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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 6204540" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Issue 340: February 2006part 1/676 (100) pages. MORE cheesecake in quick succession? The magazine continues to talk the talk, but not walk the walk when it comes to combatting sexism. Maybe you could call it a homage to issue 114, since they appear to be wearing the same outfit, and in a very similar position. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" /> Still, at least they've found a new theme for the issue. Astrology! There's a real world topic that has plenty of mystical symbolism, and yet has been mostly passed over in D&D, due to Diviners having far more specific and accurate tools to work with. Let's see if they can sustain a whole issue on the idea, or if it should have stayed as a single article amongst a load of other stuff. Scan Quality: Good, unindexed, ad-free scan. In this issue:Editorial: Erik talks about going to the moon, a topic last tackled by Gary in issue 301. This is one idea that's gradually fallen out of fashion the more we know about it, as people went to the moon, found it was an airless wasteland that went from well above boiling in the day to well below freezing at night, and decided that the profit from going there was not proportionate to the cost. I don't think it's a co-incidence that the further humanity has explored, the more distant our fantasy stories have to be set from the world we know. If we do ever get permanent interplanetary colonies up, which still seems possible within our lifetime, what kind of fiction will the people who live there write, especially the kids who grow up without ever knowing what it's like to go outside without a spacesuit and feel earthly wind, rain, gravity, etc? What tropes that are common now will they find cheesy or unbelievable? How much more state of the art can special effects get? After all, we already live in a science fiction future by many standards, even if it tends more towards cyberpunk than space opera. Here's to continued speculation, and the people who will work way too hard to bring those ideas into reality. Scale Mail: We start off with a long letter complaining about Erik's put-downs of 80's fantasy films. Go back and rewatch them, see if you can do it without cringing. If you can, then you have a stronger suspension of disbelief than him. Or at least, you have a higher tolerance for stop-motion than orange and teal. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" /> Completely the other direction, they criticise Dragon for being more expensive than Backpacker Magazine. I'm betting the reason for that is economies of scale. Not only do they have more readers, but they're more likely to get advertisers willing to spend larger quantities of money. You wouldn't think they had the time, like the ones devoted to skydiving, surfing and skateboarding, they ought to be out living the life. Erik gets sloppy, and prints the letter about crunch vs fluff two issues in a row. Tut tut. And you'd managed exactly a hundred issues since the last time you made that particular mistake. Also a blast from the past is someone asking about The Wizards Three. By no co-incidence at all, they're planning on bringing that back for their 30th birthday special. That'll get the nostalgia flowing like few other columns could. Keith Baker calls in to correct a little mistake in one of his recent articles. It can be tricky to keep the small differences between 3.0 and 3.5 straight, even for the official writers. Another very familiar request is the one for more psionics. If at some point it ever gets equal coverage to magic, pinch me to wake me up. People continue to write into the magazine to ask where stuff is, instead of asking forums, despite the much faster turnover they could get that way. I do wonder why. And finally, we have more praise. OotS has a lot of fans, and they're very pleased to see it get the WotC seal of approval, especially since they could have been <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />s about the use of D&D rules terms. Do comics count under the OGL anyway?</blockquote>

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