Review of Almanac, Issue #1

Almanac is a new PDF magazine focused upon content meant for use with (by addressing topics regarding) Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition put out by Transfinite Publishing. The magazine arose in the wake of Steve Jackson Games’ failed d20 Weekly magazine, and the editor states in his editorial that he intends to publish Almanac on a monthly basis as an alternative to publications such as Dragon and White Dwarf. He aims to focus the magazine’s content away from rules and towards related topics such as the effects of a gold-laden dungeon upon the local economy, using historical events as the basis for D&D campaigns and other articles that definitely appeal more to Game Masters than players. I like this; it gives those dissatisfied with Dragon someplace to go to get that content while freeing Dragon to give its readers more player-friendly articles. But, as always, the proof is in the content.

And now, the content of the first issue:

• Editorial: Mr. Tongue speaks directly to the reader, explaining in no uncertain terms what Almanac is about and why he publishes this PDF magazine. This is a very good thing, and I encourage Mr. Tongue to maintain this policy. He appears to know what he wants, and how to get it, while not appearing to be an amateur; I appreciate competence, and he certainly shows this quality in his editorial. Good show.
• Product Reviews: There are five reviews here of d20 products meant for use with Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition. Each review gets to the point, provides the useful information that a reader wants and doesn’t belabor its points. Well done all around.
• The Depths of the Earth, by Bernard Taylor: This is a world-building article, and it’s about designing and using dungeons in a way that preserves the verisimilitude of a fictional setting. Old timers such as myself may not appreciate this article because it’s old hat, but I say that such a thing is well overdue for a revisiting; it’s the whole point of Dragon’s Dungeoncraft series. Unfortunately there’s little in the way of concrete advice, and not much more that’s useful. It’s vague enough to be useless for many readers. This is one article that needed a rewrite and tighter control by the editor.
• The Gold Rush, by R.E.B. Tongue: This is an article about the impact of a group of adventuring characters upon the local economy via the treasure that those folks loot from dungeons. Again, it’s old topic that is long overdue for a revival; again, it’s not well-done because it’s little more than an overview of the historical model of the Gold Rush’s boom towns during the days of the Old (American) West. No other model exists to either compare or contrast with this one. This doesn’t fly; a PDF magazine doesn’t have page limits, so content constraints due to size aren’t an issue. This article wasn’t long enough, and the editor ought not to’ve written it; editors edit writers for a reason, and this article shows that reason plainly: they are too close to the work to edit it properly. It read like an incomplete draft, not like a complete work.
• Leveling Up Your Game, by Jason Shoemate: This is the first in a regular column series, and the focus of this column is to make the reader aware of what’s actually involved in exploring a dungeon. Hence, this is a primer article about caving and it’s aimed at the reader that—quite likely—doesn’t know anything about caving; right there, we’ve got a useful article. Unfortunately, that use is limited. While the article has plenty of information, much of it useful for a curriculum about the real sport of caving, it’s not so relevant to playing or running D&D. Too much real detail spoils the fun, and spoiled fun turns people away from the game. That isn’t to say that this brief article is wholly useless or that it’s crap; it’s to say that it’s misplaced. This is better suited for something like RPG Net than a magazine.
• Lessons From History: The Quest for the New World, by Robert Conway: This is the first in another column series. The focus here is to adapt a historical event for the purpose of creating adventures or whole campaigns. As the subtitle states, the example event here is the discovery and exploration of the Western Hemisphere by European powers during the Renaissance and Cavalier periods. Readers with a bent towards expediency might want to concentrate on the boxed portions; these are the bits that show quick-and-dirty examples or otherwise get to the point of the whole thing. Other readers ought to come back to the sidebars after they get through the main body of the text. Again, there’s a lot of fact telling and not a lot of development of the column’s point; the sidebars make up for this, so overall I’d rate this as the best article in the issue.
• Putting SF Into Fantasy: The Race for the Moon, by R.E.B. Tongue: Yet another launch of a recurring series, this time the theme being explicit (thus needing no explanation from me) about its aims. Again, the article is too short to adequately cover its topic. It feels like it’s been cut in half for some reason. My complaints above apply here. Could this article be great had the idea been allowed to come to fruition? As with the others, I say “Yes, it could.”
• Hosting an Online Campaign, by S. Lyle Raymond: This is useful article, so long as you have little or no idea as to how to go about doing this sort of thing and don’t spend any time at online gaming communities such as RPG Net, EN World, the Wizards of the Coast forums or damn near anywhere else of note. If you fall into this group of people, then you’ll find the article very helpful. For the rest of us, this article is helpful only in that it makes room for a future article detailing more refined ways to accomplish the same task. This is the second-best article in the issue.
• Extraordinary Cavalry, by Robert Sullivan: This would’ve been a great article about 10 years ago. Now I can get all of the same information on my own just by using the Overland Movement chart in the Dungeon Master’s Guide and checking the stat blocks for various mounts in the Monster Manual. Even the new guy can figure that out. This article--despite being well-written, focused appropriately and all that jazz—is well past its time. There’s no demand for this sort of thing anymore, or it would be found all over Dragon and the above-mentioned forums.
• The Lost Alley, by James Carter: I was wrong. This article is the best one in this issue. Why? Because it’s well written, presented with immediate use in mind and easily dropped as-is into damn near any D&D campaign that has some sort of alleyway or urban environment. Swap out the trappings (and maybe the stat blocks) and you can also use this with any other d20 or fantasy RPG around. It’s the sort of thing that makes Dungeon worth subscribing to these days, and how it ended up here ought to bother Paizo Publishing. This article alone makes buying the issue worthwhile. What is it? It’s a ready-to-go location, complete with hooks, NPCs and enough details to get it into playable shape after an hour or two of preparation. That’s gold waiting to fall into a publisher’s lap. Great stuff! I want to see more like this article.
• The Exile, by Christopher Scaturo: This is a short-short story, meant in the way that fiction publishers use the term, and it’s intended to be a preview of another related magazine: Lemurian Dreams. This story is about an elf sorcerer with a wacky name—Sufferance Leafgreen—and that’s about as far as I got before I hit my cliché limit. Gaming fiction is notoriously bad for a reason, and I certainly hope that the premiere issue of Lemurian Dreams features far better stuff than this short-short story. At the end of the story are D&D stats for everyone that matters; this appendix turned out to be far more worthwhile than the fiction that led to it. If this is the big selling point of Dreams, then I worry about this magazine’s odds of success.

For a first issue from a PDF publisher, this could be a hell of a lot worse. I’m not yet willing to give up on Almanac, but I do hope that this new magazine shapes up fast and finds both its voice and its vision. There’s some talent here, and the editor clearly knows what he wants to do; that’s commendable. However, there’s the sad truth that neither alone will let you survive for long; you’ve got to deliver the goods early, often and repeatedly or your audience will desert you for some other outlet. I can’t recommend this publication to anyone except those seeking it out; despite being as cheap as it is now, it’s not worth the money to most would-be customers.