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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5284921" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 197: September 1993part 2/6Perils and postage: It's been a couple of years since we had an article on play by post gaming. As is the case far too often these days, this article assumes you're a complete newbie, and tries to act as a reboot to the concept, bringing in people who've never heard of or thought about the idea of using mail to play long-term games. Of course, straight away we are reminded exactly why this medium never really became mass market entertainment. It's slow, expensive, and requires substantial organisational skills as a GM to make sure everything is communicated in a useful fashion to all the players. It does improve from there, but you're still putting everything into the control of a single person to a rather greater degree than normal (unless everyone sends mailshots to everyone else, which multiplies costs geometrically) On the plus side, you get plenty of time to write more polished prose and react to the actions of others than if you were running in real time. On balance, they still can't make it appeal to me, especially with technology developing at the speed it is. Like the attempts to revitalise wargaming and other RPG's, this is another bump in the road of their interests gradually closing in, and becoming purely D&D centric. By mail or by modem: The eternal september begins now. Play by post's days are numbered. Nice of them to publish an appropriate article to say that at exactly the right time. Much shorter than the previous article, this points out the same problems, with a very different solution. It's not really that much cheaper yet, and BBS's still have a definite regional element that makes international communications slower, but it is already substantially more convenient in terms of making sure everyone has access to the same info, and don't go around splitting up abruptly or treading on each other's toes. And while PbP peaked in the early 80's, this stuff has been growing fairly substantially, and is just about to start rocketing up exponentially. It's a pretty strong reminder how the future comes in ways you don't expect, at paces even the smartest pundits can't predict. In this case though, I think I can rightly say bring it on, since I have fond memories of chatrooms around the turn of the millennium. The dragon's bestiary gets four new Forgotten Realms monsters courtesy of Ed. All of these would go on to be printed in official monstrous compendia. That does seem to be becoming increasingly common these days. Banelar are ridiculously similar to Dark Nagas in powers and fluff. Put side-by side they're virtually the orcs & hobgoblins of the mid-level, scheming serpentine creatures. Rather unnecessary, really. Give us something new! Flameskulls are another reminder that Ed loves his irritating whimsy. They're near impossible to kill, and may well follow you around making smart-alec comments and being quirkily mentally unstable. Is there a particular novel of his actually featuring one of these? Or is he just setting another bad example which will lead to less skilled DM's annoying their players like hell?Foulwings are winged, vaguely xenomorph like creatures, with their 3 mouths, vile breath, and hollow bloodsucking tongues. You really don't want one of these jumping out at you on a dark night. Much better than the last two. Whipstings are also decidedly alien looking things, another of the Realms' strange predators lurking in odd corners and leaping out to trouble the players. Like Gambados or Bhaergala, they're both a decent fight and amusingly weird. So it seems we have rather a mixed bag this time round. Hmm. Could definitely be better. Castles Forlorn! Another epic boxed set adventure for your players to try and figure out how to deal with. Not an easy one, but good for a wide range of levels, since so many of the problems are puzzle and role-playing based rather than straight combat. The known world grimoire: Looks like Mystara is finally getting to play with the other boys and girls in the AD&D universe, instead of being on its own. Here we get the big announcement that they're shifting ownership, with Jeff Grubb taking on the developer's role. Bigger budget for books, more colour, and some "special features" coming with the books that are still left mysterious. Course, this may be a poisoned promotion. And what's going to replace it down in BD&D land? Nothing is mentioned here, which doesn't seem very promising. Like the computer columnists leaving last issue, this is presented as good news, when hindsight shows that it really really wasn't in the long term. Now we're never going to get decent amounts of info on Norwald, the arm of the immortals or the southern continents, because they'll be too busy trying to re-cover and update the parts of the world that are already familiar, just like the Forgotten Realms. Another slow step towards the circle closing, D&D starting to eat it's own tail. Man, this is depressing. The new crunch, weapon mastery lists for chakrams and bullroarers, does little to mitigate this feeling. The old guard are gradually being driven away from the magazine. What will replace them this time round?</blockquote>

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