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When I first picked up the 3.0 PHB and MM, I saw that monsters were being given class levels and said to myself "cool, now all those goofy critters with a bunch of random spell-like abilities will be rewritten to have spellcasting levels instead." I turned to Ogre Mage, and was immediately...

Indeed. Concept's been around forever, both in the rules and as house rules, to compensate for the alternating turns in the initiative system. 3E did a pretty great service in codifying the whole thing. The only way I could imagine 4E removing it would be if they overhauled the initiative...

So, noting that your statement was completely wrong is a "nitpick"? Congratulations! You just won the "respond to what I thought I said, not what I actually said" gold medal.

Now that's just silly. What you actually want is for them to make choices that are important in the context of the story, just as in a exploration-themed adventure you want them to make choices that are important in the context of discovering new things. Choosing whether to go left or right, to...

Well, my take is that what makes a good or bad map is not an independent objective quality, it can only be judged in the context of the rest of the adventure and the desires of a given group. What works in one area might not work in another. It seems obvious to me that a more "open" design with...

Usually first, though I am contemplating a campaign where the PCs would start at 5th. I find the tone of the poll a little strange, "mak(ing) the players work for it" has nothing at all to do with my reasons for usually starting at level 1. I find that players identify more strongly with their...

Looks like it's priced about right for the contents. I have no interest in it because if I want a relatively generic D&D-style world I just throw together my own, but for those who prefer not to homebrew it looks like a pretty decent buy.

Well, for a campaign featuring a single hero, I'd say probably the most important thing to work on is the recurring characters, both supporting cast and villains. Solo comic books tend to spend quite a bit of time examining the hero's relationships, so it's not a bad idea to work that into the...

Happened several times, from which it appears nobody's gotten the "done properly" part right. If you figure it's so trivial, I suggest you put up the bucks for an IP lawsuit.

The treasure award is actually most of the story. Not for nothing do people say D&D is about "killing things and taking their stuff" - in 1E, taking their stuff was the major source of XP. Lots of people houseruled the XP system, which I suspect is one of the reasons some people are reporting...

There's one in "The Wizard's Amulet", Necromancer Games' first (and free) adventure, they peg it at CR 3. I don't know off-hand if it's appeared anywhere else. Thanks for working through this comparison, it's pretty interesting. Brings back some fond memories, too.

Initially I house-ruled it to a more straightforward monster "level" divided by character level multiplier for each critter's XP value, since the DMG's formula seemed a little strange to me. By about the time second edition rolled around I had switched to using something more like Palladium's XP...

I prefer (5) for logistical reasons (gets characters made without consuming much gaming time, minimizes whining over stat disparities, etc.), but I'm not an evangelist for any particular method. If a given group prefers to roll, that's cool with me.

Jurgen's statement is that "many people" in that thread dismissed Eberron as not being fantasy. But it looks to me like most of the respondents in that thread basically said "Eberron's different, but cool." It seems pretty clear that the OP in that thread was engaging in hyperbole in order to...

Best way is to read through the countries (D&D gazetteer is fine, don't need to pile through the full LGG), look at the map, and find one that grabs you. Different regions have somewhat different real-world inspirations and "feels", there's a little of everything in the setting. No sense...

Going completely by memory here (which could easily be wrong), but I think the original tournament characters for G1 and G2 were different, the compilation used the G3/D-series characters. So yeah, those pregens were too tough for the early adventures in the series.

I consider it more along the lines of "not fun" than "not fair". Stats play a relatively significant role in determining what feats/classes/etc. a character can reasonably take, I kinda dislike seeing a player have to junk an interesting concept just because the dice weren't cooperating. Of...

Appropriate shops generally carry potions and scrolls; sometimes the shops are associated with temples, in which case they often have wands, too. Occasionally the owners of those shops will have something else available, such as a minor magic item, which they'll show to their preferred...

Hmm. Cult of the Reptile God is probably the adventure I've run most often. Other notable old-school adventures that stick out in my mind are Hall of the Fire Giant King and Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth. In 3.X, I really enjoyed running Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil. As a player, Tomb of...

It's actually still around, the Starfire Design Studio does occasional expansions and updates. One of my favourite classic wargames is Demonlord, by Dwarfstar Games. Has a lot of cool stuff going on for a minigame, and the setting's pretty neat. Best of all, Reaper Miniatures now owns the...