Love and anger?

The next expansion of Arkham Horror, Kingsport Horror, is on its way. Monsters with aquatic movement. Oooh! At this point, my gaming group has dissolved, but maybe some folks will be in town at Christmastime and we can all die screaming for old times' sake. At any rate, this puppy can't come out soon enough--I want, I want, I want....

In other gaming news, Paizo appears to be seriously not "upgrading" to 4th edition D&D next year considering . And raising the question of whether they ought to convert ever. Paizo is one of the major 3rd-party vendors for D&D--while their decision might not directly affect Hasbro's bottom line, I'd be inclined to think that Paizo's defection might encourage other RPG companies working the d20 OGL to follow suit.

The poetic justice of Paizo leading the charge away from 4.0 is the fact that Wizards Of The Coast sort of screwed Paizo earlier this year in the buildup to 4.0: Paizo had the publishing licenses for Dungeon and the venerable Dragon magazines. Those magazines no longer exist--it doesn't appear they were part of the Wizards plan to shift D&D to the internet.

Speaking of which, I think Mr. Mona's assessment of Hasbro/Wizards' motivations and goals are the most sober and accurate assessment I've seen. I think it's fairly obvious that Hasbro and Wizards are trying to appeal to MMORPGers and create a revenue flow by selling continuous low-level "upgrades" to gamers. He does a very good job of summing up what they're doing, why it makes sense for them, and why it's maybe not in the interests of other companies (and of old-school gamers, for that matter).