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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 6123556" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Issue 316: February 2004part 1/887 (108) pages. 6 months of shallow dipping finally comes to an end with a themed issue on spying. Since the last issue which did that was 231, the issue that got me to stop buying back in the day, I definitely think there's room for improvement here. Let's see if 3.5 is better suited to the james bond playstyle than 2e. Roll the dramatic theme music. Scan quality: Excellent, unindexed, ad-free scan. In this issue:Wyrms turn: What examination of spying would be complete without mentioning James Bond? They talk about the various people who have played him, and the preferences of the people in the office. This reminds me that it's still a good year before Daniel Craig takes the role, and Bond gets hard rebooted for the first time, instead of simply playing fast and loose about if he's the same guy who gets plastic surgery and the like to stay useful, or if the name is merely a code for whoever holds the 007 job. The franchise was once again in danger of being seen as a dinosaur, but they managed to pull through by stealing from the best ideas of other recent films and capture a new audience. A lesson that D&D is currently struggling to emulate, with an aging fanbase and strong interest in older editions keeping things more static than the developers would like. Is the way to keep the game alive to pander to the fanbase, or go out looking for a new one? Is it possible to do both at once by supporting more than one edition at once? After all, they don't stop selling old films because a new one in a series came out. The new material acts as promotion for the old stuff in a way, making them more long tail money. But WotC currently seems to want to have a few high selling products rather than a wide range of moderately selling ones. It's all vey frustrating, and I wish i know what lesson to take from it. Scale Mail: Our first letter is from someone who saw they were bringing back old campaigns, and got massively overexcited. As usual, they have to council moderation, for they do not have unlimited resources or creativity, and are always paying more attention to game balance than the old days. It's a pain having to be the sensible ones. Second is a request for smaller, more condensed format corebooks and character sheets. Their ties to WotC prevent them from mentioning that Mongoose has done exactly that. They confirm that ironically, they have even less freedom as a separate company than they did as a WotC department. Not very helpful. Drow have got a special this edition. But where's the Duergar love? Now this is one you, the reader could fix by sending in something good. It does have to be said that they'll never be as cool as Drow though. Elves and Vampires, there's no overtaking their popularity. Also interesting is a letter saying that maybe you ought to restrict the types of monsters in your campaign, to create a stronger theme and give the ones you use greater depth. Curiously enough, the staff council against that, as they're all about lots of options and broad appeal at the moment. Let the players choose what monsters they face. Next thing they'll be encouraging DM's to give players whatever magic items they ask for. ;p We had a request for more duergar love. now we have a request for more halfling variants. They remind us that with the current number of templates, you can create all the variants you'll ever need and more. Not that this'll stop them from adding to them. They have a supplement treadmill to keep up with after all. And finally, a complaint that they've gone a bit too far towards pure crunch in their recent issues. They ought to be providing stuff we can't get from hundreds of other D20 publishers. They remind us that fluff and crunch shouldn't be opposed, but complementary. It's just that they're not currently in the business of creating whole campaign settings for you, just giving you the tools to do it yourself.</blockquote>

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