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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5405107" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 215: March 1995part 2/8Putting evil to good use: Yay! This is a cool article! A highly amusing bit of rules lawyering, Jonathan M. Richards shows us how to make lemonade out of lemons and turn cursed magic items to your advantage. Many of them are quite advantageous in certain situations, and even the ones that aren't can often be turned against your enemies rather than you if handled carefully. I remember reading this first time round, and it's a pleasure to reach it again. This is a very definite mind expander, while also having lots of highly specific details you can use without having to think yourself. I can't praise this one enough. Taking problems and turning them into opportunities is exactly what players should be doing in their gaming, and this is full of inspiration on how you can do just that. Gaming with style: Ah yes, dividing gamers into various types, and getting all analytical about the type of games they like to play. Not an unfamiliar topic, even if this kind of analysis has yet to reach maturity. (or at least, GNS theory has yet to be developed <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" /> ) Thomas Kane picks out 5 categorisations. Power-gamer, immersive roleplayer, puzzle solver, rules lawyer, and gaming as Art. Hmm. Pretty broad divisions really, with plenty of room for overlap between them. The biggest distinction drawn is those who see gaming as art, which is a relatively new categorisation most often shown by White Wolf players & designers, that is proving somewhat contentious and considered pretentious by quite a few established players. There's also the big question of just how much control the DM should have over the course of the game, how much the players should have, and how much should be random, left to the dice to decide. Plenty to think about here, as this is the kind of thing that needs a good debating to really hash out. A good forum flamewar would be amusingly appropriate. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> With it's eventual conclusion that striking a balance between the various extremes is probably the way to go, it's probably not going to get one though. Still, it did make quite an enjoyable read. The beginners game: I've been complaining quite a bit recently at articles that are obviously aimed way below my experience level. Ironically, this does not fall into that category, as it's designed for experienced DM's who want to get new players in, but may not be entirely sure how to go about it. After all, if you started with one group, and learned along with them, when that one falls apart and you try to put together a new one, there's going to be a big skill gap that can interfere with the chemistry. Both rules and roleplaying can be introduced in a wrong way that winds up putting many people off. The worst traps to avoid are probably being patronising, and treating them with kid gloves, or overloading them with infodumps (particularly contradictory ones with multiple experienced players talking over each other and elaborating in quick succession to one newbie) and throwing them in the deep end. Start small, and gradually turn up the volume, on the other hand, and things can get pretty epic before you even know it. And then hopefully you can figure out how to break them of the more obscene powergaming tendencies that a lot of new players develop. This jives with my personal experiences. First time, you want to explore the limits of the system, get all the way to the top. Subsequent times, you want to see how much replayability the thing has, what alternate routes there are. Or just move on to something completely different, given many people's boredom thresholds. So this has both advice I approve of, and a goal that's very laudable in the current climate. After all, if you want people to play with, growing the hobby should be your first port of call. The ecology of the Amphisbaena: After several ecologies in which the person imparting the knowledge is captured and escapes, here we have one with a rather more tragic ending, like the cave fisher one. Captured by Kobolds, and only surviving by a stroke of luck making him exceedingly useful to them, he becomes their technical advisor on the proper handling of a double-headed giant snake. Not the kind of thing you anticipate doing when you grow up. This answers quite a few biological questions, but glosses quickly over the all-important one of how they crap (from the middle, apparently) to focus more on breeding, movement methods, and combat capabilities. It does make them seem both more scary, and less silly, which is a definite plus point in my books. Another excellent little read.</blockquote>

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