[muriwo]

Hmm. As a player (now GM) and general fan of DW I would certainly refute the "fantasy heartbreaker" hypothesis. The original books are "classics" because the game and especially the setting they included were so good!. Otherwise no-one would use the word classic. I bought and played any number of games in that period (late 80s) and only a very few of them stuck. DW was one.

Re "trimmed down D&D", it is certainly cut down in terms of having less weight of rules. And it is not 180degrees opposite to D&D in its approach. But its system clearly involved some thought rather than just being a "pale copy" of D&D. Perhaps this was one reason I moved onto it after several years of seeing too many D&D campaigns degenerate into rules-quibbling and power-gaming.

Regarding the skills system, pace the reviewer, the new edition does actually have one but it is certainly very limited. Perhaps surprisingly, that doesn't make a huge difference to the game. I also play MRQ and WFRP both of which are fairly skills-focussed. However sometimes the mechanics of skills can get in the way of good RPing - as when a player has a great idea for dealing with a situation but is let down by an unlucky roll on the related skill. I guess it depends on the GM and the attitude of the players. Certainly if I had never played any game without a skills system then I would have missed out on quite a lot, I feel!