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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 6270626" data-attributes="member: 27780">Best of Dragon Magazine 2part 6/6Tesseracts: This introduction to four-dimensional thinking is still very cool and relevant to any fantastical (and many sci-fi) games. As reading Flatland reminds us, there are a whole bunch of unexamined assumptions in our lives, and by changing a few of them, we can tell very interesting stories indeed. We can also write very interesting adventures too, when you change the rules and then work logically from the new ones. We can't leave the dungeon behind entirely, and still say we're playing D&D, but the definition of dungeon can get pretty broad. A transdimensional maze certainly qualifies. Which way is up?: Continuing directly on, we examine what happens when you not only have dungeons with dimensions beyond the normal three, making linear mapping impossible, but you can also get into the same place, but with gravity in a different direction. This makes things even more interesting, because there are a number of exploits you can pull with objects that have weight in a different plane to everything else. (although keeping hold of them may prove tricky long-term, for things flying into space as soon as you let go outdoors is a pain.) This is one case where collecting the two articles in their original format is definitely for the better, since they were by different writers, and it's good to see people building on the inspirations of others. And when you're working in four dimensions, you just know there are going to be a lot of perspectives on the same thing. The politics of hell: This article, on the other hand, is not universal, and indeed, seems very much of it's time. Since it's intimately linked to real world history, using it in D&D worlds is a bit of a problem, even more so than the various polytheistic pantheons from Deities & Demigods, as a single supreme creator deity constrains your cosmology options substantially. It's no surprise that when Ed Greenwood did the 9 hells article, he didn't use material from this. It still remains interesting, but feels like a dead-end branch on the evolutionary tree, since the 4th wall has gradually got more solid between fantasy worlds and the real earth. Funny how that's worked out. Poison: from AA to XX: Save or Die on every hit was never going to be sustainable game design if you want to play long-term campaigns. Even by the release of the 1e DMG, there were already some monsters that didn't just wipe you out straight off, instead paralysing you or just doing extra damage if you failed. This article continued that trend, giving us the letter system that they'd use in the 2e corebooks. (even if it's purely dedicated to dealing damage rather than other more interesting debilitations) As such, it does seem nicely influential, and very much deserves to be here in hindsight. Sometimes you want to be cruel, but you do need those other shades in between for it to have full impact. The nomenclature of pole arms: We finish with one of Gary's other little fetishes, the many different types of historical polearms. This still seems pretty boring in hindsight, especially after the weirder dimensional stuff and monsters. As with the editorial rants, it seems that while he may have created the game, after a certain point he was holding it back as well, keeping it focused on the small-unit dungeoneering experience when other people wanted to do more with it. It's a bit of a pain really that most people don't actually want accurate information about the medieval world in their escapism, they want something that looks cool and resonates emotionally with them. And given the competition, polearms really don't cut the mustard. (to say nothing of how awkward it is to spread it on your bread afterwards with one.) When you only have limited space in your mental inventory, it's hard to find room to pack one. Pretty disappointed with this one. With two chapters that feel like misfires, and the final one remaining pretty hit and miss, it does indeed feel like they jumped the gun releasing a second best of so soon after the first, and should have waited a bit longer to reload. It definitely makes me wonder if there'll be even more diminishing returns in the next three, or it the broadening submissions base and less reliance on the same few writers will let them pick better. Let's see what they thought was worth repeating in the next collection.</blockquote>

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