Robin Laws wrote a seminal piece in 2001 on the different types of players, the psychology underlying this deserves some serious thought from a design perspective
Related, “System Does Matter“, the foundational document of The Forge mastermind Ron Edwards. A good GM can run a game in any system – but why burden the GM with the need to house rule when there are systems better suited to her group’s play style?
Both of the above are partially sourced from work by John Kim, who hass done a lot of thinking about role playing game design
Also via Steve Winter, Kobold Quarterly (an interesting-looking publication) contains a column from him: “Complexity and Option Fatigue“. More good lessons in RPG design.
Baldur’s Gate Enhanced Edition is announced! Just when I’m close to beating BG2 for the first time. Some sort of action RPG is in the news as well… and Anachronox is up at GOG.com. A good day for PC role-playing gamers.
A list of monsters not included in the D&D Open Gaming License, meaning they’re not free for use by other for-profit publications. No beholders or mind flayers in Pathfinder, alas.
Finally, more discussion at Reddit of death and dying and how it should be implemented in the next edition of D&D.
