Andrew Turner's page

I think the primary reason that we've been getting less letters are these messageboards. They're a lot more convenient for a fair amount of our readers, but we've got far more readers than regular visitors to these boards. PLUS: The letters section also gives us a handy place to put adds and talk about the magazine, so it's not going anywhere.

Actually, I'm rather fond of the Letters and the Dungeon staff's replies. In fact, I read the editorial and then the letters, before anything else.

Well, I thought I'd put in my two-cents-worth...but I think GGG sums it up very nicely. I will say I’m surprised by the several rather vehement reactions to this amazing cover. I really didn't think much of it (as an overt, sexually-charged cover) until someone brought it up (I’m married with children, so don’t think it for a minute…). I say, bravo to the editors for putting such attention to the cover, which is typically so smattered with blurbs (cf EM’s editorial in Dragon 345). Did anyone notice the title of the magazine is actually obscured by the arachnophile? Do the Hester Prynne-scorning demagogues fail to make the connection between the cover art and the main feature within? Did they scoff at the cover of _War of the Spider Queen VI_, as well…? Lastly, and for the record, my wife kindly brought me my copy in from the mail the other day. As she handed it to me she said, “Oooh---creepy!” My daughter reached across the counter, fingers grasping, and exclaimed, “Cool! Is she an albino drow?” (Don’t be harsh. She just saw _The da Vinci Code_...)

Think of the Demonomicon's relationship to the Fiendish Codex in the same way as a monster ecology's relationship to the Monster Manual. The two will complement each other quite well.

I'm very hopeful we'll see a hardcover 'Demonomicon' vol. 1 in the next couple years...as well as a 'Monstrous Ecologies' or some such...these 'Dragon' features are among my most favorite in the magazine. HC collections of these articles sold alongside the FCs and MMs would go over quite well, I think.

Thanks for the warning; I Xacto'ed it out (Bookofthemonthclubectomy?) with no complications. Post-op recovery went smoothly...

Summer 1981, I think. My Dad and I had just seen E.T., where the kids are playing some incarnation of D&D or AD&D at the beginning of the movie. He bought the novel in a 7-11 right after the movie ended. He read it to me over probably a week--there's a ton of direct D&D references in the book. The next thing I remember, we're at a toy store in a mall and buying the 1st ed PHB and DMG (Efreet and City of Brass covers) and I don't know if we had a MM then or not. Flashes of memory (I'm only 7 or eight at the time), and we're cutting maze walls out of bossa wood at the kitchen table, and using cheap plastic dinosaurs and army men as miniatures; flashforward, there's six or seven other guys (gaming groups were much bigger back in the day), lots of bowls of M&Ms and peanuts, cans of Coca-Cola with the old pull tabs (you youngsta's have no clue what I'm talking about)...years pass...dad passes on, and Mom is wary of 'Fantasy' in general, thanks to Pat Puling; it's probably 1984 and Elmore's Red Box before I started playing with any gusto (for you brand new d20 children, the 3rd ed revised rules were split into five boxed sets with astonishing and imaginative --for the time-- artwork by Larry Elmore; these rules were very easy to understand and set up under the Building Blocks premise).

Absolutely!! I remember when I was a teen Dragon sold slipcases (so did Twilight Zone, National Geographic, Weird Tales, et al); I just googled slipcases and actually didn't find much useful: TO THE MARKETING MANAGER--I ACTUALLY REALLY NEED SLIPCASES FOR MY DUNGEON AND DRAGON MAGAZINES; I WILL PAY BIG BUCKS FOR THIS; PLEASE BRING THE SLIPCASES BACK. I think the old cases held ten magazines (as opposed to 12; but then Dungeon used to be a bimonthly)...anyway, I'd buy a caseload in a heartbeat!! If anyone else out there agrees, please keep up this thread so the company takes notice...

I made my first foray to Eberron quite late in the game (so to speak), which is to say just in the last three months. Like most of the posters I grew up on Greyhawk (very traditional fantasy with occasional Lovecraft/Vance/Asimov overtones, cf Barrier Peaks, Vale of the Mage, et al), moved on to Dragonlance, then almostly completely an FR maniac after DL took a dive into some completely different setting so different from the Ansalon I knew as to be unrecognizable, but don't get me started... I personally tend to be a quarterly-reader: I have seasonal moods, which occasionally bleed into one another, but for the most part, and for 35 years now, I read horror and mainstream in the summer, mystery and non-genre lit in the fall, fantasy in the winter, and sci-fi in the spring (very telling, psychologically, I know...); so, this means it's very easy for me to be behind in the times, and typically I won't pick up a trilogy or series until all the books are published, which with the odd WoTC publication schedule can mean I actually read a trilogy a couple years after its said and done; this is all meaningless drivel and only goes to describe why I'm behind in Eberron. There's also the fact one of the posters mentioned about being turned-off by the whole anime/sci-fi/fantasy commercial amalgam it sounded like WoTC was developing to hook a new, younger audience. The cover art for the Eberron books and novels, while engaging, also follows this newer style reminescent of Akira, et al. Not my cup of tea. Nonetheless, my wife picked up the first novel in the Lost Mark trilogy. I was VERY skeptical but my wife went out of her way to buy me a book she thought I'd enjoy, etc etc. I started reading, with no knowledge of the setting...WOW! No Great American novel here, but it's a whole new style of D&D story (literally, the writing style of these books and modules is modern and full of energy)! Really amazing, and to shorten this up: I'm hooked. So I bought the campaign setting, read through it, and I love this world! I know, I know, you wanted a description, but I can sum it up by saying Eberron is the perfect flagship for v3.5: it embodies all the best of all the past campaign worlds, and some of the coolest aspects can easily be incorporated into other settings! A very well-structured, detailed and engaging setting, it manifests what v3.5 espouses and strives to be. I'm very pleased (and I'm Old School) with the setting.

Show 'em the old 1E DMG with its probability tables, bell curves, actual algebraic formulae...! Then tell them to suck it up! The v.3.5 rules are so streamlined and user-firendly that only geeky programmers; old, gnarled, time-worn and bearded-sages (that would be my fantasy impression of myself)prefer the 1E stuff (actually, I really, REALLY like the new rules, even if it did take me until this year to break down and buy the books). Seriously, I agree with another poster who suggested you go light on the rules and heavy on the story; that's how I remember my intro to D&D. Later I learned the mechanics, and with much more gusto than if I had dived into bell curves first...

I've bought most of the FR sourcebooks since 1987 starting with the original boxed set for AD&D 1E (yes, I'm old): very little changes except game mechanics and artwork (whether the writing improves or declines year-to-year is debatable), oh, and that whole Avatar thing...but, at any rate, if you've got the old material, and access to the mechanical updates, you don't have to have the new sourcebooks...but they are really, really good; great production value, mostly uniform hardcovers with great art and tight writing; fun to read if nothing else...

An old AD&D 1E module, "Treasure Hunt" N4, set in the Forgotten Realms, northeast of the Moonshaes (this fact was decided long after the module was published; nonetheless, the setting is not campaign-specific), starts players off at level 0. With the free 3E Conversion Guide, downloadable from the WoTC website, and some minimal creativity, you can play this with v.3.5 rules. The adventure is solid! Unrelated PCs are kidnapped by slavers; en route to their destination the ship is caught in a superstorm, wrecks in an Archipelego, and adventure ensues! You can get this off eBay, but sometimes it's pricey. $4 gets a digital copy, very good quality with no DMRs, right here from Paizo!

Bravo! The Voice of Discerning Consumer Demand speaks! Yes, I too am wretchedly sick of unoriginal, uncreative somethings-around-the-corner. It's marginally frustrating to have to insert my own notecards in place of a scenario that is so cinematically pervasive, in every third fantasy novel, and every other canned adventure, that EVERY player chortles before the DM can even finish describing the encounter--"Oh, the Giant-Kali/Cyclops/Naga/Norse-like god/insert-favourite-mythical(ly-proportioned)-gigantimous-statue-here is attacking!! Oooh! Ahhh! What ever shall we do now! Oh, John, could you grab another bag of chips?" Yeah...it goes something like that...I second the motion: no more attacking statues. Whatever happened to modules like Saltmarsh? Puzzles, mysteries, logic-demand?!?

PhD, English, MA Philosophy, BFA Writing...now, of course, I'm a military officer

Sekolah info can be found in the 2E Monstrous Arcana Sea Devil (you can download here at paizo)