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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5490214" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 225: January 1996part 5/8The convention listing gets renamed Cons & Pros. My sides, they are splitting. Tales of the fifth age: Kindling, by Jean Rabe. All the rules have changed in Krynn. And this year, all the rules change in the fiction department as well. In their attempt to revitalise Dragonlance, they're filling the magazine with stories from it, just to make sure everyone's aware of it. Which means a dramatic shift in the style of material we're getting. Wheras for the whole of the magazine's lifespan, even the tales that were part of a series worked self-contained, this is hugely, horribly dependent upon what has come before, and feels very incomplete as a story as well, instead being more a set-up for events to come. It's main purpose is to introduce the gargantuan red dragon Malystryx, one of the major antagonists for the next wave of stories. Her origin is pretty mysterious, coming from some previously unmentioned brobdingnagian continent somewhere on Krynn, there's very little around these parts that can even remotely challenge her, and so she decides to stick around for a bit, make the place her own. So despite being longer than many of the bits of fiction in the magazine, this barely feels like a story, more an extended introduction. Which is an interesting change, but deeply unsatisfying when compared to the general high quality of short fiction around here. They'd better have a good payoff planned in future issues to follow up this setup, or I will be very cross with them for messing with one of the bits of the magazine that least needed it. Rogues gallery: An elf wearing chainmail? What is this aberration. Common sense over displaying your pointy ears for the world to see? Dexterity as the lowest ability score? A nuanced and original personality that goes against stereotypes and has both cool bits and interesting flaws? I'm shocked. This new regular column has started up with something that's a vast improvement on the old Giants in the Earth character conversions. A character who isn't obvious and cliched, yet is still easily usable in an ordinary campaign. I was all ready to spew bile at this, and instead I find myself giving it fulsome praise. That is a pleasant surprise. I hope they keep this up, and don't slip into the bad habits of making supertwinked, rule-breaking mary-sues that PC's will loathe if they ever meet them. Forum looks like it ought to have been some colour or other in the header and then casting a shadow, but they couldn't get the budget. So the draconic F winds up all smeary and indistinct, which is not very aesthetically pleasing. Another strike against their new direction. Christopher Myers contributes well over a page on how arbitrary and illogical the dual-classing rules are. Bout time too. They have a certain interesting symmetry as a game concept, but absolutely no connection with the way people actually learn new skills. It's rather baffling how they were invented in the form they were. Kerry Zane tells people to stop complaining so much. You know, if they did, this whole column would be pointless and wither away. A hobby needs a certain amount of friction to survive.  Tim Cafferty defends TSR's recent price increases. They do have a need to make money, y'know. Roleplaying is not a charity. Chris Curran, on the other hand, thinks maybe the prices are a bit of a problem especially for new players. Buying three big hardback books is a pretty hefty buy-in.  Bring back an affordable basic set. Tournament rules: Earlier on, we had the official rules for RPGA play in Raven's Bluff. Now we have the Official Tournament Rules for Dragon Dice, for use in conventions this year. Rules clarifications, point allocations for armies, and the system by which you organise and advance contestants after each round. This all seems less arbitrary and irritating than the Raven's Bluff restrictions, largely because this is a fresh game which is just establishing itself, and so they've been developed in one go by a single team rather than accreting a bunch of odd little exceptions. They also include the official tournament tracking sheet, which is fairly simple and easy to understand. This again seems like a fairly sensible way to try and hold onto their player base, and make a bit more money from them. After all, if you build a community around a game, people are more likely to enjoy it and stick with it. So they are still doing some things right. I'm rather interested to see where this attempt leads us over the coming year.</blockquote>

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