Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 9011993" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dungeon Issue 76: Sep/Oct 1999part 1/592 pages. Darkness is closing in once again and the cover takes us to the frozen north, where lots of monsters grow very big as it's a good way to conserve heat, yet retain an uncanny skill at blending in with the background until it's time to strike. Time to see if we can survive the trek and find anything of value up there, or the whole thing will be a big wild goose chase that winds up losing members to starvation and frostbite.Editorial: Chris delegates the editorial to Raymond E. Dyer, who's adventure is first in line once we get through the formalities of all the adverts & letters page. He spends it talking about his various inspirations in writing it. He could have just done a straight retelling of Frankenstein, but they already did that in issue 61, and most gamers would spot something that basic and rehashed straight away. Instead, he’s mixed in a bit of Salem’s Lot, a bit of The Exorcist, a bit of Haunting of Hill House, a bit of actual D&D fiction and at the suggestion of the editors, monsters from last year’s halloween edition of Dragon to tie things together. Hopefully that’s a complex enough mix that it becomes it’s own thing rather than just another derivative spooky story. Ravenloft doesn’t need any more of those, surely they have enough from the official writers. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" /> A fairly promising and self-aware start then. Let’s hope the practice is as well put together as the theory.Letters: First letter complains they do too much AD&D and not enough anything else. Surely they could spare a few scraps for lovers of other systems?  Second is contrasting, saying they do too many quirky gimmick adventures these days, and need to go back to the meat & potatoes stuff of the first 20 issues. As usual, it's impossible to please all the readers all the time. Still, an edition change will give them an excuse to go back to basics for a bit without feeling like they're repeating themselves, because the mechanics of the encounters will be all different. Third is very intrigued by the idea of Hero Points and wants to know more. They can be as weak or strong as you want. It's your campaign after all. The big restriction is that you shouldn't let them earn a hero point on an action they're spending a hero point to boost, as that deflates their value. Sometimes they have to manage to be awesome on their own steam to gain more.Fourth is the author of Night of the Bloodbirds, who's quite pleased with the artwork they added to it, as well as the other adventures in the same issue. He already has plans about how to fit them into his own campaign.Finally, another person who wants more serial adventures and variety in general. Some of the more out there ones might not seem useful to you now, but you never know where a campaign might take you, so a diverse archive is more useful than repeating the same ideas every few years. An annual would also be a good idea.Nodwick helps out with the editorial, letters and playtesting this issue, putting even more pressure on his already excessive workload.</blockquote>

Verification