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I don't believe they can from a legal standpoint. I may be completely mistaken, but I seem to recall reading somewhere (Candlekeep perhaps?) that the terms of WotC's (and TSR before it) agreement with Ed Greenwood requires the publication of a certain amount of specifically gaming material each...

While I agree wholeheartedly with those who argue that it's a bit unfair to judge the online Dragon based solely on an incomplete first issue, not to mention those who rightly remember that the early days of Paizo's stewardship of the magazines weren't all wine and roses, the fact remains that...

Here's a totally idle speculation to consider: 1. Remember the WotC setting search? The one that gave us Eberron? Why did WotC do that? At the time, I felt WotC was looking, for various reasons, to retire the Realms and replace it with a setting that was new and thus free from years of...

I think it's probably fair to say that roleplaying, as a hobby, is stronger than it's been in some time, which is a good thing, but it's certainly not stronger than ever. If one compares it to its true heyday in the late 70s through mid-80s, this is nothing. 3E initiated a revival in...

I can't speak for the original poster's intent, but I suspect what he meant is that the term "grognard" gets thrown around unthinkingly a lot as a way to label people whose ideas about D&D one does not like or agree with. It's a term of derision and scorn, much like racial epithets. I doubt his...

Mr. Slavicsek wrote for Star Wars D6 and he was, I believe, its line editor for a time early in its run, but he did not write the game itself. That honor goes to Greg Costikyan, a true legend in the RPG industry.

To start with, sure, what made D&D D&D was nothing more than that's what Gygax and Arneson called their game. Over time, though, I'd argue that "D&D" came to refer to more than just the game whose books had that name on their covers. It referred to a very specific mélange of pulp fantasy...

That's a very cogent observation and I think it's clear that both aren't D&D for reasons beyond the positivist "because they don't say D&D on their covers." In a similar vein, neither Arcana Evolved nor Warlords of the Accordlands are D&D, but why not? I think finding an answer to these...

Little surprise there given the prominent role Rich Baker, creator of Birthright, is playing in design of 4E.

The only original arch-fiends we know are in 4E are Asmodeus and Orcus and they're probably staying because both have sufficiently long-standing D&D associations -- I mean, when was the last time anyone referred to Hades/Pluto as Orcus? -- that the story team probably thought it'd be a nice nod...

This is my belief as well and it's probably the main reason why my initial suspicion of 4E has grown to titanic heights over the last few weeks. This isn't 4E; this is Dungeons & Dragons 2.0. From WotC's point of view, this probably is a no-brainer, but I don't have to like it -- and I don't.

All we can do is guess at this point, but I think it explains a lot of the seemingly arbitrary changes that have been revealed so far. I don't think anything WotC does is arbitrary and it makes sense that, if they're committed to a rather thoroughgoing revision of the game, they might as well do...

I feel exactly the same way. I think this is a big mistake on WotC's part, but I think they believe that they will potentially gain much, much more than they will potentially lose by taking this risk.

I agree with this, but -- and I hate to keep harping on this -- I think WotC's plans for 4E include a very large helping of creating new IP that they (and Hasbro) can exploit in creating spin-off products, particularly computer games, and that will further differentiate the D&D brand from the...

Correct and I think it's precisely for this reason (among many others) that we're getting a new cosmology. WotC has good reason to want to make 4E distinctive, some way to separate the "official" brand from its competitors, both within the D20/OGL market and the larger fantasy RPG one. At this...

That makes a great deal of sense. I remember Monte Cook arguing that one of the great flaws in v.3.5 was that it changed just enough that every player and DM could never be sure what had changed and what had stayed the same. They essentially had to "re-learn" the game, even if all they...

I think you're probably right. It's for this reason that I'm inclined to see 4E as really Dungeons & Dragons 2.0, a reboot and re-imagining of the game that draws on what has gone before but also makes quite a number of changes. In a very real sense, it won't be the same game as before, even if...

But why even use Tharizdun at all? It's not like he's exactly a household name, even among D&D players of long standing, let alone those of more recent vintage. He's a very specifically Greyhawk deity. Truthfully, it's this kind of sloppiness that makes me fear 4E. If Greyhawk, even the...

The more of these Design & Development articles I read, the more it seems clear to me that, whatever other purpose this new fluff serves, it also creates a new batch of D&D IP. This serves two purposes. First, it establishes a strong brand identity of something that is distinctly D&D (in the...

Except this doesn't feel like first edition at all. As others have pointed out, it sounds a great deal more like Frank Mentzer's BECMI cosmology, which was admittedly a variant on and massive simplification of the 1E cosmology, but the two are not identical by a long shot.