Roxlimn's page

What I would like would be side-trek locations in each Pathfinder book that can easily be transplanted into any campaign in any setting. I understand that the Pathfinder series are going to be generic enough to be transposable just about anywhere, but I would appreciate new twists on old ideas for the short adventure, and a single-map snapshot that can easily be used anywhere would be priceless.

Since we won't be getting 3 adventures across all levels anymore, I think that this is necessary to maintain issue to issue relevance for most gaming groups. For instance, it would be nice to have a low or mid level adventure locale in a high level Pathfinder issue - something for the cohorts to blow through or for the high level heroes to obliterate. This locale can be referred to in later Pathfinder series to boost levels or treasure where necessary and would attract buyers even from group who do not like to play high level.

Likewise, it would be nice to have a mid to high level locale even in a low level adventure Pathfinder in order to lend verisimilitude to the world. The group can always stumble onto it later in the series when it becomes level-appropriate, and it creates a "status quo" feel to the adventure setting.

The 3 adventure format has been successful for Dungeon these past months, and I think that it's something that most if not all people appreciated.

I think that the article is a thoughtful one, although for his part, Baur was really only talking about his own preferences. I've talked about in-game class feature acquisition myself, but I prefer to set "real tasks" in-game rather than an arbitrary 75% chance ability.

For instance, I could say that, well, to get Whirlwind Attack, I would require you to hit two opponents at once in the same round - then your character realizes the principle of Whirlwind Attack and gets to use it freely.

For a Wizard, I could say that in order to get his free spells, he has to track them down - he hears that there's a cache of hidden spells and magical treatises in the dungeon they're currently exploring. I ask for a Knowledge (arcana) or (history) check and then expound on the "treasure cache." It'll be easy and relatively fast to acquire after leveling - virtually assured, in fact. If the Wizard is proximate to a treasure that's suited to him, I put the "tome of magic" in with the treasure and say that when he leveled, he uncovered secrets in that tome.

It's all about flavoring the level acquisition, folks.

To be quite honest, being a very orthodox Catholic myself, I don't see anything wrong with depicting devils and demons on Dungeon covers. After all, the Dungeon magazine is all about creating enemies that heroes can stand firm against. I would be a a lot more bothered if an angel appeared on the mag covers as a central antagonist.

My grandmothers and others of my family have no problems with my mags or their covers. Even my parish priests don't concern themselves overmuch with it. Really, what's wrong with painting devils and demons as superficially attractive, yet destructive and evil antagonists? Don't Christian Churches teach exactly that?

For my part, if I were to be comfortable in demonizing and freely denouncing and condemning anything, it would be a demon. I have a fair amount more problems with marginalizing and persecuting real people.

I know that Pathfinder hasn't gotten off the presses yet, but I'd like to present a request to the staff.

Deserts of Desolation has, in my view, been one of the best adventure modules in D&D. Desert campaigns, nomads, pyramids, dervishes, undead armies, glass seas, curses and mummies, and fantastic magic and plot twists plus puzzles made it a classic pleaser.

Shackled City shared many of these characteristics, albeit in a Volcano City kind of way. I'm here to present my request for an AP that takes place at least partially in a desert setting. We already had our pirate fun in the Isle of Dread AP. Not that more of the same wouldn't be welcome, but I would definitely buy a well made desert AP.

I'd like to ask that people who share this preference also voice their preference on this thread. It may be that I'm the only one who likes this sort of thing, and I wouldn't want Paizo to waste money on a fringe product.

I don't see $20 as all that excessive. I used to buy both Dungeon and Dragon mags and together that costed something like $16+ already. A few more dollars a month isn't going to break my bank.

At the worst, it'll just mean a few more WotC product I won't be able to afford to purchase.

MD, anesthesiology specialist

How do you find the time?!?!?! Is the legend of doctors working 80+hours per week just that? Or are you in an out-patient non-emergency practice where you can schedule your week?

I can't speak for waltero, but an 80+ hour work week is absolutely legit. If you chuck in 4 24 hour work periods for 4 days out of the week, you'll have amassed a 96 hour work week and still have 3 days off. Of course, you'll be dead to the world for the better part of daylight hours during those days, so you'll live only at night in the "outside world," and then you're back for another 24 hour work stint the next day.

I believe that working past 12 hours is now illegal in many US states, so it's much harder to get burdened with that kind of a hellish schedule these days, but not all countries adopt this sort of stance on medical doctors.

There was a particularly hellish month in Neurosurgery I can recall in which I worked 48 hour stints instead of 24, and I only got 12 hours off in between. Obviously, I didn't pursue that mad line of work.

If you're stuck with a 90+ hour work week, there's nothing for it but to arrange your sched as best you can. Since you'll only have a limited amount of time, you tend to prioritize pretty well even when your personality doesn't normally make you. Thus, dates are timed to the hour, and even stuff like making out has to be scheduled. You can make 4 hours for gaming twice weekly if you prioritize that.

I find that hanging out with friends doing quality time is important. Thus, no hanging around a bar casing out women. If you take out a girl, it tends to be someone you already hang out with in the hospital, like a nurse or a fellow MD. It just takes too much time for too little results if you have to meet outside the work place. Likewise, I don't arrange to meet with friends without a prearranged agenda. If we're hanging out, we usually plan to have some very specific things to do, like gaming or watching so and so a premiere screening or a concert in an accessible place.

No, you went beyond that and provided examples of why you felt Tracy Hickman, Gygax, Monte Cook, Jesse Decker and Mike Mearls where lousy writers. Thats not the same thing at all as saying they are not, in your opinion, as good as Wil.

Let's see...

"that includes the likes of people like Tracy Hickman (whose prose is mildly amusing, at most)."

Hm... That doesn't seem to say to me that Tracy Hickman has "lousy" writing. In fact, I can't find the word "lousy" there anywhere. I said his prose could be mildly amusing. that means it's "not lousy."

"What about Monte Cook? He's a great designer, but he's a boring read."

Again, no hint of "lousy" anywhere. "Boring," yes, and really not up to what I think Wil can write, but not "lousy." "Cracks in the Parchment Curtain," by Mr. Scott is an impressive read and is written in the same style - which is really boring, but it does get its message across. In fact, most documentaries are written in that style, for a reason.

"Jesse Decker? Mike Mearls? Anyone? Many of the writers for Dungeon have gaming chops but the number of people who have actual writing skill, let alone natural talent, is understandably small"

Have you READ the recent Class Acts articles by Mike Mearls in Dragon? I see no evidence of writing skill whatsoever. Even so, I didn't say that the writing was "lousy." I just said that it's mediocre. It takes a special kind of ineptitude to create the kind of article Gygax makes.

Yes, Mr. Gygax, if you're reading this post, it means I think you can benefit from a creative writing or essay writing class.

Jeremy Mac Donald: If you can show me a writer in Dungeon with the wit and style of Mark Twain, the stylish detail of Charles Dickens, or even the casual flow of Wil Wheaton (who really isn't even on the same level as the former literary greats, though he is the best of a mediocre bunch), then I will be much obliged.

Erik Mona: Yeah, it was a little thick. I can get overly dramatic when I get wound up.

Jeremy MacDonald: I didn't say every writer in Dungeon sucks. YOU did. I said no one was as good as Wil, IMO. There's a difference there somewhere if you look really hard.

Yamo: I'd love to do the column, but I'm scared of the possible feedback.

Dextolen: Bad writing is "part" of the "feel" of computer language books, too, but that doesn't mean that such a teaching manual couldn't be written in an excellent and entertaining manner. New computer instruction manuals are written to be easy to read and understand as well as full of content. Good content is no excuse for bad writing.

Honestly? Yes, and I have a healthy store of Dungeon copies to peruse, as well as a healthy numbers of Dungeons I've read but don't own.

Yes, Wil Wheaton is probably one of the most talented, if not THE most talented writer ever to grace the pages of Dungeon magazine, and that includes the likes of people like Tracy Hickman (whose prose is mildly amusing, at most).

Frankly, I was quite surprised that Dungeon was able to snag such a talent in the rough, and I had high hopes that the mag would be able to hone him into a fine gem, indeed, but apparently, readers can't see very much past their own long noses to see what's right in front of their eyes.

There are people who would say that Gygax writes well. Hogwash. Any creative writing teacher would take him to task, and then some. In fact, his essays are badly idiomed, badly paced, and badly metered so much so that they're barely readable at all. It's a testament to the content of his writing that they're able to shine through such a horrible lack of finesse.

What about Monte Cook? He's a great designer, but he's a boring read. I fall asleep reading his columns. I guess he would make an OK history writer, as the quality of writers in that discipline go, but there ARE good history writers, and those accounts are the things that make historians of young boys.

Jesse Decker? Mike Mearls? Anyone? Many of the writers for Dungeon have gaming chops but the number of people who have actual writing skill, let alone natural talent, is understandably small, and Wil ranks the best among that very small pool, IMO.

I have to say that I've perused a fair bit of Dungeon over the years, and it's only in the last 3 or 4 years that I've been inspired to "subscribe" to the mag. No, I don't actually subscribe for 2 reasons:

1. The mail service here is so bad, 6 months late would be a good thing. Never receiving money and magazines in mail is entirely possible.

2. I want to promote the business of my FLGS.

Even so, I've had every single issue since late 2001 and I don't plan on quitting anytime soon.

The layout has been getting better and better, and the adventure spread and design likewise. I like the fact that there are now 3 differently leveled adventures every ish. That way, I can not only have one ready for pillaging every month, I can also concentrate on playing at the levels I like and depend on the mag to deliver every month, too.

The layouting and art have been quite inspired. Maps have generally been better than of old, too. Overall, a great time to be buying Dungeon!

I would have to agree with some of the sentiments of Mr. Mona here. Quite a lot of the venom in the "Failed Wil Save" thread were directed at Wil himself, not at his column, despite the fact that none of the posters had any right nor reason to have such opinions about the person, seeing as how they never met him.

Moreover, a good deal of the material that Wil's detractors have to say about his thread reflect a sad lack of ability to understand what resources Wil has to offer the game.

I, for one, always read the Wil Save column, and I thought that most of them were quite good and relevant. In fact, I think that his last column was one of the best so far, and may go down in history as one of the best human interest articles ever to appear in Dungeon magazine (and I own a fair bit, so I have quite a lot of material to compare to).

I will miss Wil Save. Given that the page is blank, I would say, "Pay Wil more money so that he can be persuaded to come back!"

Wil left us, people, and it's because of a bunch of vitiolic posts that were nothing but utterly shameful to behold. Honestly, that thread should be held up as a prime example of the worst in subscriber feedback for eons to come, as a reminder to everyone exactly what it is that makes finding decent writers for Dungeon so frigging difficult!!!!

There is not one writer to ever grace the magazine with as much talent as Wil does, and the feedback calls him worthless. Pearls before swine, I say, pearls before swine.

DeadDmWalking:

Liking a magazine feature is exactly the only reason to justify its inclusion in the magazine. If enough people liked naked women as D&D fare, then it will get included in the magazine.

For example, comics have no place in an adventure/supplement magazine. If you want comics, you look for it in a comic book. Instead of side fillers containing comics, you can have side fillers containing appropriate sized maps, or stat blocks for specific or generic enemies or what-have-you. Comics of any sort don't fit in the mag, if you want to be strict about the criteria that only direct D&D DMing material is to be included.

Same goes for the mail, too. With the advent of message boards, forums, and email, the function of the mail forums in Dungeon have lost much of their spark. While it's true that many people don't have computers, it's also true that many more people post messages in real time than any who care to write meaningful letters. This very thread alone serves to illustrate this very point. Mail, by the same token, does not belong in Dungeon.

Page spreads of cover art, also, do not belong in Dungeon. In fact, many artwork at all do not belong in Dungeon. It's all good to portray a Solar, but it has to be adventure sensitive. Any neutral portrayal of a Solar is to be questioned since we already have portrayals of Solars elsewhere, so it's not exactly what you would call completly original material. By the same argument, such art does not belong in Dungeon, either.

Wil Save touches on the gaming life, and it does so in a light-hearted manner that's insightful and well-crafted. Wil may not understand you personally, but many do enjoy his articles, and it's presumably because he resonates with a significant fraction of the target audience.

Of course, another article similar to Wil Save is already in the magazine. I'm talking about the Editorial section of course. Frequently, the Editor's Letters don't talk about gaming at all, sometimes pertaining to publishing difficulties and personal insights into the publishing business, sometimes, being almost wholly personal.

So are you going to quit your subscription? If you think that giving up 3 excellent adventures every month is worth the value of protesting a few pages content, then that is your right. I think you'd be making a big mistake, but that's just me.

I think Wormy's been one of the most reasonable voices on the thread thus far, and I can only hope to emulate him. Having considered that he's presented best some of the finer points so far, please allow me, DeadDMWalking to simply reply specifically to you. I feel I owe you a reply after you went through the trouble of reading and replying to my admittedly somewhat acidic post. Sorry about that, by the way.

DeadDMWalking:

On Dark Elves: I seem to recall not a few evil Elves in Tolkien, so I can't believe Dark Elves are restricted to D&D. Variously colored elves are likewise all over. Some of my argument is that Wil Save is no worse than Downer, but a good deal of it is also that it caters to the D&D specifically; and the whatever else may be true, the writing is quite decent. That's quite a bit more than simply just saying it's not worse than Downer.

Writing style is, of course, taste driven to a point, yet there are stylistic elements and techniques that are applicable in an artistic manner and can be learned and detected. You can't study to be a Pulitzer Prize-winning author anymore than you can study to discover the Unified Theory of Everything, but you can study Physics, and if someone else makes the intuitive leap to The Theory of Everything a guy with Physics is best positioned to understand. I can't seem to write very well, but I can tell objectively if someone's any good at it, even if I detest the overall style.

So can anyone with a basic background in creative writing theory.

On general content: I firmly believe that magazines that diversify survive better in the market than magazines that don't. Barring a few publications that have captured markets, mostly professional journals and the like, most magazines need a good chunk of "general" to attract new readers. This is not to say magazines shouldn't have vision and form. Quite the opposite, the "general" content should have a place and a form in the mag's overall format.

If Wil Save is helping to draw in new readers (and new gamers!), why will you weaken the mag by withdrawing your subscription? Is this not a show of hostility to a mag that is nevertheless over 90% content you DO like? If it strengthens its position on the market by posting a self-ad for one page, would you mind so much? Why so hostile? What's the difference between a one page "self-ad" and an article designed to generate wider readership?

What if Wil Save and Downer were removed with no additional pages? Or at least more usable pages? Clearly, Wil Save isn't something meant to be used in a game as is. It's used for something else. For "casual" or "entertainment" reading. Something to cater to "entertainment" readers, maybe? If removing the pages outright without replacement improves the mag for you, why not just request Paizo to ship your mag pre-ripped?

Now, I don't see anything in Wil Save that is more applicable to DMs than to a general gaming audience. That should pretty clearly indicate that it doesn't belong in Dungeon. If you had to describe Dungeon in one word it is: ADVENTURES. It isn't entertainment, or DMs. The core is providing adventures. If something is in the magazine and it doesn't give you an adventure (even if it is as small as a single encounter) or try to help you improve the way adventures are presented to your group (most of the articles) then it probably isn't essential to the magazine.

Letters from the Editor don't provide adventures or add significantly to them in any manner more direct than Wil Save. Prison Mail doesn't seem like it can be made into an adventure, either. Almost all the ads don't help. The Portent is mostly just joke content that's peripherally related to D&D at best, even moreso than Downer. All of these together, and each individually take up as much as and mostly more space than Wil Save.

What does it help me to know that some people don't like so and so a feature of the mag? What do I care that the mag gets shipped to Iraq?

These features share similar functions, I think, and to single out Wil Save seems to ignore these aspects of the mag which, for some reason, don't seem to annoy, even though all of the objections against Wil Save can be brought against them as well.

This is not to defend Wil Save, really. This point calls into question whether people are even voicing genuine complaints about it, or are still skirting the main issue.

On Wil playing D&D: I'm pretty sure he plays, and I'm pretty sure the focus away from actual in-your-face game references are intentional as well. We get stuff like that from Monte Cook. I don't think more coverage of the same sort is really necessary. I think the point here is that he's using life and other games as a metaphor for D&D! Indeed, it would be pointless to compare D&D to D&D. It just wouldn't work. You compare D&D to gambling in Vegas, to Magic, even to a Con experience. You don't compare D&D to D&D. That would be like using Vodka as a chaser for Tequila. You can do it, but is it entirely sane?

It's completely clear to me that Wil can narrow his focus down to just D&D. To a writer with such obvious talent, it's literally a trivial thing to do. In fact, any idiot can do it. I'm sure you do have a rich well of experience from your gaming life, but I've heard altogether too many of those kinds of stories to really be interested. I mean after reading all those letters and adventures, of course.

Just to have a breath of fresh air, it would be nice to turn the tables, you know? To see how D&D affects the rest of our lives? I mean, who hasn't geeked out at some point and named a talisman his X of Y? My Wheels of the Zephyr for new mags? Isn't it appropriate for DMs to be talking about this?

While I think a colmun like you propose might be interesting, I still believe Wil Save as it is would be a superior contribution to the mag, just because it breaks the monotony more. A column like you suggest would actually be a nice counterpoint on a general RPG mag. Death in a game is definitely something all RPGgamers have to deal with and so with breaking up with someone else. Flavoring it "D&D" heavily would offer a nice striking feature in a mag that was otherwise general.

ASEO:

Yeah…sure…I’m sure his next book will make the best seller list too

There are numerous examples of bad poetry and literature that nevetheless get lots of mileage for various reasons. Basing the quality of an author's skill on selling books is frankly a bad way of gauging talent. An author who sells a lot of books is probably an excellent salesman, of else, hires one. I don't recall any literary classics being bestsellers, either, for that matter.

If you say so. I’ve not seen anything that justifies that page.

The blind cannot see, ASEO.

Oh, I don’t know…feel free to take a look at anything else in DUNGEON for an idea what I’m talking about.

Do you have a paucity in idea, don't really know what you're talking about, or are just plain lazy? I ask you to clarify a vague statement and you reply with an even vaguer one? How is that supposed to help?

Wow, that was deep. I had to hold my watch above my head so it didn’t get ruined. Are you sure you are not Wil’s publicist…or a politician. That is the weakest link to gaming that I’ve ever seen. You’d have done better to go with: He was playing Black Jack which has cards. Baseball players have their pictures on cards called baseball cards. Baseball players swing a wooden bat which is like a two-handed wand of ball smiting. Thus the page was relevant to Baseball. Oh yeah, and Will was gambling, and Peter rose gambled so there you have it, it was a story about how baseball relates to Wil’s life. And one more thing…Maybe Wil’s rich friend was a …dun..dun..dun…Baseball player!

Perhaps you need to expand your literary library a little more.

And back to the question at the start of this thread: I care why?

Apparently, you're unusual in that you don't experience many aspects of what is accepted to be normal life. Don't blame the rest of us for not caring back.

a thousand possible fantasy games or movies.

I could say as much for Dark Elves, you know.

Trust me. Nothing in Wil Save has concerned me other than by the fact that it is polluting a magazine which I enjoy with mindless dribble.

It's applicability and content for you certainly seems limited. That doesn't make it unsuitable for every other DM out there.

Naw, that is pretty much all it was about. That is the problem…or rather one of myriad problems with Wil Save. It is about Wil Wheaton, about what he does and how he wants to be considered a gamer, because he thinks that makes him cool, and apparently in your eyes it does. So, I guess in you Wil Save has created a Borg that will try to mindlessly assimilate…

Again. The blind cannot see. I'm afraid I can't perform miracles here, ASEO. If you willfully refuse to see, I certainly can't make you.

Translation: I don’t have any idea why it isn’t in DRAGON where it belongs either.

You should really refrain from putting words in other people's mouths, you know. You may not have any idea, but I already said my opinion on why not. If you didn't catch it, feel free to review for as many times as it takes for you to do so.

What it doesn’t fit in a magazine that caters to players of a variety of different games? Why not, it references Poker, Munchkin, Car Wars, Illuminati, Magic: the Gathering, and lest we forget…Baseball. Then how could it possibly fit in to DUNGEON, which only caters to players of D&D?

I rather think that Wil Save is a pointed attempt by the editors to inject a bit of "more-general" content into Dungeon. Don't interpret this the wrong way (though I'm quite sure you'll do so anyway). The article does cater to D&D DMs, it just calls to a wide background, too, for variety.

While it does reference other forms of pasttimes, I'm quite sure it's intentional. An article that focused exclusively on D&D gaming literally would be so boring it would barely be readable.

Except by you and others of your ilk, I guess.

Darned thing…that is a pretty good description of Wil Save. I think you hit the nail on the head. I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Your point in replying, being? This tangent you took in willfully misreading my message is both pointless and childish. Please minimize.

See, this is where you lose me. Downer is to D&D what the Lord of the Ring’s Trilogy is to Toklin’s books. It is what a Star Wars comic book is to the movie series. Is it an exact reproduction? No, but the characters are straight from the books, as are the locations, races, spells, creatures and well everything… Drow characters referencing exact pages from the monster manual…doesn’t get much more of a D&D applicable reference than that. Wil Save gave it a shot with his “Shaken” quote, but then fell flat it always does.

In a superficial sense, yes, and I'm beginning to understand that this is probably as far as you can go.

Other than the cheesy and gratuitous copycat remarks, how does it really aid your game and gaming life better than Wil Save? It doesn't. The comic could be placed in Gamer and it would totally be appropriate.

Does Downer have in-game value? None other than as a mine (however deep or shallow) for game ideas.

I'll match every game idea you can derive from Downer with one derived from Wil Save.

It is interesting to hear such a vastly different perception of Wil Save though. Would you be interested in buying my extra copies of that page…Most only have a little cat barf on them.

It's a life and times page, man, not a gaming tool. I don't need extra copies.

But alas, Wil Save is here until the contract expires.
DUNGEON oh DUNGEON Why hath thou forsaken me!

It's one page, ASEO. It won't kill the mag. If you like, you can simply rip out the last leaf of every Dungeon mag if it improves the content, as you view it. And what's wrong with that? If I can ignore 2 pages of shockingly bad comics, you can ignore 1 page of life discussion that you can't understand.

Well, ASEO, that's your opinion, and you're certainly entitled to it. You're certainly one persistent guy.

(quote)
Ahh, the “best we could get with our limited resources” argument. How about saving those resources for something with in-game applications and D&D relevance.

But then you think Wil is a better writer than Margaret Weis or Tracy Hickman. Nuff said
(/quote)

Indeed. Better technique. More subtle. Less self-conscious.

(quote)
As a hole Wil Save is good. As a D&D relevant page of text it is horrible. What was the relevance to D&D in the "It's *%^$&ing magic" tirade, or in the “I gamble in Vegas using a +1 wand of winning” farce?
(/quote)

1. I already explained the Magic article.

2. What exactly do you mean by "D&D relevant page of text?"

3. For the Vegas article, the relevance is multi-tiered. You'll have to note that Vegas is a numbers game, a play on chance, much like D&D RNG (dice) in combat. This is just too good not to use. Indeed, he does. He uses his "magic wand" to influence the odds in a manner that can't be mistaken for anything other than an RPG Pen and Paper gamer's. In fact, the reference to a wand pretty much narrows it to fantasy RPG Pen and Paper, probably D&D. On the one hand, this probably is truly bizarre. No nongamer I know would either do this or understand the humor or relevance. On the other hand, you have to think about all those other weird things Vegas players are ALSO prone to doing that are practically as opaque to outsiders. Gets you thinking about why gamer habits of this sort are taboo, but gambler habits of the same sort aren't.

On another note, Wil is also recounting a string of really bad luck followed by a string of really good luck. Again, the paralellism is immediate. As suitors of Lady Luck, both gamers and gamblers are all too aware of her fickle nature. It reminds me of a saying: if a given string LOOKS random, it may very well not be. Truly random numbers have a tendency to clump. It might be your character or your money, but bad luck still happens in a string. The amusing play here is that Wil is using a humorous gamer superstition about luck enhanced objects. Who hasn't heard of holy lucky dice or enchanted pencils? In this case, it's a straw. While it's debatable whether the straw really made a difference, he sure seems to believe it, and lots of gamers do, beyond reason. Circling back to the Vegas location, gamblers are apt to "feel" their luck, too, to a certain extent.

Near the end of the article, Wil stays pat on his winnings and says "he's out of charges." It's a sensible piece of advice - for gamers and gamblers alike.

There are, of course, references to ultra-rich friends or acquaintances (who doesn't have those?), money stress, responsibilities and the like, most of which I can totally relate to.

The solid reference to a wand here, is a pretty pointed reference to D&D. He's pointing to DMs and saying "Hey! This concerns you." And indeed, it does.

That's one way and level of interpreting the piece. Of course, you could just interpret it as "I went to Vegas and gambled," but that seems a tad bit too superficial, don't you think?

Hmm… You’ve never heard of DRAGON, or GAMER, or BOY’S LIFE. Heck it would be a better fit in GQ.

GQ? Definitely not. Too specific to D&D gamers. Dragon? Maybe. The two mags have blurred very much anyway. Even so, I think Dragon has enough variety to spare, and Dungeon could use some lightening up. Gamer? No. Again, too specific. Boy's Life? Hm. Doesn't seem like you're even reading the darned thing.

Pick any Downer episode you like. It's not like they're one more relevant than any other.

ASEO:

1) I suspect cost and writing ability. Of those writers Dungeon can afford to pay enough to keep them writing, Wil was probably the best choice.

2) I find Wil's articles relevant to D&D. In fact, taken in total, I don't find any other magazine that's more fitting.

3) I don't really know. Hopefully for longer than that Downer comic.

Actually I find that Wil Save is horribly written. It misses the target audience of the D&D, and only D&D, magazine it is published in. It is rambling and has no central theme other than that the author is somewhat famous and plays games which might as well be baseball for all their relevance, or lack there of, to the DUNGEON.

I rather thought the central theme was "life as an RPG gamer."

Still you seem to be saying that he is at least better than someone who you deem horrible. Not much of an endorsement there. The only things you compare Wil Save to are things you think suck.

I'm remarkably difficult to please, apparently. I think RA Salvatore sucks. I think the Dragonlance books suck, too. Now Narnia, that's decent. The Red Badge of Courage, that's good.

Wil's not really classic lit, but he's better than Gygax.

You evidently have a great love for Wil Save. But even you seem unconvinced that it has any connection to say, me. And you are correct. I play D&D. I buy DUNGEON because for over 10 years it has been a D&D magazine. I don't need an existential look into the want to be nerd life of a B actor turned writer who likes playing Hack Master or some other non D&D game. Making a D&D esk reference won't win anyone my loyalty. Writing an adventure that gets published in DUNGEON, that will. Giving me something that I can use. You bet. But not shairing your dice with your own kids... Whining because your munched out character bites it at first level...dronning on about SJ Games in a D&D magazine...Complaining about being too famous to enjoy things other than playing poker in vegas with millionaires... Way of target.

I suppose Wil needs to be a bit more obvious to cater to you. I find the variety refreshing. Wow. Something that's actually more than 1 layer deep.

Interesting tactic. Divert the obvious non applicability of Wil Save against Downer. Which I agree could go, even though I like it. Downer is, however, nothing but D&D. Flip through the Monster Manual and the players are all there. The jokes are D&D. The plot is D&D. I'll admit, Downer is no Wil Save. Thank gawd.

I don't think so. None of it is necessarily D&D. For all we know, Downer could be using D20 Anime. You can model the D&D Monster there, you know. It could even be d20 Modern. This is especially true as Downer's foot gets blasted off, which can't happen in d20 anyway. No hit locations.

As far as flavor is concerned, Downer is off, too, IMO. He's much too friendly and likeable to be Drow. If he's really Drow, he should be Evil and depraved to the core. As in enjoying torturing random other people kind of depraved. He isn't even much of an anti-hero. Even John Lee of the Replacement Killers is a darker character. In fact, I don't see as much of the sick scheming and blackmailing and double dealing as I'm used to expecting in the Underdark.

By the criteria you place, Wil is definitely in D&D, especially the D&D-style narration he had. I mean, that had all the trappings, didn't it? Would you actually prefer a column always done in that style? That would be insufferably boring, though.

Really.

DeadDMWalking:

There are plenty of "famous" gamers known for their writing ability. Some of them write fantasy fiction (Tracy Weis, Margaret Hickman, or R. A. Salvatore come to mind). Others are more involved in game design (Monte Cook) or comics (Rich Burlew or Tony Moseley). Well, I'm not so sure about Tony's writing ability, but the others are all rock solid. In any case, I can like Wil Wheaton and still believe he is a poor choice for this column.

Monte's stories of Pholtus are so mind-numbingly boring, I can never stand reading it for more than a few seconds at a time.

Most of both Margaret's and Tracy's works are trivial in content and flippantly but plain in style. I've never been impressed by anything they ever wrote. Including the so-called Dragonlance Saga.

I think Rich Burlew can be an entertaining columnist based on his comic, but I'll have to see. His comics are beginning to be a little too predictable, though. It's getting old. Wil demonstrates depth.

The difference between an insult and an opinion is the statement "I believe", or "I feel". You have insulted Gary Gygax. You might feel this is "different", but I don't.

The difference between an insult and an opinion is that the insult is meant to demean or hurt another person. I have not insulted Gary Gygax. I said he was a terrible writer, and any English major will tell you the same. For that matter, any discerning Classics fan will tell you that Gygax isn't exactly classic writing. The most damning part of this is Gygax's inability to "hook you in." He simply isn't an interesting read, which is partly why D&D is such a niche hobby.

Now, I don't think that insulting people is necessarily bad. You're trying to make a comparison about facts you believe are obvious. I think that Wil Wheaton's article in Dungeon is not nearly as good as his blog. I've been reading that regularly. I don't feel annoyed when I read his blog. I do feel annoyed when I read his article in Dungeon.

I think insulting people is always bad, because you mean to hurt and injure. You can be critical about a person's work without insulting the person himself. I never said Gygax was a terrible PERSON. I said he was a terrible writer. I'm commenting on his writing ability, not him.

I don't know that it draws me in. I would suggest using the word "one" instead of you. Generally, it is more correct. The reader is allowed to determine what is true for themselves. The word "you" takes that choice away. I often find it insulting when I'm told what I think, what I feel, or what is obvious.

Shrug. I was replying to Taricus, not you. If you have issues with his words, take it up with him.

So what? Every gamer I know eats food. That makes food relevant to gamers. The inclusion of a recipe at the back of Dungeon would also not sit well with me. If I want a recipe, I'll look in a cook book. I want adventures and DM tools in Dungeon. That's why I subscribe. I read Will's blog to get that little dose of "humanity" that he "displays" in his writing.

I think diversifying magazine content is beneficial for the magazine. While every gamer does eat food, the foods gamers eat don't differ significantly enough for it to properly fit. Allow me to make a parallel. Not too long ago, Dragon featured an article with a monster called "Significant Other," and another article called "Using your Feats." These articles are about gaming life, they don't actually contain anything you can use in the game. They belong because they contain material that's applicable to gamers in general, not because they were statted out in D&D style, though that was part of the joke.

At this point it sounds like you're telling me that I don't understand Wil Save, and therefore I'm stuid. I do understand it. I'm not interested. I don't think it fits in with the rest of the content of the magazine. There are as many reasons people game as there are ways people game. I don't have step-children. Even if I did, his "experiences" are not presented in a way to instruct me on the best way to go about it. If it did, I would have to consider it a useful tool for DMs, and therefore appropriate. He is relating a story. The point is to tell us about something that happened. If you draw parallels to your own life, that's fine. It doesn't mean that I have to care. It doesn't mean what he's saying is relevant. It doesn't mean that it is something all gamers should take to heart. There are a lot of things it doesn't mean.

You're missing the iceberg for the tip, apparently. The article is about more than step dads playing games with their step children, though that is the nominal form.

So yes, I do think you're not understanding the subtler points of this particular article reference.

This article is about passing the game along. All games, including D&D. It's about teaching people who don't know how to game to do so. It's about teaching them the game in a manner that endears the game to them. It's about a central element in the life of games and gamers. The fact that he used Magic instead of D&D to illustrate may be factual, but it also reflects another point, which I'll leave you to try to figure out.

I agree. I'd go one step further. He should have made it about D&D. Look at the front cover of your magazine. 100% Official Dungeons & Dragons content. Now, I didn't look to see if it said that, but my Dragon does. Magic the Gathering is not D&D. Even if every player of D&D has played magic at some point in the past; even if it is something every gamer can relate to; even then it has nothing to do with Dungeons & Dragons.

I don't believe it would be good for the article. Yes, it'll bash people with the point a little more bluntly, but it'll lose some of its message and also a good deal of the subtlety.

Here's what I think: Just because it doesn't seem to be talking about D&D in particular doesn't mean it isn't talking about something important to DMs as DMs. Monte's article is entitled "Dungeoncraft" so that apparently hits people over the head bluntly enough, but as you can read for yourself, he talks about things like personal relationships, boundaries, and yes, food. He talks about tables, negotiation, arbitration, about gamesmanship in general. In fact, I can exerpt whole sections of his articles into articles about things not D&D and you wouldn't notice very much.

The thing about Monte's style is, he doesn't use applicability, representation, simile, and other techniques very much. His style is, well, extremely plain. He says EXACTLY as he means it, and no more nor no less. No references to other works, no fancy tongue-in-cheek jokes. For his column, it's appropriate.

I want D&D content. His page does not provide any. I want it replaced with something that does. Would that be so bad in a magazine for D&D?

Really?

Probably. A magazine that limits its content is a dying magazine. Even professional reviews feature things similar to Wil Save just to alleviate the monotone. Anaesthesia and Analgesia is supposedly a professional monthly, but it also features life interests that interests those professionals. Things like joke articles, reflections by editors and contributors on life and similar things. It helps to make the mag more interesting than a textbook.

I don't like Downer either. I wouldn't be so foolish as to claim that it is unrelated to D&D. It depicts characters in the game having adventures and using equipment in the game. It isn't for me, but it is D&D related. Wil Save isn't. It's just there.

Sure, it's D&D related. So is, like, half the things in the world by the same criteria. Bulleye Lanterns are D&D equipment. A treatise on real life bullseye lanterns would be D&D related. What about the Hobbit? D&D is even derived from the darned thing. I guess columns about the Hobbit are appropriate? What about columns about the writer of the Hobbit? His brothers and sisters? The life events leading to the Hobbit?

Really.

death from above:

And it makes you wonder if Wil's silence isn't some form of tacit agreement with the criticism, especially since this is supposed to be his big debut and he has chosen to remain aloof and above the fray of those people he claims to support and game among.

Maybe he feels the comments are just too inane to comment on.

I have to say that I find it rather disturbing that anyone in their right minds would find the 329 medusa pornographic. I mean, really, she's sexy and everything, but does the painting really turn you on? It certainly does nothing for me, and I would imagine that if the sight of the painting were real, I'd be running for dear life. Snakes coming out of her HEAD?!? Gettoutofmyway! I guess I find the thought that anyone would find the picture sexually arousing disturbs me.

Moreover, this picture is done in very good taste. Certainly much better than any so called "gentleman's" magazines and even quite a few computer and gadget magazines in the market today. Aesthetically better and sexually more toned (down).

In fact, there are quite a few entries in the Louvre and in other museums that I would find much more sexually explicit AND arousing, despite their being aesthetically superior. As a parent, I would very much want my children to be exposed to the sight and form and beauty of human adult bodies at an early age. Children deserve to be educated about what the human body is about, just as much as they deserve to know what toes and feet and hands are. What is the point of keeping them in the dark about nude adults? So that they can have difficulty adjusting when they're in their teens and have much more pressing matters to be thinking about? So that they'll be ignorant and vulnerable to immoral publications and infomation? So that they'll be driven to seek true information for anywhere other than the home?

That's not good parenting. The concern is admirable, but the sheer ignorance is quite unfortunate. With all due respect, you have to realize that children don't even have sexual drives to speak of. When they see a nude adult, they do not see sexual creatures - they see, well, a nude body in an asexual manner, very much like you would look at a nude female sponge display, perhaps. So childhood is perhaps the best time you can acclimatize them to the form when they don't have the mad urges yet. That way, they don't associate the form with the urge.

Lots of societies around the world live with breasts showing out for all the world to see. Ancient Egyptians live that way, and records show many many premodern countries adopted like practices. These societies were not known for having incurably sexually aggressive people. In fact, the occurence of aggressive sexual meaning being given to the breasts is almost entirely a post-Victorian development. Heck, the Greeks conducted public sport completely in the nude!

Do your kids a favor. Familiarize them with how nude adults look like early. I'm glad that Dragon has the good sense and the good taste to present this image in this manner.

The question I'd like to ask is what is it about an adventure that makes it slanted towards Evil? You fight Good foes? That's silly. What Alignment you are does not restrict the alignments of your foes. You can very well come to blows with a Good character in any of a number of ways, even if you're straight up Lawful Good. In fact, even if you're Evil, you're just as likely to fight other Evil foes, and probably more likely, since you hole up with such poisonous snakes.

So really, what is it about the current slew of advneture fodder that makes them "slanted" towards Good? As James Jacobs says, a lot of published Dungeon adventures are ALREADY heavily slanted towards Evil, especially those advnetures that heavily penalize showing mercy and that highlight assassination goals.

Things were beginning to get a little heated so I backed off, hoping this thing would die a natural death, but apparently it has not. I commend ASEO for his tenacity and for most posters for sticking to the topic. Let's all get this straight. The criticism here is about Wil Save, not Wil Wheaton, and the topic is about its propriety in Dungeon magazine.

Lest I forget:

Taricus: I have stopped it, and I'm glad some of my points were heard and taken to heart. While I do not consider myself anyone's bodyguard, I find it offensive and degrading to a poster for that poster to write pointless vitriol about a person he's never even met. To a significant extent, asking people not to talk about something they know nothing about is as much a favor to that person as to anyone else.

I do not recall singling anyone out for insults as I try not to insult anyone. I reply specifically to people because I believe that what those people are saying is important. If you happen to voice a concern that I do not think is important, rest assured that I will not waste a second of my time thinking about it after I've read it. I try to take out the mental garbage as well as my own physical ones.

This thread is not for making fun of Wil Wheaton nor for making fun of the President and neither is appropriate. In any case, I feel that insulting people for jokes is lowly, crude, and degrading, and I try my best to lessen the presence of this evil in any way I can.

Re: Gary Gygax. He's a terrible writer. He's a good dungeon crafter, but that's about it. You'll never find his name anywhere on the best seller list on any city and his work reads like a train wreck. You need a modicum of knowledge of the mechanics to make sense of where he's leading and even then he puts it across terribly. I cannot tell whether he's a great storyteller or not, but in the written medium, at least, he's really bad. I never liked Greyhawk very much and a great deal of this is because I could never stomach to read Gygax's work for almost any length of time.

When he writes articles, I cannot and do not empathize with him and his terrible grasp of essay writing flow leaves much to be desired. Ultimately, the stories he does tell ARE very interesting and that alone gives his work value, because his other skills in writing are practically nonexistent. This is the most compelling reason why Gygax will never be able to write prose with any amount of ability.

About Wil: You know what? We don't know if Wil is a good talker. We've probably never heard him speak, and I'm not sure he's too well known as a public speaker or as an excellent conversationalist. What we do know is that his WRITING draws you in and keeps you reading until the end. This is intentional and is the effect of an amalgam of various writing techniques. Whatever else you can say about Wil Save, it's definitely well written and you even agree with me. In contrast, you have to be very interested in what Gygax has to say just to get through any paragraph he writes, much less drag your mind through the morass of his articles.

EVERYONE:

Now, I don't believe that Wil Save is about only D&D or that it appeals to only gamers, but what Wil writes about is relevant to gamers and by extension to many DMs out there. About the worst that can be said about his articles is that they do tend to be a bit abstract and many layered, so apparently, a lot of people simply can't understand the point.

As ASEO puts it:

"So what?"

I find a great deal of applicability to Wil's articles and a great deal of what he writes is about a gamer's life - how things in our games mirror what we experience in life and how gamers relate to it. I guess the sad thing is that Wil apparently has to hamfistedly hit us over the head with what he's trying to say just so we get it. Must be all those years with Gygax.

Let's look at the latest article. You know what? Wil could very easily have made the game D&D. It's an article, it doesn't have to necessarily be real. I mean, who's going to expend money and time to investigate, right? He could very easily have translated his Magic Experience into a D&D slanted account and it would all have stayed the same. Why Magic?

I don't really know. I didn't write the article.

To me, it says that Gamers and passing the game onto the younger generation is a universal experience, not something that only occurs with D&D. Magic is interesting in that its both a popular and mainstream hobby AND fantasy related, and that puts it into a unique position to bridge the gap between D&D and baseball. Baseball players ALSO experience the passing of the torch, and I suppose part of the message of the article is this universality of experience.

It's particularly important to DMs because that's how the game is passed on: typically, DMs take new young players into the fold and the game grows. Perhaps part of the message is that this is happening with Magic and perhaps not as much with D&D. It certainly made me think about how many players I've recently "made," and how many of those were young people. If we can't pass the torch, the flame will die with us. As DMs, the task of passing on the game rests largely with us.

But it's more than that. The applicability of many points in the article is immense and this is true of many articles, even the supposedly lame Vegas card game one.

His articles are about the humanity of DMing and how it affects us in our daily life. He's an actual gamer with varied interests (good writers usually do) so I find it difficult to imagine that he can write about something we don't resonate with. Perhaps the problem is that he resonates TOO well, such that we don't think twice about the things he says. The Wand straw, for example. Doesn't anyone else do this? Does anyone else actually consider that this ISN'T something everyone in the world does? For a nongamer, what Wil did is something completely opaque and bizarre, and for him to do this in a casino... ...well, for me, it makes me think about the distance between gamers and nongamers and why nongamers think fantasy gamers are "weird." The point about it being a casino is that gamblers do this all the time - just not with the fantastic overtones, and few people think they're off their rocker for that. For gambling millions on a roll, yes, but not for kissing the dice for good luck.

Why?

I find lots of articles in Esquire and GQ that are written worse than Wil Save and we could do much worse than Wil Wheaton. Much, much worse.

So it's tangentially related to D&D? Actually, I think it's centrally related to what DMs should be thinking about, but Downer's a much better target for that accusation if you want. Really, what is Downer in the damned magazine for? Is it about D&D? NO!! No more than slews of other fantasy comics out there, and it contributes a lot less to the repertoire of a DM than Les Miserables. For me, Downer contains 1% of the relevant content that Wil Save does, and I could do without it, thank you very much. And that content is mainly nominal lip service to the game on a comic that is very much worthy of the recycling bin.

Paul McCarthy: I don't think you understand where I'm coming from at all. If I have a problem with a Dungeon article, I tell it like it is and I have no problems with other people doing the same. However, I don't say things like I'm a better writer than the writer of said article (because I'm probably not), nor do I personally attack the author in question. Truth is a great thing, but love is greater still, and it will endure when truth gives out.

I can respect you saying that you think Wil Wheaton's article has no place in Dungeon. What I find inappropriate for the street, much less a public forum, is you saying that you despise Wil Wheaton (have you even met him?), among other things, and have the hubris to say you're better than him. "Get a life"? That's a personal attack, and just so that we're clear, this guy is writing for all of us. There's no reason to be hostile. If you review everything I've said about Gygax, you'll find that I mention that he's a dinosaur with no writing talent, his attitude can be improved upon, and that I think his views suck.

None of these are personal attacks. I do not say that HE sucks or that I despise HIM. I can disagree with Mr. Gygax and I can find his articles atrocious without being atrocious to him.

monkeybone: Pardon me, mister, but I certainly don't have a burning desire to hear Mr. Gygax's stories and after all these issues, my desire to hear anything he has to say has even decreased, despite myself. He was there at the start, but then so was Dave Arneson, Robert Kuntz and really, a whole lot of other people.

I have a healthy respect for those people who created this game for us, but then again, I also have a great deal of respect for people who created the ballpen and the lead pencil and I don't really need to hear their take on everyday life or "the pencil-user's life", either.

I can respect that you might like feeling like a fly, but I have no such desire. As far as I'm concerned, past is past and a lot of that past that Gary harps on about really has little bearing on what's going on today. I mean, really, what has Melf's loss of magic gear got to do with everyday gaming? It's a common issue, but I don't need to hear about it from him, and to tell you the truth, that article sucked despite the great material he was working on. I have no doubt that Wil Wheaton, being a gamer, has at least as much right to talk about such a common everyday topic and that he could probably make a beter written article to boot.

If you have a bike problem and your peruse a magazine, you will invariably find one Shopgirl who gives you her take on the ins and outs of bicycle management. She's qualified to make the article, but she's nothing special, really. Lots of bike mechanics have equal qualifications or better. Why don't they write the article? The reason is as practical as it is obvious. Many of these people can't write an article worth a damn because they're bike mechanics, not writers.

Sad to say, Gary Gygax has remained a writer mostly for game material because while he has a sound head for game material, he's such a bad writer he's barely able to write something in which he's immensely qualified for. Doctors don't necessarily make good Med teachers. Bike mechanics don't necessarily make good writers and neither do game gurus, apparently. Writing is not something you can perform without hard work and talent, and sadly, while Gary can put in the work, he has absolutely no talent in it, as far as I'm concerned.

You like baseball analogies, apparently. Do the best ballplayers write articles about baseball on a regular basis, even when they retire? Probably, the great majority of them don't. It's the same thing. They're ballplayers, not writers.

Wil Wheaton doesn't need to have designed a game to write his article because his article isn't ABOUT game mechanics. His article is about everyday life as a gamer. We're all qualified to do this. What separates him from the rest of us is that he's actually a decent writer, and the apparent popularity of his blog makes him more qualified to do this than yon Gary over there.

I can understand that you may not like his style. That's cool. Lots of people find regular articles in other magazines intolerable. I can only hope that you can understand that many of us here like the article content as is.

In that case, it is simply a matter of opinion is it not? A matter of taste? I find Gygax repulsive though mildly curious, and you find Wheaton ramblingly pointless. On the other hand, there are a great deal of adventures and articles I find questionable in Dungeon, yet you do not find me posting complaints, especially for apparently well received articles. Rather than go off at the mouth, I believe it's more helpful to Dungeon and to everyone if you actually submitted something which might take the place of said article or adventure. Barring that, encourage someone else. And if you can't even find someone else you like and can't say anything positive or construcive, then don't say anything at all.

"And I do not NEED to put my pen where my mouth is."

Well, I suppose that says it all. I mean, it's not like being constructive and positive is a nice thing, is it? What's a little lack of integrity? Complain away. Fire away, my friends.

For the record, though, the thread isn't about trashing someone else's work, though that may be your own sole purpose in posting. The first post asked what the value in Wil Wheaton's articles are, and I posted my opinion on what that value was. This value is subjective, but it is also definitely present, just as I can accept that Gygax's articles might have some value for people who only respect particular kinds of celebrity and not others, on the assumption that celebrity is a respectable thing in itself to begin with.

And yet you fail to give Wil Wheaton his due? I'm sorry, but I'm not the one here who bragged that he wrote just as well as a paid columnist, so I don't need to put my pen where my mouth is.

In truth, I'm not really being hostile here, either, so I can't imagine where you're getting this hostile vibe from. I was saying that if you think you can write as well or better than Wil Wheaton does, then put your money where your mouth is and hie off to Dungeon and write there yourself. If not, just let the man be and let him do his job.

Paul McCarthy:

_______________________________________________________________

"I consider myself a decent writer as well; according to you guys, Wil is too. Do I deserve to write an article in Dungeon every month? I don't think so. So what seperates me from Wil? Celebrity status?"
_______________________________________________________________

Well, for one thing, if you think that Gary Gygax is good reading and you write the way you post, no you aren't a decent writer. In fact, if you're a good writer, get your butt to Dungeon. They could use a good writer, or at least an editor to make articles more lively. I doubt you'll get a paying job, but who knows?

Wil has an entertaining style and he actually writes well. I don't particularly care for or understand Vegas, but the last time I read Wil Save, I could totally see it and appreciate it.

If it's not working for you, then I'm quite sorry. Hopefully, you'll find something in the other pages of Dungeon to keep your mind off this one page.

I agree. Just because Gary Gygax made the original game concept doesn't mean that he's a good writer, or that his stand on the social aspects of the game are at all worthwhile. Whether he can accept it or not, D&D has evolved beyond his ability to adapt to it, and he's sadly nothing more than a relic of the past. For his sake, I'm glad that many people still appreciate his view of the game, but his inability to write still makes him a bad columnist.

I respect businessmen as much as the next guy, and I'd probably listen to what they have to say in small doses, but I wouldn't hire one to teach me in business class unless he was also a good teacher, which is not necessarily true for all businessmen.

Who is Wil Wheaton to give you his take on D&D every month? He's a gamer, that's who he is, and he's a decent writer. Both of these qualities together make him more qualified to write a column than Mr. Gygax, and it shows.

Undoubtedly, Monte Cook, James Wyatt, and Jonathan Tweet have more chops and are more qualified to comment on crunchy parts of the game, but any gamer is qualified to comment on the social aspects of the game. What makes Mr. Wheaton better as a columnist for Wil Save than any of these other writers is that he's actually a better writer. Have you honestly been so entertained and engrossed by Dungeoncraft that it was "un-put-downable" as a review might blurb? In fact, if you aren't particularly interested in what the Dungeoncraft article is talking about, it's downright unreadable.

I have to say that while I cannot, in honestly, recommend Wil Save as a regular column in Dungeon, it's already better than a whole lot of other articles and columns Dungeon and Dragon has hosted in the past. Gary Gygax's Up on a Soapbox, for example, actually had a negative impact on me; I figured that anyone who published that sort of view should not receive support from me.

It's also more useful to me than some of the Modern or SW maps that have appeared in the past. I know I can modify them to suit my campaigns, but it really is a great stretch to try to convert a Starship into something usable for a campaign.

Compared to many things, Wil Save is positively entertaining and enjoyable. Whatever else you say about him, the man can write, which is more than I can say for Gygax whose views and writing style both suck. Will he even ever get over his self-conscious yet uncompromisingly condescending attitude? Beside him, Wheaton looks quite self-deprecating, humble even.

I have to voice my concern about the format of Class Acts, which is particularly obvious in this issue. Of course, having something for every player is essential to wider appeal, but in this case, many of the articles are too short to accomplish anything when they have something good, and a waste of space otherwise. I was impressed with the concept, but no Class Acts article has ever impressed me ever since its inception.

Instead of small class specific articles, I suggest that such things should be longer or more generic. For example, the Sorcerer's Equipment isn't really specific to the Sorcerer. Anyone who places ranged attacks over melee involvement would find it useful. Too short, though. Ranger Combat Styles is a bit more class specific, but I can't help but think that the article could have been better with more space and thought going into it.

Overall, I believe that altering the articles to be useful to a group of classes or character types at a time to make more space, or just removing a few class spotlights for some issues to do the same ought to do the feature a great deal of good.

Dragon hasn't produced a lot of really nice issues for me since 2003 and I've seriously been thinking about not buying another one until it gets better. This issue is really no different, though it is somewhat a little better than the past year's issues.

RPGA Update is not useful to your typical Dragon subscriber/buyer. It only caters to RPGA players and those players can get their information disseminated without sucking vitality out of Dragon. I highly suggest cutting it out.

"Tombraider" is OK. It's a lot like the Knights and Swashbuckler component features in past issues, though I have to say I liked the Knights and Swashbuckler components better. I already know about tombs and few of my adventures actually take place in these things. I can see, however, how a (relatively new) player might like this article.

"The Spoils of War" strikes me as a badly written article. It's not a bad topic, mind you, but the article doesn't really tell gamers how to make each method work in a practical sense. Most of the article after the methods of dividing spoils is worthless. It strives to be widely applicable by being generic, but by being generic, it becomes useless.

"With Friends Like These" is a nice article addressing issues that plague too many a group. I have handled issues of the same sort in the past, so I can't really make use of the article, but I found it entertaining anyway, and I know many peeps can use the help. The Antiheroes archetypes could have been better researched with more literary and motion pictures references; it's supposed to be a professionally written article after all. The best part of the article was the cool artwork, and that's really a reflection of how far off the quality of the writing is.

"Ecology of Grimlocks" is great. Things like this are useful for DM and player alike, and the Grimlock is a monster that's close to my heart. One small quibble I have is that Grimlocks who have Overbright allies typically know enough to quash light sources, and especially enough to use Darkness spells and effects, in any case. This should have been included in the Versus article. "Protect your vision" is a vital tactic against Grimlocks.

"Winning Races" has yet to impress me and this month's Diaboli is no exception. I tolerate it, but I don't look for it.

"Modern Magic" is old hat for those of us who play and have Urban Arcana but I can see where this might be a new concept for some people. Memory Crystal strikes me as an unusual item, though. Usually, a universal magic item with Silent Image suffices to replicate an image you hold in your mind. Why the need for this inferior tech-based version?

Mirrors of Communication are old hat even for those of us who don't have Urban Arcana. I mean, really. The rest of the items are cute, but I liked the Slate Folio and Figurine of Delivery best.

Silicon Sorcery is spot on this month. It's usually hit or miss with Silicon Sorcery. Blademaster and Mountain King were great, as was the Kabuki And Dragon Warrior, but Asheron's Call stuff struck me as ewww. Racial Feats I consider a great development in the mag because it disseminates the concept of hard-wired feat synergy, somewhat akin to Draconic Feats in Dragon. Good to see the community catching up with my ideas. ;)

"Frankenstein" was just great through and through. All the peeps with Craft Construct in my campaigns just loved it.

Under Command: scrap the feature already. Few people who play D&D are going to use miniatures the way they're priced now. If they're into miniatures, they're more likely to buy a dedicated miniatures mag, not Dragon.

Class Acts: The Canny Barbarian is OK for Barbarian players. not great, but not bad, either. Just OK.

Class Acts: Bards From History is great stuff. Very informative for some bard players.

Class Acts: Tokens of Faith is OK, but not that great. I'm particularly put off by the small incidental bonuses. As a rule I like to vary holy symbols in my campaigns for RP purposes, but this is just hokey. I could just as well introduce a hundred small modifications and improvements to Fighter weapons for Fighters. Ultimately, I don't want to have to keep track of these incidental things, and the possibility for stacking power makes it another problem I have to think about when I tweak the rules.

The focus on Clerics is also off-putting. A Knight Templar or similar high ranking ally could be a Paladin or even a Fighter or Rogue. These people can be just as pious as anyone else, but they don't get these bonuses? Why do people think that Clerics are the only people who have religion on the brain? Some of the most powerful warriors and heroes in history have a fair degree of spirituality to them.

The worst part is the meta-gamey feeling I get from reading the various forms of holy symbols and what bonuses they provide. A Cleric of Travel gets a bunch of feathers that incidentally grant a +1 sacred bonus to avoid getting lost? Say what? More appropriately, it could have been a small holy symbol for Travel that also was a navigating tool like a sexton, granting anyone who knew how to use it a +2 bonus to Survival checks to avoid getting lost.

Most of the holy symbols read like a fashion mag rather than actual sets of symbolic items. You do can do good work, Medesha, but this one I'd rather pass.

Class Acts: Animal Allies was very useful indeed. I could modify those stat blocks to model a lot more than just 3 animals. Yeah, baby.

Class Acts: The Multiclassed Fighter was absolutely worthless. I can tell these things to any player who asked me about multiclassing Fighters and I usually do so without prompting. These is just completely wasted space.

Class Acts: Ranged Monks is actually a disservice because the author does not take care to tell the reader that Ranged Monks are really quite a spell less effective than melee ones without pursuing options that he goes on not to spell out in his article. Furthermore, shuriken really evoke a different sense of monk than many people I know think about. I chalk it up to Occident/Asian differences, but it's still jarring.

Class Acts: Pigeonhold Paladins offers a great short article on a view I've always thought should be the default one. By what stretch of the imagination can anyone think that champions of Good don't exist in Asian campaigns? Is Asia so Evil, then, that champions of Good have no more chance there than in Dark Sun? What's so bad about a champion of Good in Dark Sun anyway? The only thing bad about this article is that it's so short. Rather than an article featuring Holy Warrior of various alignments (like Clerics aren't Holy Warriors), I believe that I would have appreciated a variant Paladin article a lot better. Champions of Good that don't wear heavy armor nor ride about on a horse.

Class Acts: Building a Better Ranger is a great one. It fails to mention the value of greater mobility to a character who doesn't like people to get too close, nor Spot so that you can maximize longer encounter distances, but I guess that's just because the space is so short.

Class Acts: Art of the Sneak Attack is great, but it fails to mention several things about maximizing SA opportunities in a team-based rogue. The most important thing a Rogue can acquire is some form of ranged weapon, either something he can specialize in, like a bow, or something he can hold in his off-hand like a dagger. This ranged weapon is custom-equipped so that the Rogue can take advantage of fleeting effects like Hold Person, Monk stun, Grappler Pin, or Cowering among other effects, without having to wade into possible melee where the condition has been applied. With Precise Shot, he can capitalize potentially anywhere on the battlefield.

Class Acts: Flaws for Sorcerers is OK. Magical Overload could have been worded or designed differently, but the concept is what's important, so no complaints there.

Class Acts: Survivalist Spells is a nice primer for Wizards. Again, it's not like I don't say these things for Wizard in my campaign, so ultimately, it's not really a useful article to have. You can actually print RPGA stuff on that page, and I wouldn't miss it.

Mr Mona, I really like Dragon and I used to like it better. Ramming Speed is one heck of an article and Campaign Components are great. I hope to see more articles that don't harp on the obvious and actually expand the game for players.