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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 6077927" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Issue 306: April 2003part 1/994 pages (116) Tonight! I'm going to suuuuck……ubus. (I didn't know her mouth was that flexible :rimshot: I pity the tourists in the open-roof double deckers) From looking at the contents page It looks like this year's april issue is pretty light on the levity, but does have multiple articles with a fiendish flavour. I guess there are worse topics to tackle. There are certainly many far more overdone ones. Let's keep that serious face on as we pen another missive among many. Scan Quality: Excellent, indexed, Ad free scan.In this issue:Wyrms turn: Yet again, i'm left feeling that the playstyle in the offices isn't the one they're trying to sell us in the books, as they regularly kill one another off and switch characters, trying to use as many of the new races, feats, spells etc that they're coming up with. ( which is both work and pleasure, if done right. ) Meanwhile, they're nerfing energy drain, making permanent death less likely, and encouraging you to play full 12-18 month campaigns where you go from 1st to 20th level. It is interesting to observe. I guess it's still a small disconnect compared to Palladium, where Kevin Siembida doesn't even try to use the rules in his own books. Here, they at least use the rules as written, even if they're constantly tinkering with them and adding to them because that's their job. Would the game sell more if they didn't try to retain that gap between the way they're playing, and the way they're trying to encourage us to play? I'm really not sure. But it is worth considering. Would the perfect system be one where there's no need to houserule, and the rules encourage exactly the playstyle that they say they do? Or is there no truly perfect system for everything, and the constant tinkering is part of the fun? I think that's worth a good bit of debating. Scale Mail: Our first letter is from someone who's DM likes to keep all their magazines polybagged, thus preserving their resale value but keeping their contents from seeing much use. They quite rightly tell him to buy his own copies. Then you can do what ever you like with them, including make nuclear weapons. Our next question is an obvious one. What does the release of 3.5 portend for their various splatbook series? Oh, they will have no hesitation repeating that, multiple times even. Once again cementing that they feel comfortable covering a narrower range of topics because they know the many D20 companies out there are taking up the slack. Despite modern communication having advanced, it seems once again that army people are having trouble getting the magazine while stationed out in odd places. The squeaky wheel gets the grease, in this case. They're doing their best. We also have the problem that some people think cubic cones and spheres are stupid. Doing everything to the grid could well be called stupid. You just have to decide if you want to include that degree of abstraction in your game, because you need some if you want to keep things moving along. It's only an issue if you're using minis and strictly tracking space and positioning anyway. Even more contentious is the idea that everything WotC and Dragon publishes should be Open Content. They have to argue against that. If they did, anyone could copy their work and sell it for cheaper, putting them out of business. Trouble with that argument is the fact that even 4 years after they took down their .pdfs, it's still simplicity itself to get any D&D book for free online, even 4e ones that were never released as such. * It's still a fairly huge problem, and as we're finding as the digital economy develops, the best way to compete with free is to provide quality and convenience ( which WotC should definitely be able to do if it puts it's mind too it )and use models that get the money upfront like Kickstarter. (which even White Wolf is resorting too these days) I'm once again left feeling that Ryan Dancey knew what he was doing when he created the OGL, while these guys are too busy making their monthly deadlines to predict or plan for long term technology driven changes in the industry. And finally, another obscure pop culture reference to roleplaying, just to lighten the mood. Not that it really competes with the zany letters of yesteryear. * Note: this was written before they put them back up again a few days ago. Now that is an interesting development</blockquote>

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