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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Spell" data-source="post: 2495337" data-attributes="member: 19718">even for the casual reader? ever for somebody who doesn't read the credits of the D&D book line? even for somebody who doesn't use enworld boards?i don't think his bias is that obvious... just because you are/ have been instrumental in the design and success of a game system, it doesn't mean that you can't be anything near objective, when looking at other games.in all fairness, if it wasn't Ryan, i think the majority of us would have agreed at this point, that they were not well written or too informative.let's forget for a moment that i believe that basing a whole review of a game on a comparison bewteen that game and another one is misleading and often tells me little about the game being reviewed, unless i'm aware of the other one works and is designed.my view on the subject is that, even if warhammer was an almost verbatim transliteration of D&D (which is not, by any stretch of the imagination), the feel of the world alone (even in its "washed up" heroic new version) is so different from 99% d20 published worlds out there to make you feel you're playing a different game.an example: AD&D 2nd edition. one system.can you really say that a dragonlance campaign would be similar to a dark sun one? both might be heroic... but the feel is so different that you are effectively playing two different games.Ryan's reviews ignored this element. They also ignored the fact that the many "similarities" between Warhammer 2nd edition and D&D 3rd edition are there because D&D 3rd edition borrowed some ideas from the original Warhammer (and from a number of different sources, as well).i would not dream to say that D&D is derivative of Warhammer, or Call of Cthulhu, or Ars magica, or whatever. D&D 3rd edition is vaguely derivative from AD&D, and that's it.As Ibram says, the similarities between different systems in the market today, are more the result of a general favourable attitude towards streamlined system than anything else.GURPS 4th edition is more streamlined than its 3rd edition. so is the new world of darkness. so is warhammer, and so is D&D. they all have combat actions, they all have magic systems, and they all are about "heroes" against some sort of "bad guys"... does that make them all derivative from one another?finally, i do agree that the prices of the books is a bit high... having said that, most RPG books today do seem to me to be a bit pricey, even wizards of the coast's ones.and i do have to say that the bestiary is one of the best examples of that type i have seen in ages (maybe the monstercomicon is up there, too). in my opinion it beats the monster manual any time.the fact that there is no treasure table, no hint on how to make magic items, and not a huge number of monsters are flaws only if you intend to play Warhammer as a D&D spoof. nothing wrong with that.on the other hand, if you claim that the book is poor because it doesn't break a decennal design philosophy that attracted all the past fans of the game to begin with, then you are being a bit big headed, aren't you?i couldn't agree more. i do have an agenda here: more fluff and less crunch!!! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />at least that is a very legitimate request. i do think that the standardisation of D&D monster manuals is, in the long run, cause of many more troubles than it's worth, but i also see that such feelings comes from my view of game mastering, role playing and design philosophy.</blockquote>

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