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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5888310" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Issue 274: August 2000part 5/7Plotbending: What a tweest! Yes, it's an article about throwing sudden curveballs in your story, just when the players think they know what's coming. A natural disaster, an alien invasion, an outbreak of war, anything that reminds them that it's a big complicated world out there, and both hero and villain's plans are but leaves in the winds of the universe. Or if you're really cruel, you can do the ghosts & goblins twist and have them think they've almost beaten the villain, only to find they need to go all the way back to get the macguffin, and then do the rest of the quest again, only harder. <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devil.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":devil:" title="Devil    :devil:" data-shortname=":devil:" /> Or if you have a REALLY clever villain, they could just be spreading rumors about a secret weakness they don't have, to send would be heroes on a wild goose chase which'll hopefully get them killed or secretly advance their plans. Or would that just be too cruel, even for players that have solved the Tomb of Horrors? I think I'm willing to risk it, just for the amount of maniacal laughter I could wring from the results. All's fair in love and DM'ing, and I like this article quite a lot. The hero with 1d1000 faces: This article too is pretty useful whatever edition you choose to play, or even if you're playing a different RPG entirely. After all, the last time they gave us a random adventure generator, it was literally a joke. This is much better, although since it only has 10 options in each section of the plot, it will get repetitive and the players will be able to predict what's likely to happen if it's overused. Still, with 7 sections, some of which you roll on multiple times, getting exactly the same plot will be less than one in a million, just like getting the same dungeon using the ancient random dungeon generator. So this is good not only as an article, but as a means of affirming they still care about their old readers, the ones who were there since the start and never entirely bought into shifting characters to point buy and making everything fit into a big neat story arc. Even with all the 3rd party stuff removed, they still have to balance the demands of people who want to play D&D, only with quite different playstyles. Fiction: Power and glory by Ben Bova. Orion continues to defy his master and do his best to keep Arthur alive, not sure what effect this will have in the long run, but still determined not to be just a mindless attack dog. Although in the process of doing so, this means he probably kills far more people personally than if he were being a good little assassin. That's being a hero for you. Kill one person stealthily and they won't stop hunting you. Kill hundreds publicly and they give you a medal. My now terminal cynicism aside, this is a pretty good entry in this series, making Orion smart enough to make a difference without having the solution handed to him on a plate, but not enough to get out of his predicament entirely. Things are moving forward for him and arthur, but there's still room for quite a few stories before this vein of myths is tapped out, and he'll have to move onto another incarnation. Nodwick finally stops going after slavers, and follows up on the GDQ storyline. Into the earth we go. The bestiary loses it's dragon. Now that's a new one on me. Remember, dragons got you famous. Without them, you're nothing, just a second rate imitator. Anyway, our first bestiary under the new rules is a Greyhawk one, reinforcing that it's going to be the default setting for this edition, and it's a while before that objective gets diluted into meaninglessness. A couple of issues ago we went off to Iuz's lands. This time it's the Pomarj, last given lots of love in issue 167. And it still looks like they're trying to integrate them into the surroundings, rather than this just being a nominal home. Grimorian are basically slightly more proactive komodo dragons. They bite you once, then let the vile stuff in their mouth do the rest. What's wrong with using the real creature if you aren't going to make any particularly large alterations? Raknakle are creepy looking rock fae with a decent selection of powers to control their environment and make your life a misery while escaping easily if you attack back. Take out their environment to deal with them. Skerath are another one that showcase their new poison system, that's more lenient than the old one but still no-where near as weedy as next edition's, as well as the handy concentration check mechanic. Little flying insects, they're quite suitable foes for 1st level characters. Well, the MM won't be out for 2 months. Some people'll be trying to play with just the PH and the stuff in here, so they've got to make it useful. Skittermaw are yet another low level creature with poison effects. Leading with that many creatures with save or suffer powers certainly sends a message. Since this whole thing feels quite calculated in the changes they've made to the format, turning things full colour, playing up their actions in combat, reducing the size of statblocks while still fitting just as much info in, it does feel like an improvement, at least for now. And they're certainly not a bad collection of baddies to have your first battles under the new system against. Now, if they could just revert the name. <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" /> The adventures of Volo loses it's new. Reasonable, I suppose, given the amount of time it's been running. The footnotes move to the bottom of the page, and the whole thing gets ink-spattered in a slightly illegible fashion. Can't say I think this is an overall improvement. Our topic this month dials back the snark and replaces it with a little prurience. The Stag lass is an interesting little Waterdhavian custom which has definite shades of hazing ritual to it, and involves the consumption of large quantities of alcohol by said lass and the other participants. It has slightly hazy origins, but has come to serve as both a cultural celebration, and a way for young women in a bit of trouble to gain some allies and hopefully a way out via an act of chutzpah. This has the strong air of something stolen and adapted from reality, and is yet another thing that can serve as a minor bit of flavour, or the driver for a particular plot. And as with last issue, it's completely system free, so it doesn't matter if you're planning to convert immediately or not. Is there a calendar in any of the books that marks when all these festivals are, as that would be very useful by this point.</blockquote>

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