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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5374398" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 210: October 1994part 1/6124 pages. That lich's collar is definitely OVER 9000!!! Ahahaha! And his wife hasn't let a little desiccation affect her bust size. It's those little details that provide so much amusement in this Tom Baxa cover. Yes, it looks like our horror will be leavened with a nice slice of schlock again. Not that there's anything wrong with that. More than one note is needed to make a truly great tune. And a bit of chromaticism is very helpful in producing horror tunes. Let's try and add a few more odd chords to our horrific repertoire. In this issue:Letters: The harm CCG's are doing to roleplaying really starts to become clear this issue. The reviewers thought they could peacefully co-exist, but no, they are stealing valuable players away with their highly modular charms. It's a terrible tragedy. What are we to do!?!1!! Ok, maybe I'm being a little hyperbolic, but it is having an effect. Despite his levelheaded response, Dale has cause to consider the magazine's future direction. Do they follow the tide, and risk alienating people who think this magazine should focus on RPG's, or stay where they are, and risk losing sales because of it. Not an easy decision. A letter complaining about something being out of stock. There's usually somewhere second-hand you can get it if you're really desperate. You'll just have to work a little harder. Another familiar topic. A complaint from a reader who's spotted an error in the magazine. Dale comes up with a suitably comedic faux punishment for the errant freelancer. Again he has learnt from Roger well. Editorial: Wolf Baur takes a turn in the editorial seat to do what Roger used to around this time of year - report on his convention experiences. He has less to say about the madcap antics, and more about the actual games themselves. In particular the foreign ones. We've managed to convert D&D to many other languages, it's caught on successfully in some markets, and now they're returning the favour by translating their games into english. Stuff like The Black Eye and Nephilim are making waves this year, and existing games like Shadowrun and Call of Cthulhu have supplements created by the localisation teams, and then translated back. The dawn of international gaming is upon us! Hmm. This is one thing that the internet has done less than we expected to fix. While it has eradicated distance barriers with reasonable success, language barriers are still fairly substantial. While small countries have most of their population learn english as a second language, latin america and china in particular can still feel like different worlds with very little crossover in popular media. Course, the more separated they are, the more likely the games are to be intriguingly different in rules and cultural references. So as with quite a few recent editorials, this encourages you to go out and check out what the real world is doing, because it'll make your gaming more interesting and varied. Don't spend a lifetime dreaming in isolation, or your dreams will be small and unrealistic. First Quest: Dale may be taking a break from the editorial this month, but he's here, on the next page instead. You're hardly going to miss him. He's not one of the grognards. No, he was part of the second wave drawn in in the early 80's by the brief period of media hysteria. The cool factor of killing things and taking their stuff is not to be underestimated. And enthusiasm is more fun than technical skill, especially when it comes to recruiting new people to your cause. This is another tale where they look back with a combination of nostalgia and embarrassment, and recall both the good and bad aspects to gaming in the early 80's. You learn by making mistakes and reading stuff in magazine articles. Actually, that's another distinctive factor of his early gaming, just how much he drew from the magazine. Seems fitting for someone who would then become editor for it. This is another one that's quite likeable because he does obviously have clear memories and plenty of enthusiasm for the topic, and isn't censored by politics as far as I can tell. And as long as he's having fun, he'll bring it to the magazine. Dead or Alive: Resurrection does open up a legal can of worms. Since clerics are more likely to be on the inside socially than wizards, it does make sense that they would be cautious about bringing people back if it would cause social upheaval. An extensive look at the logical ramifications of it being regularly available and commonly known about is long overdue. What does it do to inheritance and tax law, especially if they're dead for a while before being raised. What is the legal status of undead who integrate with the community and don't try to eat everyone? What does it do to royal successions? Quite the headache. Fortunately, this is the kind of headache that makes for good adventures. Normally, when you kill a bad guy they stay dead, but when people keep on coming back, it suddenly becomes a lot easier to get a comic-booky scenario where over-the-top stuff happens on a regular basis. On the other hand, players being players, they might well get obsessive about finding and mutilating every body so the enemies can't come back again and again, more maniacal and irritating each time. So lots of ideas here on how you could play it up or tone it down, both of which could make things interesting and different from the average campaign. I approve of this quite strongly.</blockquote>

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