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If you're into the tile based games, Zombies is kind of interesting, although IMHO it's a little overly random, and not nearly as interesting as the other games you listed. Still, it's fun.

A game we've been playing lately is Filty Rich, a "3D" board game by Richard Garfield (creator of, amongst other things, Magic: The Gathering). The idea is you open shops, and then collect income from them, with the objective being to be the first one to buy three luxuries (trophy spouse, patent of nobility, private jet, etc...). The "game board" is a binder with four 3x3 plastic card-protector sheets inside. When you open a shop you place it's "sign" into the card-pockets on the sheet (a sign could span multiple pockets), then you roll some dice to see which pockets get visited, and collect income, and then there's a 50% chance you'll move to a new random page.

The game is "3d" since on a given page you can "see through" to pages underneath. It's quite a clever and fun little game. You can see the rule-book at the link above, if you're curious.

Betrayal at House on the Hill is a fun tabletop game. It's from Wizards of the Coast but was originally in development by Avalon Hill. There's an online demo here. Great replayability, although there can be a lot of rule interpretation bickering.

Betrayal at House on the Hill is a fun tabletop game. It's from Wizards of the Coast but was originally in development by Avalon Hill. There's an online demo here. Great replayability, although there can be a lot of rule interpretation bickering.

http://mtgoinstall.wizards.com/installers/mtgodl2. exe

Or they could go with this friendly fellow...

Heck, there's plenty of Christian friendly critters over there!

And they aren't sucky, like Unglued...

Or they could go with this friendly fellow...

Heck, there's plenty of Christian friendly critters over there!

And they aren't sucky, like Unglued...

Or they could go with this friendly fellow...

Heck, there's plenty of Christian friendly critters over there!

And they aren't sucky, like Unglued...

Or they could go with this friendly fellow...

Heck, there's plenty of Christian friendly critters over there!

And they aren't sucky, like Unglued...

Or they could go with this friendly fellow...

Heck, there's plenty of Christian friendly critters over there!

And they aren't sucky, like Unglued...

Or they could go with this friendly fellow...

Heck, there's plenty of Christian friendly critters over there!

And they aren't sucky, like Unglued...

Or they could go with this friendly fellow...

Heck, there's plenty of Christian friendly critters over there!

And they aren't sucky, like Unglued...

Or they could go with this friendly fellow...

Heck, there's plenty of Christian friendly critters over there!

And they aren't sucky, like Unglued...

...nah. Just use an Infernal Spawn Of Evil. It's competely free of any Christian symbolism whatsoever.

Trademarks are unlike other intellectual property in that they must be actively protected or they are lost. Louis Vuitton only sells their bags in their own stores. Even when they are in a department store they are in their own leased department staffed by Louis Vuitton employees. The only online retailer that has the right to sell Louis Vuitton is eLuxury. All of this is to guarantee the authenticity of an item for the purchaser. Anyone else selling bags are either fakes or grey/black market.

I really enjoy playing Acquire. The rules are very simple and it's easy to learn but the game play is fast and challenging.

My suggestion is Betrayal at House on the Hill from WotC. My friends went to GenCon in Anaheim last weekend and picked up the last copy they had. (It was selling like hot cakes). I can see why. The board changes every game giving players get that haunted house feeling. But the coolest part is that the game objectives aren't revealed until midway through the game (about 50 different game objectives, all unknown) when one of the players becomes the 'traitor' and plays against everyone else. It's fun.

We need to fund U.S. research of a Disenchant before they can acquire a Counterspell!!!

Who needs a Disenchant when there's this? I swear, MTG is broken. Let's all go back to Revised Edition.

WOTC has a picture of the chimera as well, for those who are interested.

A few basic statistics:

The chimera have hit die of 9d10+27, which is quite formidable, considering your average scientist doesn't really have much CON or DEX and prefers to focus instead on INT and WIS. This creates dangerous situations when chimera are spooked. In addition, they have an AC of 19; in comparison, a scientist's base attack bonus, even at level 10, is still only +6/+1, and their class bonus to defence is only +4, so this can be very intimidating for the scientists working on such projects.

On top of all this, Chimera make use of a breath weapon (!!), have the Multiattack feat, have Darkvision and low-light vision, threaten a 10 foot radius, have 19 STR (granting a +4 bonus to damage), and can take a full attack round to Bite Bite Gore at +12, then claw claw at +10, and of course, are usually chaotic evil, which ruins anyone's day.

When you consider this information carefully, it explains the sudden increase in the hiring (and burying) of adventurers in the Washington area. If you see one of these, I hope you have a high AC (preferably high DEX and Uncanny Dodge) and a fast base speed (30 feet for humans is respectable). Good luck!

This is old news to us mMagic the Gathering players. We've known about the Robo-Roach for a while now.

If you are really low on cash you can just use the SRD. All of the rules available for free on the web. What a concept...

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20/article/s rd35

Actually, Richard Garfield is on the design team for Control. (See Q&A for 8th June).

D&D is such a great game. I would like to thank Ed Greenwood for his wonderful contributions to the game in the form of the Forgotten Realms. Truly inspirational work this stuff is, or at least was. But sadly TSR has gone downhill since being eaten by the WoSC group, who used to just make a bunch of playing cards. Before you all pipe in and tell me to shut the hell up (because 3rd gen r00lz), I'll have you know that any time a module presents NINE 10th level fighters together as a battle, like in the Ravenloft adventures in and around Bluetspur, you have to ask if the depth of the game has been replaced by the stats that go with it. The answer has to be that the game has indeed shifted from a game of detailed and rich storytelling, such as with Ed Greenwood's additions, to a game of character advancement by hacking and slashing monsters, and people.

I'm sorry but TSR jumped the shark with Ravenloft, not to mention Spell Jamming.

D&D is such a great game. I would like to thank Ed Greenwood for his wonderful contributions to the game in the form of the Forgotten Realms. Truly inspirational work this stuff is, or at least was. But sadly TSR has gone downhill since being eaten by the WoSC group, who used to just make a bunch of playing cards. Before you all pipe in and tell me to shut the hell up (because 3rd gen r00lz), I'll have you know that any time a module presents NINE 10th level fighters together as a battle, like in the Ravenloft adventures in and around Bluetspur, you have to ask if the depth of the game has been replaced by the stats that go with it. The answer has to be that the game has indeed shifted from a game of detailed and rich storytelling, such as with Ed Greenwood's additions, to a game of character advancement by hacking and slashing monsters, and people.

I'm sorry but TSR jumped the shark with Ravenloft, not to mention Spell Jamming.

D&D is such a great game. I would like to thank Ed Greenwood for his wonderful contributions to the game in the form of the Forgotten Realms. Truly inspirational work this stuff is, or at least was. But sadly TSR has gone downhill since being eaten by the WoSC group, who used to just make a bunch of playing cards. Before you all pipe in and tell me to shut the hell up (because 3rd gen r00lz), I'll have you know that any time a module presents NINE 10th level fighters together as a battle, like in the Ravenloft adventures in and around Bluetspur, you have to ask if the depth of the game has been replaced by the stats that go with it. The answer has to be that the game has indeed shifted from a game of detailed and rich storytelling, such as with Ed Greenwood's additions, to a game of character advancement by hacking and slashing monsters, and people.

I'm sorry but TSR jumped the shark with Ravenloft, not to mention Spell Jamming.

Here's a better link for Worldwide DnD Gameday:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dnd/20040 722x

this, this, this, this, this, this, or many others.

Heh, no offense taken. Core Rules 1 and 2 were both full of compromises and had their weak points. That sort of compromise are why lots of money was invested in the goofy movie in CR1, why the interface is custom (and thus harder to use). I'm proud of lots of CR2, but there are big parts I wish could have been different, but it wasn't an option given the demands of TSR/WotC, the budget, and the release schedule. Still, for first job out of college, it rocked hard. (How many job interviews feature your future boss asking if you're willing to run a D&D game at the office? At one point Jim Ward played in a game I ran there.)

Similar compromises caused the 3e product (the Master Tools) to never really appear in a finished version. It's telling that eventually the E-Tools / Master Tools were taken from the original developer and handed to the open source group responsible for PCGen.

This seems as good a place to mention it as any... because I was working on the Core Rules 2.0, I got to visit TSR just as they were closing up and moving to Washington / Wizards of the Coast. I wrote up a bit about my visit to TSR, which might be interesting. It's still a draft (I'm hoping the co-worker mentioned in the story will give it a once-over), but it's reasonably polished at this point.

Legal 3e sources:

D20 SRD(RTF files) Information from the core rulebooks, Deities and Demigods, the Psionics Handbook, and the Epic Level Handbook. Crystal Keep D20 Compilations Compilations of rules content indexes from various products(about six months out of date-last update included the Player's Guide to Faerun)-these indexes are expanded far beyond the standard, often including all the needed information for those feats/spells/whatevers.
P2P Networking: A downloaded copy of Unearthed Arcana can be rendered legal by taking some variety of PDF/Image editor and blacking out the following: The cover, the Contributors/Playtesters/Credits page, the Githyanki/Githzerai, Slaad and Yuan-ti bloodlines(and any other references to those races in the book).

"Nayantara's online CCG Star Chamber" If I am right, CCG stands for collectable card game. Not to be cruel to the author of the article, but more towards the game creators. I suppose I should try it to see how it works. But is it really neccessary to have pictures of cards? They could have maybe called them something else. Anyway, just my half-a-cents worth. I used to be a huge Magic: The Gathering fan, and when I see "online CCG," that just doesn't appeal to my senses at all.

Book of Vile Darkness
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=dnd/dx200 21206ex
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/200301 17a
http://http//www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=product s/dndacc/881610000

Book of Vile Darkness
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=dnd/dx200 21206ex
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/200301 17a
http://http//www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=product s/dndacc/881610000

I'm not sure why, but rolling d20s is one of the most enjoyable experiences ever.

The past few years I've been lucky enough to have a strong group of DnD'ers to play with. We've been getting several games in a week. I think it's because it has a strong human element, as well as a structured rule system along with lots of possibility for strategy.

Wizards of the Coast has done a great job with the franchise since they bought it from TSR. Both from a marketing stand point and a rules standpoint (NWP's?! THAC0's!? WTF :-]).

If you've never played you should really give it a shot. I assure you that you will have some fun :D

At least in the US a company has to protect its trademark, or they loose it. But an alternative that most companies never use is to license their trademark. Then another company can use their trademark and be officially licensed. We see officially licensed merchandise all the time.

Most likely what happened is Odeon got a new lawyer, or they had an audit. It was pointed out that they cannot have someone else using their trademark so they sent a letter. Even if the president of Odeon uses the site and thinks it is cool the fact is that ignoring infringement of a trademark can cause the trademark to be invalidated. It is unfortunate that their lawyers didn't think to offer him an official license.

Steve Jackson Games is really progressive in this regard. Realizing that their fans would like to create software to add value to their product line they created the GM Aid License Program. They have a page that explains their program and provides a license application form. (It is worth noting that their system way predates the d20 Official Gaming License system by WotC.)

Borland Software takes it a step further providing benefits like free copies of their products you support.

Systems like these are a win for everyone.

• The enthusiast gets to make their officially licensed product.
• The other consumers get the benefit of the added value.
• And the company gets the benefit of a strong user community making their products move valuable.

I don't know why more companies don't have similar systems in place.

I don't think WotC wants to put any of their products under the GPL.

There's another game of similar scope called Acquire. Fantastic for fun and profit^H^H^H^H^Hsocial interaction.

I concur with the recommendations of Settlers of Catan and Chess. In addition, I'd also recommend Trivial Pursuit, which is a good social game as well as an excellent brain tease.

Foremost however, I can't believe my absolute favorite board game has yet to be mentioned. Axis & Allies! Avalon Hill just recently released a Revised edition of the game in celebration of its 20th anniversary. It's a fantastic game for 2-5 players that pits countries (the United States, Great Britain, Germany, Japan, and the Soviet Union), against each other in the middle of World War II. It's a strategy game that can last for several hours.

Somehow though, I almost always wind up playing Russia...

Robo Rally has to be the #1 geek board game out there. Unfortunately it's out of print and you can only get it used and abused from places like Ebay

I still create RoboRally parties and spend hours playing this game with friends and co-workers. And when I can't get together a group of people to play, there are variants online that are really cool to play too.

It was created by Richard Garfield (the same guy that made the Magic the Gathering game) and published by Wizards of the Coast back in 1994

It won 2 awards that next year

• 1994 Best Fantasy or Science Fiction Board Game at Origins International Game Expo & Fair, July 21, 1995
• 1994 Best Graphic Presentation of a Board Game at Origins International Game Expo & Fair, July 21, 1995

Robo Rally has to be the #1 geek board game out there. Unfortunately it's out of print and you can only get it used and abused from places like Ebay

I still create RoboRally parties and spend hours playing this game with friends and co-workers. And when I can't get together a group of people to play, there are variants online that are really cool to play too.

It was created by Richard Garfield (the same guy that made the Magic the Gathering game) and published by Wizards of the Coast back in 1994

It won 2 awards that next year

• 1994 Best Fantasy or Science Fiction Board Game at Origins International Game Expo & Fair, July 21, 1995
• 1994 Best Graphic Presentation of a Board Game at Origins International Game Expo & Fair, July 21, 1995

I know it's not strictly a board game but I cannot remember the last time I lanned with this group of friends. Lanning was a regular event, now its like why did we bother?

The depth in this game is amazing due to all the possible combinations of cards. Every one seems to devlope their own play style and deck construction. Ive only been playing about a month but in that time I've played nearly every second night. Its well worth a look if you can get past the "thats way too geeky for me" factor. My mum saw a game and decided she wanted to learn how to play.

First turn takes 30 minutes. Subsequent turns take 15 minutes each.

Unless you have a very small circle of friends (up to seven others), your social life is over.

Nothing like a long late-night session of AD&D to fight ADD !

You don't need a computer to do that. See the anecdote about a quarter of the way down the page entitled "They make the call." Apparently such a cron job will run on an actual pizza boy. Mind you, *BSD will run on a mechanical pencil, so it's not too much of a stretch from there.

Earthlings: Ugly Bags of Mostly Water

Actually, as it stands now, you don't need to buy any books.

The System Reference Document is freely available to download. It's got the basic 3.5 rules, although you don't get the pretty pictures. Still, if you're bad off financially, you can essentially play for free.

On the other hand, it is quite easy to spend a lot of money on D&D stuff. There's no shortage of extra rulebooks, cool dice, and what have you, but those aren't necessary to play. D&D can be really cheap, really expensive, or somewhere in between. It all really depends on how much money you want to spend.

Of course, in third edition, that Balrog would be a CR 20 monster. Despite running from it, everybody would get the experience because they were there when combat was initiated. And though Gandalf, who I assume is 20th level, would by rights only get 6000 XP for defeating said monster, party XP is based on average level. Gandalf, teamed with a bunch of level 1 hobbits, probably got far more than 60,000 XP for the kill, split evenly among the 9 members of the fellowship...and Frodo discovered, much to his surprise, that he was now level 4.

XP in 3.5 is absolutely inscruitable. I *guess* it's more fair...but I don't know if it's worth explaining to my players how killing 4 kobolds is worth 300 xp, killing 6 is 600...but killing 12 is only 900, unless one had a character level or they were ambushed, in which case it's 1,350, etc.

I was going to construct an elaborate rebuttal, but I have to go out, so instead I'll just point you (and everyone else!) to ENWorld. Easily the best online community I've ever seen - if you want to go debate the finer points of d20 vs. other games, that's the place to do it. Anyone else here who's been out of the loop for a while and looking to get back into D&D, it's the perfect place to get up to speed on what's happened. Plus D&D/d20 is open source gaming, so it's the perfect game for all the Linux geeks around here.

Which RPG system do you have in mind that predate this?

AD&D came after that, it was published in 1978 as three hardcover books: Player's Guide, Dungeon Master's Guide, and Monster Manual. It's a format that's follow even to this day. Various player race were introduced, and the rules were changed so that races are no longer classes.

Then came AD&D 2nd edition in 1989. For a while, they went to a 3 ring binder format for you to keep track of all the monsters, which drove me crazy. It may have been a good idea for adding new monsters, but pages tear and fall out all the time.

D20, or D&D 3rd edition, returned to the original Dungeon and Dragon name. The changes are quite drastic compare to any of the previous editions of D&D/AD&D.

The most recent release is 3.5E, which was last year. (2003)

For a history of D&D/TSR, take a look at here

The core of D20 is also published here as a set of rtfs.

Knights of the Old Republic used essentially the same rules as D&D, the d20 game, Star Wars Roleplaying Game. I've played the RPG, it works well as a table top game.

I think that KotOR makes it pretty obvious that a great game *can* be based directly on a table-top RPG. But a crappy game is a crappy game, no matter what property they license to go under it.

Knights of the Old Republic used essentially the same rules as D&D, the d20 game, Star Wars Roleplaying Game. I've played the RPG, it works well as a table top game.

I think that KotOR makes it pretty obvious that a great game *can* be based directly on a table-top RPG. But a crappy game is a crappy game, no matter what property they license to go under it.