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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 4801345" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Issue 121: May 1987part 1/4111 pages. Looks like they've accumulated enough Oriental Adventures material for us to have an oriental special. Well, it has been a year and a half, and it was pretty popular. So Ninjas, samurai, and other less well known roles get some more cool stuff, oh my. They are definitely having way more themed issues lately. A development I can definitely get behind, as long as they don't repeat the same theme, as it means they can cover a topic in more depth. So let's fire up our stereotypical oriental riff, do the horribly politically incorrect eye thing (me so solly), and head for the rising sun. In this issue: Letters: Two letters from people who are having problems with GM's. One wants to encourage more people to GM, as they're sick of always being the one to do it, and another from someone who wants to DM, but doesn't know how. Both think that there need to be more articles on this in Dragon. I sense the dread hand of foreshadowing passing over. Give it a few months, Roger'll be swimming in articles, and then they can do a themed issue on it. Woo. A letter asking them do do more regular columns. Once again, Roger says he'll definitely consider it. It does help make up page count, having a bunch of topics that you know will be covered reliably each month. But it can also increase boredom, as they blur into one another. We shall see what he decrees. The overseas military gamers guide: Now this is an interesting development. They've been showing general ones of these for years now. But it looks like they want to give extra support to the troops. Well, job where you're a long way from everyone you know, with lots of time spent just sitting around watching and waiting. Plus an emphasis on combat and tactical thinking. Army people are a great target demographic for roleplaying. A subject that is obviously dear to Roger's heart, as he devotes the editorial to talking about this as well. Now that's giving back to the community. Warms your heart, doesn't it. Forum: Brian S Chase disagrees with the ecology of the harpy in an in character manner. That sage was charmed! He is obviously an unreliable narrator, and his facts are equally unreliable. See, that's how you do this kind of thing. Remember, these ecologies are not set in stone. You can change them for your campaign if you don't like them. Jeanne McGuire engages in some rather longer and less interesting ecological talk, correcting us on the real world details of snakes. Your article in issue 115 was not properly researched! Same as it ever was. Jim Vierling Weighs in on the old illusions debate. Unless the creatures have a good reason to disbelieve your effects, you ought to err on he side of generosity, otherwise illusionists become horribly weak compared to regular magic-users, and no-one wants to play them. A very sensible statement, really. We must consider the metagame ramifications of what we do. Bob Hughes reminds us that if we're unsatisfied with the arcane details of AD&D, you can go and play regular D&D instead, which is much simpler, and can be easily houseruled. Chances are, you'll actually have more fun. David Carl Argall returns to say that the game should be assumed to be realistic as possible, except where the rules specifically make it different from reality. It makes things less confusing that way, and you can apply lessons learned in the game to your own life if that is the case. Um, ok then. I can see how you would come to that conclusion. Can't say I agree with it though. Micheal Lambert agrees with Vince Garcia that intelligence should be more important to characters of all types. He is, however, baffled as to why rangers have a high int requirement to join the class. Perhaps something ought to be done about that. <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=";)" /> Is he just being prescient, or is this a more direct bit of cause and effect, as Zeb reads this and takes note of things to change next edition? Good question, albeit one even Mr Cook himself probably couldn't answer, given the vagaries of time, memory, and all the crap he sifted through at the time. Robert Waldbauer points out that if you do stuff from all sorts of alignments, it should average out as neutral, even if they aren't conciously trying to maintain a balance. S Kunz points out just how heavy magic-user's spellbooks are by the RAW. They ought to have backpacks at least as big as the average modern kid's schoolbag. Poor magic-users, lugging that stuff around. It's no wonder they wind up all stooped over. Mathew Hamilton wonders why the AD&D game avoids christianity so, if it's supposed to be set in a medieval world. You really ought to do more articles on it and incorporating it into the game. Oh, that's a biiiig ugly can of worms there. Will any trolls bite on this bait? Adam Morris reminds us just what the body can do to itself psychosomatically in the real world. When illusions are brought into the equation, even greater feats of self-deciet should be possible. Don't make illusionists useless, please. The game wizards: Zeb Cook returns, having received a ridiculous amount of mail on the matter of which classes to cut for the next edition. Hoo boy. When they started, they thought this would be a simple editing job. Then you had to go and get emotionally involved. In any case, though there is vast amounts of nerdrage on both sides, he's not changing his plans that much. Bards and druids are definitely staying now, and the UA stuff and assassins are still superfluous to requirements.  His desire to focus more on proficiencies is still causing some controversy as well. No, D&D is not going classless. My primary goals are still fun and flexibility, and the game should still remain as compatible as possible with the previous edition.   Please, everybody, calm down. We really do care. Another interesting snapshot of history as it developed, full of quotable stuff. Let's see what his next step will be. Whaddya mean, jack the samurai: Random name generation. Just the thing for when your mind goes blank, and you don't want to make an inappropriate name up and get laughed at. We've had ones for tekumel (issue 24) native american-esque (34) pseudomedieval (72), and probably some more I can't remember offhand. So here's three pages of D% tables and the guide to using them. An above average example of it's kind, and obviously useful, but still not hugely interesting to read. Just a warm up really, rather than a pole position spectacular.</blockquote>

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