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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5890423" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Issue 274: August 2000part 7/7Dungeoncraft: This column goes black and red, making it indeed look like a dungeon where a certain amount of torture has taken place. But the writing isn't torturous at all, as this is one of those issues where he gives several subjects short essays rather than going on about one. First, there's the basic question of whether you'll run your game in 1st person or 3rd person perspective. Now that's the kind of obvious question that most people'll simply answer unconsciously, when learning to control it could make a real difference to the tone. True genius. It's something you can do instantly at virtually no effort. The other two parts, timekeeping and pacing, are more complex and connected. Coming up with a way of keeping track of time, particularly if the party splits up, is always a good idea. And keeping things moving at the right speed to engage the players is crucial. We've had articles giving advice on both of these before, sometimes quite good. Ray uses a fairly simple method of marking the amount of time each action takes as you go using a scratch pad, which works pretty well when the party is all together, but as I've said, you'll need to push the envelope a bit if the party separates for an extended period of time. Still, two simple, unambiguous and easy to implement solutions to problems in one article? That's worth the price of admission. Why waffle when you can get things done instead. Silicon sorcery: Our topic this month is a problem that's fairly specific to D&D and the CRPG's that descend from it. Inventory bloat. Something about the structure of D&D and the way it awards treasure and XP leads players to acquire ever growing lists of stuff that many players wind up never using, and sometimes struggle to keep track of at all. You never see that in Vampire, even if the characters do have hundreds of xp. Fortunately, there are ways to manage this a little better. And computers certainly do help. When everything is automatically in one place, alphabetised and searchable, it instantly makes referencing way faster than thumbing through a whole bunch of supplements, trying to find which actually has the item and tells you what it does. This provides several other methods to speed play as well, which gives you a decent amount of choice. And then it backconverts a bunch of new magical items from the new Pool of Radiance game. Most of them are combat based, but they do have some quirks to them, based on what monsters you're likely to be facing in the game. And at the moment, we need magic items and monsters badly. So this is another article that covers a couple of topics in a small space, and that'll be handy both in the long and short term. This magazine is really proving itself valuable again. What's new also covers robin hood. Man, it aint easy being a hero in D&D land. The snail is also back again. I'm not that keen on the new visuals, but most of the articles this issue are very good indeed, striking a good balance between showing us the new system, and providing system free material that'll still be useful for any game. Plus the general feeling of grind that pervaded the last few years of the magazine is gone, with the writers being genuinely enthusiastic about the new edition and all the things they can do that they couldn't before. Even knowing about the flaws in 3e that only became apparent with longer play, it's hard to not be swept up by that enthusiasm. So here's me hoping that takes a few years to wear off, and heading off to the next issue with a whistle and a spring in my step.</blockquote>

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