Let's read the entire run

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 327: January 2005


part 1/7


100 pages. Looks like we're still in general dark dungeoneering mode on the cover, with an illustration that's very similar indeed to issue 322's. There's only so much you can do with with close-ups of covered faces. Let's hope we haven't run out of new ideas to put down there, just as they're making a load of effort to reaffirm that as a playstyle.


Scan Quality: Good, unindexed.


In this issue:


From the Editor: After barely a year, we once again switch editors, as the previous one promotes upwards to the R&D departments. They might start off enthusiastic, but monthly deadlines soon grind them down, particularly when the stuff they're releasing from one month to the next is so similar. You have to work to keeping it interesting for you as well as the audience. Fortunately, our new boss is made of sterner stuff. Erik Mona has shown himself willing to do this job for free for years, creating the Oerth Journal as an online magazine to keep Greyhawk alive in the dark times of the mid 90's, and then getting to go official when WotC brought it back instead of just getting threatening letters from Rob Repp. Since then he's moved through Polyhedron, the Living Greyhawk Journal, to Dungeon, and now to here. In fact, for the next couple of years, he'll be the lead editor on Dungeon and Dragon simultaneously, which is longer than Roger managed before getting burnt out. So yeah, he's a genuine enthusiast, and hopefully his obsessive attention to Greyhawk's setting detail will apply to other ones as well. This is definitely a good way to start a new year.


Scale Mail: Our first letter is from someone who found the lovecraftian material came at just the right time for his campaign. Given how popular Lovecraft is, this bit of synchronicity was almost inevitable.

Not quite so lucky is someone who forgot where the quasi-elemental genasi were. Fortunately, there are detailed records in the magazine to remind them. As long as the internet remains, none of this will be lost.

We get some old school whimsy, protesting against the atrocity that is summoning and binding elementals to serve as industrial power sources. Using them like pokemon is bad enough, but working for years with no hope of release? Inhumane! A very valid issue, and one I'm sure you could have a lot of fun with in game.

We also get reminded that while roleplaying as a whole may be male dominated, there are a fair few groups that are female only or have them as a majority. Remember, women buy far more books in general than men. It's quite possibly a fluke roleplaying evolved primarily from wargaming rather than literature and wound up male dominated.

Rather more prosaic is a basic bit of errata. Same as it ever was.

A lot of the time, getting hold of the magazine overseas has been a problem for people. However that doesn't stop it from turning up for sale in the oddest places. Even Afganistan gets a few, partially thanks to the soldiers stationed there.

Another obvious letter is nitpicking about the difference between england and great britain, and the way people from other countries can conflate the two. Yawn. I can't get worked up about this, but then I am english, so maybe it's just majority privilege speaking there.

The revamp and it's masterminder get praised again twice. Since he just left, that instantly makes me wonder if they'll like the next set of changes Erik will make.

And finally we have yet another person asking how you get into writing role-playing games. Since we had an article on that just last issue, I'm forced to sigh at the being repetitive again.

 

[LordVyreth]

Wow, moved it back down to the seven range! Nice job!

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 327: January 2005


part 2/7


First watch doubles in size this month, and we get to see the names of the people responsible for writing it. Guess it's got a quick and pretty positive response from the readers, despite (or maybe because of) it's sometimes odd choice of products to cover.

Our actual D&D product this month is Complete Adventurer. Rogues, bards, rangers, and anyone else who'd like to get into the skillmonkeying. This means it's focus is a bit vaguer than the previous three, especially in the prestige class area. Still, it does bring back the scout and ninja classes, which have always proved popular. They're also releasing the D&D monster calendar. Interesting. In the past, it's been the Realms or Dragonlance that get pretty add-ons like this. Guess it's another sign of their declining interest in settings. Still, at least it's being released at the right time of year for a change.

On the 3rd party D20 side, we have Firey Dragon's Battle Box. A whole array of little items to make your play smoother and more convenient. They seem to be focussing on these quite a lot. Ahh, the joys of making your game crunchy and buff-heavy. It gives you more excuses to sell even more stuff.

We also have a report on D&D online, their MMO. Much enthusiasm here, as they aim to create something that'll blow neverwinter nights and baldur's gate away. Oh well, so much for that plan.

Hybrid is not the RPG, (if that got mentioned in here, it would be very amusing) but a board game where you battle advanced super-soldiers. Hmm. Seems decent enough. And therefore a bit dull, ironically.

There's also some odd stuff, as seems to be their wont. Plush gaming gear, which it seems people are buying for their baby geeks. Excuse me while I have a biological clock moment here. :sigh: And a bunch of net videos. Dungeon Majesty? Hmm. I may have to check this out. Tee hee. This reminds me why I don't watch TV much (aside from the obvious of doing this thread for years. ) Amateur stuff is often more entertaining anyway, precisely because of the obvious flaws.

Beyond even that, there's some talk about stuff that isn't exactly products. The issues surrounding their recent attempts at getting into the .pdf market. Ah, yes, DRM and pricing issues. I remember those flamewars. And then the even bigger flamewars when they pulled their stuff again. That was not very cleverly handled. And some promotion for Winter Fantasy, and the RPGA in general. These, on the other hand are not very interesting to read about in hindsight.


Tomb Raider: In a sign of the pendulum swinging back a little bit, we start off with a system-light, historically focussed article on real world tombs that's useful for games other than 3e D&D. Egypt was the biggest draw for potential tomb robbers, with their thousands of years of spectacular pyramid building, but china probably has the biggest single one, filled with terracotta solidiers and other weirdness, including quite possibly the bodies of the architects. The trouble with these kind of dungeons is that many of them have already been cleared out, and those that aren't are either obscure or well known, and any attempts to break into them will result in trouble with the law as well as whatever monsters and traps are inside them. So unless you're in a place where people regularly make more, or discover an entire abandoned town to investigate, you will have to move on fairly soon after a few big raids. The life of an adventurer in the real world is not a stable one. Best to hope that you can make a big profit on one or two big ventures, and then invest it well if you want to ever retire.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 327: January 2005


part 3/7


The spoils of war: The straightforward dungeoneering advice continues with a piece on how your group should divide it's treasure. In the real world, this is often where a perviously successful unit falls apart, as some people want equal shares, while others get greedy and think their contribution is more important than other people's (which may well be true) so they should get a bigger share, and a few simply nick choice bits from the hoard and don't tell everyone else. If you make a formal agreement about this beforehand, you'll probably save yourself a good deal of stress later on. It also reminds us that treasure hoards can be big, heavy, and a nightmare to transport and store. Even if you take encumbrance into account when initially equipping your character, it can be easy to lose track when you're going from room to room, merrily killing and looting as you go. And then there's all the hassle of storing, selling, investing and capitalising on this stuff. Some people really enjoy this, while others would rather just handwave it, and if you leave it in the hands of one person, they'll probably wind up profiting the most. Do you have what it takes to play a party splintering as their success pushes them in different directions while keeping the actual group of players solid OOC? Or would that be a little too close to reality for comfort to be escapism. Either way, this is a solid reminder of how you can vary your playstyle while still remaining within the core dungeoneering experience.


Fiction: The silverfish by Richard Lee Byers. Time for another good ol' murder mystery. The kind of thing that works very differently in the Realms due to the combination of divination magic and the lack of modern policing and judicial process. On the plus side, that does mean someone who sincerely believes in proving guilt or innocence in a case can go private investigator, and get away with causing a fair amount of havoc in the process as long as they get results, because the ends justify the means. This does very much feel like the kind of story that would happen in actual play, and as with his previous work, hews very closely to D&D rules in terms of spells, character classes and setting integration. If you want realism, this isn't the place to look, but for a fast paced adventure full of twists and emotional drama, he still provides the goods.


Paranoia has upgraded to XP edition. Be very thankful it never updated to Vista. It would be terrible to have to choose between being treasonous because you didn't upgrade, and being treasonous because the computer keeps on crashing when you try to use it.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 327: January 2005


part 4/7


With friends like these: Or surviving your group turning into jackass central, and still having a functional game. Both unbendingly good characters who refuse to pay attention to the realities of a situation and compromise, and nasty ones who either engage in PVP or act like brooding loners can be a real problem. This kind of conflict is incredibly important in creating a good narrative, but not so great when you need to have all your resources working together at maximum efficiency to get through a dungeon. Trouble is, the kind of people who are good at finding exploits to create ridiculously powerful characters are also the ones likely to hog the limelight and get away with being a pain, as you need them. Unfortunately, this article isn't so much about solutions, as simply presenting the diversity within these two categories, with examples for every class to show how they could become annoying in either direction, which means people are actually more likely to create problematic characters after reading this rather than less. Oh well, it wouldn't be too terrible to go back to the 2e ways for a bit, as long as we know there's other places to go as well these days. Variety is important, after all, and it would be dull if all characters had blandly nice personalities.


Oop. I've managed to spot another statement of ownership. Looks like things have declined quite a bit in the past year, as they've dropped below 60,000 again. That's not good. No wonder they wanted to do a revamp last year.


The ecology of the grimlock: Ooh, good old sonarfaces. Not hugely smart or tricksy, their complete lack of eyes, and reliance on other senses still makes fighting them seem distinct from the other hordes of low level humanoid races. Also distinctive is that they seem less prone to the "curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal! :shakes fist:" syndrome, regularly forming symbiotic relationships with illithids, aboleth, medusae and other oogy horrors of the underdark. And they certainly have the potential to be more, with their ability to develop art and culture with their enhanced senses that most creatures couldn't really appreciate. They can be a fun race to pit against players. Another decent but unexceptional, highly formulaic entry in this series.


Winning races: Diaboli! Now there's a turnup for the books. Also one that's never going to survive the transition to 3e unnerfed. Complete immunity to magical effects from creatures native to the normal 3 dimensions? That aint going to fly. They even take away their other signature move, the double speed cartwheeling trick, which hardly counts as gamebreaking, and nerf their poison tail. (which was already incredibly weak by BD&D standards) I think those two could easily have fit in if they were willing to make them an LA+1 race. But no, it seems they're prioritising being sensible over being unique. The setting detail survives slightly better, with the changes to the cosmology presented as gradual things rather than retcons that create more plot hooks. (even creatures from the dimension of nightmares are scared of the Far Realms' sanity destroying oogyness) So this could have been worse, but definitely isn't my favourite updating, as it makes an incredibly interesting race with tons of plot potential slightly less so. Disappointing.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 327: January 2005


part 5/7


Bazaar of the Bizarre returns. Magic shop indeed. ff: It's one of your most recognised brands, even if it was originally nicked from Lankhmar. What were you thinking trying to genericise it? Anyway, this issue's topic is magic as technology. We've had that one before, but of course computer technology has improved at such a breakneck speed that stuff now would seem like sci-fi in the 80's, so this is well worth revisiting in an ironic way. Course, even more amusingly, much of this technology has advanced quite a bit in the intervening years since this issue. This stuff already seems horribly dated.

Figurines of Delivery give you instant UPS to anyone in the world. And unlike the real thing, delivery times and costs aren't an issue. Just pay them once and get a-rocking.

Gems of Location give you a zoomable map of an area. Unfortunately, it doesn't update like google earth. If you find this in a treasure pile it may be laughably misleading.

Horns of Recording are basic all in one recording devices and gramaphones. They can store up to 2 hours, which is better than old tapes and CD's, but nowhere near modern portable players. Ho hum. Gotta draw a line somewhere.

Memory Crystals are one-shot cameras. On the plus side, that means you don't have to worry about developing and printing. On the negative side, duplication is pretty much a no-no. If they get smashed, that's your valuable crime evidence screwed.

Mirrors of communication are video phones with very very limited networks. A dozen or two people at the most. They don't even have proper split screen conference calls. I'm not impressed.

The Slate Folio is your basic PDA or e-reader. Unfortunately it can only store 100 pages in black and white, but on the plus side they can be spell formulas. Again, I'm not very impressed. Let's hope someone advances these as fast as they do real world memory sizes.


Silicon sorcery: We visit Everquest again in these pages, with the PS2 game Champions of Norrath. As with Warcraft, it's once again very obvious that they've taken inspiration from tabletop roleplaying, so taking a little back in return is no problem at all. 7 feats that make D&D dark elves more like Norrathian dark elves? They're a fairly interesting selection too. 4 which involve channeling negative energy to make the lives of enemies a misery, and maybe restore you a little in the process. Undead control for non-spellcasters. And the video-game ability to carry far more than a character of your stats should, which always amuses me. Most of these scale according to the number of racial feats you have, which gives you lots of incentive to go the whole hog with them if it fits your build. These are far better than the bloodline types that only have a couple of things attached to them in previous issues. Once again, having a good source to steal from really helps the design process.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 327: January 2005


part 6/7


A novel approach: Frankenstein! There's a classic we could do with revisiting, since ravenloft hasn't had much play for quite a while. So here's three options that you can add to your unholy experiments against nature, making them more scary at the cost of a fair amount of money and xp. Boosted control over them, or increased intelligence. And that great staple of mad scientists, adding extra limbs on. And then that's it, which is a real shame given we've had long and imaginative articles on customising your undead. This is not a good use of your frankenstein, monster or doctor. Double the size of this, and maybe we could actually get somewhere.


Under command: The last couple of times, we've been talking about campaign play with a greater degree of character building and continuity. Now they go the opposite direction, and talk about introducing old school random elements to your warband building. While they maintain overall point buy restrictions, they relax the usual alignment ones so you can wind up with quirkier combinations of creatures that may or may not work well together statistically. As usual, there's a fair few variants, from giant monsters to hordes of smaller ones, and card shuffling to auction bidding, which means this little article can get a fair amount of use before you get bored. Good to see them supporting multiple playstyles with the same basic game.


Sage advice: Can you tumble while prone.( Sskip thought so. Andy doessn't. Andy iss stricter than sskip. No pessky cinematics in Andy's game, collins collins )

Can you jump as part of a charge (Yes. Quite ussefull. )

How far do you fall in a single round (All the way, ussually. You have to be very high up to not hit the ground in a ssingle round. )

Can you overrun multiple opponents in a single round. (Only if you miss the firsst one. Once you hit someone, you've got to sstop.)

Can a hiding character with spring attack attack, then hide again (Very tricky, collins collins. Need lots of feats and powers to make that viable. Andy does not recommend it. )

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 327: January 2005


part 7/7


Class acts switches things around so it's all in alphabetical order, instead of the core 4 coming first. No more favouritism for you!

Barbarians get The canny barbarian. Go on, go against stereotype. You don't get to survive in the wilds alone for long if you don't have a certain degree of smarts. Thog smash is not the only thing you have to show. You have plenty of skills and tricks that you can use where a fighter would just do the boring thing.

Bards get Bards from History. As with last month's paladins, this covers their historical antecedents. This is rather easier, as traveling musical types show up in every culture.

Clerics get Tokens of faith. Like backgrounds, this is an excuse to squeeze out yet another minor benefit to a specific ability. Innocuous in itself, every little extra counts to the dedicated twink, so watch out.

Druids get 3 new animal companion options. Flying squirrels (not carnivorous, unfortunately. ) Moose, and giant seahorses. 3 HD creatures are CR 1 these days are they? Hmmm. This needs thinking about.

Fighters get the multiclass advice baton passed to them. Fighters really work best as a 1, 2 or 4 level dip for some other combatant class (6 at absolute most for the save symmetry), but they can't go as far as to say one of the core classes is outright crap, so this is a slightly awkward bit of advice. A few levels in ranger, rogue or paladin seem to be the best options for a primary fighter.

Monks get Ranged Monks. While it may be going against stereotypes, like two-weapon fighters and cunning barbarians, this is surprisingly effective. Shuriken, high dex, lots of speed and mobility. You can really ruin someone's day, attacking when they can't reach you, and grabbing their return shots out of the air and sending them straight back. A cool course I hadn't considered before.

Paladins also get their stereotype attacked. Awesome paragons of law and good don't have to be knights in shining armour. Yawn. Heard it all before.

Rangers get Building a better Archer. Another load of feat and equipment advice that does exactly what it says on the tin.

Rogues get Art of the sneak attack. Unlike previous editions, you really want to be doing this as often as possible, and actively creating opportunities to put the enemies at disadvantage so you can deliver the smackdown. Here's a quick checklist of the basic ways to do this. Obviously not aimed at the experienced rules lawyer.

Sorcerers get hit with the flaw bat this month, with 5 ways to make your magic less convenient. Most of these are applicable to any spellcasting class, so this is a generally useful selection others might want to browse as well.

Wizards get Survivalist spells. While wizards aren't limited in their total spells like sorcerers, they should still choose wisely. This is another one that seems curiously prescient of 4th ed thinking, playing up their controlery options. Hmm. Interesting.


Dork tower suffer from gaming withdrawal symptoms. Nodwick & co get to create a lich's tomb for one of their former associates. Nice to see them planting the seeds of adventures for future generations to face up against. Zogonia does the right thing, and is punished for it.


This one's pretty dull. Doing the same theme two issues in a row? That's a new low in repetitiveness, even if they have dropped a few of the regular columns that were already outstaying their welcome. Let's hope it's not too long before they can put together something different and interesting again, because I can only go back to the dungeon for so long at a time.

 

[Ed_Laprade]

Moose and flying squirrels?

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 328: February 2005


part 1/7


73(100) pages. 3.0 got themed issues for each of the races individually. For 3.5 it looks like they're doing another condensed version, cramming all the demihuman races into one like they did with the classes. Since I'm generally not keen on these shallow skimming themed issues, this once again makes me sigh. Let's see if the individual articles are pleasing, despite not combining into a greater whole.


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


In this issue:


From the Editor: Unlike Matthew, who spent half a year carefully examining the letters and forums to figure out what to change formatwise after he became editor, Erik wastes no time at all in spelling out his intentions. After all, who knows how long you'll have the job, better to make your mark while you can and make people remember you. So the regular columns will become decidedly less so, all the better to fit in big features with lots of cool setting material in. Of course, given their leadup times, it'll still be a few months before this policy really gets going, but still, It's good to see. As long as the magazine continues to evolve and try new things, it's much easier to find something to say about it.


Scale Mail: We start off by quibbling over the precise wording of monty python quotes, which definitely feels like missing the point to me. But then again, some people would say that humour is the only thing you should take seriously.

The next letter is from someone wondering what the reference is in the ale and wenches thing from issue 326. Which makes me realise they didn't actually have appropriate articles inside. False Advertising! Boo!

A more familiar tale is that of someone who gamed when young, stopped for a while, and has now started up again thanking them for keeping going. And it turns out she was the one who originally taught Erik to play back in the day. It is indeed a small world after all.

…… Maybe too small at times, as our next letter concerns the possibility of updating the other Forgotten Realms continents to 3e. Does the magazine have the courage to make solid timeline advancements, or will they just be left in limbo while waterdeep and menzoberranzan get supplement after supplement?

Also very much after my own heart is a letter praising them for trying to kill the overdone promotional blurbs. Unfortunately, the sales evidence shows that as long as they have to try and catch people's eyes on the newsstands, they are needed. The world is faster-paced and more competitive than the 80's, and that's really saying something. At least that's one thing that I already know definitely improves about the magazine once it goes electronic.

Another niche topic that has it's strong fans, but not enough, is mass combat. This is another one you might get a one-off on, but it definitely isn't going to make regular appearances in the magazine.

Weirdly enough, Lovecraft is more mainstream than mass combat these days, with plenty of praise for the themed issue, and more articles inspired by his works in the near future. Funny old thing, madness. It's more popular than you'd think.

The revamp continues to inspire mixed feelings, often within individual people who like some changes, but not others. Here we get two more letters like that. They will continue to tweak the format based on feedback, which seems encouraging.

One thing that's already notably changed is the return of Bazaar of the Bizarre. As we've already noted, Erik is far more of a setting buff than Matthew was, and that was one of the first things he fixed when he put on the viking hat. What's in a name? Well, memories, for a start. If you forget what you've already done, you're doomed to repeat yourself, as I've noted every time they change staff and the new ones cover the same basic topics again.