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Nah. He's just a gaming geek, of the role-playing variety, I'd assume.

To address the lack of local geekery, SJ Games has a gamer finder, if GURPS is your poison. If you're of the d20 persuasion: Gleemax the Wizards of the Coast forums has those sorts of people.

Actually, looking at that, finding a gaming group is a good way to meet the lady folk. At least, we generally have had women playing, even ones who weren't someone's SO.

Magic Online generates a lot of complaints about randomness. That's a card game with decks of at least sixty cards built from a pool of thousands of different cards, shuffled, and drawn one by one. The most common complaint is uneven distribution of land cards (about 40% of most decks).

One theory for why people complain is that everybody's brain is wired to notice unusual draws, and when you play online you have far more draws than in paper. A typical rate of play with paper is six games an hour, for two to four hours a week. A typical rate of play online is twelve games an hour, for two to four hours a night. With that larger sample, you see more weird stuff and accumulate more anecdotes about how broken the shuffler is. (You also have someone to blame other than yourself and a global audience for your complaints.)

Have y'all seen the site? It looks like a joke

Who would take that seriously?

You know, the ones that tend to be the DMs, the ones who tend to have their houses open for gaming sessions?

When WotC was running their own forums, old gaming worlds that people kept converting to newer versions of D&D had their own forums, where people actively traded in ideas related to their respective game worlds (Dark Sun, Dragonlance, Planescape, Ravenloft, SpellJammer, Mystara/Known World), but Gleemax decided that if a forum's front page didn't refresh every day, that it didn't meet its advertising quota, so it should be merged with another forum.

What did the hard core gamers get when they hoped to do fourth edition conversions of their favorite campaigns (ensuring new 4E sales)? They got the DarkDragonPlaneLoftJammerWorld forum, and the only way to get a forum of their own was to out-post the other worlds in the forum. Gleemax was the Joker, the forum was the pool cue, and try-outs had started (to make allusions to a currently popular movie).

Only, the gamers didn't play. They left for The Piazza. I play GURPS now.

Psionics is not overpowered.

Myth 13: Psychic Reformation is overpowered
Answer: Psychic Reformation is one of the most heatedly debated power in the XPH. There are two ways to balance this power if you see it being abused:
1. Make outside sources to purchase the service from unavailable
2. Balance the power if the character takes it themselves

They are. Scott Rouse of WotC has already confirmed this in his blog. http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=996519

Psionics is not overpowered.

[i]I was hoping that someday we would see PnP actually go online, but I'm having my doubts.[/i]

Yeah, I wonder if that'll ever happen. We'd need forums and bulletin boards,

If only there were forums or chat rooms where we could play.
http://forums.gleemax.com/forumdisplay.php?f=278
http://forums.gleemax.com/forumdisplay.php?f=342
http://www.onlineroleplay.com/Chat_Rooms_And_IRC/

Of course, we'd need online dice-rolling programs to do it. Wonder where I could find those?

http://invisiblecastle.com/
http://www.aroooo.com/rpg_stuff/dice_roller/

But that wouldn't be as good as having an electronic online game table sanctioned and run by the publishers themselves.

http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=905805

You're right. We'll never see PnP go online. But it's nice to dream.

[i]I was hoping that someday we would see PnP actually go online, but I'm having my doubts.[/i]

Yeah, I wonder if that'll ever happen. We'd need forums and bulletin boards,

If only there were forums or chat rooms where we could play.
http://forums.gleemax.com/forumdisplay.php?f=278
http://forums.gleemax.com/forumdisplay.php?f=342
http://www.onlineroleplay.com/Chat_Rooms_And_IRC/

Of course, we'd need online dice-rolling programs to do it. Wonder where I could find those?

http://invisiblecastle.com/
http://www.aroooo.com/rpg_stuff/dice_roller/

But that wouldn't be as good as having an electronic online game table sanctioned and run by the publishers themselves.

http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=905805

You're right. We'll never see PnP go online. But it's nice to dream.

[i]I was hoping that someday we would see PnP actually go online, but I'm having my doubts.[/i]

Yeah, I wonder if that'll ever happen. We'd need forums and bulletin boards,

If only there were forums or chat rooms where we could play.
http://forums.gleemax.com/forumdisplay.php?f=278
http://forums.gleemax.com/forumdisplay.php?f=342
http://www.onlineroleplay.com/Chat_Rooms_And_IRC/

Of course, we'd need online dice-rolling programs to do it. Wonder where I could find those?

http://invisiblecastle.com/
http://www.aroooo.com/rpg_stuff/dice_roller/

But that wouldn't be as good as having an electronic online game table sanctioned and run by the publishers themselves.

http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=905805

You're right. We'll never see PnP go online. But it's nice to dream.

As promised.

http://forums.gleemax.com/forumdisplay.php?f=347 --- You'll need an account. The sign up process is annoying. http://dnd.meetup.com/ --- Good site, just find your area. Helps if your not in the boonies like me.

Sorry I had more links but purged my bookmarks recently.

Here's a good starting point to minmax a druid. Poke around on the charop boards - druids really are far beyond non-caster classes for raw combat and at least in the running compared to clerics and wizards for batman-grade utility.

http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=733400

I have seen a lot of questions being posted here that have either been answered and archived at ENWorld.com or are not relevant to 4e as the system is getting a major overhaul, this is not a 2e shift to 3e, its far more radical than that... Link:
http://www.enworld.org/index.php?page=4e

The WotC website has some info as well (will require a Digital Initiative free sign-up to view) here:
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/welcome

If you want to hazard the nascent WotC forums and blogs @ Gleemax.com there are blogs by developers and they occasionally reply to 4e threads there. Link (uses same DI login from main site above):
http://www.gleemax.com/Comms/Login/Default/default.aspx
Warning: WotC is trying to reinvent the wheel and this site is "Alpha," so be prepared for some frustration navigating around it.

For a consolidated list of developer blogs, link here:
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/community

And for the proto-blogs on the old forum system they used during and after GenCon before the Gleemax blog system:
http://forums.gleemax.com/forumdisplay.php?f=684

In Service,
~~Saracenus
Real Daleks do not climb stairs, they level the building instead.

I have seen a lot of questions being posted here that have either been answered and archived at ENWorld.com or are not relevant to 4e as the system is getting a major overhaul, this is not a 2e shift to 3e, its far more radical than that... Link:
http://www.enworld.org/index.php?page=4e

The WotC website has some info as well (will require a Digital Initiative free sign-up to view) here:
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/welcome

If you want to hazard the nascent WotC forums and blogs @ Gleemax.com there are blogs by developers and they occasionally reply to 4e threads there. Link (uses same DI login from main site above):
http://www.gleemax.com/Comms/Login/Default/default.aspx
Warning: WotC is trying to reinvent the wheel and this site is "Alpha," so be prepared for some frustration navigating around it.

For a consolidated list of developer blogs, link here:
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/community

And for the proto-blogs on the old forum system they used during and after GenCon before the Gleemax blog system:
http://forums.gleemax.com/forumdisplay.php?f=684

In Service,
~~Saracenus
Real Daleks do not climb stairs, they level the building instead.

Magic: The Gathering Online is another example of a massive multiplayer game (300.000 players) where the transactions weren't very well thought out... and a large part of the game relies on the "trading" aspect of a trading card game.

The "Is the server up" tread on the forums runs to 143 pages since November 2006 and is very scary http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=733609

According to WotC_DM on the Gleemax forums (he's a staff member): "The D&D game table and the character builder are windows applications driven by a 3D-engine (DirectX based). The character sheet, dungeon builder and encounter builder will be standard windows application." Source: http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?p=13615178#post13615178 Also, when confronted with the possibility that WotC's data about Macs is wrong, "We are aware of the trends in this area, and as I mentioned earlier we are looking if some of our D&DI applications can be used with the more recent intel based mac systems, while keeping in mind our delivery goals and timeline. We also have made our decisions regarding serving the PC platform first based on factual market research data, not estimated data. A lot of our future steps will depend on the success of the first steps." Source: http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?p=13615386#post13615386 Maybe they'll work in WINE? :(

According to WotC_DM on the Gleemax forums (he's a staff member): "The D&D game table and the character builder are windows applications driven by a 3D-engine (DirectX based). The character sheet, dungeon builder and encounter builder will be standard windows application." Source: http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?p=13615178#post13615178 Also, when confronted with the possibility that WotC's data about Macs is wrong, "We are aware of the trends in this area, and as I mentioned earlier we are looking if some of our D&DI applications can be used with the more recent intel based mac systems, while keeping in mind our delivery goals and timeline. We also have made our decisions regarding serving the PC platform first based on factual market research data, not estimated data. A lot of our future steps will depend on the success of the first steps." Source: http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?p=13615386#post13615386 Maybe they'll work in WINE? :(

You have this backward. Two Weapon Fighting (TWF) with the feat, is mechanically weaker than Two Handed fighting (THF) with Power Attack.

Higher pre-requisites, i.e. Dex 15, the fact there is a whole series of feats to take. Penalties to hit. Lack of full STR damage in the off hand. Inability to use TWF except as a full attack. Finding paired weapons. This has been true since 3e boreal.catsden.net/RPG/d20-twf.pdf

The D&D Optimization Boards have run the numbers into exhaustion... there is a recent discussion here
http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?p=1331996 2

Of course any DM can make TWF effective by limiting treasure that supports other styles, but a single greatsword +5 weilder will trump TWF for damage any day. The extra damage from 2 handed power attack just scales too quickly.

Perhaps in 2e there was no weakness to TWF. With a high enough dex you could ignore the penalties to attack and just added another attack.

I played 2nd edition, first edition cyclopedia, 3rd edition, and I've been interested in Open Game Licensing since around 3.5 I have visited the thread yet, but here's a link.