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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5963460" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Issue 284: June 2001part 3/7Taste test: Robin Laws goes into psychoanalyst mode again, trying to break gamers down into useful categories, that'll then allow you to ensure they all get a chance to do the things they love. Make sure there's fighting for the hack-and-slashers, talky bits for the roleplayers, and challenges that utilise any idiosyncratic special abilities characters might have. I'm thinking if you need to think like, you aren't putting enough effort into making your setting solid and detailed enough that players can apply whatever tools they prefer to get a result anyway. While it is important to make your game fun, if the players feel you're pandering to them, and everything comes too easy or is only solvable by their specific combination of stats and equipment, the world loses verisimilitude. So yeah, this is a bit too far into the narrativist side of the GNS triangle for my tastes. Kinda losing me here. Wise as an Ox, Strong as an Owl: An article on making the most of low ability scores right after the editorial talked about it? Must be playing on their minds then. But of course, while there may be roleplaying advantages to playing a character who has some weaknesses, they also have mechanical vulnerabilities. And in a game as tactical as 3e, that becomes more significant. So this isn't just about how to roleplay a character with a low stat, but how to play them tactically so their weaknesses have less impact on their actions, particularly in combat. (Con & Dex are the ones you really suffer for neglecting regardless of role) Another pretty good bit of evidence that their priorities have shifted quite a bit, and they're reducing rehash by exploring this new playstyle thoroughly. Iiinteresting. Fiction: Pilgrim's test by Thomas Harlan. Fool Wolf's story has finished. Now here's the debut of another writer who'll get quite a few stories published in the next few years. This is an action high, and magic light little story, set in the time of the crusades, and focussed on the adventures of a young knight and his wise old servant. In typical adventurer style, when the DM tries to railroad him into surrendering, he proves himself quite capable of surviving a threat that has him seemingly outmatched, and causing a fair amount of collateral damage. So this rings fairly true to my own adventuring experiences, while also not being overly D&Dish, and still working as a story. I can see why they'd invite him back on this showing, especially if his rules writing is also good. Campaign Corner: We've had a longstanding problem with some people wanting more coverage of specific game worlds, but it being a struggle to get the material, and the new owners wanting to avoid splitting the fanbase. This is their latest attempt, cramming a ton of little plot hooks into a few pages, adapted for their respective campaign worlds. They're all notes that are designed to lead players into an adventure, and have multiple options on how it could go so even if your players read this, they'll still won't be spoiled on the adventure. So this is one for if you need an initial spark to get you going, but know how to build on that under your own steam. This seems like it could stay interesting for a while. Class acts: Monte turns his attention to a topic he would later revisit in greater depth in Arcana Evolved. The dragon kith, a person who gains draconic abilities by swearing fealty to one, and then performing rituals that bond them together. And they're not quite as good as the later incarnation, with some awkward roleplaying limitations for not particularly spectacular powers. While nearly any class can get into them, they're best optimized for fighty sorts, with their full BAB, natural armour, (which will of course stack with everything else) and smiting effect. Probably best used as NPC's, unless you want a dragon ordering you around and dragging the rest of the party on their missions. Faiths of Faerun: Ooh. Yay. The start of a new column. Gods are an important part of the setting, and they've certainly made plenty of appearances in the magazine. But so far, that's usually been a whole pantheon to an article, which means individual deities only get a page or two at most. On the other hand, most do not credit an entire book about them. But an article going into more depth on one, ecology style, wouldn't be a bad idea, and could give them years of articles without rehashing themselves. This has definite potential. The reality, unfortunately, is rather less glamorous. Fluff expansion is completely eschewed in favour of taking a rather anally detailed look at multiclass clerics, and how to best achieve the crunch matching the flavour of two cleric orders, Azuth's Magistrati and Helm's Watchers. As with so much of the multiclass path stuff, this all feels like discredited design that will result in suboptimal characters compared to a straight cleric. Another case where the kinks of the format definitely need ironing out. Send feedback! Elminster's guide to the realms: This new column, on the other hand, looks really cool, with a real emphasis on the looks. Ed did this before in 1994 with Elminster's notebook, a 1-2 page adventure hook/setting expansion with extensive illustrations building the atmosphere. Only now it's in full colour, with maps, and a greater emphasis on actually detailing the meat of the encounter. Still, some things remain familiar, and one of those is that there's absolutely tons of high level spellcasters in the Realms who've achieved a degree of immortality. (as they're near impossible to kill for good once they've got their contingencies up, they just keep on accreting) Thankfully, the one detailed here is a fairly friendly sort, willing to share his knowledge to those who come in peace, and give brutal demonstrations of his custom spells to those that don't. You can get to high levels self-taught, but if you want a real breadth of options (especially important if you're a wizard) you need to be aware of other's ideas and borrow them liberally. I think this reinforces that one of the reasons for the Realms' success is that it is the closest of all the D&D worlds to the way a world that ran on D&D physics would actually turn out, so it rings true to people's experiences. And as long as that continues to be the case, it'll continue to be popular despite the overcrowding.</blockquote>

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