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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5379927" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 211: November 1994part 1/6124 pages. A second Halloween appropriate cover in quick succession. So good, they have to milk it twice! Actually, that's not too bad an idea from a commercial point of view. Still, it's that kind of thinking that leads the christmas adverts to start in september and not quit until the end of the year, when they immediately switch to easter. Bleh. Let's hope this isn't another sign of them running out of ideas. In this issue:Letters: A letter from someone who named their kid after a forgotten realms character and now wants to know what it means. Not a lot, after all, ed just made it up. I'm sure he could come up with an in setting meaning for all the various names in his world, he just hasn't got round to it yet. A letter from someone interested in Star Trek gaming. There are star trek games out there, but none seem to do quite what you want. The licence doesn't seem to be particularly stable. A call me from someone who wants to find a person they played with at a convention. Aww, how cute. Once again, I love facebook. A pretty unsurprising complaint about the price increases. You'd be more surprised if no-one at all complained. No-one likes it, but what can you do when production costs keep rising. Editorial: Roger may be gone, but Dale is still trying to push the same agenda of increasing the amount of non D&D RPG coverage in the magazine. To do this, he encourages you to say goodbye to system purism, and not only try other systems, but various hybrids of systems, settings, and your own houserules. If the canon police were real, they'd be onto him with great brutality for this act of sedition. Traveller, Call of Cthulhu, Star wars, Castle Falkenstein, Rifts, TORG, GURPS, he certainly covers a wide range of games, hopefully turning a few people onto ones they haven't tried yet. As usual, I approve of this. We do find, however, that the magazine still hasn't moved to desktop publishing, despite much of the company using it now. They probably ought to get round to that. Such is the problem with monthly deadlines. You can't risk taking stuff that works offline, even if the results of changing over would probably be beneficial in the long run. Another article that simultaneously shows the consequences of stagnancy while trying to avoid it. Very ironic, really. First Quest: Speaking of the battle between adventurousness and stagnancy, this is the main theme of Jeff Grubb's turn in this column. New and different ideas are often greeted with bemusement and belittlement, until they become big hits and suddenly what came before looks very dated. Roleplaying did that to wargaming, and now it in turn is under threat from Computer RPG's and Collectable card games. His recollection of his own gaming origins seems pretty vague, and he's more interested in telling us how he got into TSR and become the kickass designer he is today. And then, he's pretty interested in figuring out where life will take him next. So this is very interesting, but isn't a great fit for the column, and shows that at least a few people at the company are aware they need to do something different if they want to stay in gaming and profitable. If that means leaving roleplaying behind, or at least changing it so much that many existing players say "That's not Real Roleplaying!" so be it. Change is better than death, even if it can be pretty scary. So this is one that foreshadows the troubles the company will face over the next few years. All a little disconcerting really. The ecology of the dungeon: Looks like we've had another ecology article free year. The early 90's really has been a dry patch for them. Even this isn't really a normal ecology article, instead being another of our generalised worldbuilding ones. Water, air supply, waste disposal, how various creatures that live near each other relate and interact, and how these kinds of things would logically change over time. The kind of thing that they've been pushing regularly since 1983, but you need to bring back every few years to catch the new readers. Such as me, in this case, this being my own personal first exposure to these realms of worldbuilding and finding it quite cool. In rereading, it doesn't really have the same impact it did first time, but still, its a solid article, and a good reminder precisely why they need to go back to these basic topics every 4-5 years. (every 2 is probably too soon) Can't get too esoteric, or you won't be able to keep new players.</blockquote>

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