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"Popular" is a hard thing to measure. I think far more relevant -- and easier to quantify -- is how financially successful RPGs are as a segment of the hobby industry. I don't know this for a fact, but I'd be amazed if RPGs in aggregate make more money now than they did back in the early to mid-80s.

This is absolutely correct and it's part of tabletop roleplaying that probably can't be changed without changing the character of what we currently consider roleplaying considerably. Certainly rules can be better and more intuitively presented, but there's a limit to how simple a game like D&D...

This is absolutely correct. It's the single most important element in what makes D&D D&D and it's generally overlooked, as people fixate on this or that specific thing as signifying the heart and soul of the game. The increasing emphasis on company-produced settings and stories is a big red...

While I probably wouldn't have phrased it in this fashion, this is nevertheless spot-on. I remember very distinctly how my 1E games changed after the introduction -- and wholehearted adoption of -- UA. My friends began to spend a lot more time agonizing over character creation choices than...

My memory is hazy on the mechanical differences between UA and its Dragon article precursors, so I may be mistaken, but I vividly recall the Cavalier's appearance in issue 72 of the magazine under the byline of Gary Gygax. It was introduced in a "From the Sorceror's [sic] Scroll" column entitled...

This is true, though, if I recall correctly, the movie wasn't specifically produced as a tie-in to 3E or even to raise public awareness of the existence of D&D. Rather, its release just coincided with the early days of 3E, but the movie had been in development in one form or another for quite...

There was certainly an increase in the number of customers for D&D after the release of 3E, it's true, but, unless I missed something, the numbers came nowhere close to those in the early 80s. Nor do I recall much mainstream media presence during this time. The hobby world was certainly excited...

That's an interesting take on the DI. It's certainly possible that, rather than gearing up for a big push toward potential fans outside the existing base, 4E is in fact a "circling of the wagons" to protect and shore up that existing base to ensure long-term stability and profitability. I hadn't...

I'm pretty sure -- indeed it's one of the few ways to make sense of 4E -- that WotC intends the new edition of the game to bring in new players, both to replace those who don't upgrade and to swell the ranks of the aging gamer population. Precisely how they intend to do this, I have no clue...

Indeed. L1 is a prime example of the older style of module, which were essentially adventure locales fleshed out to varying degrees of detail. The actual adventures themselves were often quite thin, because it was assumed that adventures were what the DM and players created together through the...

This is more or less the truth of it. Roleplaying games of any sort, regardless of their relative complexity or how they're packaged/presented, are -- and probably always will be -- an esoteric hobby. RPGs require more time and effort than most people are willing to expend on an entertainment...

Lots of people over many years have attempted to explain why the hobby is not growing and, in my opinion, they all miss the mark. The cold, hard truth of it is that D&D -- heck, roleplaying in general -- is an esoteric, fringe activity that takes more time and patience than most people are...

I think FR is being "Eberronized" in the same broad sense that 4E is, which is to say that mechanically and thematically Eberron was a dry run for concepts we're seeing more fully developed in the new edition: downplaying of alignment, re-imagining classic monsters, PC-centrism, funky planar...

Agreed. What may not have been clear from my previous post was that I felt most D&D players would eventually upgrade to 4E rules, whereas I am far from certain most Realms players will upgrade to the 4E Realms. At the very least, the alteration of the Realms is, as you say, a huge gamble and...

I have no idea if Eberron was a "failure," since I'm not sure the metric by which WotC would measure success in this case. I do recall that part of the intention behind the setting search was to create a multi-media property and, in that respect anyway, I don't get the sense that Eberron proved...

By that logic, we should all -- pro and contra -- say nothing until next August. Based on what we know now and what we can reasonably intuit, I think the skeptics among us have been remarkably restrained and level-headed in this thread.

This is a fair point and I think you're on the right track. I don't think it's an either/or proposition, of course. What I suspect is that WotC is trying to create a more reliable bloc of D&D fans who buy into multiple aspects of the brand and the changes to the Realms are part of that. I think...

I expect this is exactly what WotC intends to do. Many of the "fluff" changes to D&D in 4E strike me, as a clueless outsider, as an attempt by WotC to shore up a "brand identity" and thereby make it sufficiently distinctive that it could turn greater profits through savvy licensing and...

I'd be very pleased if FR reverted back to Ed, but it won't happen so long as a little more blood can be squeezed out of the stone. The new Realms will have to tank hard -- hard enough to affect the sales of novels -- before WotC would even consider letting it die. True enough. Again, I think...

Undoubtedly. I'm a 4E skeptic myself, based on what little we've seen so far, but I don't get the impression that WotC isn't devoting significant resources to 4E. I may not like how they're developing the game but I'd never suggest they weren't pulling out all the stops for the new edition...