Quote from: ColonelHardisson;311045The UA version was pretty similar, with the magic item prohibition worked around a bit with some tweaks that Gary introduced in the next couple of issues of Dragon.

All in all, the class always struck me as intending to be a lone wolf, which, given the attention focused on "solo dungeons" in earlier eras of D&D (see the appendix on random dungeon generation in the 1e DMG) seems like something Gary had some interest in. Given D&D's emphasis on teamwork, though, the class stuck out like a sore thumb.

Ironically, it kinda reverses the usual trend, where the characters stick together less at higher levels as they're off running domains and spending months creating new spells and items. Barbarians and Rangers start off as lone wolves, and then gradually learn the joys of working with others better.

Dragon Issue 63: July 1982

part 2/2

Chagmat (what? Not quite the dumbest monster name evar, but not far off.) is this months adventure, another 16 pager. That aside, it's a pretty interesting one, with a combination of small encounters and a full dungeon at the end. Plus the monsters get plenty of depth of history and setting of their own. They could probably even be turned into a PC race without too much trouble.

Plan before you play: Hello again Mr Greenwood. More campaign building advice from the master? Railroading (although that term still hasn't been invented yet) is bad, and players like to feel that they have choices, and the world exists beyond just something to challenge them. He then goes into his world building technique, one again including stuff that would appear later (with some alterations ) in the forgotten realms. While creating political situations and relationships might be a bit of effort, once you have done, the story virtually writes itself from there, as the NPC's make their moves and give the players tons of stuff to do on whichever side they choose. Once again, his passion and dedication to the art of storytelling and worldbuilding shines through, keeping things interesting that could be (and have been under lesser writers) dull all too easily. The gauntlet has been thrown down. Do you dare to try and keep up with him?

The RPGA posts a bulletin that is both an advert, and an example of content, with some special rulings about how Official RPGAtm Games are run. Because they have to standardize, so adventures can be run fairly and consistently throughout the world. Ho hum.

This year, Gary has taken the trip to england, courtesy of Don Turnbull, to attend games fair 82. And it seems he finds english players quieter and better organised than american ones. Do stereotypes have some basis in reality then. He also takes the time to review a couple of fanzines, Dragonlords and Thunderstuck. Both get rather less scathing reviews than the ones he has delivered in the past. He must be enjoying himself.

Computer games have a way to go: More interesting historical stuff on the nature and use of computers, and the logistics of creating a game at that time. Most games are way too short and lacking in depth. He looks forward to the days when memory and processing power is no longer the primary limiter on what people can make. Reality, as ever, will be less impressive than your optimistic predictions. Still interesting though. Particularly interesting is how much less simulationistic computer games have become, despite being able to model reality more accurately. Genres such as platformers are still in their infancy, and many games are simply computerised versions of board and puzzle games. i guess they still have yet to build their own identity and subculture.

The electric eye: A program to generate characters for Top Secret. Well, someone probably got some use out of it. (if it wasn't errata ridden like many of them) Rem, gosub, goto, and other familiar old commands are there in all their glory.

For the sake of Change: Where does money come from? In reality, money comes in many forms, each region with its own, and substantial fluctuations in prices and exchange rates. Should you adopt some of this in your game? Given how complicated economics can get, too much would seriously derail a D&D game. Just like everything, you'll have to find your own balance between reality and usability.

Once again, Gary refuses to put his reviews in with everyone else's. He is really rather scathing of Conan the barbarian, calling it Conan meets the flower children of Set (he has a point there). The sorceror and the sword is also called pretty mediocre. All these bad fantasy movies will put people off the idea of making and watching them. This simply will not do! I shall create a D&D movie, and it will blow these amateurs out of the water! If I fail, I shall roast the incompetents responsible and apologize to you personally! This is entertaining. He's certainly in fine form this month.

The dragon's augury: Simba Safari is a traveller adventure of, yeah, big game hunting. Travel from planet to planet, killing stuff, and intriguing with the other people on the cruise. Well, It'd certainly be a change of pace from most adventures, if a rather politically incorrect one. Not sure what to make of this, although the reviewer seems to like it.

Wild west. Looks like fantasy games unlimited is trying to compete directly with boot hill. Anyone remember this one?

What's new faces the danger of computers taking over. Wormy should feel lucky he's out when the shadowcat comes calling. Dragonmirth reminds us that when dealing with undead, your expected level at the end may be substantially lower than at the beginning.

Seems we have another case of when designers attack this month. Gary delivers one of his largest broadsides in a long time, consisting largely of things I found rather unpalatable. Still, even when I disagree with him, he's always interesting, and never mediocre. This stuff should have reprecussions in following magazines. Also notable is the number of interesting adverts in this one. Seems like lots of games are coming out now, people are jumping on the bandwagon, and the amount of adverts is increasing. Even the second stringers have half-decent budgets to work with. What will happen next?

Having recently read Howard's Conan, Arnie was a bad choice... entirely the wrong body type. The guy playing Angel, David Boreanaz, is far closer to the described physique. The real irony? The magic-distrusting Movie Conan is a good match for the magic-paranoid Barbarian class... and neither is a match to Howard's conan.

As for Simba Safari: Quality adventure, crappy materials to print it on. Judges Guild did good stuff for Traveller... but everything from JG was on cheap paper. Some of my most used traveller stuff was from JG...

EGG's comments about the fanzines are interesting... Marc Gascoigne later went on to pen stuff for Games Workshop.

Quote from: (un)reason;311161Once again, Gary refuses to put his reviews in with everyone else's. He is really rather scathing of Conan the barbarian, calling it Conan meets the flower children of Set (he has a point there).

The 'cult leader' element seems to have been an original idea of the movie makers. Not sure why that's a bad thing though.

Side note: the Settites in Vampire seem to be based on Thulsa Doom in this movie.

Quote from: aramis;311166Having recently read Howard's Conan, Arnie was a bad choice... entirely the wrong body type. The guy playing Angel, David Boreanaz, is far closer to the described physique. The real irony? The magic-distrusting Movie Conan is a good match for the magic-paranoid Barbarian class... and neither is a match to Howard's Conan.

Regarding Conan, I remember Gary's review as echoing very much how I felt about the movie, and I also remember some fellow Howard fans feeiling the same way.

The casting question is very subjective, but I agree that Arnold wasn't the perfect choice for the character, but he was perhaps the perfect choice for a movie like that. I don't see Boreanaz being the right fit, either, but I can see why you'd tap him for the role.

I grew up reading Marvel's Conan, so John Buscema and Ernie Chan's depiction of the Cimmerian looms over almost any other...except, of course, for Frazetta's version. But even Frazetta seemed to depict Conan (or at least, a barbarian hero that could very well be Conan) in different ways - the Conan we see desperately clinging to the back of a red-cloaked ape-man (a scene from Rogues in the House, as I recall) is a lot more limber and less musclebound than other Frazetta depictions, and seems more in line with Howard's description for Conan as a young man.

I would excuse the extreme "arcanophobia" of Gygax's Barbarian class as understandable from the standpoint of Gygax being a Howard fan. Howard did make a point of telling us about Conan's instinctual fear of such stuff, and it seems it left much more of an impression on Gary than the instances where Howard had Conan show a pragmatic side when magic was needed. The best example is from Beyond the Black River, when he inscribes a rune to ward off a demon. One also can imagine Howard's Conan having no trouble using an enchanted sword if need be.

Regardless, the extreme aversion to all magic seems to have derived from a wider variety of sources than Conan, such as the various Conan knock-offs from the 60s and 70s. Still, even many of them would pick up a magic sword if it was laying there. I think, in the end, Gary was trying to balance the class with the magic hatred. However, we see those restrictions loosened a bit in UA, and somewhere in the next couple of issues of Dragon he provided a fix to allow the Barbarian to remain viable in fights against creatures only vulnerable to magic weapons.

Quote from: Age of Fable;311180The 'cult leader' element seems to have been an original idea of the movie makers. Not sure why that's a bad thing though.

Side note: the Settites in Vampire seem to be based on Thulsa Doom in this movie.

The cult itself is a redress of a cult from a Howard story. Book was a library book, so I can't look it up right now. But it wasn't whole cloth...

And I can see the Settite connection.

Dragon Issue 64: August 1982

part 1/2

87 pages

In this issue:

Dragon rumbles: We get some clarification on the situation between SPI and TSR. TSR loaned them lots of money, with their copyrights as collateral. When SPI collapsed, that means that TSR got the properties, but not the liabilities. That's their justification for screwing over the subscribers anyway. Sneaky. So what are they going to do with them? Try and make some money! Look forward to new games and magazines soon.

Out on a limb: An article expressing displeasure at gary's introduction of traveling spellbooks, saying they make playing magic-users too easy. Hmm. With those prices? Okay then.
A letter complaining about all the optional rules in the magazine going out of print, and asking them to release revised editions compiling the relevant stuff from the magazine.
Another letter of generalized (and quite fulsome) praise.
A letter complaining about the bad advice some Sage Advices give us. Your rules lawyers suck. I could do better.

From the sorceror's scroll: Once again, Gary decides not to use a prexisting article, but make his own Official AD&Dtm Expansion. This time, it's weapons that he's turning his eyes too. From aklys to whip, we have 17 new weapons, including two new polearms (oh yes, it's been a long time.) Even he doesn't seem that enthralled with this topic. He'd much rather be designing new twinked out classes and spells. Is it any wonder fighters ended up so underpowered.

Featured creatures continues to fill out the I can't believe it's not Angelic Heirarchy, with Planetars and Solars (I see what you did there.) Once again, their entire description is a rather excessive laundry list of powers that would be virtually impossible to keep track of and apply to maximum tactical effect in actual play. While I might not agree with the extent which 4th ed trimmed back creature's noncombat powers, after being reminded of these pains in the ass, I have better appreciation of why they made that decision. Once again we can see how many of the flaws in the game's design can be traced right back to the top.

Greyhawk's World: A third article from Gary straight away. He elaborates on the gods of the humanoids, and introduces a new one, Raxivort, the god of the Xvarts. Yet more setting building. Nice to see the various races getting their own gods and spellcasting abilities.

Giants in the earth: This month's characters are Taith Lee's Myal Lemyal, John Henry the railroad legend, and Finn MacCumhal. Rather an odd grab-bag, really. I suppose they publish what they're given.

Sage advice: What are the odds if multiple characters try and open a door together (figure it out yourself, based on size of the door, number of handholds, etc. We can't be arsed to even give you guidelines.)
What are the odds for non-thieves to climb walls. (zero. We like our classes rigid in old skool land. )
Does a multiclassed character have to abide by both sets of weapon and armour restrictions? (if they want to use the powers of a class, they need to be abiding by its restrictions at the time.)
Do all the required attributes of a class count as principal attributes for multiclassed characters. (not quite)
If a follower gets higher level than the master, do they continue to serve (probably not, unless you pay them very well. Watch out for them trying to kill you and take your stuff.)
What level do paladins and rangers cast spells at (they cast at 1st level when they first get spells, then gain 1 caster level per level after that)
Do rangers, paladins, bards, or druids get bonus spells for high ability scores (Only druids)
How do racial limits apply to multi-classed characters (divide XP equally between classes. The limits don't change. But even after you've reached max level in a class, it still eats up half your xp, slowing down your advancement in other classes. Because we have to gimp multi-class characters somehow.)
What happens if your ability scores are too low to qualify for any class (roll a new set. Only the cruelest GM would force you to play a character with multiple 3's)

The assassins guild: Ahh, the joy of D&D organizations. Simultaneously monolithic and untouchable, and yet unable to clear a simple 1st level dungeon. This sets out the rules any successful assassins guild needs to follow in a place with ordinary law enforcement. There are a few D&D'isms, such as assassins and thieves guilds always being separate, and never the twain shall exchange skills, and freelancers being caught easily and stamped down hard. But the rest of the rules make sense, basically boiling down to don't shit where you eat. It certainly doesn't have the cleverness of the ankh morporkian guild system. A pretty middle of the road article overall. (great, now I have an image of assassins listening to Boston while on a stakeout)

The assassins run: Following on, we have an assassin based adventure. And Ed Greenwood immediately breaks one of the rules from the previous section, making the thieves and assassins guild in the forgotten realms completely integrated, and giving us a load of realmsian backstory about the lords of waterdeep forcing their thieves guild out, and the survivors plotting revenge. Not that it really matters to the module, as you can insert it pretty much anywhere there's a group that likes to test it's members fitness in a sadistic fashion. You probably won't die doing this, but you may well lose and get seriously humiliated if you aren't ready for anything. Still, if you can't take the training, you've got no chance out there in real dungeons where they're actually trying to kill you. So if you're planning to run your team through an old skool killer dungeon, put them through this as an in game warm up to get them in properly paranoid mood. They'll thank you for it afterwards.

Dragon Issue 64: August 1982

part 2/2

Planet Busters: Yay! Another Tom Wham game! This is more complex than his previous games, with a large number of different pieces allowing for lots of different strategies, particularly if you play the advanced version. It almost seems like a precursor to CCG's, as it has plenty of room for expansion. Not sure if I like this one or not. I guess I'd have to play it to find out.

Robots for Traveller: I think you can guess what this one does. As they did in gamma world, they eschew random generation for a point based creature building system. And building one that can match up to a human PC in terms of versatility and power would be exceedingly expensive. Still, there are worse ways to spend your money. And having a robot sidekick or character can be amusing, and do things a human can't. Obviously I can't tell if this is broken, but it seems fairly well thought out.

Fiction: The next-to-last mistake by Paul McHugh. A rather meta story of drama at a fantasy LARP, with archery, chess, romance, moral lessons, and twists, oh my. Reminds me quite a bit of the arabian nights style of storytelling, although without the excesses of story nesting that style can fall into. Another strong bit of fiction that fully justifies it's place here, even without any actual supernatural elements. Two thumbs up. Please don't shoot an arrow through them, even if you can.

Why gamers get together: A bit of a misnamed article, as it's more about the benefits conventions bring to individual gamers. By getting to talk too and play with people from other places, you pick up new tricks, find out about new products, and learn how to work the rules better. Another article that strongly reminds me how much harder it was to disseminate ideas between groups before the internet. Before, if it wasn't on TV, it'd take years to get around, now, ideas can be sent across the world by ordinary people.

Championship Sumo wrestling: Another sports game from Brian Blume. Hmm. This doesn't even pretend to be roleplaying or wargaming related like Ringside. It's just an excuse to get a cool little design he made published, regardless of it's appropriateness to the magazine's theme as a whole. I am somewhat dubious as to how much he gets it. Still, at only a page long, it doesn't matter that much. It's his financial choices we really need to worry about.

The dragon's augury: OGRE gets a new edition, expanding the game to cover a greater range of scenarios, some not even using the eponymous ubertank. Production values have been increased, optional rules from magazine articles have been compiled, and the rules have in general been tightened up. Probably worth making the upgrade, in other words.
Worlds of Wonder takes the BRP system, and applies it to three different settings, a fantasy past, superheros in the present, and future one. Essentially, its both a semi-generic toolbox, and a bunch of example settings with their own genre rules added in to use or raid for parts. While there are some minor design errors, this is a laudable effort, as it shows that the company has realized one size does not fit all games, and you can adapt your rules to better simulate a genre, rather than sticking to an imitation of real life. Game design has come quite a way since the start of the decade.

Off the shelf: The dying earth by Jack Vance is a reprint. As it started one of his ongoing series, it's good to have it available again.
The goblin reservation by Clifford D Simak is also a reprint.
Honeymoon in hell by Frederic Brown is a collection of his short stories from the 40's and 50's. Full of puns and other fun, it's a good bit of light reading from a more wholesome age. ( )
The complete robot by Isaac Asimov is a large collection of his short stories on that theme, building a consistent universe, and going to a good length to shape people's perception of robots. Obviously a classic.
Blade Runner by Philip K Dick (not it's original title, but there's a film out, doncha know, so we'll put that in big letters and only put Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep as a little subtitle underneath) is of course a classic. The reviewer once again recommends it heartily.
Outward bound by Juanita Coulson is part two of another series. Sci-fi with a strong element of human drama, it is big without being slow or dull.
Castaways in time by Robert Adams is not part of the horseclans series, instead focussing on a group of modern people swept back to an alternate history england.  Much less comedy ensues than you might think.
Warlocks gift by Aradath Mayhar gets a rather negative review, as it contains a mary-sue protagonist, and lots of pointless distractions.
Elephant song by Barry B Longyear follows the story of a troupe of circus performers stranded on a uninhabited planet, and learning to survive. A depressing prospect, entertainers with no-one to entertain. But therein lies the drama.

What's new gives us it's own take on women in gaming. But still no sex. Indeed, much of the strip is involved in preventing it. Wormy continues, with drama meeting comedy, and drama winning for a change.

Ooohh. I.C.E proudly presents the arrival of Middle Earth Roleplaying next month on the back cover. This is a big deal. One of the primary inspirations for the hobby enters that hobby. They must have high hopes for its sales potential, as they're already planning an extensive line of supplements. I guess if any licence could make a profit from RPG's, It'd be this one. I wonder if we'll be seeing articles for the game in the magazine?

Another issue I'm a bit dubious about. With the increase in both advertising and stuff from in-house writers, they are definitely becoming more blatantly commercially driven. Their coverage of games by other companies has dropped dramatically, and it doesn't look like that trend'll be reversing any time soon. If I were a young reader at that point I'd be considering sending them a letter saying pandering only to your core audience is not the way to expand your fanbase. Don't say the halcyon days where the magazine was a centreground for the entire hobby are already over.

Robots in Traveller
The Robots in Traveller article was recently discussed on COTI... in general, it's still the standard for some, and is better received than the official Book 8 version, nd the version in JTAS.

I used it for about 10 years, in preference to the official ones.

Championship Sumo
Championship Sumo was fun enough to while away a couple dozen hours over the years.

We played Planet Busters a number of times. I don't remember much about it, but I remember it being fun and fast to play.

As for MERP...I'm trying to recall seeing articles for it in ANY magazine. I get the feeling that licensing issues prevented it from happening. Regardless, it would've been interesting to see Middle-earth material in Dragon, but alas...unless someone remembers something I don't?

I don't recall any more articles of consequence for Traveller ever appearing in Dragon. There may have been some, but I recall being disappointed that coverage for that game began to dry up in Dragon (as well as support for any non-TSR game).  

At this time, Dragon was the only game magazine that I could find with any regularity. White Dwarf's availability was spotty, at best, and I never saw any other game mag anywhere until much later.  Dragon tried covering a lot of bases on its own, with book reviews being perhaps my favorite non-game-article material. Other venues for such stuff - Starlog, the various digest-sized science fiction magazines - didn't cover books that might appeal specifically to gamers, and Dragon's efforts were appreciated in this department.

Dragon Issue 65: September 1982

part 1/2

86 pages. It's convention season again. Which means off they trot to meet up with the growing legions of fans. What stories will they have to tell this year? What backstage shenanigans will take place. Things are already getting interesting in that respect. We have some stuff on that, and it looks like there's more to come. Plus another full helping of crunch, reviews and games. The D&D train chugs onwards.

In this issue:

Out on a limb: A letter defending Ed's firearms article, pointing out that the weapons in it are still far less damaging and reliable than spells, so the game is hardy broken by their inclusion.
A letter pointing out a bunch of errors in the jester class. It was a joke. Do you really expect perfect mechanical rigour?
A letter expressing confusion at the D&D is satanic crowd. This gets a long-winded reply from kim. You don't have to explain it to us. We're on your side.
A letter talking about the troubles they had with using the umbra as a monster, and the logical problems shadow-fighting presents.
A letter saying ecological stuff, particularly dietary information, should be mandatory for monster descriptions.

Dragon rumbles is written by Gary this issue. It is a fairly lengthy piece about the competition between Gen con and Origins. So you're now the head of by far the most successful company in your field, to the point where other companies are simultaneously sniping at you and imitating you. Just because you've been overtaken that's no reason to pull out and only go to other conventions. That's not a way to produce a unified hobby, or to make money from the conventions. PS. Boycott them if you agree with me So it's another classic Gary editorial full of hyperbole and hypocrisy. What would we do without them?

Blastoff!: TSR's got a new game out, Star frontiers. Which means it's promotion time. This is their attempt to do for space opera sci-fi what  the basic D&D set did for fantasy gaming, making a more accessable and less gonzo game than their previous two attempts. Which means it's doomed to failure, as this smacks of a game developed around marketing decisions, rather than love. I could be wrong. It could enjoy years of decent sales and play. But Gamma world and Metamorphosis Alpha certainly seem to be remembered more often these days. That's what happens when you forget to put the fundamental weirdness as the foundation for the gloss. You can't make a pearl without grit, after all.

From the sorceror's scroll: Gary turns his eye towards new classes. He has quite a number planned for inclusion in future issues, some which made it (cavalier, thief-acrobat) some which didn't. (savant, mountebank) He also reveals what's at the top of the druid heirachy. (The grand druid, the only 15th level druid in the entire world, with huge personal powers, plus 12 special followers, who's job it is to look after the balance of nature over the entire planet. Now there's a job that would get in the way of regular adventuring. Still, it's not as if you'd be short of things to do in that situation.) He also gives barbarians a new special power so they have a fighting chance against magical creatures, encourages giving your characters proper personalities, and gives Frank Mentzer a promotion. Plus more bitching about the competition. So, he's still got lots of big plans. But how long before he finishes them, flitting between so many projects at once? This is why creative types need a firm editorial hand and deadlines.

Greyhawk's World: This month, the spotlight goes on the south-east and the lendore islands. What lies beyond the limits of the known map? All sorts of legends of dooooom, for none have returned to tell the tale. Meanwhile, Nyrond masses it's army to defend against Ivid's depredations. How much success will they have? Wait a few years for the next edition to come out and we'll see. Nothing special to see here.

Leomund's tiny hut: Weapon quality. Another experiment in differentiating weapons and armour by minute amounts based upon how well they were made. Which involves lots of tedious tables, and even the best ones provide less benefit than a simple +1 weapon. As is often the case with his rules mods, this is really not worth it and needs some serious refining and streamlining.  

Weapons wear out, not skills: Weapon proficiency groups. A good idea they really need to get round to implementing canonically. This article make another attempt to generally improve the proficiency system. It does, but not nearly enough. And I suspect we'll be seeing many more of these attempts before third edition. Hopefully some'll be weird enough to be interesting.

Featured creatures is introducing more good guys to the game roster: Baku are magical mini elephants from elysium. But as they have planar travel, they can turn up in the oddest of places. And frankly, the thought of an invisible elephant in the room should scare most evildoers.
Phoenix are thankfully no longer singular, nor do you get tortured to death and sent back in time to stop yourself by the gods for killing one. They're even more disgustingly powerful though, with another laundry list of powers that'll rarely be used properly in play. Gary does love overpowered good guys, doesn't he. If only he could find a more elegant way of making them so.

The missing dragons: The colour wheel theory. Now there's a dumb idea. Well, if you lived in the D&D universe, where attempts at rigorous science fall apart as the researchers go insane trying to make sense of the results, it'd seem like a perfectly reasonable hypothesis. So anyway, we get another set of yellow, orange and purple nurple dragons. Which bear no relation to the previous set, or future sets. Well, they are pretty lame. Is it any wonder people thought they could do better. We also get more "sages believe" pontification. We want names, damnitt. Academics is all about individuals seeking knowledge, not some nebulous monolithic collective. I think we can consign this one back to the shelves of history without regret.

The RPGA bulletin advertises the R series of modules, only available to members. This includes R2, which is the module Frank Mentzer designed, that won him the the 1980 dungeon masters competition. So it ought to be pretty good. Anyone played these?

Timelords: Ahh, doctor who. You have a lot to answer for. Not that these guys have much to do with the Dr who conception of them, being more like specialist psionicists with lots of different time manipulation powers, powered by a point expenditure system. (Proper stimulation of the chronal glands? Really? How do you do that then? ) Fortunately, Lew avoids giving them powers that break the game, such as traveling back in time and stopping aging, and while certainly not weak, there's no way they can compete in overall versatility and blasting power with standard clerics and wizards. I doubt they'd ruin the game if they were allowed as PC's, although they might upset the tone a little, especially if the other players kept making jokes. Still, more options are rarely a bad thing, especially when they're ones that break new ground, rather than just being hybrids and variants of existing roles like bounty hunters or swashbucklers. Once again, Mr Pulsipher wins me over with the quality of his writing.

Dragon Issue 65: September 1982

part 2/2

Monsters of the Midway: Football. Of the american variety, just to ensure no confusion amongst our international readers. Played by D&D monsters, each with their own stats and special powers. I seem to remember Games Workshop doing something similar. Unfortunately, contrary to the (rather good) illustration, hydra is not one of the character choices. And we seem to be missing the stats for satyrs. I'm a bit iffy on this one. The rules don't quite seem to add up, and I can't really visualize how the game plays. It could definitely have been better written and edited.

Tuatha de Danaan: Sigh. It's another article quibbling over the precise stats of a pantheon of deities, based on different sources, readings and translations. Experts in a field are like watches. If you have one, you know what's going on. If you have several, you're never sure. (and disagreeing experts are considerably more annoying than watches that are out by a few minutes.) I might prefer my deities statted, but if I'd had to deal with 10 years of this, I'd throw my hands up and say "Fine, you can't agree on deities stats? They have no stats. They are all beyond mortal reckoning! Are you happy now?!" as well. It might not completely stop the whining, but at least that'd save hours trying to figure out what they ought to have and add up all the math.

Law of the Land: Ed Greenwood gives more setting building advice, once again using examples from the forgotten realms. Shadowdale is now ruled by a PC in his game, and so that means he has to defend his teritory. This is another sortie in his battle to get everyone building their own worlds full of depth and constant evolution, that feel like living places that don't just exist for adventurers to kill and loot. A war as unwinnable as the war against drugs. Anyway, this is about laws, customs, and punishments for breaking them. Differentiating between places in this respect is a good way to make them all distinctive, not just the same old pseudomedieval mishmash. You can even put a few utterly ridiculous laws in there.  It's not as if you can think of any more stupid than the ones you can find in real life. As ever, he cites plenty of sources, and writes in an entertaining manner. I can't really fault him on this.

War!: Lew gets a second article published in one magazine. He is pretty prolific. This is about creating in-game justification for conflicts. These things don't just happen for no reason, and discovering and dealing with these can create a whole load of plot hooks above and beyond those simply caused by the fighting and destruction itself. Economics, ambition, religion, race can be complex issues, and solving them a protracted problem. Or it could be as simple as the groups being of opposing alignment and therefore conflict being inevitable and eternal. Either way, it not only keeps the PC's busy, it keeps the world evolving as well. This complements the previous article nicely. When the conflict comes out of the dungeon, the players really have to decide how it affects their characters.

That's no pizza - it's the pong papers: Assassination advice for top secret. As ever, players are often not very clever or subtle, and need to be taught how to avoid detection better. bursting in shooting gets you killed, and it gets innocents killed, while if you plan things properly, no-one will ever expect your involvement.Sniping, Bombs, poison, mechanical "accidents", blackmailing other people into doing the dirty work. All good options bloodthirsty players neglect. The better you do at getting things done smoothly and covering your tracks, the less drama you'll have to deal with later. Surely that's what any professional wants. Only a fool fights when they don't have too.

Up on a soapbox: My god. Lew scores a hat trick for the magazine with this article.  Another piece about playstyles, primarily focussing on the risktaking/caution axis of player tendencies, but also with some stuff on the logic/intuition one. Correctly judge your opponent's tendencies, and you'll be at an advantage. Fail, and the reverse is true. It's hard to encompass everything in a little article, and he doesn't even try, but he does put a distinctive spin on the subject. This is less boring than most articles of this type.  

The dragon's augury decides to do a whole bunch of computer games this month: Wizardry is an adventure game wih a lot in common with D&D. Generate you characters stats, choose classes, and put together a party. The dungeons are large, pretty, and filled with all kinds of imaginative monsters (creeping coins) Of course, due to memory limitations, this means you have to keep the disk in and do lots of mid game loading, which slows things down a lot. If only they would do something about that in the future.
Akalabeth is a randomly generated adventure game. It takes a different tack, and fails to overcome the information limitations in old computers, so all the locations and adventures look and play the same, and there is no sense to the monster and treasure distribution. Which makes it boring.
Crush, crumble and chomp is an arcade game of giant monsters rampaging a city. It's fairly fun, but there's no way of winning, so its just a matter of how much you can smash and how long you survive to get as high a score as possible before being worn down. Which was often the case in those old games. You'll get bored sooner or later.
The chamax plague/Horde is another Traveller double bill. A pair of adventures that can be run separately or interlinked, they also provide an alien adversary with plenty of bite and ecology. Can you figure them out well enough to use good tactics against them?
Empire builder gives Gary a rare opportunity to indulge his love of railroad games. (no, not that sort ) Build your network and compete with your opponents to make as much money as possible. Maybe not for everyone, but he certainly enjoys it. And as we know, he's not one to sugar-coat things and say so when he doesn't mean it. So that's a pretty good recommendation.

What's new sees dixie playing the pedant. Wormy fits a couple more plot twists in. Dragonmirth only gets half a page, which is a bit half-assed.

Gangbusters gets a cool newspaper style advert on the back page. Yes, I know it's been done here before. It works, ok.

I hope you've enjoyed the Lewis Pulsipher special. Honestly, at this rate, he ought to have a permanent job along with Roger and Ed. Whatever happened to him? I don't remember seeing any stuff from him during the 90's. More questions that I hope our Loyal Readers ( ) can answer. See you next time.

Quote from: (un)reason;311886I hope you've enjoyed the Lewis Pulsipher special. Honestly, at this rate, he ought to have a permanent job along with Roger and Ed. Whatever happened to him? I don't remember seeing any stuff from him during the 90's. More questions that I hope our Loyal Readers ( ) can answer. See you next time.

I just did a quick Google search about him. He's still around:

http://pulsiphergames.com/gameindex.htm

He's been around longer than I imagined.

Dragon Issue 66: October 1982

part 1/2

84 pages. They moved into new buildings recently. Bigger, shinier, and more consolidated, this'll hopefully make things more convenient for everyone on the team. And they certainly won't miss the mice. Language is this month's special theme, with a whole bunch of related articles. We also, as promised, get more stuff for illusionists, and plenty of returning series. Even big upheavals like moving house no longer stop them from putting out a full sized quality product on time. So lets see what else they've managed to squeeze in.

In this issue:

Out on a limb: Glenn Rahman defends his villainisation of the protagonist of the Gor novels. He has read them properly, and can cite extensive quotes to support his choice. One wonders why he kept reading them.
Roger Moore also gives a load of commentary and corrections.
Gary writes in to say that the reasons firearms are not found in Official AD&D Worlds is because the physics of the universe do not allow for gunpowder and similar explosives. Burning stuff simply burns, it doesn't exert outward pressure. (so steam power won't work either) Experiments on those lines will simply do sod-all. If you want blasting effects, you'll have to use magic. And that's final.
And finally we get an actual letter from a reader, saying that is a held creature literally couldn't move any muscles at all, they'd die from suffocation in a few rounds. Kim follows Gary's lead, and reminds him that spells completely bypass real life physics. They can be completely unable to even blink or breathe, and not suffer the ill-effects they normally would. (yes, this contradicts the ruling about held creatures in water, but hey, even a master editor can't remember everything, and if magic can break the rules of the universe, that means they don't have to be internally consistent anyway.)

Should they have an edge: The class weapon restrictions debate gets reopened. Well, it has been a couple of years. You've gotta trot out the old perrenials for the new readers. John Sapienza floats the idea of detaching the damage dice from the weapon used, so cosmetically, they can be using any weapon, but due to lack of training they'll still be limited to d4 or d6, which will preserve the intended game balance. Which is pretty innovative, really. They'll make narrativists out of these guys yet. Bruce Humphrey provides the predictable counter of no is no, and that's final argument. Which is considerably less interesting, as it's just reiterating the status quo. And we all know that drama is found in pushing and breaking the rules. So it goes. I'm sure we'll see this one again in the future.

Elfquest's characters get converted to D&D. Cutter, Skywise, Leetah, Rayek and Picknose. These guys are less twinked than most of these articles, with not a single 18, and relatively few abilities that are illegal for regular PC's. A fluke, or is this a good sign? Lets hope.

Sage advice seems to be stuck in the past this month, focussing on demihumans:
Can demihumans make magical items (yes, within the limits of their class restrictions. They can also make some special items humans with the same skills can't, because their gods are nice like that.)
How do you make elven chain. (Its a secret alloy. You don't think they'd give away trade secrets, do you. You'll be lucky to get hold of some if they like you. )
Why can't elves be rangers, when they're so nature oriented. (because the gods say so. They gave humans ranger abilities as a direct way to deal with giants and other wilderness threats. For whatever reason, elven deities aren't so generous, despite the fact that they have ranger abilities themselves. Maybe if you pray enough, they'll change their minds someday. )

Featured creatures: This month, Gary fills out the genie races, so now there's one for every element. Dao, Marids and Jann. How symmetrical of him. These are pretty much as they remain for the next few editions, giving us a wide range of power levels and morals for our genies. You'll still want efreet for the full-on wish granting stuff though. Rather a mixed blessing really, that power.  

From the Sorceror's scroll: Lots of new spells in Gary's other contribution this month. This includes both future staples like alter self and shadow walk, and forgettable stuff like read illusionist magic and phantom wind (fnarr) These are generally pretty solid. As is often the case, he follows up the game material with some general chatter about events. A certain ex-editor of the fiend folio gets snarked at for something he wrote in a rival publication (can someone fill me in on the other side of this, as it is annoyingly vague.). He talks a little more about their move to new premises. And he promises to fill in details on the deities of greyhawk sometime soon. Once again, he's produced a pretty interesting, if not always the most organized set of stuff for our perusal.

Is it really real?: To complement the illusionist spells, we get another nature of illusions essay. Why can illusion spells really hurt if you believe in them, but not heal? How much does repeated exposure make spotting illusions easier. How inaccurate do things created from descriptions look? In some respects more lenient, and in some less than things would later be, this is another article that shows up repeatedly, and is useful in gauging how fashions change over the years. Which is interesting from a statistical and sociological point of view.

I always loved Giants in the Earth. While I understand what you mean by saying the characters are often twinked out, my attitude on it is that most of these characters are truly exceptional. Otherwise, why read about them? True, many of the write-ups did, indeed, go a bit overboard, and are obviously a product of sheer enthusiasm for the subject. But this enthusiasm was infectious. It made me want to read books more closely, which is saying something, since I was already a voracious reader.

Most importantly, though, Giants in the Earth introduced me to a lot of books I might never have read otherwise - the one that leaps to mind is Poul Anderson's "The High Crusade," a very fun book with a memorable premise.

The downside to GitE was it often pointed up just how inadequate D&D was at modeling anything but D&D. Too often exceptions had to be made to make these characters fit. I guess I could use my own reasoning and say these characters were exceptional. However, one does have to wonder why characters from the genre that inspired a game were often so hard to stat up in that game.