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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 4592750" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Issue 69: January 1983part 1/2103 pages. Looks like Gary's recent outbursts have once again provoked a rash of critical responses. And once again, they proclaim their independence. The reason they're covering D&D more is because it's popularity relative to everything else has increased so much, so they're going where the money is. Which is a bit depressing in itself, but that's the nature of an expanding outlier. It takes a while for that success to trickle down to the rest of the industry, if it ever does. Economics sucks. Lets try and get back to the escapism. In this issue:Out on a limb:  A letter calling out the idiocy of making thieves cant an actual language, rather than a set of jargon, like it is in reality. Frankly, if you can accept the concept of alignment languages, you can accept the concept that thieves and druids have their own language that's the same all over the world. But of course so many people couldn't, which is why they got rid of them in 3e. A letter saying that read illusionist magic contradicts earlier statements that illusionists don't need spells to read their books. They reply that yes, that was the case, but newest rules supercede earlier ones. It's their game, and they can change the rules any time they want. And then you have to change them too, otherwise you are no longer playing an Official AD&Dtm Game. So there. Two more letter pointing out errors. Again, they reply. Some of them were indeed errors, but others were actual changes to the rules. But how can we be sure which is which, when it seems like every few issues, we have gary apologizing for an error that was in a previous one. A letter saying that Nystuls magic aura should be an illusionist spell, because, y'know, it makes an illusion. A valid point. A letter engaging in lots of quibbling about the language articles a few issues ago, with a particular focus on the prevailance of literacy in D&D's world. Yes, not being able to read has quite a few drawbacks. But even now, there are big chunks of the world where a substantial percentage of the population can't read. Still, I suppose modern D&D is even more unrealistic in that respect. Another letter quibbling about the amount of psychosomatic effect illusion spells can have. They quote real life examples of hypnotism and placebo effects. This can't end well. We also get yet more comments on the language articles. They really are proving surprisingly controversial. And finally a bit of errata. Seems like David Megarry was left out of the credits for the Dungeon computer game. Guess he'll just have to settle for a mention here. Runes: Ancient languages. Now there's a fitting topic for a D&D game. Lots of real world history, plus some advice on how to incorporate it into your game. Which mainly amounts to window dressing on the current system. Not the most spectacular starter feature ever. But it's too early in the morning for a whole new magic system anyway. Runestones: Hello again Elminster. What are you talking about this time? Dethlek, the dwarven rune language. What a co-incidence. This is of course a good example of how to apply a real world idea to the game, changing it just enough that it doesn't feel like a total rip-off. Of course, he slips in more realms setting details along the way, and we get more of an idea of elminsters personal voice as contrasted with Ed's. Actually, the framing is more interesting than the subject. I'm not sure that's such a good thing. Oh well, it's more entertaining than the previous article anyway. Fiction: Be Quest by Atanielle Annyn Noel. Vaguely connected to first two articles in   that it's set in a kinda scandinavian mileu, this is basically a little story of overcoming your own fears. No real supernatural element, very little setting, only two pages long. Feels a bit insubstantial really. From the Sorceror's scroll: Anotther official class introduced this month. The thief-acrobat. Another proto-prestige class like the bard, this allows you to specialize in certain functions of your class at the expense of the others. Which is certainly a development. Albeit one with some precedent, in the illusionist. Now, if only they could apply that principle in an organized fashion to all the classes. Anyway, back to the subject at hand. This seems to be designed for people who want more cinematic, mobile combats. While certainly not at wuxia levels of jumping ability, they are substantially better than most characters. Course, someone buffed with fly and haste'll beat even that no trouble, just as knock beats any lockpicker. This certainly isn't as problematic as the barbarian, in any case. A fairly middle of the road article in terms of quality. Ha. Despite economic downturns, TSR is hiring 160 new staff. Is that really wise? S'not a good idea to expand beyond your limits and get into debt. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> Fiction: Everybody eats everybody on sunday's planet by Jeff Swycaffer. Yay. After a load of mediocre articles, we finally have a kickass bit of sci-fi, setting up a story, an ecology and a fairly convincing alien psychology and using it to make a sociopolitical point, all in three pages. Very nice indeed. And to think some authors would take multi-hundred page trilogy to get to the same point. Deities and demigods of greyhawk: This month's addition to the pantheon are Istus and Obad-hai. Plus we get stats for time elementals, which are a lot smarter than regular elementals, and get time manipulation powers that make them a pain in the ass to deal with. Bow down and worship, because the alternative is not a good one.    No great surprises here. Charting the classes: Roger Moore gets all statistical on us. Mmm. Just how I like it baby. He analyses relative power level at various XP levels. And we discover that druids and bards rock, monks suck, and illusionists are surprisingly well balanced. Gee, that's a surprise. He then suggests a bunch of stuff to fix these problems. He also turns his eye to Gary's new introductions, and is distinctly critical of them. He obviously put in rather more thought, particularly in terms of mathematical rigour, than the original writer. This is why it's good to have a mathematician on the team. If you don't the game you design will have substantial imbalances, no matter how hard you try. Okay, so it won't be perfect even with one, but you can get a lot closer.</blockquote>

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