Let's read the entire run

Well, it looks like we're back. Time for some serious catching up.

Dragon Issue 300: October 2002


part 9/10


DM's toolbox: This column changes writers, and takes on a topic that feels more like a Dungeoncraft one than a DM's toolbox one. How to recruit a new player, particularly one who hasn't played RPG's before at all. Still, it approaches the topic in the list based, step by step way that makes this column particularly useful for the socially inept. It's all about making the idea seem fun and accessible. Of course, one problem here is that like the rest of the magazine, they have to aim this towards 3e D&D, which doesn't have a really good basic set, unlike previous versions, and the three books put together are thicker than most of the old boxed sets as well. But even that's solvable as long as you guide them through character creation. After all, they only have to read the Player's handbook, and big chunks of that will be irrelevant depending on which class they pick. A one-to-one introductory session in which they're the centre of attention and all the challenges are tailored to their character is often a good way to start, especially as it gets the explaining part done without the clamour of contradictory voices that can be very offputting. Basically, start simple, and then gradually unveil all the multifold possibilities roleplaying games offer, that you simply can't manage with any other form of entertainment. Hint at the possibilities and invite them to explore them themselves, rather than shoving hundreds of supplements at once in their faces. So it seems this column has survived a writer change without being hit in quality or usefulness, although the topic is a little rehashed. Like the writer submission guidelines being reiterated every year or so, it's an important measure to keep bringing in new blood.


Silicon Sorcery: Age of Wonders 2 is another computer game that to be honest, owes a fair debt to D&D in terms of classes, spells, and monsters. Which of course, makes it all the easier to convert the few bits that are original. A couple of new elemental blast spells, hurting the enemy with geysers of steam and sticky clouds of poisonous gas. Nothing too groundbreaking, but as usual, the slightly different secondary characteristics will help you catch the enemy off guard, and hopefully bypass their resistances. Couldn't they convert utility powers instead, or isn't there many of those in computer games to convert? Overall, this is a definite meh, as we already have more than enough blasty powers. Once again, this shows the flaws in only doing the popular stuff and cutting the rest. You sacrifice the versatility that makes you adaptable to new situations, and make yourself more vulnerable to change.


Nodwick faces a time traveling enemy. Fortunately, he's no more competent than any of their other foes:

(un)reason said:

The ecology of the mummy: God, it's been a while since we had one of these. It's been mostly VS's, and even they've been thin on the ground lately. I guess these things come in cycles, because the early 90's was pretty thin ground for ecologies as well. This is a very dry ecology, almost completely removing the fiction for a combination of dry historical stuff, and ideas aimed towards creating interesting encounters for players. Creature combos, tactical notes, treasure suggestions, a sample map, this is a big step away from the old ecology style, and one I'm not sure I like. Guess it's going to be another dry spell here then.

Click to expand...

This was an incredibly sad time for me. I had earlier had six unpublished "Ecology" articles, which Dave Gross had approved of but which had not yet gotten contracts, bulk rejected because the new editor didn't like the "fiction and footnote" aspect of "Ecology" articles and was changing the format. Once I saw the new format, I was less than impressed. And that one decision shut me out of the bulk of the articles I had been submitting to that date.

Johnathan

Dragon Issue 300: October 2002


part 10/10


Sage advice: Can I be a human cleric of bahamut (Yes, actually. He's progressive.)

Do greater deities do everything perfectly. (Almost. They still don't always crit. Small mercy though.)

How do you stat out your own deities. (Read the book, follow the formulae. )

Where do paladins of helm get their spells from (Good question. There is some definite metaphysical drama there. )

What's the point of voice of the siren (Even more bonuses. Rockaroo. )

How many domains does an oracular adept have (The usual. You lose your old ones. Don't try and double up like a twinky monkey boy.)

What happens if you get arcane domain spells (They're simply divine for you, pouffles.)

How does slime wave work on large creatures (Lots of surface area = lots of suffering. Take that tarrasque down.)

Does divine might take up an action and use up a turn attempt (no, yes)

If a domain spell boosts caster level, can you use that to make powerful magic items ( Yes, at the usual extra cost.)

Where in the roll do you apply turn resistance (All points. Break the powah!)

Can command set someone up for a coup de grace (No. Self preservation is stronger than a puny 1st level spell.)

Do you need a hand free for a divine focus. (No, you can just be wearing it. Isn't faith a wonderful thing. )


What's new has Dixie take charge, still on a heroic kick. Seems to be going pretty well for her at the moment.


This issue is very disappointing indeed, especially when compared to the breakout experimentation of issue 100, and the turn everything up to 11 extravagance of issue 200. It makes it very clear how much more limited the topics they cover have become, and how much more formulaic the ways they approach them are. Top that off with the specific theme being approached in a manner that simply doesn't give it the gravity it needs, and you have a complete damp squib. Not one I have any real desire to come back too later. Let's hope that with the pressure off, the next issue won't choke quite so badly.

Richards said:

This was an incredibly sad time for me. I had earlier had six unpublished "Ecology" articles, which Dave Gross had approved of but which had not yet gotten contracts, bulk rejected because the new editor didn't like the "fiction and footnote" aspect of "Ecology" articles and was changing the format. Once I saw the new format, I was less than impressed. And that one decision shut me out of the bulk of the articles I had been submitting to that date.

Click to expand...

Unfortunately, I agreed (and agree) with the change in format. While the new format tended to be rather dry, I found that it was considerably more useful to me as a DM, and generated far more adventure (and campaign) ideas than the old format did.

Richards said:

This was an incredibly sad time for me. I had earlier had six unpublished "Ecology" articles, which Dave Gross had approved of but which had not yet gotten contracts, bulk rejected because the new editor didn't like the "fiction and footnote" aspect of "Ecology" articles and was changing the format. Once I saw the new format, I was less than impressed. And that one decision shut me out of the bulk of the articles I had been submitting to that date.

Johnathan

Click to expand...

That was a sad time for all of your fans also. I still want a Monster Hunter compilation, artbook, fiction book. Have you ever thought about writing a book?

Dragon Issue 301: November 2002


part 1/10


83 (116) pages. Whaaat. Are they actively trying to make their covers bad now? This one looks like someone was drawing from a claymation model. An edgy, badass claymation model, to make things even more ridiculous. And they've given up all pretence at backdrop. This is even worse than the very first issue's cover. Really, what the hell were you thinking, letting this one through. Hoo boy. The transition to the new company continues to be a rough ride, it seems.


Scan Quality: Excellent, indexed, ad-free scan.


In this issue:


Wyrms turn goes back to a full page in size, as they actually have a decent amount to say this time. While they may only cover official 3e material in the magazine these days, they do have a ton of stuff by other companies, and no problem with trying out deranged hybrids of options from different books. Once again it's clear that some of the restrictions the magazine works under are due to the management, rather than the creative staff. If they weren't constantly worrying about cross-promotion and relevancy to current product, they would put more weird stuff in. And of course, nothing's stopping you from doing that in your game. As they've said before, you do not have to worry about all the things they do, and should just concentrate on having fun. The compromises needed to make a system that works for everyone mean it may not be perfect for your particular game style, but hopefully it'll require fewer hacks to get there than one that was designed for a specific purpose only.

(un)reason said:

The risen dead: Once again we see how popular templates are. Even monsters that have already been statted out as regular creatures are being redone as templates, so it's even easier to turn PC's into one, or reflect that the original source wasn't the usual one for the creature. So Mummies, Wights and Wraiths follow in the path of Vampires and Liches here, making PC's turned into one all the scarier as adversaries. In addition, they include a new one for ghostly animals, since the regular ghost template doesn't really work for them. All are designed to be pretty close to their original version, and have ECL's several levels greater than their CR boosts, which means they'll be playable, but might be a bit fragile long-term. especially since they'll also have lost all their Con bonuses. Still, D&D becoming more of a toolkit is not something I object too, so this article gets a thumb up from me.

Click to expand...

Ah, I missed this thread. I appreciate you crossposting it on nearly every other rpg site out there, but I've been commenting here. As for this article, I enjoyed the content, but DEAR GOD the formatting is terrible. Who puts black font on a dark gray background? Or even worse, red on a dark gray background?

Dragon Issue 301: November 2002


part 2/10


Scale Mail: The first Campaign Components may have been a little too obvious to please my jaded tastes, but plenty of people did like both it's content and format, and they have several more in the pipeline, including swashbuckling this issue, and gladiators in a couple of months time. Both low magic options, interestingly enough. I wonder how much work they'll put into D&Difying them.

Amusingly, we have complaining letters about issue 300 sent even before it came out. Won't someone think of the children, especially those who are already subscribed, so their parents won't get a chance to vet it before it arrives. Since I'm pretty darn sure most of those kids are now fully capable of finding porn on the internet in seconds, even if their parents try and put controls on the computer, the horse is long gone from this barn door. And since the final result wan't even that gruesome or mature, especially compared to the stuff White Wolf is putting out around this time, this all seems pretty pointless.

The readers haven't completely lost their sense of humour though. First we have someone who's obsessing over little details of their logo design, then we have someone who wants to tattoo the No SASE Ogre on their breast. The only suitable reply I can think of that is a no SASE ogre filk set to the tune of "No Scrubs", and I really can't be bothered to write two full verses for a single joke response.

A rather more weighty question is why they don't do OGL articles. It basically means everything they publish is just being kept by the company, never to be built further upon. They feel that they have already been more than generous with their intellectual property. Now it's everyone else's turn to give back to them. I suspect that whatever the individual writers think, the lawyers at WotC are already having morning after regrets and trying to look for ways out of the deal. Peter Adkison & Ryan Dancey have both left the company by now, but thankfully their influence lingers.

Finally, there's the issues involved when you make too many things templates. Firstly, there's the silly combinations, and secondly there's the annoying twinked ones where one negates the weaknesses of the other, and a creature can become virtually unkillable, which means it's way more powerful than it's supposed CR. Such is the nature of a modular system. There's always going to be some breakable edge cases, no matter how tightly you design it.


Zogonia loses it's sense of perspective.

Dragon Issue 301: November 2002


part 3/10


D&D Previews comes to an odd end, with lots of stuff this month, but only one thing for next month. Guess like the forum, they felt it had become obsolete in the fast moving world of digital communication. That and the preponderance of novels over gamebooks doesn't look good here, does it.

Our only RPG product isn't even D&D. The D20 modern corebook sees them try and do generic action adventure. They hew even closer to the D&D model than they did with Alternity, with 2 of the sample settings being basically modern day D&D done as Buffy and Shadowrun, respectively. Of course, the irony is that worked, as it enjoyed a longer run than Alternity or the Amazing Engine. Still, White Wolf continues to really hold the crown for modern day supernatural roleplaying.

T. H. Lain continues to produce generic D&D novels "singlehandedly" at great speed. City of Fire gives Krusk centre stage.

The Forgotten Realms gets a ridiculous number of novels out for christmas. The Sorcerer by Troy Denning. Insurrection by Thomas M. Reid. Sands of the Soul by Voronica Whitney-Robinson. All familiar names both IC and OOC. Continuity like a thick glutinous paste envelops everything. Where is the room for PC's to make their mark?

Dragonlance is almost as busy, trying to keep up, but not quite managing as usual. Bertrem's guide to the war of souls gets a second volume, obviously the first one sold well. Jean Rabe delivers The Eve of the Maelstrom. And Steven D Sullivan starts to open up another area of Krynn next month. The Dragon Isles. Well, those horrible dragon overlords that were the primary antagonists last product cycle had to come from somewhere. They don't get that big and powerful overnight.


Up on a soapbox: Gary's reminiscences stray to an idea that was very much in fashion during the 70's, and has since slowly fallen out of it. Going to the moon. With the Apollo landings fresh in everyone's minds, it's not surprising that people wanted to put that in their RPG's. And equally unsurprisingly, Gary decided to put some amusing obstacles in their way. What is slightly surprising is that they did then let those obstacles deter them, not wanting to risk their lives to a method of getting to the moon that would only work in a warner brothers cartoon. You know, real researchers had to do decades of research, which often blew up in their faces, before they made it there. You'd think fantasy characters could stand one or two before giving up on their dreams. This is especially sad because he probably would have let them go there if they tried hard enough. (and if he had the time to prepare an adventure for them to play once they were there ) Oh well, it's not as if there weren't other chances to get to the moon, as those playing in Jim Ward's campaign found out. Oh well. Not every group of heroes has what it takes to overcome insurmountable odds, and even in the brutal days of the 70's, not everyone just shrugged and rolled up a new character when their existing one fell. If they did, things wouldn't have changed over the years in the first place.

Dragon Issue 301: November 2002


part 4/10


Campaign components: Ah yes, swashbuckling. Since that was the theme of their very final 2e issue, this is a fairly quick revisiting, and shows it remains a pretty popular game style. Unfortunately, they don't have Robin Laws providing the genre emulation ideas this time around, and a dry, point by point listing of all the core classes and races, and how you get get them to fit into a swashbuckling campaign, is not a good way to get me in the mood, as well as eating up a good 10 pages with the kind of waffle you could probably come up with yourself if you felt like it. Guess even with the cut in setting material, they still have writers padding things out because they're being paid by the word. The second half of the article is more interesting to me, with a pretty decent selection of new feats and equipment, and a few new adventure ideas involving putting D&D monsters in the swashbuckling milieu. But still, we have another case where this material is so 3e specific that it doesn't have much utility anywhere else, while the previous special has quite a lot of adventure ideas that would still be good when applied in 3e, or indeed any other system. It makes me think that I might enjoy those mammoth issues in the first half of 2000 all the more in hindsight, since they did cram so much in to make sure we had a good store of material. In the meantime, I have far less to say about this than I should for a 19 page article that eats up a good 6th of the magazine, which irritates me. That's the problem with being dry and competent, but also highly specialised. It means I can't even slate it interestingly. Let's hope Gladiators is more interesting. At least I won't have a previous themed issue to compare it too, so it'll have to have more unfamiliar material simply by necessity.


Meter and measure: Or new shiny crunch specifically for Bards, as if they weren't already one of the most flexible classes in the game. Masterpiece performances are a way for them to gain new uses for their bardic music at the cost of a fair chunk of time and money, plus a small permanent investment of skill points. As a way to balance the permanent acquisition of new powers, it makes sense. But it does mean they're never going to challenge the tier 1 classes who can get an unlimited selection of spells if they can find the time (and OOC supplements) to do the research. Still, it is a good diversion from yet another collection of new spells, and both the performances and their creators are pretty amusingly described. If it was a standard Arcane Lore I'd still like it. It's just it throws into relief another problem with their attempts at making the game more balanced.