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If there were sufficient demand there wouldn't be a warehouse with fifteen-year-old leftover product.

Ah, but how does he know he's used a +1 sword before? ;)

The trouble is, under no circumstances would Gygax or TSR have called its game an "acting game." The use of "role-playing" in "role-playing game" does not refer to acting. It refers to assuming the decisions and consequences of an imaginary character in an imaginary setting. One can act while...

I agree with you up to your mention of tactical rules. The Chainmail rules for combat only require miniatures insomuch as you need to know whether your figure's base is touching another's (and you are thus in melee). If you assume two D&D parties are "touching," then miniatures are irrelevant...

This tells me that you don't really understand miniature wargames and their relationship to role-playing games. In miniature wargaming, scales are very fluid. They change depending on how many men each figure represents, how big the figures are, and how much playing area you have. If you have...

This was, in fact, the whole point of the thief class originally. Until the thief came along, the only way to find and avoid traps was to describe exactly how you were searching the given item or area. Then Greyhawk introduced the thief, which had an amazing power: you got a chance to find and...

Ooh, I know what you need, Steel Wind. You need to run a game of Paranoia, in the Straight style, which will actually let you make a campaign out of it. Paranoia is, as we all know, the game in which the GM only rewards the players when they entertain him. So go on, let those players have...

Do you want to simulate combat, or do you want to use game rules to resolve the combat? D&D was designed not to be a simulation. The attack roll represents whatever it takes for you to cause damage. Damage represents whatever you've got that keeps you alive and kicking. In those terms, you make...

What's the problem here? If the players have fun and keep coming back for more, the dungeon was not so deadly that they became frustrated, and not so easy that they became bored. Whatever it contains, it's working. As for deathtraps, put a sign on the entrance to the dungeon which reads...

It's very deep strategy. In fact, there are eight different strategies from which you must choose each turn; conquest is not the only way to win the game. In fact, there is a whole stack of goal cards that tell you what you need to do to win. As for tile-laying, I don't see the problem. You lay...

Good for you! You're absolutely right: decisions without consequence do not make for an exciting game. And other games will do what you want better than d20 will.

Because, after all, newer editions are always an improvement, and those who stubbornly refuse to upgrade are doing themselves a terrible disservice.

I only find this to be true when the rules that work aren't more complicated than the DM's common sense. No one advocates vague or obscure rules. A lot of people want simpler rules, less detailed rules, or just fewer rules. Many people recognize that no set of rules, however logical, will be...

I suspect that a number of those were monsters from folklore and "they're in Tolkien too, so that's good." Rangers (by Fischer) and hobbits (by Gygax via Chainmail) are certainly straight out of Tolkien, but the others have enough mythological weight behind them that the decision to include...

Yes, but... No. The cleric wasn't conceived of as a medic, and the thief didn't derive from wargaming. The cleric was a hero with powers, something like a crusader; the thief was a response to situations discovered while first playing D&D in dungeons.

Heh. Sucks, huh?

Whatever, so long as it isn't a proper noun. Dungeon Master and Game Master are proper nouns. Referee and judge are not. Or do you refer to players as Players?

I decried the previews of the third edition publicly on the TSR boards; I stand by what I said then. :D

I'm with you! I'm really happy with the '81 edition.

Has hurt. Has killed. The damage was done a long time ago. As I see it, TSR's original plan (and much superior) was to produce games, not just to produce D&D. When you need to put out new product, you put out new games, not new revisions of the same game, and not endless supplemental materials...