mhacdebhandia
Explorer
A few thoughts, though I do buy the magazine from my FLGS:
1. Articles about the various D&D settings - Planescape in particular - need not be so tied to that setting as to be useless. For example, one of the best ways I can think of to get the attention of Planescape fans would be to publish articles on planar sites with the coolness and flavour of the places detailed in the old products. They can be completely original locations - but if they're flavourful like Balefire, the City of Lanterns (#322), and if they took some of the material in both core and supplemental products and used the site as a way to demonstrate how to use that material in your game, perhaps by quickly sketching the relations between two or three site-appropriate recently-published races, or by presenting an organisation which makes good and significant use of a recent prestige class or two, then Dragon is both promoting recent releases, integrating "crunch" and "fluff", and satisfying those who need ideas of either the mechanical or flavour kinds.
Little asides like mentioning one or two factions which might have a presence in the location would bring a smile to the face of fans of Planescape without detracting from its usefulness to Third Edition games. The same principles can be applied to other locations - an article about an interesting location with sidebars or boxes explaining how to adapt it to a Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, or Eberron campaign (which power groups in the setting might be interested in it, for example) would be good
(I realise that some of these things are already done; I suppose my point is that I'd like to see it continue.)
2. Articles about, for example, monster class progressions for several related creatures could probably have the number of monsters covered cut in half, and fill up the rest of the space with a short discussion of what it would be like to roleplay such a being alongside (relatively) normal PCs - how they would be received by regular people, why they might be adventuring, and (again) how they might fit into the various campaign settings. If at all possible I think that shying away from definite statements and instead presenting various options or possibilities for such things might be better - perhaps that ogre adventuring with the paladin might be the object of intense curiosity, rather than of fear or distrust; he is with a paladin, after all.
3. In general I think sidebars or notes adapting generic articles to the various campaign settings both old and new is very important. Even when you don't play in those settings, advice on how to place various things into your game can give homebrewers ideas for how they could do the same.
4. Winning Races is an interesting feature, but it could end up very stale if too many of the races covered end up as anthropomorphised animals. As cool as it is to bring the grippli and lupins back, I'd also like to see more creatures based on myth and folklore like the cyclopeans, or relatively distinctive and original like the illumians. One thing Winning Races should never be is a simple repository of subraces of core races - no elves, no dwarves, no halflings, no gnomes. Finally, and yet again, sidebars on adapting these new creatures to published settings is important.
5. Much as it makes the lists in my signature a little dull, I approve of restricting the number of prestige classes in each issue. I wouldn't, however, be draconian about it - an article on a complete organisation like an evil cult or a knightly order or a magical guild which could be supported by a worthwhile prestige class with flavour and utility shouldn't fall victim to the fact that Gaining Prestige already has an entry lined up for it.
On that note, an extra page added to any Gaining Prestige article that fleshes out the flavour of the prestige class presented would be greatly appreciated. Aside from the inevitable request for setting adaption advice, it would also be nice to have a description of one or more organisations (or whatever is appropriate), roleplaying advice, and so on. Prestige classes need more depth, I think, than simply a description of what the class is about, who is likely to take it, and what place they have in an adventuring party. The bowman charger in issue #325 has a little of such information, but the feature could definitely use more.
6. I remember that you said the Class Acts features had something of a dearth of submissions in the beginning, leading to something of a limited range of subjects, but I'll add my voice to those saying that what a druid carries in her backpack is nothing I want to see in the magazine. I really like the idea of the feature, though, and the variety of entries each month is much better than one issue with magic items for each class, the next with flaws for each class, the next with advice on feat and spell selection over 20 levels for each class, and so on. Mixing it up is excellent, but each class should have something genuinely worth reading each month.
1. Articles about the various D&D settings - Planescape in particular - need not be so tied to that setting as to be useless. For example, one of the best ways I can think of to get the attention of Planescape fans would be to publish articles on planar sites with the coolness and flavour of the places detailed in the old products. They can be completely original locations - but if they're flavourful like Balefire, the City of Lanterns (#322), and if they took some of the material in both core and supplemental products and used the site as a way to demonstrate how to use that material in your game, perhaps by quickly sketching the relations between two or three site-appropriate recently-published races, or by presenting an organisation which makes good and significant use of a recent prestige class or two, then Dragon is both promoting recent releases, integrating "crunch" and "fluff", and satisfying those who need ideas of either the mechanical or flavour kinds.
Little asides like mentioning one or two factions which might have a presence in the location would bring a smile to the face of fans of Planescape without detracting from its usefulness to Third Edition games. The same principles can be applied to other locations - an article about an interesting location with sidebars or boxes explaining how to adapt it to a Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, or Eberron campaign (which power groups in the setting might be interested in it, for example) would be good
(I realise that some of these things are already done; I suppose my point is that I'd like to see it continue.)
2. Articles about, for example, monster class progressions for several related creatures could probably have the number of monsters covered cut in half, and fill up the rest of the space with a short discussion of what it would be like to roleplay such a being alongside (relatively) normal PCs - how they would be received by regular people, why they might be adventuring, and (again) how they might fit into the various campaign settings. If at all possible I think that shying away from definite statements and instead presenting various options or possibilities for such things might be better - perhaps that ogre adventuring with the paladin might be the object of intense curiosity, rather than of fear or distrust; he is with a paladin, after all.
3. In general I think sidebars or notes adapting generic articles to the various campaign settings both old and new is very important. Even when you don't play in those settings, advice on how to place various things into your game can give homebrewers ideas for how they could do the same.
4. Winning Races is an interesting feature, but it could end up very stale if too many of the races covered end up as anthropomorphised animals. As cool as it is to bring the grippli and lupins back, I'd also like to see more creatures based on myth and folklore like the cyclopeans, or relatively distinctive and original like the illumians. One thing Winning Races should never be is a simple repository of subraces of core races - no elves, no dwarves, no halflings, no gnomes. Finally, and yet again, sidebars on adapting these new creatures to published settings is important.
5. Much as it makes the lists in my signature a little dull, I approve of restricting the number of prestige classes in each issue. I wouldn't, however, be draconian about it - an article on a complete organisation like an evil cult or a knightly order or a magical guild which could be supported by a worthwhile prestige class with flavour and utility shouldn't fall victim to the fact that Gaining Prestige already has an entry lined up for it.
On that note, an extra page added to any Gaining Prestige article that fleshes out the flavour of the prestige class presented would be greatly appreciated. Aside from the inevitable request for setting adaption advice, it would also be nice to have a description of one or more organisations (or whatever is appropriate), roleplaying advice, and so on. Prestige classes need more depth, I think, than simply a description of what the class is about, who is likely to take it, and what place they have in an adventuring party. The bowman charger in issue #325 has a little of such information, but the feature could definitely use more.
6. I remember that you said the Class Acts features had something of a dearth of submissions in the beginning, leading to something of a limited range of subjects, but I'll add my voice to those saying that what a druid carries in her backpack is nothing I want to see in the magazine. I really like the idea of the feature, though, and the variety of entries each month is much better than one issue with magic items for each class, the next with flaws for each class, the next with advice on feat and spell selection over 20 levels for each class, and so on. Mixing it up is excellent, but each class should have something genuinely worth reading each month.
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