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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5880883" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Issue 273: July 2000part 3/7Touche: We start off our themed section with a list of source material and basic campaign ideas. Fairly dry, this feels like basic advice for the DM who would like to try this, but isn't sure where or how to start. Which means it's one of those articles that feels altogether too basic given my level of experience. Well, I guess like everyone, I'll be starting again at 1st next edition, so I should enjoy that feeling while it lasts. But still, this feels like an end of themed section filler article that was only put at the front because it was by one of their regulars. Curse you, you nepots! As much as you shouldn't neglect your basic exercises, I'm a little baffled by this. 40 Swashbuckling adventures: What, not even 50, let alone their preferred 101? <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" /> Must have been short of sources to plunder this time around. As you'd expect, they're a lot more social than the average adventurer's fare, and those that do involve exploring far lands are all sea based. (so yay, pirates, buried treasure, and racially dubious colonial attitudes. ) There are a few supernatural elements, but the majority of the adventure hooks involve just people on different sides, trying to advance their agendas. Just the thing to keep the players morally conflicted. (but not trusting the Cardinal farther than they can throw him) So there's a pretty decent number of good ideas here, of a sort they haven't covered that much in the past. And even 40 should be enough to advance them a good few levels before the DM needs to come up with their own ideas. Swashbucklers do seem to hang with a higher class of people than dungeon crawlers, and their adventures are more likely to have long-term consequences and people seeking revenge for slights upon them and their family in the past. Hopefully you'll be able to get the drama self-sustaining by then. Swashbuckling essentials: Now unlike Dale, Robin Laws knows how to make his writing style match his subject, and applies that skill with verve here. It's not only about the rules, it's about the implicit assumptions of the game. And you won't get very far if you try to play a swashbuckler when the DM is running the game to screw you over if you aren't paranoiacally careful with everything you say and do at all times. But changing the rules can make a pretty big difference as well. So he's pretty aggressive in house ruling D&D, particularly when it comes to experience awards, but also in giving you a lot more concrete uses for your Charisma score, making being flashy, charming and overdramatic the way to not only survive, but also prosper. This kind of willingness to reshape the fundamentals of the game is exactly what they need on the team, and it's a shame he wasn't here back when they were doing lots of settings. Seeing a full setting that altered basic things like how AC or experience work would be very interesting indeed, if probably flamewar provoking as well. This should have been twice as long and starting off the issue, then we'd really have a good sendoff for the system. Van Richten's Legacy: The Foxgrove-Weathermay sisters unearth another piece of Van Richten's research, this time on herbalism. After all, he was a doctor before he was a hunter of monsters, so he ought to have some fairly substantial notes on the plants he's discovered in various domains and what they do. Of course, this is Ravenloft, where things rarely work as planned, and so each herb has three options for the DM to choose from, expected, with a twist, and with a horrible side-effect, or completely misleading. So once again, this is very much for the sadistic DM, particularly one with players who read the books and would otherwise metagame with their knowledge. This three options format is a pretty neat one, and I can see why they included it. The specific herbs are pretty neat too, with plenty of detail on their appearance and habitat, and powers that are handy, but not game-breaking. So this is both cool in general, and very well integrated into the specific setting. High marks here. Something up your sleeve: Another article of mundane gadgetry isn't particularly swashbucklerish, but it does help keep rogues from being completely outclassed by spellcasters. And this stuff is a bit more high tech than medieval, so they might want it for a job. Still, I very much doubt they'll be lugging around a folding boat, or ninja climbing equipment. While there is some rehash here, there's less than I  expected, which I guess is testament to how long Greg Detwiler's been around, and knows what's in the books. And since this is pretty system light, you could convert it to 3e without any trouble as well. Until the OGL gets going, there'll be a shortage of esoteric gear there that needs filling. This isn't bad at all then, and quite well timed for it's purpose. Fiction: Shamur's wager by Richard Lee Byers. A few issues ago, we had promotion for Ed's new non D&D novel series. But upon investigation, it turned out to be mostly action scenes, with a rather insubstantial plot linking them together. Well, this is the first time a short story in the magazine has basically been one long action scene with short bits at the beginning and end to set us up. It's not a bad action scene either, a griffon race through the sky with plenty of twists and turns and treachery to keep things tense until it finishes. But it doesn't really feel like a proper story either. It feels like they came up with the cool action scene, and then bolted on a flimsy pretext for it to happen afterwards. So this is literary junk food, entertaining while it happens, but leaving you nothing much to think about afterwards. A bit won't kill you, but too much will leave your brain fat and lazy. This isn't the kind of change I'd like to see become common.</blockquote>

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