Let's read the entire run

[delericho]

Countdown to Eberron: Having provided articles for so many old settings, they would seem a little remiss if they forgot to keep in the teaser for their next one. So while they have cut out most of their regular columns, this remains to keep the fires burning. They're still being pretty damnably vague about actual specific NPC's, monsters or geography, but they're very specific indeed about the tone and inspirations. The influences are largely cinematic rather than literary, with pulp and swashbuckling dominant, but not forgetting the medieval stories. After all, even if the world has advanced to this magitech place with huge cities and bullet trains connecting them, it's still built on a D&D fantasy world, with a corresponding history.

Indeed. But one of the great ironies of Eberron is that it was designed very specifically for D&D 3e, and yet it runs much better under at least one very different edition and under several entirely different rulesets.

(And I say that as a fan of both 3e and Eberron, both individually and together.)

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 316: February 2004


part 1/8


87 (108) pages. 6 months of shallow dipping finally comes to an end with a themed issue on spying. Since the last issue which did that was 231, the issue that got me to stop buying back in the day, I definitely think there's room for improvement here. Let's see if 3.5 is better suited to the james bond playstyle than 2e. Roll the dramatic theme music.


Scan quality: Excellent, unindexed, ad-free scan.


In this issue:


Wyrms turn: What examination of spying would be complete without mentioning James Bond? They talk about the various people who have played him, and the preferences of the people in the office. This reminds me that it's still a good year before Daniel Craig takes the role, and Bond gets hard rebooted for the first time, instead of simply playing fast and loose about if he's the same guy who gets plastic surgery and the like to stay useful, or if the name is merely a code for whoever holds the 007 job. The franchise was once again in danger of being seen as a dinosaur, but they managed to pull through by stealing from the best ideas of other recent films and capture a new audience. A lesson that D&D is currently struggling to emulate, with an aging fanbase and strong interest in older editions keeping things more static than the developers would like. Is the way to keep the game alive to pander to the fanbase, or go out looking for a new one? Is it possible to do both at once by supporting more than one edition at once? After all, they don't stop selling old films because a new one in a series came out. The new material acts as promotion for the old stuff in a way, making them more long tail money. But WotC currently seems to want to have a few high selling products rather than a wide range of moderately selling ones. It's all vey frustrating, and I wish i know what lesson to take from it.


Scale Mail: Our first letter is from someone who saw they were bringing back old campaigns, and got massively overexcited. As usual, they have to council moderation, for they do not have unlimited resources or creativity, and are always paying more attention to game balance than the old days. It's a pain having to be the sensible ones.

Second is a request for smaller, more condensed format corebooks and character sheets. Their ties to WotC prevent them from mentioning that Mongoose has done exactly that. They confirm that ironically, they have even less freedom as a separate company than they did as a WotC department. Not very helpful.

Drow have got a special this edition. But where's the Duergar love? Now this is one you, the reader could fix by sending in something good. It does have to be said that they'll never be as cool as Drow though. Elves and Vampires, there's no overtaking their popularity.

Also interesting is a letter saying that maybe you ought to restrict the types of monsters in your campaign, to create a stronger theme and give the ones you use greater depth. Curiously enough, the staff council against that, as they're all about lots of options and broad appeal at the moment. Let the players choose what monsters they face. Next thing they'll be encouraging DM's to give players whatever magic items they ask for. ;p

We had a request for more duergar love. now we have a request for more halfling variants. They remind us that with the current number of templates, you can create all the variants you'll ever need and more. Not that this'll stop them from adding to them. They have a supplement treadmill to keep up with after all.

And finally, a complaint that they've gone a bit too far towards pure crunch in their recent issues. They ought to be providing stuff we can't get from hundreds of other D20 publishers. They remind us that fluff and crunch shouldn't be opposed, but complementary. It's just that they're not currently in the business of creating whole campaign settings for you, just giving you the tools to do it yourself.

 

[Orius]

I wasn't overly impressed by the Red Death article myself, as it seemed too setting specific for general use, and Red Death was just an extention to Ravenloft to begin with. And I had mostly a big meh for the Chainmail article, another failed setting from early 3e getting some page time here. So why was it that they didn't have space for a Spelljammer article but they managed to squeeze in stuff for Ghostwalk (which could arguably not even be considered a full setting on its own) and Chainmail?

Countdown to Eberron: Having provided articles for so many old settings, they would seem a little remiss if they forgot to keep in the teaser for their next one. So while they have cut out most of their regular columns, this remains to keep the fires burning. They're still being pretty damnably vague about actual specific NPC's, monsters or geography, but they're very specific indeed about the tone and inspirations. The influences are largely cinematic rather than literary, with pulp and swashbuckling dominant, but not forgetting the medieval stories. After all, even if the world has advanced to this magitech place with huge cities and bullet trains connecting them, it's still built on a D&D fantasy world, with a corresponding history. In fact, that's a good encapsulation of their approach in general

Eberron certainly looked like an interesting approach though I never played it and I'm not really familiar with the setting at all. At least D&D was no longer trying to ape a feudal medieval European setting that was poorly suited to it. By this point I was growing tired of that approach, sarcastically refering to the typical D&D setting as a Renaissance Faire on crack rather than anything genuinely medieval. Even if Eberron really sucked badly, it at least made an effort to acknowledge the D&Disms instead of trying to suppress them to mimic the "Dung Ages" (that's WFRP's schtick anyway, no?).

Well, this issue was certainly a substantial improvement on the last 5, with a considerably more interesting theme and quirky articles, but it was still very much a mixed bag, much of which was frustratingly shallow. Still, it shows both ambition and variety, both of which are very welcome indeed, and it reminds us just how many fans these settings have. Overall, it's a good start to the year. Let's see if the rest of it is also an improvement on last year.

I liked the articles that had the most portability to homebrew settings, as well as articles that gave updates to a setting's important mechanical features. My least favortie articles were ones that offered little more than a pretty setting-specific PrC that had limited use for me.

This might be one of the last issues I comment on. It's well past the point where I was reading the magazine regularly, and it's firmly in 3.5. I liked the devloping flavor of 3.5 less and less as it went on, and stopped following the game's development sometime before the release of 4e.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 316: February 2004


part 2/8


Zogonia has another false alarm. Choose life. Choose adventuring. Choose excitement. Choose a different adventuring party, because this one is not giving you the respect you deserve.


Up on a soapbox: Rob Kuntz's story this month is about the comedy that can ensue when you have a ring of spell turning, and wind up with both sides partially charming each other. What should be a ruthless cutthroat negotiation turned into each side trying to out-nice the other, that only ended when it wore off for one of them, which they then took full advantage of. It's very much the kind of scenario that would play out in a looney tunes cartoon, only with the prospect of permanent death, and is yet another reminder how silly gaming could be back then. As usual, I am left feeling that people who want to make some kind of sacred canon out of old school play are really missing the point, and possibly have blinkers on. it doesn't have to be all silly fun, but at the same time it can't be all fantasy ing vietnam paranoia or death either. Variety is very much the spice of life if you want to keep gaming fun.


Nodwick has a cunning plan and follows it through without anyone dying. Apart from the villain. Maybe this adventuring lark aint so bad after all.


License to kill: We start off our spying material by looking at various character concepts, and how to make them fit D&D classes. As stuff like ocean's 11 shows, there's plenty of subdivisions within the heist/espionage process that a character can specialise in, so putting together a team is a very good idea, especially if you're a government, and want to make sure no one person has too much power without oversight. You never know when one of your operatives is going to go rogue or turn out to be a double agent. They detail 9 different roles, and then go into the classes and prestige classes best suited to them. Every class apart from Paladin can find their place easily enough, and they don't neglect the obscure stuff from splatbooks and the magazine either. Whether you want to seduce your way into the hearts of high-ranking officials, or covertly blow up government buildings, you can probably find a skillset here that'll do the job. It feels like a pretty good intro, even If i can probably predict what the next articles will contain with 90% accuracy.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 316: February 2004


part 3/8


Covert ops: Having given players advice on building their characters, the next logical step is DM advice on building a campaign, or inserting an espionage adventure into a previously more straightforward game. As with the previous article, this isn't generic advice, instead talking a fair bit about how D&D monsters and magic would fit in. (watch out for mind flayers, because both your secrets and loyalties are incredibly vulnerable around them. ) You'll want a good selection of organisations for the players to belong too, oppose, or maybe both at once if they're double agents. While there will be dungeons, you probably won't be striding in and killing everything indiscriminately, and should instead set the difficulty so they have to use stealth and disguise, and actually talk to (or at least stalk) the enemies to locate and retrieve the phattest loot. This is one playstyle where keeping the sides morally ambiguous and giving the players plenty of choice will produce more interesting (and probably more explosive) results than trying to tell a predetermined story. Once again, while the way they're approaching this is pretty formulaic, it still beats the 2e treatment, particularly as they can actually talk about sex this time around, which was a glaring absence in issue 231, given it's omnipresence in the genre. They can also be more inclusive thanks to 3e's more flexible class system, and talk in a more sophisticated way about genre emulation. Following this advice seems like it'd result in a more fun spy game than the 2e way.


Cloak & Dagger: If there's one thing spies and dungeoneers have in common, it's their love of gear. Both spend vast amounts of money and time on cutting edge stuff that adds cool tricks to their arsenal and may save their life in a pinch. The main difference, apart from being powered by technology rather than magic, is that spy devices are more likely to be one-shots, that solve a situation once and are used up or destroyed, so they can have a different selection of gadgets in the next mission. There's certainly a fair share of that stuff here, but also some things that might last if you take care of them, and don't let yourself get captured or fleeced. There's a wide variety of flashbangs, concealed weapons, and devices that aid breaking and entering, including plenty that are obvious lifts from recent movies and tv shows. Similarly, some of the magic items are rehashed, but since we're less than a year into the new edition, I'll forgive them that, because the way they're implemented makes them look fun to play with. Magic items which give you new tricks are much more interesting than ones that merely buff ones you already have.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 316: February 2004


part 4/8


Smoke and Mirrors: Good old Scry and remote nuke or teleport. If anything will wreck espionage games, it's cheap and easy divination magic. Look what Google and cheap surveillance cameras have done to information gathering in the real world. If it weren't for the sheer volume of information and number of false positives, most people would be all too easy to monitor these days. So any D&D focussed look at spying has to deal with this problem. Fortunately, Mike Mearls decides to tackle this in a fair manner, encouraging DM's to tackle this in-game, rather than nerfing powers. (after all, that's his job ) After all, while there may not be as many counterspells as divinations, the ones there are tend to be broader in their application, to deal with a whole range of intrusions. The important thing if players are making intelligent use of divinations is to let the enemy have access to them too, and then fairly keep track of what each side knows about the other. Don't give the enemy an unlimited budget, but let them use what they have to it's full potential. Remember that you need to ask the right questions to get information that's actually useful. Take the sensible approach in a non sensible world, and hopefully you will still get a fun game. This all seems reasonable enough to me.


Spies like us: Weirdly enough, we finish with a second bit of basic PC focussed advice, talking about how characters of all classes except paladins can find roles to disguise themselves and use their skills to help pull off a heist. The main difference is that while that concentrated on making new characters for an espionage focussed campaign, this is for existing ones suddenly plunged into the world of intrigue and trying to figure out how to be the playas and not the suckas. There is a fair bit of overlap though, enough that I wound up with a sense of deja vu when going through it. I suppose it is an old teaching technique. Tell people what you're going to tell them, tell them, and then tell them what you told them, and hopefully it sticks in their brain.

 

[LordVyreth]

I love how both articles did the "except paladins" thing, which isn't necessarily fair. I mean, Paladins won't lie, cheat or steal, but they still could have a useful place in a world like this. They could use stealth, or misdirection, or be the gang's "face." You'd be the equivalent of Carrot in Discworld, a surprisingly effective voice for right in a place plagued with corruption and cynicism.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 316: February 2004


part 5/8


Fiction: Hecate's ring by Thomas Harlan. This series is definitely building towards an end, as they put a previously on section at the beginning that tells us where all the previous instalments can be found. However, it doesn't escalate the overt magic, curiously enough, instead going into an investigation heavy story that's actually quite appropriate to the theme of the issue, as they have to figure out where in the big city their quarry is, and how to avoid all the other people who are after it too. The investigation turns into a high action chase scene at the end, leaving them in trouble, and the plot thicker than ever. With the next instalment listed for a couple of months time, it doesn't look like this story'll be left hanging, thankfully.


Elminsters guide to the realms: Dwarves may not get quite the attention of Elves overall, but Ed still makes sure there's plenty of Realms material for them. This is another of those articles that makes it very clear that he's done the real world research before adding his own embellishments, as he goes into quite a bit of detail about the grimy, backbreaking process of iron mining around Waterdeep. All those weapons and armor adventurers buy do not just spring into existence magically, there's a big supply chain behind them that can provide adventure hooks of it's own, especially since in a D&D world, any mines you make are likely to break through into underdark tunnels full of monsters at some point. Those picks aren't just for stone, you know. It's been a looooooong time since the magazine last did a feature on mining, and this is a good reminder of how important it is to adventurers, and how much fun you can have by incorporating it into your game. As usual, the fact that he's already put so much detail into the world lets him get away with things no-one else can, and that's why he's still good to have around.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 316: February 2004


part 6/8


Expanded psionics preview 2: The big change they talk about this month is psionic focus, and the powers that key off it. They're hoping this will work better than feats that were dependent upon having a certain number of PSPs in reserve. It does move the tactical decision to gain benefits from holding, or benefits from unleashing your focus to a round by round thing rather than a whole day one, which will make your characters more dynamic. Along with the ability to spend PSPs to enhance your powers and go nova, this gives psionic characters a lot more options to customise their actions even before they buy a load of metapsionic feats. As with the last teaser, the new crunch won't appear in the XPH, and this time only some of them will appear in Complete Psionic in a couple of years time, which means this teaser actually retains it's utility as a standalone. With approximately half and half feats that involve holding or expending your focus, both options are decently catered for, (although since you gain all the benefits at once by holding, but only one particular one by expending, that seems like the better thing to specialise in) so this is a pretty good teaser.


Under Command: The minis gaming column is split into 2 sections this month. Mushrooms, and Archery. (and never the twain shall meet, given the number of explosive spore releasing fungi in D&D. ) They introduce a new Mushroom Tangle terrain tile, and give three sample effects it could have on people that tread on them. Shriekers and Phycomids have some new company for the first time in a few years. I approve of this. The archery section, completely unsurprisingly, talks about how to create a ranged specialist unit in the minis game. It seems like only the chaotic good side is much good at this, as they have elves. (and you don't ) As usual, the big advantage is being able to hit the enemies when they can't hit you, and have everyone focus fire on one monster to take them down fast. You need to make smart decisions about whether to do one shot and move, or full attack the enemy and hope they'll go down before they reach you. And Terrain without too much cover will definitely be of benefit. Much of this is applicable to D&D as well, but this definitely points out the way they've limited both the types of creatures, and the size of the terrain in the minis game, making ranged combat harder to do than in D&D. That's a little dispiriting, but hey, at least they're maintaining differentiation between the sides. Wouldn't want this to turn into WW1 style trench warfare which grinds on for hours and is no fun at all.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 316: February 2004


part 7/8


Countdown to Eberron: The attempts to sell Eberron as a highly inclusive setting where any of the standard stuff can be used continues. This time, they talk about all the standard classes, (including psionic ones) and introduce the Artificer (although they only fully detail the first 5 levels) to us. Each has setting material aimed at them, and specific places they can come from. In addition, they talk about their overall philosophy on PC classes in the setting. If you belong to one, even if you're low level, you're still already a cut above the norm, with most NPC's belonging to less impressive NPC classes like expert or magewright. They've learned the lessons from bloated metaplots of the past, and newer games like exalted that let PC's feel like big players right from the get-go. Even low level D&D characters get superhuman pretty quickly. It's only the even more powerful opposition that makes them still feel small. You've just got to get your demographics right. So this is pretty interesting, because it shows once again how different their design process is these days, compared to the old ones where every single setting had to have an advancing timeline, novels, and iconic NPC's who got to do cooler stuff than you, because that was simply an automatic assumption by the writers after it worked for Dragonlance and the Realms. The setting should support the players, not overshadow them. These do seem very much like positive changes. They might not be giving the old settings much attention, but at least they're thinking carefully about what to do with the current ones.


DM's toolbox: The toolbox this month covers that old headache of character intelligence vs player intelligence. Which should take precedence when you encounter an IC puzzle? Johnn decides not to be judgemental on this matter, but instead present a whole load of hybrid options that make your intelligence score still significant, but not a carte blanche solution in itself. Keying the amount of time they have or number of clues, give them more probable possibilities for the consequences of their actions, allow for more OOC discussion with other players, and being more generous when it comes to reminding them of previous campaign events are various ideas floated that'll give mechanical weight to your stats while not allowing the players to abstract everything away. After all that's the essence of a roleplaying game, it bridges the gap between freeform let's pretend and purely mechanistic boardgames. As usual, this column has some pretty decent advice that's worth listening too.