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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5440532" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 220: August 1995part 1/8140 pages. A third enlarged issue this year, it seems. This is the biggest of them all,  and is actually the 4th largest issue in the magazine's run. Fairly impressive. It looks like there's going to be plenty of action this time round, with the contents page bursting at the seams. Still, quantity does not equal quality. But at least there's no 20 page promotional cuttings like a few issues ago. In this issue:Letters: A letter wondering who slade is. Ha. Now that's an interesting question with a fairly interesting answer. Whether he's more or less interesting than zeb though, is another matter. A letter complaining about the frequency of alcohol in TSR's adventures and illustrations. Won't someone think of the children! Oh, this is an awkward one. Banning alcohol from your products is rather harder to do than getting rid of de:bleep:s because it would present an overly sanitised everyday world which lacked believable people with understandable motivations. It'd be like Star trek TNG or something. Plus it'd sell less. Kids want their transgression. Better they do it in their imagination than in reality. A in ironically contrasting letter complaining TSR's products are too modern in their mindset, rather than being realistically medieval in terms of values. Again, they wouldn't sell as well if they were. You have to exercise dramatic licence as a producer of fantasy. Oh, the annoyances of compromise. Editorial: Larry Smith the art director once again takes the editorial. And here we start to find out what they're planning. More themes and regular columns. Coverage of dead campaign worlds. Less CCG stuff, less stuff on other RPG's, it's time to focus on AD&D first and foremost. And thankfully, less articles that are just blatant promotion for an upcoming product. A decidedly mixed bag. The overall result seems to be a reduction in variety of topics covered, and a greater reliance upon the various regular columns. Well, we have found that highly specific topics like the ecologies make them less likely to precisely repeat themselves, particularly as long as the editorial control stays good, and there are lots of little details in the rulebooks and settings that could be expanded upon without meriting a full book. So we could well get more interesting AD&D specific crunch on various topics from this. As ever, I guess it depends on the writers and editors. But it does look like this new policy will make it easier for them to get trapped in a cycle of the same few options, again and again. I hope that won't be the case. First Quest: Ed Stark? Who? :Googles: Lots of TORG, a little paranoia and star wars, some bloodshadows and shatterzone. That's a pretty good resume. Still, the fact that they're picking people who've only just joined the company shows they may be running short of people with interesting first time stories and the desire to tell them to the public. And really his first experience was nothing special. A little embarrassing, mainly due to an unwillingness to admit he was a noob, and didn't actually know what he was doing, but hey, most of us have done that at one time or another. Sometimes faking it until you make it is the best way in anyway. So this is one I can empathise with quite well, even though it doesn't match my own first time.  (I really ought to get round to talking about that before this column finishes, shouldn't I. ) It's short, but it gets the picture across pretty well. Dirty Tricks: Or Tucker's kobolds, unofficial part 8: This time EVERYONE'S invited! Once again it's time to crack open the Art of War and show players and DM's how you can shift the odds of battle with some basic tactics, and if you're lucky, win fights without ever drawing a weapon. We've definitely been here before. Course, many people would ask why you would ever want to leave, when the alternative makes life so much shorter and nastier. This is basically another case where Greg Detwiler takes an already well-covered idea, and puts his own personal spins on it, introducing us to a whole bunch more specific ways in which you can screw your opponents over. So like another collection of monsters, spells, or magic items, this isn't original at all, but is entertaining and useful regardless of system. He's still a pretty solid contributor.</blockquote>

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