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I think the traditional guideline about 1/3 of the rooms being empty assumes as certain style of play, with large dungeons that reward a focus on exploration. A high proportion of empty rooms in dungeons makes the most sense for very large "underworld" dungeons, as opposed to more purposeful...

Yes, it does. (Sorry, I often forget to qualify which D&D I'm talking about.)

I tend to prefer D&D in the 1-14 range (or thereabouts), where levels 9-11 are the start of "high level," and few people in the world are at those levels. My level scale is something like this: 0-level: Common men of all sorts. Even typical career mercenaries may be 0-level fighters. 1st...

I think the First Fantasy Campaign is quite illuminating, as far as the origins of D&D go, and how it was originally approached and played. The wargaming aspect is very apparent, but so is the focus on the ongoing campaign, character growth, and even the economic factors (like the...

And here is Bob Bledsaw's Forward to Dave Arneson's First Fantasy Campaign. This was written in August of 1977:

Here's the text of the article I mentioned in my previous post:

When original D&D came out, it was still considered an outgrowth of wargaming, although it's apparent that they were kind of casting about for a proper way of describing it. In the forward to Men & Magic, Gygax described Arneson's Chainmail variant as a "medieval fantasy campaign game." He...

FWIW, there are some such rules in the original 1974 rules, too. The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures (Book 3 of the "three brown books") has a section on PC upkeep/support, and on baronies/domains. An "entry level" barony where the PC has cleared the wilderness territory for 20 miles around...

I think a skirmish miniatures wargame is about combat. D&D, on the other hand, is a step away from that. Combat remains an important element in D&D, of course, and one that requires a good chunk of rules to support it, but D&D goes beyond being "about combat" and puts the main focus...

I approach D&D as being primarily about exploration: delving into the mysterious depths of the underworld, mapping and taming the wilderness, seeking lost cities and fabulous wealth. While I don't think this is the only way to approach the game, I think it's an approach with an exceptionally...

Third party support isn't essential for an RPG, but it sure is nice. Some of my favorite RPG supplements and adventures came from third parties: Judges Guild D&D and AD&D material, Necromancer Games 3e material, Pagan Publishing Call of Cthulhu material, Alephtar Games BRP material, et cetera...

I think forums are representative of users that participate in forums. I don't have enough data for an informed opinion or position on how the user representation on forums relates to the complete set of users.

I give gaming awards almost no weight at all, as the products involved almost never have relevance to my gaming. That probably says more about my gaming and tastes than it does the awards, of course. I'm not "in step" with the gaming mainstream, these days. I put *much* more weight on...

I have a high opinion of Monsters of Myth, too. I think it's something of an overlooked gem, as far as "old school" D&D publications go. There are a lot of cool and/or usable monsters in there. (That's one thing that I like about the book: when I look through it I find it easy to envision...

Could be. I wasn't speculating on sales strategy, just saying how I look at new editions. (I'm not very familiar with 3.5, as that's about the time I was stepping off the edition carousel, but I remember Monte Cook's review that said his biggest problem with 3.5 was that it was "too much and...

Convenience, mainly. If I'm given a choice between purchasing and using system compatible adventures vs. non-system compatible adventures, I'm much more likely to go with the system compatible adventures. It's just easier. (As a side point, there's more to adventure compatibility than just...

I agree that an experienced DM can run just about any adventure for any system while using a different set of rules. Nevertheless, note that my description of the "adventure test" specified "…without completely ignoring the stats." That's because the adventure test is supposed to be evaluating...

I embrace change if I think the change is good. If I don't think it's good, I stick with what I think is good. With RPGs and editions, I'm more likely to accept a new edition of a game if the new edition keeps broad compatibility with what has gone before. I'm less likely to be interested in...

Yeah, BRP is probably what I would use.

While I wouldn't go that far, I do agree that all the love Savage Worlds gets mystifies me. When I was growing dissatisfied with 3e and looking at other systems I gave Savage Worlds a try. It just never clicked for me. On the plus side, it's inexpensive. For a lunchtime game I'd say Savage...