Altalazar said:
Original D&D players never posted to web bulletin boards in 1974 - that is something exclusive to the 3.x crowd. So I guess that means we won't be hearing from Diaglo anymore, or else he'll be admitting that the new medium is better...
I've been posting on the internet since before second edition came out.
One or two of those old posts of mine are still archived by happenstance in places...
Anyway:
The town in the wilderness - without trucking and refrigeration this place has no reason or ability to exist out there like that.
The claim of medieval, without actually using any medieval dynamics other than armor. Actual DnD looks more like the Roman era in everything but the existance of full plate mail - which is largely post medieval.
Alignment. Created only because the game comes from a group of people who were more interested in miniatures simulation than roleplay... Most of us give our characters personalities now... dropping this could only help.
Religion that exists only to heal adventurers.
Adventurers themselves... this large body of people who have no place or role in the social structure... and nobody seems to care about it. Again, if we actually used anything but a society based on the late 20th century western world, merrit has no meaning over pedigree.
Action by alignment, which largely ties to my issue of alignment itself. But this one is more a cliche than a complaint. The old assumption that Orcs act a certain way because of alignment, or the paladin that runs around with detect evil on a stick...
Kender.
Dungeons - most of which are illogical in origin or ecology anyway.
Iconic archetypal labeling - ties to alignment. Everything fits into a simple box with no grey zones. From morality to abilities to every other last piece of existance, DnD in it's default presentation lacks complexity.