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I have a confession to make. I never liked the cleric class. While wizards, warriors, and rogues are staples of myth and fantasy, spell slinging clerics are a pure D&D-ism. Religions and priests have existed in every human culture, but I can't remember any myth or legend prior to D&D that...

I remember a thread some time ago about weird and creepy D&D games that people played in. I remember thinking that some of the games mentioned seemed too weird to possibly be true...well, until last night. I was recently invited by a friend to take part in a game with a group she was with...

We're starting a 3.5 game this weekend, so we have to create characters. The DM has said that this is to be a high level game with all characters starting out on level 15. Being an interplanar game, pretty much everything goes (as long as we can provide rules for it). This may be my one...

I recently read C.S. Lewis' classic philosophical/apologetics novel "The Screwtape letters". Suddenly, I realized the way that Lewis describes demons and hell would really be a great alternate to the way demons are usually described in D&D. In the Screwtape Letters, hell is portrayed as a...

Lawful doesn't mean that you obey the laws? The 3e PHB seems to say otherwise. Now I suppose that you could argue that authority doesn't necessarily mean government authority or government laws, but that brings up the question of what authority a lawful character respects (especially when...

From what I gather from the 4e news, law and chaos as alignments are gone in 4e. This change doesn't bother me at all. In fact, I'm kind of glad to see them go. The concept of law and chaos never made much sense to me except as a weird homage to Moorcock. IMO they led to all kinds of endless...

Should gods be "killable"? I suppose the answer to whether gods can be killed should depend on the style of the campaign. In a campaign based on Judeo-Christian beliefs would exclude the idea of characters even thinking of challenging a god. However, in many mythic campaigns, such a thing...

I never understood the "great wheel". I don't understand why it is sacrosanct to so many people. Then again, I never really got "planar adventuring". Almost all the games that I have played in or run focused on the material world at hand and never got into plane hopping.

It seems pretty certain now that the Warlock class will be in the PHB. This has the opportunity to be pretty interesting IMHO. The dark wizard is one of the classic archetypes of fantasy. To me, warlock seems to exemplify the corrupt wizard archetype. The etymology of the word even shows...

I wouldn't mind the presence of the Warlocks if they were portrayed as the Warlocks of legend...dark wizards who make demonic pacts. (The name warlock is derived from the Old English word wǣrloga which mean oath breaker.) However, it seems like the warlock will be like the warlock in the...

If (or rather when) psionics appear in 4e, I want to see them as distinct from magic. Part of the problem with 3e psionics, and 3.5e psionics in particular is that they are simply magic with crystals and power points. Psionics needs to be do things that magic can't. Bring back psionic combat...

I've always hated raise dead and resurrection magic with a passion. Very rarely in mythology and the fantasy fiction that I've read do characters come back from the dead. In the rare cases they do, it's a once in a lifetime thing that rarely goes without serious ramifications. I always tried...

I've stated this opinion before and I'll restate it here. I'm all in favor of stats for gods. With 4e including epic level material in the core, the gods need stats. This isn't uber-power gaming munchkinism, it's adding a mythic flavor to the setting. In many myths and legends, the heroes...

I prefer quicker leveling. I played in several 2e games and never saw a character rise above 3rd level naturally. Character advancement was so painfully slow that the whole group would get bored with their characters before we got anywhere. BTW, remember this was low levels in 2e - meaning...

The change to weapon sizes was one of the most controversial aspects of 3.5e. No longer could a halfling pick up a human short sword to fight with (at least not without some major penalties). I remember the debates on this board when 3.5e came out. Some people liked the new rules and their...

I never got the whole idea of "law vs chaos". First of all, it seems that nobody can define exactly what "law" and "chaos" are. Is law following a rigid code of honor? Is it following the laws of a society? Is chaos individualism? Is it anti-establishment? Secondly, focusing on law vs...

I really have to agree with Sundragon here. I never liked the great wheel cosmology. It seems to presuppose that good and evil are two equal opposing forces. In my campaigns I prefer a more quasi-Judeo-Christian view that has evil as the result of a corruption of the original good order of...

I never quite understood the struggle between "law an chaos". Of course I've never read Moorcock. I suppose that I'm more of fan of good vs. evil as in The Lord of the Rings and epic mythology; I could never get too into moral ambiguity.

Alignment is a big factor in D&D, despite protests from numerous fans. The default setting for 3e (as well as 2e) assumes that good and evil are tangible forces in the world and that the PCs are on the side of good. However, I started thinking about this assumption, and have began to wonder...

Call me sexist or old fashioned, but I come for the old school where he was the "default" pronoun. I suppose language is changing, but I'm still getting used to the gender alternating pronouns. When I first read the 3e PHB, it seemed to imply to me that all paladins and wizards must be female...