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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 4937017" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 144: April 1989part 2/5Forum: Tim Oakes tries to tread the path of compromise in the issue of low level magic-users. Maybe they should be a little more able to learn basic combat techniques, but many of the forumites are going too far in their suggestions. R. J. Wenzel thinks that the problem with low level magic-users is in the emphasis on combat in most games. Fix that, and the problems with only having one spell to use each day become far less of an issue.  But how do you fix that, when the entire experience system revolves around killing things and taking their stuff? James M Rogers is unhappy with the idea of simply getting xp for money, regardless of how you got it. He's another forumite who'd rather they got XP for class specific activities. Seems a pretty popular change. Good thing it's one they're actually making then, isn't it.  Tommy Sronce simply ignores the xp rules, and advances characters when he feels like they deserve it. This saves him quite a bit of time calculating. You know, if you write each death down and award xp as it happens, rather than waiting till the end of the session to tally things up, it's a lot easier, and less likely to be in error. Nelson E Hemstreet also dislikes xp for gold. He also actively enjoys putting the players through the financial hassles that you need to go through by RAW to advance in levels. Forcing people to struggle financially and make hard compromises is fun. The challenge shouldn't end when you leave the dungeon. Hmm, and yet more hmms. Ivy K Reynolds (any relation to Sean?) has interesting observations on the evolution of D&D and AD&D. As D&D characters are actually less powerful, and the monsters give less experience, it requires rather more skill to really succeed in. But on  the other hand, it facilitates high level adventures better than AD&D. It is not a game purely for wimpy n00bs. And the writing and editing is better than the old AD&D game. Really, which is the better one?S D Anderson has run the math on the strength tables, and found some awkward little flaws. Str 3 characters have a carrying capacity of 0. So how much can str 2 or 1 ones carry, negative amounts? <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" /> Plus, you should remember to put weights for various noncombat items. The characters are going to want to carry them off after killing their owners. A field guide to Game-convention Ornithology: Even the geekiest of categorisation can be made humorous. We've already had a gamer type guide made by mocking the alignment system. Now bird watching gets it's naming conventions parodied. 26  personality stereotypes. Can you figure out which one applies to which creature in the picture? Are you a Goldbricker, a Crested Falsetto bird or a Rubber-necked butt-in? Well, it gave me a few minutes amusement, anyway. Nothing wrong with the odd bit of humour here. Cheating made easy: Oooh. Tut tut. Jeff Swycaffer reveals the tricks he uses to bend probability in his favour. There are several unobtrusive ways, and a few more blatant bits of trickery with dice that increase your odds of getting a good roll quite dramatically. This is useful stuff, amusingly presented, that of course, you should absolutely not be using in your game, under any circumstances. Still, reading this will help you spot when other people try these tricks, so that they can be properly punished for doing so, so like thieves, it can be turned to good ends. And it's something they haven't covered before at all, which is always nice to see. Cheating made even easier: Hmm. Looks like more than one person had the same idea recently. Spike Jones recycles a whole bunch of ideas he submitted to other magazines. He takes a rather more ruthless and organized approach than Jeff, bullet-pointing everything, and making it clear that the other players are the enemy just as much as the DM. Not hugely funny in a joke sense, mainly because much of this stuff would be pretty effective. I think this calls for maniacal laughter rather than genuine amusement. Muahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!</blockquote>

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