good modifier to add to it." The rule of describing...

That's the thing about real life: unlike fiction, it does not need to be plausible.

I reckon there are different New Schools and different Old Schools, differing on different points. There are posters right here at EN World who draw a sharp line between the (in their opinion) much better, and certainly more modern, approach of just totting up numbers from the character sheet...

I cite the mechanics, which are also present in most RPGs published since -- most definitely in every one published under the name of Dungeons & Dragons. No. That's what you appear to have done. If you meant something else in Greyhawk than the Thief, then please reveal it. The Thief in fact...

I know that I have written from firsthand experience. I am also taking into account the rationales that the publisher and buyers of the works in question have been giving. I am not seeing how mere acquisitiveness necessitates (or even benefits from) dumping old D&D rules and putting the name...

That is put poorly, I think, whereas the previous version merely misrepresented details of fact (but what's an order of magnitude among DMs?). What I mean is that I think it is perfectly in keeping with a free game for a designer -- which a DM effectively is -- to establish what is or is not in...

The factors can be closely associated, though. Unless one's literary model is a parody, one probably does not expect "the hero of the story" to go about self-consciously "breaking the third wall". So, someone interested in turning the game into a literary device is probably on that account...

I think the concern might make more sense if one presumes that pemerton really meant "to keep the thematic pressure up on (not 'to') the players". Still, the attention may be misplaced. The purpose of the design is to provide the players with a fun, challenging game, so trying to characterize...

Which book is that? It is not the 1st ed. Advanced D&D Players Handbook, in any case. That reads: There's no business about "intonation", much less the (potentially useful) effect you describe above. The Dungeon Masters Guide indicates how to generate the number freed (using a curve of d% x...

Some of us back in the '70s did not especially like borrowing the term "role-playing" either, but so it goes. The real "hokey-cokey, post-modern RPG revisionism" I see is coming from your quarter. I will say this yet again: PLEASE make up your freaking minds already, you whatever-bashers! What...

Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky, Borodin and Mussorgsky produced dramatic pieces in all the various moods. Some may be overly familiar, but those are just portions of larger works. The same is true of other classical composers, of course, but those Russians come to my mind first. (I am afraid I...

The relevant feature of a sandbox is that one gets to play freely in it, as opposed, say, to a gridiron.

So what? Once again, my mind reels trying to comprehend how some people -- considering the logic of the claims they make about games -- manage to get through real life without continually complaining that it's all "just a railroad"! Maybe they don't ...

Ah, no, actually you can't. That's the definitive point of that particular distinction among "schools"! The "New School" defines itself by precluding that and insisting on strictly controlled quantitative factors. (That what they actually get actually still allows the DM to pick from a range...

Which WotC has made, according to the rationale for new "editions". Remember? The Cash Cow has already bought twice or three times all that "IP" invented in the 1970s-80s, so we've got no choice but to recycle it again in a form that makes C.C. feel obligated to pay out again in order to "keep...

Assuming access to $750 to $1000 in the first place ... I think the kind of "diehard" you have in mind is more likely among the younger set. The "need" for an endless supply of technical manuals to play a game of imagination is, at least from what I have seen, distributed that way. Life...