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Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Arcane Runes Press" data-source="post: 1893808" data-attributes="member: 402">So... if I describe the Lord of the Rings, and mention Sauron, Gandalf, the One Ring, Middle Earth, Hobbiton, and Moria, I've got the "academic plague".How about if I utter the words "Curious George", or "big" "red" and "dog"? Is mentioning the words "Pooh bear" and "Christopher Robin" academic plague?Sure, you can describe D&D's mechanics as you did, and it's fine. But D&D is a generic game, without a real built in setting.The three paragraph example of "academic plague" is a description of the game, and of its setting, given on a gaming forum by a gamer to other gamers - people who've already seen games where "You play a god", and aren't likely to consider that a good explanation of what makes a game unique. Imagine someone who's never roleplayed sees your Greyhawk Gazeteer and asks you "Hey, what's this book about?""It's a fantasy world for D&D" you say, "where you take on the role of wizards, warriors, elves, thieves, or other archetypes, and go on adventures."Yep, true enough. It is those things. And that's going to be a good enough explanation for someone that doesn't game.  Now give the same answer to a gamer who plays in the Forgotten Realms. Still true, but what do you think his response is going to be? "So, it's just like the Forgotten Realms, then?"The answer is too simplistic for him. It doesn't tell him what makes Greyhawk a unique setting. But the way you've been arguing, if you were to mention the words Vecna, Circle of Eight, the Great Kingdom, and so on, you'd be pretentious, and suffering from academic plague. "You play gods" is a good, simple answer for a person who doesn't play roleplaying games, it's a simplistic answer to a gamer - good enough to let a person who doesn't play god-games know he won't be interested, but not near enough to describe it to someone who isn't automatically turned off by that sort of game. Patrick Y.</blockquote>

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