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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5320625" data-attributes="member: 27780"><a href="http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xuqhj8_dragon-issue-200-the-best_fun#.UKaQm46Rn8s" target="_blank">Fiction: The best by Margaret Weis. </a>Another big name is pulled in to make sure this special stays so. It's set in Krynn, but not noticeably connected to the metaplot. The greatest heroes in the land are gathered together by a mysterious individual to kill a dragon. In most stories, this works fine. This time, it all goes horribly wrong, mainly because the dragon is the one doing the hiring, so the deck is horribly loaded against them right from the start. Although they aren't quite as machiavellian as Infyrana from Dragon mountain, but that would probably take a whole novel to play out, and we don't have the time even in this expanded issue. It's still an object lesson in proactivity as an adventurer. Mr Johnson will betray you sooner or later, so don't trust them an inch. They do regularly tell us to play dragons as smart and taking the long view as well, so this is good in that respect too. Don't fall for the hype though. It certainly isn't actually the best bit of fiction they've ever done though. Hell, with the wizards three in here, it's not even the best bit of fiction in this issue. But that doesn't mean it can't be both enjoyed and learned from.Forum: Andres Zornosa spent time abroad, and is finding it's actually harder to get a new group together back in america, where most people have at least heard enough about gaming to develop a negative preconception. He's also encountering the issue that so many existing gamers have tired of D&D and moved on to other RPG's. It's almost like gaming is a disease, and the population is building up a resistance to one, while other variants still pass through the population. Very curious. Joel Patton talks about the evolution of his gaming. He seems to have largely progressed beyond needing rules, changing them as needed for the storytelling to take precedence. We start in let's pretend, and that's where we end. It's almost zen-like, really. S. D. Anderson has some more suggestions for helping out new players, following on from issue 194's article. Actually, he does a considerably better job than that, and in less space too. You have to learn to express your opinion succinctly here or get edited down, wheras they're more likely to pad it up via artwork and font size increases to fit the page count in articles. Jeremiah Coleman is rather cross that gamers are so bad at returning books to the library. If you keep nicking them, they won't stock them, and that will remove one of the avenues for casual browsers to discover gaming. That is a real issue, and may be another reason why gaming has gone into decline. Stupid petty criminality.  Eric Burns thinks that lichdom is a dumb idea compared with using magic jar to bodyhop your way down the centuries. He presents a pretty good case too. I seem to recall that there are mechanical problems with that he's missed. I'm sure future forumites will point them out. Jon Pickens suggests that you solve the tardy players problem by offering XP bonuses to those who show up on time. This little carrot worked quite well for him, although he did lose some players along the way. Well, substantial xp differences do present their own issues. This would wind up exacerbating that. One solution leads to another problem. I seem to remember us having flamewars about that on these forums.</blockquote>

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