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In the campaign setting I'm (slowly) working on, I really only have one long lived race (the elves). I've got it set up where elves live about 100 years in each "phase" of life (childhood, adulthood, middle age, old age, venerable age). The absolute maximum an elf will live is 500 years with...

Usually when I run things, I like to replace halflings with goblins as the small PC race, tweaking them ever so slightly to have them better fill the rogue niche. Then again, I never have anyone want to play a halfling. With hobgoblins, I like to make them like Klingons from Deep Space Nine...

I did like the subabilities in 2e, but the skill system of 3e makes that a nightmare. Now you have to go through each skill and adjudicate which subability determines it, attempting to keep each subability balanced against the whole so as to prevent any subability from becoming a "dump stat."...

I write. A homebrew is a good outlet for all these creative ideas floating around in my head. If I don't dump them from time to time, I'd probably go insane.

Thread hijack: Unless you pick my brain, nowhere, because I'm still taking notes. A lot of my development is really serendipitous. It started with, "Let's do all new classes." Then I asked myself, "How do I explain why marshalls and swashbucklers and hexblades etc. exist and not the...

I'm working on a homebrew right now. The original idea was, "Can I do a setting without using the core base classes?" Once I started explaining why the base classes I used existed, it turned into "Final Fantasy Tactics meets Shining Force meets Castlevania without any core classes." It's grown...

You know, this really isn't what you're looking for, but in the Known World/Savage Coast, the Wallara race is a spiritual group of dragonkin (also known as chameleon men in other products) that have an aboriginal culture. Or, rather, a watered down D&D aboriginal culture, but it's the closest...

Much like the halfling, 3e changed the way gnomes are viewed by default. Races of Stone further extends this retconning of gnomes away from the trickster tinkerer to the artisan, crafstman, and musician that just happens to have a flair for illusions. Gnome v 3.5 makes perfect sense as a bard...

Final Fantasy always called that character type a "Mystic Knight" for what it's worth. Me, I'd modify their spellcasting ability along the same lines as the Gun Mage from Iron Kingdoms and call them a Channeler, as in the "channel magic through steel."

Wow, you just repeated the Bard complaints ad nauseum. And considering people don't accuse Bards of power creep, that's a pretty GOOD argument for the Scout being fine as written. That's the thing - classes like the rogue and the bard (and to an extent the fighter) are VERY flexible. You...

You shouldn't really need Unearthed Arcana to be a player. If your DM is going to use something out of it, it's his responsibility to let you know beforehand so you can adapt. If you're going to DM, it's invaluable, even if it only causes you to think about why certain things happen in the...

What I think WotC could safely get away with is produce one-offs for their various old settings. Make a single book around 300 pages that is full of balanced, modular crunch with a healthy frosting of fluff tossed over the top. There's no committment to full production on a setting and people...

The Judges Guild stuff intrigues me. Part of me is inclined to pick it up to use alongside Blackmoor.

Sweet! I remember Spinjas. I had a couple sets of those floating around for a while... Yes, Beyblades were an attempt to continue cashing in on the "gotta catch 'em all" mindset of Pokemon. It worked for a while, but these fads continue to pass in and out so quickly that I think it got...

You know, this illustrates the most frustrating part of writing: breaking into the business. What I think is a great piece of circular logic is this - places that want you to have an agent before they'll consider you while agents want you to have a publisher before they'll consider...

I'll second this. Perhaps the online-only option isn't the best way to attract new players, but we're also approaching this problem from the mindset of people (1) that knew what life was like before the information age and (2) have our perceptions colored by old trends. Three years ago I...

There's a reason cliches become cliches. There's something to them, something timeless that really lets you hang a nice story on top of them so long as the cliche is just the motivator and not the plot. I've been writing for, oh, about eight years (and doodled with the idea for five before...

I will readily admit there are certain conventions to the OD&D Known World setting that make it challenging to convert, but this is the same sort of hurdle you jump over with any setting when the rules change. The problem is when you cling to the old rules and want to see the existing setting...

If it could be produced cheaply enough, a "master index" of the past year's WotC products released as an insert to the January Dragon or Dungeon magazine would be a very handy tool.

I don't envy the judges. With as many entries as this contest received, it should be hard to narrow the field down, then finally pick just one winner.