Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 4989350" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 154: February 1990part 2/5Editorial: Hmm. Roger decides to put his ramblings on a page of their own, rather than a sidebar with other stuff, thanks to legal being a pain in the butt. This is an interesting change, and one I know becomes standard with later editors. That's worth noting. Here, he talks about the end of the cold war, and it's impact on post-apocalyptic gaming. He notes that games covering it have got more serious in recent years, but I think that's more due to general trends than people taking the end of the world more seriously in particular. Don't worry, people will soon find other reasons to predict the end of the world. It's virtually hard-coded into us. Comes with the whole mortality gig. In the meantime, let's enjoy the increasing popularity of modern day games. Goes to show how immersed in gaming he is, if his thoughts on huge current events are how that'll impact gaming. Most amusing. A big hairy tusked guy with a club saying Watch for us soon? What's all that about then? Ahh, the joys of cryptic teasers. The game wizards: Oh dear. It's James Ward justifying their new family friendly policy of gamemaking. It's a game integrally based around killing things and taking their stuff. This is always going to be a bit problematic. But still, he has his orders. Devils and demons are out. Nipples are staying firmly covered at all times. Blood and guts are staying offscreen. Raping and pillaging isn't even going to be mentioned as forbidden. And they are going to resolutely pretend that D&D is a PG game in which violence is secondary to role-playing and exploration, and all the PC's are heroic. Heeeere we go. The 2nd edition changeover has been fairly sedate up till now. Most people probably hadn't even noticed that the extraplanar creatures were consciously censored. But now they do. If you thought all the letters from angry mums were tiresome, you aint seen nothing yet. Guess this is turning out to be a more significant issue than I first thought. A short article, but of course, pebbles can start an avalanche. I wonder how long it'll take for the letters and forum pages to be filled with responses to this. :rubs hands: Forum: James R Collier has some more suggestions on how clerics ought to be further differentiated from wizards and each other. Their gods shouldn't design their power granting systems with so many abusable loopholes. Pretty much the opposite of the 4e approach. Charles Bingham is another person who finds it easy to convert stuff between D&D and AD&D. The people trying to put one above the other are missing the point and quite a bit of fun they could have by combining the best bits. Michael Griffith encourages you to play your evil enemies as sneaky sadistic bastards, not mindless frontal attackers. All's fair in love and D&D battles, as long as you don't break the actual game rules.  Amy M Traub tells us about her own gaming group, which features 5 kender, including a chaotic evil half kender half dark elf mage. :makes sign of the cross: It burnssess, it does. She also uses the dreadfully annoying true neutral as lawful good one day and chaotic evil the next method of balance. Seems like a textbook example of badwrongfun gaming to me. No thanks. Jim O'Brien is finding that his local players are getting increasingly shallow and stereotyped in their roleplaying. What the devil. Aren't you supposed to get better at stuff the more you practice? Yes, I know you're getting older and have other things in your life, but that's no excuse to get lazy. Might as well not play at all if you're not going to put the effort in to do it properly. H. K. McCoy thinks that you don't get enough nonweapon proficiency slots under the normal rules. He proposes that you should be able to get some more by paying an xp surcharge each level. I don't object to either concept. Warrior kings and empire builders: So you want a domain? In D&D, you can get a little place of your own to rule relatively easily once you get to name level. But what if you're not content with that? It's conquerin time! |This article focusses on two of realities most successful empire builders, Julius Ceasar, and Charlemagne, their techniques and foibles. Being a conquerer requires considerable logistical and negotiation skills as well as personal badassedness. They really ought to represent that kind of thing better mechanically, because at the moment, wizards and clerics seem far better suited to being leaders of an army. Still, it's full of ideas that seem appropriate to members of any class, and indeed reality as well. (yes, I'm looking at you, George W Bush. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. ) You've got to strike a balance between accessability and not micromanaging too much. You need a strong team of assistants, but watch out for grand viziers taking over, making you nothing but a figurehead. You need to make sure you don't extend your grasp beyond what you can actually hold, with things like supply trains being crucial. All fairly familiar stuff, solidly presented. Can't get particularly worked up about this either way. TWERPS! Take that, stupidly complex acronymic titles! <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" /> Another amusing parody hits the adverts pages.</blockquote>

Verification