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My tastes and the tastes of those that make D&D split sometime in the late 80's and they've never really ever converged again. I have a lot more venom for the TSR of the 90's than for WotC, and stopped being a regular customer of D&D material in about 1994. I respect WotC as a gaming company...

Yes. But it wasn't until a whole host of Tolkien clones, with Shannara at the fore-front, sold a whole bunch of books that the Tolkien flavor of fantasy came to equate with fantasy as a whole. Before then, Tolkien was Tolkien. He sat at that odd middle ground between "kid's" fantasy (Narnia...

That might be weird obscure stuff, sitting in Scotland in 2010. It was not weird or obscure in Wisconsin in 1974. The notion that Gary and Dave were channeling sources outside the mainstream of popular fantasy/sci-if is just plain wrong, and ignores the incredible change in "mainstream"...

If I were to try to boil the "defining characteristics" to the bare minimum, I'd say... 1. It's got to be big. Duh. But the size should be expansive. It is too big to be "conquered." There is always somewhere new to go and explore. The players getting lost should be a real danger, as...

While Gygax never published Castle Greyhawk in whole, a number of products he did publish were portions of it. Isle of the Ape and the two Alice in Wonderland modules are the first two to come to mind. I am NOT the Greyhawk expert, so anyone who can add to the list, feel free to chime in...

Bingo! 1. Kill monsters 2. Take stuff 3. Build castle 4. Attract followers 5. Take over word (6. Ascend to god-hood?)

I don't think linear dungeon design (as in a straight line of rooms instead of various branches) isn't railroading. It might be bad or boring dungeon design, but it's not railroading. Taking Tomb of Horrors as an example, as written, the players can at any time turn around and walk out. The...

Dragonsfoot • View topic - Who invented the Lich? more info

For a six player party, I'd go Fighter Dwarf Elf Cleric Magic-User Thief When in doubt, more fighting muscle always helps, and I'd suggest any 7th or 8th member of the party be a fighter or cleric. The dwarf can supplement some of the thief's skills and the elf can supplement the magic and...

Considering no one actually exists who falls under the second proposed definition, I propose we go with the first definition.

Why do I have to try out 4e or anything else? If I'm perfectly happy doing what I'm doing, why do I have to try to new thing before continuing to do what I was doing before in order to avoid being labeled with a word you consider being a pejorative? (And I still don't think "grognard" is...

Allow me to be the first unabashed, self-professed grognard to post in this thread. I like old games. I generally prefer old games to new games. There are some exceptions. But the exceptions tend to be games that are out of the mainstream and self-consciously "old school." I personally...

I'm a pretty big Heroscape fan who never used to use minis for D&D. I've been --s-l-o-w-l-y-- incorporating them into my D&D play, but not on a gridded mat. Rather, I tend to use a blank table and tape measure. (Ain't no squares in O(A)D&D.) So, I never even noticed that there was an issue...

John Kim's Free RPGs on the Web For what it's worth, I've probably played more Encounter Critical (free rpg) than anything else over the last year and a half.

The OP basically said, "I'm tired of funny voices and 'walking through a Ren-Faire' type gaming sessions." The amount of "go play WoW/you're a hack 'n' slasher/D&D isn't for you" type answers really amaze me, and I wonder when talking in a funny voice while playacting out haggling over a bolt...

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The producer-consumer dynamic within the rpg hobby is beyond dysfunctional, but placing that entirely at the feet of the "mean" consumer is only seeing half the picture. Essentially - to borrow an analogy made in the comments to the article - rpg companies are trying to sell a bunch of finished...

I probably wouldn't have any problem with it. I suppose it would depend on exactly how involved my character and his family are in the DM's hook. My character was designed to be disassociated from his family and on the hunt for fame and fortune. Gaming in an adventure dealing with my family's...

Note: I said "nuggets" in their backstory, not steaming loads of... stuff. :lol: Minus the "family tragedy," your example is pretty close to being my "princess" pet peeve. An ugly, bearded one, but a princess nonetheless.

"Hall is the sixth son of a modest farming family. With no inheritance to speak of and the prospects of working for his older brothers his entire life, Hall left his home to seek his own fortune." That is as much background as I've ever written for any campaign as a player, and is more than I...