I totally agree with this. Nice article. As a young teacher and Dungeon Master, I worried that I wouldn't be funny / witty enough, but I found that situational humour that occurs naturally or just with a nudge comment or two is far far more funny than anything I could invent. Sometimes asking the players to help world-build, especially with NPCs can help too.

I've been playing since the B/X box sets. Sure, D&D evolved from wargames and so had an almost sole focus on combat, but I that the thing I loved about it was that we can do literally anything that our DM allowed, and that it was often more fun to circumvent combat by being creative. This included being sneaky or talking. Fun scenarios went beyond fighting things, but interesting places, i.e. exploration and interesting NPCs, i.e. roleplaying/ the social aspect. There still aren't many rules for social interaction. It still hasn't evolved much beyond that, but it's always been about roleplaying. Otherwise, what's the point of the Charisma stat?

You forget his other work. Vecna is totally based on Corum.

I read the two series a long time ago and it has inspired some of my campaigns, especially high level campaigns where they come across the evils of the gods of law and chaos, but I also found them an easier read than the Elric books.

Yep, Jarlaxle has always been sexually fluid in my mind and that suits his moral fluidity too. Because of that, I suspect many in the queer community would hate the implication.

However, I hope they don't make a Drizzt movie or live action series. The fans would riot and it would be really difficult making it without destroying the image fans have in their minds. A good animated series might possibly work though.