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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5981119" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Issue 287: September 2001part 7/7Dungeoncraft: Still filling out that homebase, Ray makes sure that there are several places to provide adventures and secrets without leaving the relatively safe confines of Janda's Valley, thus once again making room for survivable low level adventures before they venture out to face full-sized dinosaurs. It also tells us exactly what's available in the shops round here, and a big secret that you'd better hope your players haven't spoiled themselves on if they plan to play here. So there's a pretty high density of information here. Even with all these instalments, Ray only has about as much room to play around with as the village of hommlet. Like those old modules, you've got to make every bit count, keep the whole thing tight and accessible, because there's a lot of casual readers that you can convert or alienate here. Still, I think with this performance we're winning more people than we're driving away. PC Portraits: Our theme this month is characters with a low Charisma. Which gives the artist carte blanche to make their pictures interestingly unattractive. Ugly dwarves, ugly elves, ugly halflings, a half-orc with pigtails, and plenty of acne, boils,  and scars to go around. I can certainly see some players blanching about having characters that ugly, while others will love the idea. As usual, if you mix and match, the contrast may work to both sides benefit. So this is quite a fun collection really, and the dungeonpunk bits fit in well with the character's overall appearance. Role models: Closely tied in with the Chainmail column, this also looks at the human & gnome faction, and talks about their colour scheme. Blue and white clothes, and light brown skin is the order of the day, to suit a mediterranean climate.  Well, that's mildly informative as well, and gives them an easy set of things to do to fill out the next 5 months. After all, each of the factions will have their own identifying features, and they wouldn't want to be accused of favouritism. A good bit of continuity like that'll let them get a bit of depth in, even in these tiny little columns. This tie-in continues to be better handled than the ones in the past. DM's Toolbox: This column seems to be rapidly settling into a pattern of giving us crisp, bullet-pointed advice that's easy to follow, covering similar ground to Ray's column, but in a different writing style. How do you make a villain interesting and powerful? Figure out what they're trying to do, what they've got to do it with, how they'll keep themselves from losing it, and how they intend to get more. As is often the case, it seems easy when you phrase it like that. It also concentrates quite a bit on the noncombat aspects of building an enemy. After all, even if you are evil, a sensible creature will still see the value in having allies rather than enemies where possible, and the profit to be gained by clever negotiation. As this is focussed on political thinking rather than hack and slash, and presents it in an interesting way, I rather like this. It'll give you a chance to actually roleplay your villains before they get beaten. Dragonmirth is captionariffic. What's new is affirmatively demonic. Well, this was a pretty kickass issue. It's not often that I give every single article a neutral or positive result, but this managed it, with even the non-themed bits coming out pretty strongly. Silly that that would happen just as they change editors, and that might make me remember Dave a bit more positively than otherwise. So once again it's time to embrace that sting of uncertainty, see how long it takes the new guy to get the hang of things, and what changes they'll make.</blockquote>

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