Picture: Tavern scene. From The Temple of Elemental Evil (TSR) I can't identify the artist and five were used on the book.
Part one, the overview, is here. But if you're not into D&D then what's the point. Credits repeated at the end.
I first felt the need to define the original game mechanic after playing V3.5 and then 4th edition rules, both WotC games. Player characters now had so many skills, stats and powers that whenever they wanted to do something in the game, they looked at their list to choose an action. I felt this was odd and I call it menu play.
I got around this by drawing my group's attention to the idea of the DM having DM's discretion and being able to make their own calls at times. But, those systems really push into menu play. When deciding to go back to TSR, I wanted to clearly define what menu play was not.
Continue reading (5/5) D&D Theory - zen gameplay vs. menu play.