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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5762394" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 259: May 1999part 4/7Shop keep faces another customer who never learns. As long as they keep paying, that's the important thing. Master of the world: Villains who want to take over the world? (roll the overplayed street fighter clip) Well, if they don't want to take over or destroy at least a country at some point, you're probably underdoing it as a DM, sticking too much to monsters that just sit in their rooms, or appear randomly with no backstory and connection to the world. So here's some system free GMing advice about establishing motivation and means, how to make them believable and competent, and what to do if that actually results in them winning (playing the underdogs of the rebellion can be great fun. ) The kind of thing we have seen before, and in the case of the complete villains handbook, in far greater detail than an article like this can manage. So this is a case where the spectre of rehash rearing it's head makes this less enjoyable for me than it would a new player. You can get all these basic plot ideas by watching a good old 80's cartoon. I don't particularly need to hear them again. Miscellaneous Mishaps: Wandering monsters getting stale? Well, we've had dozens of different wandering monster tables in different adventures, but most of them have a distinct emphasis on the monsteriness, rather than the other kinds of mishaps that can befall you as you travel from one place to another. Well, if you want too, you can roll on this instead, have them encounter some more mundane irritations like fleas, some random piece of equipment going missing, or stepping in a bear trap. The kind of thing that could create flavour, or could be taken as a red herring, and spin off into a whole new adventure. And really, isn't that one of the things a DM wants, a world sufficiently developed that it keeps on throwing up new adventure developments without having to do a huge amount of work. So this is one of those easy to use, no fuss, suitable nearly anytime articles. It's mainly notable for the fact that it has a full colour Larry Elmore piece accompanying it, that looks quite different from his 80's work, but still high quality. Has he changed his materials or something? Well, anyway, that pushes it up from a 7 to an 8 due to the high production values. Fiction: Stolen dreams by Elaine Cunningham. Time for our resident elf-lover to serve up a little prequel to her latest novel in the magazine, showing how one of the villains became messed up and entitled. They <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> you up, your mum and dad, they may not mean too, but they do. And when you're adopted by a family of a different race, that can all too easily multiply the feeling that you don't fit into the world, and the way they treat you is unhealthy and not at all what you need. ( On that note, I seriously hope The Jungle Book doesn't get a crap grimdark remake for the emo generation. With CGI animals. ) But does that excuse becoming a kleptomaniac, feeling no remorse when your actions result in the death of your adopted parent, and upon learning you're actually the exiled child of a noble family, instantly starting to act like a haughty entitled bitch. I think not, and this makes me very interested in seeing her get her comeuppance. Which in a way, does make it good promotion. But it does also make it a story where the protagonist is unlikable and gets far more than they deserve with very little effort on their own part, which isn't very satisfying to read about. So really, this has exactly the same problems as the 5th age stories from '96. I'd hoped they'd learned their lesson from that.</blockquote>

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