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<blockquote data-quote="Sanglorian" data-source="post: 5964678" data-attributes="member: 83822"><p>I remember it had a dungeon generator and the 3E character generator demo; maybe it had some other things as well. I thought the dungeon generator was amazing at the time; in retrospect it was a pretty conventional generator. The character generator demo was attractive and saved a lot of time, though the options were quite limited.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Later on, Polyhedron was the magazine that had that excitement for me: pulp heroes one month, planetary romance the next, a battle of the bands the month after. But that would be some years later.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Look at the list of races on page 22: 'gold dwarves, gray dwarves, shield dwarves, drow, sun elves, wild elves, wood elves, deep gnomes, rock gnomes, ghostwise halflings, strongheart halflings, aasimar, genasi and tieflings'. Imagine you're reading the magazine for the first time and with little knowledge of D&D. What an exciting list of races! And what a shame that in practice they often boiled down to nothing more than a different set of ability score bonuses.</p><p></p><p>I think it took until Eberron to make me excited about sub-races again. The Valenor and Aerenal elves in particular are distinct and interesting.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>THIS baffled me. I could tell that Dork Tower was partially tongue-in-cheek, but was it parodying real events? Who was this 'Piffany' who sued for defamation? Weren't they worried that by rudely representing her in this comic she might sue again? Did Phil Foglio really finance the magazine?</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>As a newcomer, I found the non–rules-based parts of this the most valuable: what traps the dragons might use, where they commonly lair, and so on.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>This article introduced the concept of foreshadowing to me, and the example of a dragon's shadow being cast on the party is still what I think of when I think of foreshadowing. In addition, the table for what dragons always and never do ('always acts like royalty'; 'never loses a game of chess') is damn useful and concise advice: much more useful than advice on what character class to add to your dragon, to use an example from <em>Draconian Tactics.</em></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I don't think that's what Laws is suggesting here at all. He's not suggesting that you create adventures that give each character a chance to shine (as a narrativist might do), but rather create adventures that interest every player. </p><p></p><p>This isn't necessarily achieved by your suggestion of making the setting solid and detailed. The casual gamer would just be overwhelmed by that; it's hard to see how a detailed world necessarily helps the steam venter or the power gamer. Even if your setting manages to have facets that interest all players, it's still up to the GM to ensure that those facets are present in each adventure: it's not enough that the kobolds in the south can be slaughtered by the steam venter and the half-orcs in the north can be converted by the method actor, since what you want is for both the steam venter and the method actor to be engaged by either location.</p><p></p><p>I also think he's missed out at least one category, what I'd call the explorer. The explorer enjoys learning more about a coherent and fantastic world and its inhabitants. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>It could, but I think it only lasted for one or two articles!</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I think the dragon kith are a good example of a concept that were forced into the format of a prestige class. They really would have worked better as a LA +1 or +2 template or a feat chain (or, perhaps, a 5e theme); no one is going to bother meeting the requirements to take what is a collection of unexciting and uncoordinated abilities.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>To be fair, the two cleric orders are given as examples so that players can go away and do the same thing for lots of other 2e kits instead of demanding prestige classes. The multiclass paths are definitely suboptimal, but without prestige classes like the mystic theurge <em>any </em>cleric/wizard or cleric/fighter multiclass would be suboptimal.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>A terrific column, and a shame it didn't continue for longer. I didn't appreciate it at the time, but in retrospect it was a fantastic ideas mine and—like a lot of roleplaying resources—subtly taught the reader at the same time. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I'm surprised by your lukewarm reaction! At the time, I was totally enchanted by the different varieties of drake and their strange and unique breath weapons. Even now that I have quite a few monster books, I find the greater drakes a refreshing alternative to the 'water drake', 'fire drake', 'earth drake' and 'air drake' that weren't interesting the first time, and yet have been done hundreds of times.</p><p></p><p>A dragon that breaths mead ... what's not to love? Ron Spencer's illustrations really help here as well: only the vallochar looks like a stereotypical dragon, and even that looks a lot better than the <a href="https://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/draco_gallery/75629.jpg" target="_blank">dragonnel</a>!</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Sanglorian, post: 5964678, member: 83822"] I remember it had a dungeon generator and the 3E character generator demo; maybe it had some other things as well. I thought the dungeon generator was amazing at the time; in retrospect it was a pretty conventional generator. The character generator demo was attractive and saved a lot of time, though the options were quite limited. Later on, Polyhedron was the magazine that had that excitement for me: pulp heroes one month, planetary romance the next, a battle of the bands the month after. But that would be some years later. Look at the list of races on page 22: 'gold dwarves, gray dwarves, shield dwarves, drow, sun elves, wild elves, wood elves, deep gnomes, rock gnomes, ghostwise halflings, strongheart halflings, aasimar, genasi and tieflings'. Imagine you're reading the magazine for the first time and with little knowledge of D&D. What an exciting list of races! And what a shame that in practice they often boiled down to nothing more than a different set of ability score bonuses. I think it took until Eberron to make me excited about sub-races again. The Valenor and Aerenal elves in particular are distinct and interesting. THIS baffled me. I could tell that Dork Tower was partially tongue-in-cheek, but was it parodying real events? Who was this 'Piffany' who sued for defamation? Weren't they worried that by rudely representing her in this comic she might sue again? Did Phil Foglio really finance the magazine? As a newcomer, I found the non–rules-based parts of this the most valuable: what traps the dragons might use, where they commonly lair, and so on. This article introduced the concept of foreshadowing to me, and the example of a dragon's shadow being cast on the party is still what I think of when I think of foreshadowing. In addition, the table for what dragons always and never do ('always acts like royalty'; 'never loses a game of chess') is damn useful and concise advice: much more useful than advice on what character class to add to your dragon, to use an example from [I]Draconian Tactics.[/I] I don't think that's what Laws is suggesting here at all. He's not suggesting that you create adventures that give each character a chance to shine (as a narrativist might do), but rather create adventures that interest every player. This isn't necessarily achieved by your suggestion of making the setting solid and detailed. The casual gamer would just be overwhelmed by that; it's hard to see how a detailed world necessarily helps the steam venter or the power gamer. Even if your setting manages to have facets that interest all players, it's still up to the GM to ensure that those facets are present in each adventure: it's not enough that the kobolds in the south can be slaughtered by the steam venter and the half-orcs in the north can be converted by the method actor, since what you want is for both the steam venter and the method actor to be engaged by either location. I also think he's missed out at least one category, what I'd call the explorer. The explorer enjoys learning more about a coherent and fantastic world and its inhabitants. It could, but I think it only lasted for one or two articles! I think the dragon kith are a good example of a concept that were forced into the format of a prestige class. They really would have worked better as a LA +1 or +2 template or a feat chain (or, perhaps, a 5e theme); no one is going to bother meeting the requirements to take what is a collection of unexciting and uncoordinated abilities. To be fair, the two cleric orders are given as examples so that players can go away and do the same thing for lots of other 2e kits instead of demanding prestige classes. The multiclass paths are definitely suboptimal, but without prestige classes like the mystic theurge [I]any [/I]cleric/wizard or cleric/fighter multiclass would be suboptimal. A terrific column, and a shame it didn't continue for longer. I didn't appreciate it at the time, but in retrospect it was a fantastic ideas mine and—like a lot of roleplaying resources—subtly taught the reader at the same time. I'm surprised by your lukewarm reaction! At the time, I was totally enchanted by the different varieties of drake and their strange and unique breath weapons. Even now that I have quite a few monster books, I find the greater drakes a refreshing alternative to the 'water drake', 'fire drake', 'earth drake' and 'air drake' that weren't interesting the first time, and yet have been done hundreds of times. A dragon that breaths mead ... what's not to love? Ron Spencer's illustrations really help here as well: only the vallochar looks like a stereotypical dragon, and even that looks a lot better than the [URL="https://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/draco_gallery/75629.jpg"]dragonnel[/URL]! [/QUOTE]
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