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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5857597" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 269: March 2000part 7/7Role models returns after a couple of months off, and it appears they lost their old writers abruptly, with editors Dave Gross & Chris Perkins taking on extra duties to compensate. Now that didn't turn out particularly well in the final days of the video games column, and the contrast here is fairly apparent as well. Where last year's columns often managed to fit three different ideas into a two page spread, this concentrates on a single one, and still feels like it has more trouble fitting it into the space provided. Still, much of that is because there's a lot of photos this time around, showing off their custom setup from multiple angles. And instead of encouraging you to make your own scenery on the cheap, they're engaging in product placement, advertising Master Maze scenery. It's not quite as big and obvious a step down as when Dave took over Libram X from Jeff, but it's not particularly promising, as it's putting commercialism over DIY spirit. He has improved since taking over, but I can still blame him personally for not being as good as Kim or Roger. Silicon Sorcery: This month's computer game conversion isn't monsters or items, but random encounters. That's somewhat amusing, and not something they've done before. It also means you actually get more new creatures getting abbreviated stats than a regular bestiary entry would give you. In fact, they pack 8 encounters onto 2/3rds of a page, filling up the rest of the spread with promotion for the game, a fantasy sim game called Majesty. So this packs in quite a bit of useful information for gaming, but like the last article, still feels like they're engaging in product placement, quite possibly paid for by the companies, above and beyond the usual advertising. Well, I guess all the extra colour they've acquired in the last couple of years needs to come from somewhere. Call it a mutually beneficial arrangement. Still, it does feel like they're ramping up their count of blatant commercialism again. Sell sell sell. KotDT engages in X-treeme rules lawyering. Dragonmirth is increasingly modern in its style of humour. Shop keep fails to respect the grognards. Course, they'll be even older now. Coming attractions: Diablo graduates to AD&D with Diablo II: The awakening. This is really going to fuel the cries of ZOMG they're turning D&D into a computer game. <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" /> They also start to set up things for the edition change with The Apocalypse Stone. You want to end your campaign now for the reboot, this'll help you go out with a bang. The Realms is half rehash, as is becoming standard. The second book of the Cleric Quintet is rereleased. And the new book is Realms of the Deep. An anthology of stories around the recent aquatic invasion, this should fill in lots of little perspectives on the same big event. Let's hope the editing stays up to scratch. Dragonlance starts to move forward again, with yet another massive cataclysm. Weis and Hickman are back together for Dragons of a Fallen Sun. Still, at least we'll get the old magic back soon now, even if it involves yet more ridiculous revelations and some deicide. Alternity also gets into the computer game business, with a Starcraft conversion. Blizzard are already pretty big names, and they're going to have a long association with D20. Muahaha. What's new is on a very familiar kick, in more ways than one. Growf.   This issue does very much feel like they're making an effort to round off the last edition, tie up as many loose ends as possible, leave no avenue unexplored. It really reminds us that 2e was easily the edition that had the most settings, supplements, articles, and weird bits and pieces produced for it. Many of them were pretty flawed in hindsight, but there's just so many that surely you can run the game you want by picking selectively. If you were going to play one game for the rest of your lifetime, you could do so much worse. What other games got this kind of completion and sendoff? Well, it's still not quite over. Will april see any funny surprises this time around, after the last two years of staidness? Give us something else to remember you by.</blockquote>

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