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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 4774557" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Issue 116: December 1986part 1/4111 pages. We're pink! The magazine now looks almost exactly like it did when I started reading! Nostalgia city! However, I assure you that I will not let matters of presentation bias me as to the quality of the articles. For some reason, they've decided to go with the aquatic theme this christmas. Nothing wrong with getting a little wet now and then. As long as the boring bits get glossed over. We don't want it to end up like the wind waker, do we? (well, there are worse things to base your games off) Lets see if this issue is a mighty battleship, or a waterlogged little rowing boat. in this issue:Letters: One letter about giving individual hit locations their own hit points. Roger gives an alternative method that doesn't require so much bookkeeping, but still adds a load of extra prepwork beforehand. Meh. Two letters that think that as D&D is now starting to decline in popularity, the magazine ought to start devoting a greater proportion of it's space to other games systems. Not a bad idea. Roger gives the response that that's not what our survey repliers thought. We mustn't forget our core demographic. Oh, compromise, compromise. At least they aren't taking the route certain modern cable channels do and almost completely abandoning their original theme. Forum: Craig Sessions tells the tragic tale of a girl who couldn't get anyone to join her game, just because she was a girl. How dumb are these people?! Was open sexism still that common in the 80's? Even if it was, you'd think at least a few would say yes simply because they want to score with her, as this is high school. Madness.:shakes head: It's as bad as the girl bassist in my class who was always complaining about exactly the same thing with respects to finding a band. Do they not understand basic principles of visual appeal and audience identification. Oh well. Their loss. Dan Thompson thinks that save or instantly die poison is lame. High level characters shouldn't go out like that! Keep whining, little star, and eventually your wish will come true. Alan D Long thinks that D&D ought to be targeted towards older people as well. There's a big untapped market with tons of disposable income just waiting for you. You could definitely be marketing the game better to increase your fanbase. Niel Brandt gives a load of supplemental material for the mariner. This is pretty cool stuff, and still doesn't make them anywhere near as powerful as primary spellcasters, so I'd allow it.  Archie Li thinks that using humour in D&D should be done carefully, otherwise player suspension of disbelief may be destroyed. It's one thing to have IC jokes, but when they're built into the rules, it's just silly. Chris Sanyk thinks that using batteries as a limiter for your high tech items is a good idea, but may run into source emulation problems. What makes a good show and what makes a good game are not the same things, you know. James A Yates is in favour of nonweapon proficiencies, and feels that the longlived nonhuman races ought to have more. A perfectly reasonable statement that opens up a whole can of worms when it comes to game design, and still results in the odd flamewar today. Let the battle commence. John Goldie is confusticated about the adjudication of illusions. Which considering they have a whole class devoted to them, is a big problem. Someone oughta do an article on it. Careful what you wish for. Both times they sent out a call like that, they wound up with a whole bunch of stuff, much of it contradictory. A special like that, with several different alternatives on how to handle illusions, would send the canonwankers into a frenzy of frustrated fapping. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> To go with the dungeoneers survival guide, we now have the wilderness survival guide as well. Isn't that great news. At least Kim's departure didn't result in him pulling the work he'd already done. The company has enough problems on it's plate at the moment. High seas: Sailing! In the real world, a huge number of our most renowned explorers and adventurers have been famed for their ocean voyages. It's full of hazards, both environmental and from creatures and people, and you get to see all sorts of cool stuff. It's also a perfect justification for episodic troupe play, with a large cast of characters, but only some of them taking part in each individual adventure, because someone has to stay back and take care of the ship and supplies while you explore the insides of the isle of dread, or whatever; while the fact that each adventure is on a different island, or is simply separated by several hundred miles of coastal sailing means you don't have to worry so much about your actions in one place having repercussions everywhere else. (at least, not straight away <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=";)" /> ) A very promising topic indeed. And our first article sets off to cover the details of sailing a ship, with a long and well integrated set of fluff and crunch. Lots of statistics, how you fought with them, how many crew members they needed, how much they could carry, maintenance, fighting giant sea monsters, this is a solidly researched, comprehensive stuff that richly deserves the pole position. It does skirt on the edge of dullness at times, and the crunch'll probably take a few readings to fully digest, but it still looks like pretty useful stuff. Another of the things everyone should try at least once, seafaring adventures are a great way to visit new lands, kill their inhabitants and take their stuff, while skimming over the months of dull wilderness travel needed to get there. And you can even do bottleneck politics on the way. Now, if only the magazine were telling us that, instead of leaving it up to me to virtually construct my own little article out of tangents. <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" /></blockquote>

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