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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 6222306" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Issue 345: July 2006part 2/6First watch: The Monster Manual IV sees the designers try and avoid the dread spectre of diminishing returns by introducing not just new monsters, but new elements, such as various advanced versions of creatures, and lairs/prefab encounters as well. Not a bad idea, even if it did irritate some people. Eberron gets Secrets of Xen'drik. Explore their very own Dark Continent, full of ancient ruins and savage monsters. Find out new things about eberron's history as a whole. Again, sounds pretty promising. Take an airship tour over it, and avoid a big chunk of the hassle of exploring. A third official release this month. Rather more than usual these days. Dragondown Grotto is another Fantastic Locations adventure. Another 16 page adventure, and lots of add-on bits and pieces. Still probably not going to sell hugely compared to the first two. A whole host of minis this month, both official and third party. D&D releases the 10th set of minis, as they've been spoiling for a bit. Goodman games releases a load of minis based on old skool monsters. And McFarlaine toys unleashes their own collection of dragons. Who will get your dollars? They also promote yet another battlemat for them to fight upon. I'm definitely getting choice fatigue in this area. How many battlemats does the average gamer need? If you want another game to play using them, there's Genesis by Dark Age games. Modelled by our very own Brom, this postapocalyptic combat game seems to be doing pretty well for itself. No D20 books promoted this month. However, they do choose a White Wolf supplement. Mythologies for V:tR is a pretty good book, so I can understand why. The copy is a bit misleading though. Remember, all of this stuff is optional, and some explicitly contradictory. Don't believe everything you hear and read, especially in the world of darkness. Online, we have an interesting experiment. Wolfgang Baur's Open Design project. See an adventure constructed through votes and fan feedback, and maybe join in. A definite case of the joys of the net. I very much approve, and wish I could make money doing something like that. Also on the computer side, there's Fantasy Grounds, another attempt at simulating roleplaying, and facilitating online play. Looks pretty decent. They also choose to promote the DVD of The Princess Bride, for some reason. Well, it isn't a bad movie, and it does have one line that's become ubiquitous in online quotes, but really, is it a classic? Really not sure what to feel about this one. And finally, they take the time to promote the ENnies. Once again we see how much the forums now influence the official writers, and vice versa, since many of them are registered and regular contributors, talking directly to the fans. Everyone can join in, (albeit with varying success) as I've demonstrated over the past few years. Demonomicon of Iggwilv: Another of our less sophisticated demon lords this month.  Kostchtchie may be an ugly, bandy-legged thing with a bad temper, but ...... actually, no, he doesn't have hidden depths, he's just an ugly misogynistic thug who has a whole bunch of stupid pretensions and insecurities and acts in a decidedly sub-optimal way as a result of them. You've made it to the status of abyssal lord, get over yourself. They make a huge mechanical error in removing one of his big weaknesses of previous editions, (he should be slower moving than normal humans for a very good reason. If one of the big sources of his insecurities isn't backed up mechanically, then it's hardly a penalty. ) and the whole thing suffers from obyrith creep. They're supposed to be over, a footnote in the history of the abyss. They shouldn't be having more and more influence on the current plots and storylines. So yeah, while the quality of this article is as high as ever, I distinctively disapprove of the specific ways they've updated and advanced the character this time. Guess it's house-ruling time. Moving onwards then.</blockquote>

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