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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 4759518" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Issue 113: September 1986part 1/4111 pages. Kim would like to apologize for any slipshod editing in recent, and the next few issues. He has a good excuse this time, as he's been splitting his attention, to do his first proper hardback book for AD&D. The wilderness survival guide. He's learned more about the open air while sitting in front of a computer screen than any man should. You ought to watch out. You'll burn yourself out, doing double shifts like that. Anyway, back to the new Dragon. Lets see if they can maintain the momentum of their reboot. In this issue:Letters: Only one letter this month, asking about the viability of Ranger/thieves when they have conflicting alignment requirements. Roger Moore takes the role of justifier this issue, with a very long answer. One of the pleasures of being editor is being able to actively alter the articles sent in, not just fixing up things like spelling and cutting for size, but also changing the rules and adding new bits based upon what he would like to see in the magazine. Yes, this may sometimes annoy the original author, but that's something he's willing to live with. Strong editorial control is good for a gameline. Otherwise, we end up with an inconsistent kitchen sink. And those spill all over the place when you try and do the washing in them <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=";)" /> Another interesting, and possibly controversial look at the mindset of the people behind the scenes. The forum gets it's rules and code of conduct revised this month. Please try and keep entries to 250 words or less, you must remember to include your name and address, stick to one topic per letter, no personal attacks, be polite, we reserve the right to edit letters. How very tiresome. Guess they were getting too many people sending in vitriol unprintable in a family friendly magazine. Once again, I am very glad for the rise of the internet. There, you don't usually get censored until after people have had a chance to see what you have to say. Anyway, back to the pontification. Bruce Lowekamp thinks that Len Lakofka's system for animal aging doesn't really add up. The idea isn't bad, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired. Isn't that what I've been saying quite regularly? Ralph Sizer returns to further clarify Locals aren't all yokels, and discredit the strawman attacks against him. Given the nature of the D&D system, there have to be a decent amount of high level characters around for the society to work as it does. If you don't include that level of realism and internal consistency, you're just creating problems for yourself along the line. Mike Johnson gives us a load of clarifications about how underwater diving works. Seems like that happens whenever they cover a real world topic in anything less than exhaustive detail. Yawn. Danny Kretzer is very much in support of Unearthed Arcana. It's not just new races and classes, it's tons of spells, weapons and items as well. There's something for everyone. Even if you already have most of this stuff from the magazine, it's more than worth it so you don't have to drag all those issues to the group and find the right pages in the right one all the time. You ought to reconsider about not buying it, Scott Maykrantz. Jeff Klein thinks that the limitations on the D&D spellcasting system are perfectly sensical in terms of what the various attributes represent in the world. People should stop trying to pick them apart and just get on with enjoying the game. Thomas Kane is not in favour of a world where magic is commonly used in a technological fashion to transform society. If things are too comfortable, where's the motivation to adventure? Every solution creates new problems, my dear. There are plot hooks aplenty to be found in magitech worlds. Corey Ehmke is suffering from a dreadful case of badwrongfun. His players are playing monty haul games and enjoying them more than they are his. You've got to help me, before I lose them all and can't GM at all! See, this is the problem. Fun is the most important aspect of a game, not depth, craft, consistency or fairness. If it's not fun, all the effort you put into the other aspects is pointless. Harsh truth of the entertainment industry, as homemade youtube videos so aptly demonstrate. Welcome to hades: Yay! Another bumper sized planar article. It's been way too long since we had one of those. This presents a quite different view of the place to that used in planescape, focussing almost entirely on the greek portion of the plane. It is a pretty miserable place, full of suffering souls and fiendish creatures on their own inscrutable and often pointless tasks. But is certainly isn't the grey, all crushing nightmare of depression that it would later turn into. Anthraxus is still in charge of the daemons, who still live here full time. Healing magic simply doesn't work. Once again, a huge chunk of the article is devoted to spell by spell listings of their changes (they really have got to change that, they just don't have the space, especially now UA is out.) All in all, the place is both less playable, and less distinctive than it would later become. While not as annoying to me as the Gladsheim article ( because there's not as much crap railroading DM admonitions), this once again suffers from the problem of making an entire universe seem tiny and focussed around just a few characters and locations. This is another definite disappointment compared to the great ideas of the earlier ones on the astral, elemental and hells. What is up with that? This is no good at all.</blockquote>

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