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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5891721" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Issue 275: September 2000part 1/7132 pages. The price drops back, but not quite all the way, to $4.99. Sneaky. How much more are you going to get from those 4 cents an issue? 50-60,000 copies an issue, that's maybe a couple of thousand dollars, less when you consider the subscribers won't feel the raise until later. But anyway, it looks like this issue'll be show off how much better fighty types have it under the new edition. Or at least how many more options they have, which is almost the same thing. Let's enjoy our Half-Orc paladins and whatnot while they remain novel, before people slip back into the habit of sticking with classes their racial ability modifiers synergise with. Scan quality: Good, unindexed. In this issue:Wyrm's turn: No surprise that defying cliches, and the new edition's support of this is the subject of the editorial. You have vast amounts of new shinies! Take advantage of them! But seriously, it's not just about the powergaming. 3e offers opportunities to make your characters different from other members of the same class and race and subvert stereotypes in a way previous editions simply couldn't. And they're going to keep working to make sure the visuals match that mood. Basically, they're playing up the punk aspect of dungeonpunk this month. All you prog rock dinosaurs can go off and play with your flowers, maaan. Your story has totally been told already. Well, this certainly looks like it could be either amateurish or contentious, both of which are fun for me to look at. And if they can produce good stories while avoiding stereotypes, then they'll definitely deserve praise. Scale Mail: Our letters this month are pretty much unanimously in praise of the new edition. The first one praises pretty much everything but the reduction of ecology info in the monster statblocks, but particularly the back to the dungeon attitude. They say there'll still be plenty of ecologies in the magazine to make up for this. And the old notes continue to be useful whatever edition you're playing. It's the new players who never read them you'll have to watch out for. The second one is all about how awesome the new rules look. They can't wait to collect ALL THE RULES! Who are we to stop them?Next we have one looking back instead of forward, praising issue 272 and most of the articles therin. They must admit the new Bahamut & Tiamat look a bit daunting though. Muahaha. Yes, they are pretty powerful. Set a bunch of optimised 20th level PC's against them and they'll still go down in a few rounds. And finally, we have a lengthy and verbosely written letter about the study of history. One that thinks ancient people might have been smarter than modern ones, which is a bit amusing. There is still a lot we don't know about history though. That much is true. Best thing we can do is record as much as we can now, hope future generations learn from our mistakes. Up on a soapbox: This month Gary celebrates two things that I'm sad to say the new edition cuts down on. Low level fragility, and support for long term play. If you have it too easy from the start, you'll never learn how to play it smart and not throw tantrums when you lose like a responsible adult. And if you always win at combat you'll never learn that negotiating or running away can often be better solutions. Plus if you get rewarded too easily, you'll get bored with the game sooner and move onto another one. So this is half valid life lesson, half darn kids, gitoffa mah lawn, and very worth thinking about. Teaching your kids that the world is often hard, and you have to work for unreliable rewards is a better life lesson than handing everything to them on a plate, and then suddenly forcing them to sink or swim at some point when you can't or don't want to support them any longer. And adventures that have multiple solutions, including leaving things open for trying tricks the writers didn't think of are more engaging in play than linear ones that break if you don't follow the rails, and offer more learning opportunities that can be applied to real life. Course, you don't have to make all your play training for reality, especially after you're an adult, and deal with that crap day in day out, but still, better to use time efficiently than not. I approve of this message. Profiles almost completely decapitalises. Monte Cook is another of the primary architects of the new system, and is obviously full of praise for it. Plenty of familiar elements are hinted at here. His desire to produce a campaign world based on The Land from Stephen Donaldson's books, which would become Arcana Unearthed/Evolved. That he runs two games a week in his own setting, which was used as one of the primary playtesting places for 3rd edition, and is of course Ptolus. And the usual stuff about his history working for I.C.E, and then on the Planescape line. Unlike some of our employees, who are too busy working to play the game they're actually working on, he's got plenty of actual play experience to help him hone his rules design skills, develop his settings in useful ways, and keep his enthusiasm going. It's a formula that works for Ed Greenwood, and it's one that works for him. There must always be time for fun, no matter how hard you're working. If there isn't, you're in the wrong job.</blockquote>

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