 December 23, 2007 - 5:35am | Yes, canon in every instance in that conversation was referring to the original rules as printed (AD and KH). ZG is not considered canon because of its heretical change in flavor, intent, and balance of the game (though I think it does have some good ideas interspersed and honest premise, but certainly not to be wholly trusted). Magazines are not considered canon because, as mentioned in that thread, Dragon magazine and all other gaming magazines of the time were effectively fanzines only, willing to print anything about the game that came along. |
 December 23, 2007 - 11:07am | ZG has some useful info and some advances in technology. I use pieces parts to flesh out the techno goodies. As far as the Dragon mag stuff I don't care for them. Most of the info was someone wanting to see their name in print not necesarly a SF gamer. |
December 23, 2007 - 12:27pm | ZG has some useful info and some advances in technology. I use pieces parts to flesh out the techno goodies. As far as the Dragon mag stuff I don't care for them. Most of the info was someone wanting to see their name in print not necesarly a SF gamer. Actually, almost all the article writers were play-testers at TSR, and several were done by the game's co-creator. |
December 23, 2007 - 4:35pm | Could of fooled me. Must had mental block while doing AD&D at TSR |
December 23, 2007 - 4:55pm | Well, as with us and with any game and the different people, people don't have to be master mechanics-makers to be good play-testers (If they were, they'd be designers, instead of play-testers) or players. Also, each person has their own ideas about how things should or could be played. Additionally, articles provide a lot of experimental, untested stuff, so a lot of ineffective stuff may come through. Take a look at my stuff in the SFman. I wasn't able to play a game at all until the Port Loren PbP on this site. As a result, all my articles are untested. However, I'm fully confident the Shades of Motion in 3-D article and the Buying and Selling article from issue #6 are 100% playable and decent mechanics. My Starflight article from issue #5, however, is entirely experimental, and likely needs adjustment, which I made clear in the article. Other article writers might have a regular play group, but might be stuck in the role of player, because the group has a Ref that they don't want to change, and so the person never gets to put his ideas into action. There's all sorts of reasons why an article may not be the most perfect idea from a reader's point of view. And just because you think it's not a good mechanic, doesn't mean someone else feels the same way. Different ideas suit different people. And just because one person doesn't like it doesn't mean it's a stupid idea or that the person who produced it is ignorant in any way.  |
