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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5589235" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Annual 1996part 1/8124 pages. Hmm. So we've reached the extra product. I wonder how this will differ from the standard issue. For a start, despite having the same pagecount, it costs $5.95. Was there any bonus stuff to justify this extra cost? Or was this just to make up for the fact that subscribers got it for free. The cover is slightly different, with a border around the cover image in the style of the early issues of the magazine. The contents page seems much the same as usual though, although most of the regular columns like sage advice, letters, forum and and reviews are missing. So instead we'll be getting more game content. Cool. Wait, that means less variety in what I'll be reading than usual. Now I don't know what I'll make of this. If they've put extra effort into picking the best articles it could still be an improvement. In this issue:The wyrms turn: Since this is their first time doing one of these annual thingies, the editorial is a fairly basic explanation of what they're trying to do here. And yeah, it looks like they're trying to pack it with a greater proportion of game material, and give us more of the same stuff that they felt worked over the last year. And lots of material for specific settings, including their now quite substantial selection of dead ones. So this does feel very much like catering to their core audience to keep them from leaving rather than trying to expand things. Which is very symptomatic of their overall approach this year, and probably isn't helping if their sales figures are any indication. How is a game about adventuring actually becoming less adventurous? Doesn't feel right, somehow. Advanced Dungeons & Dragons game: This little descriptive piece before the articles tries to illustrate just how far AD&D has come over the years, yet at the same time, how little the core of the game has changed. The rules are still pretty much recognisable as the same little pamphlets we saw way back in 1974. And they are having to strain a bit to sell that as a good thing. Yeah, they admit that once you add some supplements, the game gets rather bloated and unwieldy at this point, but in theory you can still choose which ones you use and leave the rest out. And the talk about the modern world being more complicated than it used to be is just rose tinted glasses. In 1974 you had Nixon engaging in corruption sufficient that he was forced to resign, the cold war hanging over people's heads, all kinds of economic instability, and disco music. In 1996 the worst you had to deal with was the Balkan states squabbling, britpop invading (and mostly failing) and Clinton shagging everything that moved. The late 90's actually look like a pretty decent part of history in hindsight. So yeah, this shows up the problems in both the ruleset and the company's attitude towards their game quite clearly. Makes you want to give them a good kick in the pants and tell them to buck their ideas up. The ecology of the wyvern: Brendan Farwanderer makes his 4th appearance, more than 3 years after the last one. He's not very prolific. And he's still the closest thing the ecologies have to a recurring character. This, of course, is all the more annoying precisely because his stories are such good ones, made all the more interesting due to the now well established banter between Brendan and his charges. Wyverns may not quite be full dragons, but they're still quite scary, able to swoop down and kill you with their poisoned stingers, or carry you away to feed to their young. Indeed, a lot of attention is paid to their stingers, and the way they use their poison as a territory marker, means of fighting for dominance, and way of ensuring nothing else eats their food. With plenty of detail on it's lifecycle, and also some more cool tricks you can pull with the creature, this is another one that's both a good read and useful for actual play. Let's hope we'll be seeing these guys again sometime.</blockquote>

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