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I voted for everything but the specific skill selection. While I have a few issues with 4E's system, I think just about everything on this list is a big step forward for D&D.

There are always the Four Symbols of Chinese myth: The Blue Dragon of the East (associated with wood, sometimes with earth or water), The Red Phoenix of the South (associated with fire), the White Tiger of the West (associated with metal, and sometimes wind), and the Black Warrior of the North...

Honestly, this news does not make me happy. Part of it is that I simply don't like Sigil that much, and think the write-up in MotP should be enough. The other part of it is that I don't think a planar city is appropriate for a Paragon Tier home base. My idea of a iconic Paragon Tier home base...

I think you may want to change you title a little bit, since many of the works you are citing don't fall under the general category of non-fiction. Regardless, here are some of my picks: As a History major, I am of the opinion that someone planning to run a campaign in setting based even...

Wow, you're right. I didn't even notice that. I didn't even realize that there were Paragon Paths with different power sources than their associated base class. After checking elsewhere, I noticed that the Gatecrasher is an Arcane power source Rogue class. Cool.

Do you have any links to specific posts? I honestly can't remember ever seeing a case where someone wasn't using "videogamey" or the like as a complaint.

How do you know this? In a previous thread, I have seen someone say that when they said "4E is too videogamey", they meant old coin-operated arcade games like Pac-Man. How can you expect everyone on an entire messageboard to make the same logical jump from "videogame" in general to WoW in...

I voted history/background. But that really isn't it. Making an item intersting involves a combination of factors in my mind. First off, a magic item needs a name to be interesting. As long as a magic item is called a +2 Flaming Longsword, it will never transcend its stats. Once the sword is...

It depends on how influential and petty the scion is. If it is the favorite son of the Baron, then the PCs better start watching their backs (and if it is a house Ghallanda brat, checking their bagels for poison). If it is the low-ranking but overly proud leader of a local guild, then the PCs...

This gets down to the heart of things. My big theory on railroading is that it is the result of a DM who plans things out heavily beforehand. The more heavily planned out a campaign is, the more likely it is to involve a lot of railroading. For example, a certain DM may have his entire campaign...

I don't think that the trick of "illusionism" as described is really good enough to fool people except under the most limited of situations. So far, the only examples of illusionism described involve the players making minor decisions: which city to go to, which road to take, whether they go to...

I actually do not agree that what you described is railroading. That is just stuff happening off-screen. Railroading is when the DM denies player's options in order to get them to do what he expects/wants them to do. Story events can only become railroading as soon as the player's become involved.

I understood that. In my post, I said that that level of control is not sufficient to satisfy me as a player. Like Cadfan said, roleplaying is a real thing, but I think that it is hardly the only thing a player may want out of a campaign. Beyond just individual roleplaying experiences and the...

In Cadfan's version of the events, the only difference between the two paths is the location of the final boss battle. It is pretty much the same situation that someone else described earlier: the party encountering the same caravan whether they went to the desert or the forest. It limits player...

Here is how I would structure the Necromancer scenario in order to avoid the problems of railroading and illusionism (which I do consider to be a problem): The basic scenario is that a Necromancer is raising an army of undead in order to attack a town. There are opportunities for the PCs to...

I am a problem player in a couple of different ways: 1) I will be the first to admit that I am slow to take my turns. The first part of it is that I am naturally indecisive, so it takes me a while to make tactical decisions. The second part of the problem is that I need a pocket calculator to...

As said before, Dragonborn came out of the ridiculous popularity of Dragons and dragon-like characters. A few years ago, a fellow player in a D&D campaign I was in described a campaign he tried to start where the PCs were allowed to play almost any monster available in Savage Species. Without...

Part of the problem is that RPG licenses don't really have much to offer to videogames these days. Look at something like City of Heroes. If it had been a licensed Champions game, would it have been better off? Even without an established name behind it, it did fine enough on its own. Really...

This is simply not true. Technological development was going on around the world all the time, even in Europe. For example, in the years leading up to 1000 AD, Europe experienced an agricultural revolution. Developments such as the iron plow and horse collar (imported from asia, actually)...

Asian settings that build the entire setting around specific concpets that are blown out of all proportion instead of basing the setting on actual historical asia. In particular, I despise people taking concepts such as bushido and complex honor codes, as well as laws designed to enforce class...