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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 6184218" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Issue 335: September 2005part 3/7The music of waterdeep: A new organisation without a mechanical social ranking system or prestige class attached to it? That is unusual these days, and reminds us that Elaine Cunningham is one of their novel writers who isn't really a gamer. She is very well steeped in Realmslore though, especially since she wrote a fair chunk of it, and this is packed full of references to familiar names and places. It also has surprisingly little Harry Potter in it, when you consider it's about a Bard College, and spellcasting is an important part of their training in D&D worlds. There's a lot of politics behind it though, and plenty of opportunity for PC's to be students there and still go on adventures. They're secretly a splinter group of the Harpers, and whether their goals will remain aligned with the main group is very much in question. The whole thing is written in the IC style that was popular in the 90's, although she doesn't break the 4th wall like Ed and Jeff were so wont to do. So like last issue's features, this is an article that would never have got through last year, and is all the more interesting for it. A lot of the time, changing your playstyle is nothing to do with the actual rules, but the situation your characters are put in, and working from an academic base certainly counts for that. Can you persuade your players that it would be fun to send their characters back to school to learn some new tricks? An interview with Ed Greenwood: Curiously enough, Ed isn't giving us any new game material this month. But then, he has always been more about the cool ideas than strict adherence to the rules of the game. Most of his highly powerful characters were technically illegal by the old rules, and weirdly enough, are underpowered for their level when converted into 3e. The more important thing has always been developing the setting and the histories of the cool people, places and magic items within it. And in the course of the interview, he does wind up answering more questions about the setting than himself. Unlike the last time he was interviewed in issue 244, he no longer gets to game quite so regularly, as his original group have fallen prey to the usual adulthood thing of jobs, families and life in general making scheduling a pain. But even if life isn't perfect, it's still pretty sweet. He has far more job security than any of the office guys in Paizo or WotC, due to the original contract that means they can't stop publishing the Realms for too long or get rid of him and his input without the rights reverting to him. (and wouldn't it be interesting to see what he would do with them if not bound to using whatever the current D&D rules system is at the moment) Having to write more novels featuring Elminster due to public demand seems a relatively mild price to pay to keep the money coming in. As usual, I remain jealous of both the sheer quantity of ideas he's able to come up with, and the way he can express them, and can't wait to see what he comes up with next.</blockquote>

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