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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 6140778" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Issue 321: July 2004part 1/887(108) pages. When you are fighting, both combatants should not be turned to face the camera. Once again, the degree of stylisation and zooming in is to the detriment of both realism and making out what's supposed to be going on. Ironic, when the planes are supposed to be about infinite expanses that you can explore for lifetimes and only scratch the surface. Let's see if they'll take us to new weird and wonderful places, or the same old devils and angels will be getting all the publicity inside as well. Scan Quality: Good, unindexed, ad-free scan. In this issue:Wyrms turn: In hindsight we've found out that the D&D developers were already thinking about 4e as soon as 3.5 was released, maybe even sooner. This editorial is a good example of that, as Matthew Sernett turns out to be on the side that's unhappy with the planes as they are, and thinks they need to be torn down for something designed for the convenience of adventurers, rather than with huge areas of stuff that's incomprehensible or unsurvivable without magic. While I can accept that there is room for improvement there, replacing a highly idiosyncratic cosmology of 30-odd planes for a far more generic one comprised of only half a dozen seems like throwing the baby out with the bathwater, and is one of my biggest peeves with 4e. This leaves me with a good deal of trepidation for the rest of this issue. Are they already going to be adding stuff that's inconsistent or revisionist to the game? I seriously hope not. Scale Mail: Our first letter is an extremely long one that reminds us just how good a place the military can be for roleplayers. There's a lot of dead time when you're posted to inhospitable locations around the world, and roleplaying is a good way to fill that and develop camaraderie within a unit. In a regular job, you might only get to play once a week. There, they got to play nearly every day, and had large groups with irregular player lineups like the ones Gary used to run. It helped keep them sane through the violence. Definitely evidence that as a social pastime RPG's are far better for you as a hobby than many other things, and also that the culture we live in has a real effect on our opportunities. Second, we have an amusing bit of sycophancy towards our current editor. He's way better than the last three! Ah, the joys of seeing newcomers who are way more enthusiastic than I could manage. How long will that innocence last? The Dark Sun issue gets 5 letters published, running the gamut of opinions from gushing to grumpy. Apparently people were considerably more vicious about it on the internet, and the writer responding to this personally did not help quell the flamewars. Definitely a case where it's very hard indeed to please everyone, especially when you only have limited space to do it in. They shouldn't let that stop them though, and I hope they'll do more controversial topics in the future. And finally, we have a request for an ecology on Succubi. Such a no-brainer you're surprised someone hasn't done it before. Can they get it past the censors without making it boring though?</blockquote>

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