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Wolf may or may not have made the case for a magic revolution but citing 3E costs is hardly an adequate counter argument. For starters, costs are setting specific. You have cited the costs for the 3E standard campaign setting. In this setting, such costs are set to be in line with the expected...

Sounds like it works for you but your view is at odds with my own :). I'm also a hardcore worldbuilder. Often my worlds are unusual in some way in how they treat divine sources of power, magic, or various other things that can affect a player's enjoyment of a particular class or race. I find a...

You could certainly make a case for that and work into the demographics. I think in a higher magic setting, it would make sense to allow for the "too hard to kill" and life-extended folks. In a lower magic setting, or a non-D&D setting, level might simply be a stand-in for "experienced warrior."...

Yeah, LOTR is far from the D&D realm. The magic is thin and there are few practioners. Gandalf never wielded magic on par with a mid-level D&D wizard. It's a low magic world but that's not unusual in fiction. Describing high magic is difficult. It's difficult to plot out all the ramifications...

The difference is that we have a clear, easily understood analogues for the introductions of firearms (see earth history 101). Magic affects get harder to determine. Do I think that D&D level magic would grossly change fortifications? Yes and the result would probably be bunker-like. But there...

Check. Check. Check. Check. Ah... not so fast. Never cared for Tolkien's demographics. Think he got that wrong. Too much civilization without enough people. Case in point: the Rhohirrim. They are classic norse warriors ('cept for the horse centricity). Trouble is, for that type of...

Enjoyed the blog posts; thanks for bringing this up. I have to say, as a ref and a player, as much as I truly love LOTR, I'm not dying to play in a true LOTR world (as opposed to one inspired by Tolkien's works.) Why is that? Well, partly because as a ref, what I appreciate about Tolkien is...

I think you are on to something here. I could go for a definition of castle that includes a prestige element. I think in Earth history, when fortifications had to get squat, they lost any prestige element for authority figures and that's when you see castles (which combined both) split into...

True enough. As long as I felt the ref was making an honest effort, I'd step in as a player as well :)

Well... I agree with you in principle. It's certainly a good rule of fiction to reveal by showing than by exposition. BUT don't forget at campaign start, you are expecting the players to pick PCs they have to live with for some time and, possibly, make other setting specific decisions that they...

Nothing for paper RPGs. Consider putting Fallout: New Vegas on my wishlist but decided to wait for a few months given the reviews and massive complaints about stability. (Yes, I know some people have no trouble but there are many, many who do. I'm sure they will fix it eventually and I'm sure...

:D! Very funny and honestly, spot on. I mostly ref and I feel it is my role to keep things moving forward. I have decent players and if they are at a loss as to what to do, I generally ascribe it to a failing on my part to set the setting and situation. As a player, I can be harsh. You...

I'll read any amount of stuff but I expect my players to read no more than a page or so. If they read more than that, I'm surprised and tickled pink. Had a player read my entire 50-ish wiki page setting and was very please. It also fit that he wanted to play a bard. Now if he'd only let me...

Yep :p plus the game mechanics were a pleasant change.

We're all fat and dazed from Thanksgiving (those of us in the U.S. anyway). It's a time for hazy reflections. When you let your mind wander to the realm of RPGs and images start popping into your head, what do you see? Why do you like RPGs? If you do fantasy RPGs, is it the chance to talk to a...

Would this include something like the Khe Sanh fortifications with various command posts including the battalion commander's CP? Or WWI Verdun if the fort contained a commander controlling the fortification forces? The forces in the region beyond the fort?

Probably a number of reasons but the fact that much of the cross-genre stuff wasn't well handled (regarding consistent premise or sensible ground rules) is probably part of it. I bet another, possibly larger factor, is that the hobby was young circa Barrier Peaks. As gamers matured (not just...

Couldn't remember at the time I made my post but later did: Expedition to the Barrier Peaks (wikipedia article here). Published 1980 by Gygax. I must have played it about the time it came out. I haven't played it since then but I wasn't impressed with it at the time. But it does seem to rate...

For those who voted, many thanks. Folks seemed to have a broader view of what consitutes a castle than I would have predicted (at least among the smallish sample size.) So, next question, if you voted for more than a few of these examples, how do you define castle? How do you define a military...

That's exactly the reason I don't have such technology items in my settings. It opens up a whole chain of reasonable questions that end up changing the setting more than I care to. If you have rockets, you use them, even if it is just to spook the enemy. If you can build a musket you can see the...