Heh, a friend and I are actually doing a setting using the d20 system. We're mainly modeling them after Psions, with an MP-system and all that. We've also worked in a mechanic where you can cast spells even at 0 or negative MP, but doing so causes penalties of Fatigue, Exhaustion, and if your MP gets too negative, your character passes out and is unconscious until the MP regens back to 0 (usually the duration of a fight plus several minutes/hours afterward)

Everyone who's posted has seemed to say that discussion is collaborative, and debate is with opposing views.
But I see some issues trying to split these on a board.
FOr instance, if you have a 'discussion' topic, does that mean no one is allowed to disagree? Might make for a very boring thread.
What if somone starts a 'discussion' topic on, say Murphy getting the Sword, and someone else wants to point out the virtues of Thomas getting it. Is that changing it to a debate?
Or if someone wants to debate Murphy/Thomas, does this mean a new thread has to be created specifically for that purpose?

Debates can occur withing a discussion without detracting from the discussion as a whole. Another qualifier might be that debates continue the opposing viewpoints for some time, whereas a person in a discussion takes the opposing viewpoint and integrates it into his own, allowing some parts to harmonize while others don't.

darker images means there are new posts in that board since your last visit.  faded means there are no new images in that board since your last visit.

the old board did it too, but maybe it wasn't as noticable since it wasn't jim.  it's a fairly standard feature on all messageboards.

It used to be a yellow square versus a black one. It was much more noticeable then.