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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5369457" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 209: September 1994part 1/6124 pages. Time for clerics & druids to get another turn at being the featured class for an issue, with both a cover appearance and three articles near the beginning. I guess this means more spells, and possibly more kits if we're lucky. They still don't actually do articles with them that frequently. Funny business, really. I suppose it reinforces the image of them as a cool idea that was never implemented very well, allowing prestige classes to improve on the principle quite a bit come next edition. But I'm getting ahead of myself again, aren't I. Let's try and keep this linear, at least in the output stages. (and then you'll never know just how non-linear my reviewing process actually was, ahahahaha!!!!! ahem)In this issue:Letters: A letter from someone who wants to work at TSR. As with the unsolicited magazine articles, Dale has to inform them their chances are slim. Try becoming a freelancer first. It's a rough ride, but it all gets a lot easier after the first few articles sold and contacts made. A letter from someone worried about the death of dragonlance. It's not dead, it's just the RPG side of it that got small. The novels are going as prolifically as ever. If you're unhappy about this, keep writing and buying. A complaint that their copy of the complete book of humanoids lost it's cover. Hey, that happened to me too! Guess it's another one that was shoddily printed in general. Which is silly, since like UA, it was one of their crunch heavy books most likely to be thumbed through again and again. And finally, a request for healthy food recipes that'll make good alternatives to the mountain dew and chips stereotype that results in overweight gamers. Tee hee. Thankfully that is not a concern of mine, and as long as my knees'll allow me to walk miles regularly and do several hours of dance practice a week, hopefully that'll continue to be the case. Editorial: Not sure who's doing the editorial this month, as they don't sign it, but it certainly doesn't read like a Dale piece. Plus he's too young to have a daughter just join the army, unless he was a dad at 12. Still, like Dale's editorial in issue 207, it's a strong reminder that the journey is usually by far the biggest part of the adventure, and in real life, every lengthy trip is a minor adventure, especially if you aren't much good at reading maps and following directions. And most people didn't have GPS or mobile phones then, so if you were lost or running late, you couldn't call to apologise or ask for help. It's also a reminder that gamers and army people do have quite a bit of overlap. Since Roger left, that's come up less frequently round here. Still, this story of other people's frustration and eventual triumph is reasonably entertaining, and has lessons for you to apply to your gaming as well, be you player or GM. It's a big world out there, and a lot less actively malevolent than most game worlds. If you want true realism, you have to remember the neutral stuff as well. First quest: Steve Winter has been a fairly regular contributor for over a decade now. He's one of the old guard who started off as a wargamer, before being sucked into roleplaying by the people in the gaming club. He actually puts a lot of attention to that start, it's more than halfway through the article before he gets to his D&D experience. And even then, he found he preferred Metamorphosis alpha and gamma world. I seem to recall him being heavily involved in the Battlesystem stuff, so I suspect he takes the non D&D projects where he can. This is one of the introductions I identify less with, as the writing isn't too engaging, it takes too long to get to the point, and the experiences are quite different to my own. But then, it would be a boring world if we were all alike. I know there are other people out there who'll see themselves in his formative experiences. Personally, I'll have to return a meh result though. Branching out all over: So we've reached the end of class and race handbooks. All the ones from the players handbook are now fully catered for. What now? Not sure, but at least we can take advantage of the last one with a tie-in article to provide subtle promotion. As he did with the Council of Wyrms, Roger Moore looks at better integrating the new druid subtypes into the various other campaign worlds. Actually it's surprising how few of them actually have druids. Like assassins, they like to think of themselves as ubiquitous and eternal, like the cycles of nature, but they really really aren't. No wonder entire planets wind up ecologically screwed on a regular basis. This certainly isn't as fascinating as the half-dragon stuff, and is pretty much lacking in new crunch. It's obviously for the setting obsessives who just have to have a canon answer, instead of applying a little logic. The new spell ideas are cool, the rest is stuff I could have whipped up myself in a few minutes. One of those cases where you wonder why they put them first. Probably the whole established author thing. MeeeeEEEEeeeeh, once again.</blockquote>

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