DandD 4Th Dragon Magazine 403资料.pdfVIP

Editorial: Darwin’s Finches By Steve Winter Illustration by William O’Connor You’d think there’d be no chance to work on a Dragon editorial at a place as jumpin’ as PAX Prime, but in this particular instance, you’d be wrong. A busy convention hallway is not a productive place to write—there’s usually too much noise and always too many distractions (especially if the only place to sit is a spot on the floor where people con- tinually step over you). It can be the ideal place, too, because you’re surrounded by what make this hobby worthwhile--happy gamers who are excited about playing DD with countless other fans and friends. We don’t like to admit it, but residing inside For- tress WotC isolates us from you, the people we’re working for and trying to please. Meeting fans face to face and joining their games at conventions or Dungeons Dragons® Encounters sessions is invaluable, because it shows us what happens when DD meets the real world. I tend to picture individual gaming groups as the Galapagos Islands, and the DD rules as Darwin’s finches. At one time, all of those finches were the same species. Isolated on their individual islands, each group evolved in different directions in response TM © 2011 Wizards of the Coast LLC. All rights reserved. 1 S e p t e m b e r 2 011 | DR AG ON 4 03 Editorial: Darwin’s Finches to local conditions. By the time Darwin found them, The fact that Dungeons Dragons can mutate they had become many distinct yet clearly similar this way is one of its great appeals and one of the rea- species. In the same way, diverse gaming groups, all sons why it has endured for