Only a short Inquisition this week, since I have lots more Origins goodness to send your way soon, including an epic recounting of our journey to victory over the Ultimate Dungeon Delve, another seminar by Monte Cook (this one about designing dungeons), a seminar about 4e villain design, and my recap of the show’s exhibit hall, along with a few very short podcasts that describe some of the cooler games from the show floor.

A while back, over two years ago it seems, we had an epic showdown Inquisition between Ian McKellen and Ian McKellen…errr, I mean between Gandalf the White and Magneto! The mysterious White Wizard ending up kicking considerable ass in the poll, but it generated some interesting debate about who would actually win in a fight.

The dragon found them flying through the skies aboard a flying Dwarven pirate airship and threatened to destroy the ship if they didn’t toss the heroes overboard. They found their powers mostly useless against the creature, and scrambled to improvise other alternatives aboard a the ship. Firing at the creature’s wings, ordering the pirates into a better sense of organization, searching the hold for something useful, and finally, firing a Deva riding a barrel of rum attached with a chain to an anchor at the dragon using twin ballistas.

For the past week I’ve been hearing faint whispers around the edges of my radar about E3 going on, but it feels like this year everything is far more muted than it has been in previous years. The only thing that I’ve really heard a lot of excitement about is the new Star Wars: The Old Republic trailer, which does look extremely badass and the changes to the MMO style really intrigue me.

Starting with the initial announcement at GenCon 2007, we polled reaction to the coming of a new system and found most to be cautiously optimistic. Then shortly after release, we polled about everyone’s favorite edition of D&D, which at the time showed a preference for 4e, and late voting has only increased that lead. It seems only natural to follow up with the following, after 1 year of release, the question on many minds…

This week I’ve been thinking about something that I don’t believe we have touched on yet, and that’s at what age people start playing RPGs. I’ve heard from quite a few people that are new to D&D with 4th edition from various ages, but even just yesterday I ran my D&D game with a player who had not played since 2nd edition many years ago and is now trying it out again.

Over the weekend, I caught the newest entry in the battle between Star Wars and Star Trek, as the Federation Strikes Back with the new update, featuring a rebooted franchise and cast (with one exception). I was not alone in this, as many showings were sold out as everyone and their mother (literally) sought out the new adventures of Kirk and Spock. Thus, for all you new and old Trek fans alike, to balance the scales of last week, I present to you the following query…

It happens to be May the 4th, and a Monday, so I couldn’t let this go by without doing a Star Wars based inquisition of the week. With what could possibly be one of the corniest geek habits of using dates to make inside jokes, “May the 4th be with you” is apparently something that isn’t going away anytime soon. It occured to me that we have never done a poll about the Star Wars movies, which I am correcting today.

While thinking about spell-casting, I got to thinking about spells themselves. I flipped through both the 3rd edition spell list and cross checked a few against the 4e list (there’s some that didn’t make the jump) and compiled what I feel is a pretty good set of classic arcane spells. Especially around the lower levels there are more that saw more play just because of the nature of lower-level spells, but I think this is a pretty good list across all levels.

As I mulled over some topics on boardgames, my mind was still wandering back to the D&D game I ran on Saturday, so today we have a topic that spans between D&D and boardgames!

Last week The Main Event posted an Inquisition on a topic that I love to discuss, power creep in 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons.  With people voting on which parts of the PHB2 they thought …

Hopefully Dave’s curiosity was answered when he wanted to know how many of you went to see Watchmen.  65% of you went to see it opening weekend, while 23% didn’t see it that weekend but …