Dragon Issue 126: October 1987

part 1/3

108 pages Well well. It looks like they're actually going to have a proper halloween issue this year. They've ignored it more often than not over recent years. But Roger has shown himself rather keener to do themed issues on a regular basis than Kim was. And hopefully he can figure out how to put a fresh spin on this stuff. Once again, I venture into the dark, to examine strange things, turn ancient pages, and illuminate their mysteries.

In this issue:

Star cruiser and ships of the french arm for Traveller 2300. More supplements pile up.

Letters: A letter asking about PbM games, and Dragon's coverage of them. Another thing they used to do more frequently, and has since been phased out. Roger directs the writer towards magazines devoted to the topic. They can handle it in far greater depth than we can.
A letter asking for them do do a column for more general gaming news. They shouldn't just talk about what they're up too all the time. Roger replies that if lots more people ask for it, they'll consider it. Don't get your hopes up too much.
A letter asking them if they plan to cover minis again any time. Roger once again turns things to the whims of the general public. We are but your humble entertainers, dancing as you command. Since they had one when I first started, I'm guessing that this is one request that does pan out pretty soon.
A letter asking when any more zebulon's guides will be out. Never, Roger is afraid to report. Star frontiers is no longer sufficiently profitable to give proper support too.
A request from someone wondering how much his copies of old issues would be worth. There is a book devoted to just such questions. Buy it now!
A letter asking what color various monsters are. Buy the next edition. Most of the illustrations will be in color! Sell sell sell!
And finally, someone wondering how they pick which letters to publish and reply too. Lots of tedious manual work. They don't have some secret supercomputer to pick things out for them. And if they did, they wouldn't tell us about it.

Forum: Robert Kelk is in favour of the idea of a BBs service, but also wary of the cost it would involve. Still, if SJG can do it, the industry leader really ought too as well.
Michael Sawczyn is very much in favor of setting up a system that would enable us to download old articles onto our computer, and gives some solid estimates for the cost of setting it up, and the profit they could hope to get from it. It's less than you'd think, and would be a win for everyone. At least until the pirated copies started getting shared around and outnumbered the legal downloads. Oh, if only they had been that forward thinking. A very good contribution indeed.
Bob Frager engages in some nitpicking about the nature of Akido and other martial arts. Yes, in the real world, martial arts are considerably less separated and rigid than they are as game mechanics. You can't expect them to be as complex as reality.
Len Carpenter comments on the comments to his recent articles with an exceedingly long letter that is virtually an article in itself. Clarifications, additions, and some more of his personal houserules. He's certainly not short of ideas.
Chuck Amburn is in favour of making a D&D video. It might be a bit of a logistical hassle, but it could also bring in plenty of new people. Ahh, how technology has moved on. Now, any computer with a webcam can create something passable in this respect. And it hasn't really helped. So it goes, in a world with a million distractions.
J R Porter talks about Banded mail. Even if it doesn't exist, it ought to be possible to make. Why not try it, SCA people, see how it works?
Jay Kaufman also talks about banded mail, it's history in the game, and real life. The main reason it appears in illustrations is due to lazy artists who couldn't be bothered to draw all the links in chain or ring mail properly. Throw it out. It never existed.
Anthony Speca delivers a third bit of pontification about the possibility and historical accuracy of Banded mail. Yawn.
Toby Myers reminds us that one reason humanoids can be such a problem is their willingness to try stupid things. After all, they breed fast enough that a few losses can be easily replaced, and if enough try a dumb trick on the players, it might well work by luck. They're probably the better idiot that scientists are looking for to test their devices. Sounds like he'd like Warhammer Orkyboyz.
James Allen reminds us to make carrying lots of stuff an inconvenience, just as it is in real life. Even portable holes should have their limitations. If you have too much stuff, you'll never use most of it anyway.
S Eric Pollard has a rather odd complaint. Evil characters have more options than good ones, because they don't have to worry about principles. This makes them more powerful. Hmm. That's what paladins and rangers are here to fix. Remember, that being a good guy has it's social rewards as well. It's not as simple as it first seems.
Charlie Gibbons complains about awarding full XP when PC's use devious means to take out large quantities of enemies with little danger to themselves. This isn't right. Why should they learn more just because they managed to catch twice as many in their AoE attack? Oh woe. Depends how you rationalize XP in your game universe. Unless you define it as actually absorbing the life force of your fallen foes, to boost your power, there's always going to be some fudge involved in the learning process.
Ed Friedlander shows up again, contributing some more to the neverending alignment debate. By providing some fairly broad and simple definitions of what counts as an alignment violation, and making them clear, you can reduce player complaint. Some of his other suggestions are a bit wonky, but I guess a wonky problem needs a wonky solution.

Role-playing Reviews: Griffin island is an updated, revised, expanded version of 1981's Griffin mountain. (see issue 58 for review) A snazzy boxed set, it boasts all kinds of cool little extras like player handouts and maps. While the reviewer isn't very keen on the overall direction the Runequest line has taken in recent years, as one of the holdouts of the original Glorantha setting, and as a work in it's own right, this is pretty cool. An interesting review where we get to see a glimpse of the changes in the hobby outside TSR. Other lines are being taken in fanbase dividing directions as well.
Undead is a Mayfair Games Role Aid for AD&D. So there are still people trying their luck at producing 3rd party stuff, despite the legal hassle involved. Anyway, it details a little kingdom of undead set in a volcanic caldera, ruled by a cabal of liches. Definitely a fun setup for a group of adventurers to come in and solve. It has pretty nice visual design as well. While a bit railroady, it does look like it can provide a fun adventure if you're willing to rip it up a bit.
We also get a load of little reviews. Particularly notable is the review of Who watches the watchmen, DC heroes tie in module. Unfortunately, it's not very good, being tied too closely to the canon plot by licensing crap. Ho hum. So it goes. Tie in's are a dicey business. Often best to not get involved.

Sage advice's questions this month are mostly on out-of game issues, rather than the rules.
Where do I find cardboard figures for my game. (Dragon tiles. Available at all good hobby stores or by mail order :teeth ting:)
I think my player is cheating. What do I do. (pay close attention to how he rolls his dice, and don't let him weasel you. If you catch him out, ensure he is properly punished. )
One of my players wants to have a baby. ( I assume you mean they want their characters to have a baby. We recommend you handle it tastefully offstage. D&D is a family brand, and that means no dwelling on the process used to create a family. )
Is it ok for my paladin to marry a chaotic evil witch (probably not. The magic user bit won't be a problem, but the the other two probably will be, given many paladins are required to be celibate, and none of them can support or shield evil acts. )
What does TSR stand for (it stands for itself. It used to stand for Tactical Studies Rules, but then we went recursive. Blame Donald Kaye dying.)
Will TSR publish my module (not unless we commissioned it in the first place. We have so much stuff going on that we can't be arsed looking at unsolicited material. )
How do I stop my players from arguing. (Make rulings and stick to it. If that fails, kick 'em out. You must ensure your authoritah is respected. Arguing is a sign of disrespect. So strap on your sargeant major boots and get ready to shout. )
How do you fight a black dragon when they're made of acid (Er, no they aren't. You aren't made of air, and you breathe that. )
How long will it take you to reach 9th level. If our playtesting is a good indicator, about a year of weekly playing. )
How do I find modules M1 and 2 (Mail order! It's like the internet, only with way worse response times! )
How do you pronounce the word myrmidon (Chuffly Fanstsandleigh)
When will the next Star Frontiers supplement be out ( Never. Not enough people bought the last ones, so the line is Can-celled. So hnah. Shoulda got more friends to buy the previous ones.)
Will we ever get more details on the Old Ones (maybe. Buy more I series modules if you want us to do that. )
What happened to the D&D cartoon (It got cancelled. Don't look at us. We were never responsible for that pile of crap anyway.)
What happens if my players split the party and then metagame with info their players don't have. (Split them up IRL They can't cheat with info they don't know. )
What does D% mean (roll 2 d10's. One is the 1's and the other is the 10's)
I can't find a new campaign and my characters don't match the level of the solo adventures (Look harder. Or convert random people off the street like an evangelical preacher. You can even compete with them to damn peoples souls. Could be fun.)
How do I find a store that sells D&D stuff. (Look under hobby stores)
What is a sphere of death. (No such thing. A sphere of annihilation is a mini black hole that sucks everything it touches in. THE sphere of death is a metaphysical concept. That's yer lot.)
What does NSA mean (It means you're about to spend 24 hours without rest, making increasingly dubious moral decisions. No 15 minute workday here.)
Where can I find hexsheets  (Mail order again. We get more money if you order direct. Hee.)
What's a murder hole ( Courtney Love. )
My players want to roll their own dice (This is entirely within their rights.)
How do I handle a 12 player team (military organisation. This is where having a caller really comes in handy. )
Can the DM play in their own game (not a good idea. Even if they aren't actually favouring their character, things have the potential to go very wrong)
Why aren't there Star Frontiers conversion rules in the DMG.( Because it was made afterwards. We are not fortune tellers)
How much can you improve your attributes by exercising (Zero. What you roll is what you're stuck with. Unless you're a cavalier. Are you ready to go that far?)
How thick is a 50' rope. (9/16th of an inch)
What do I do when a PC is tortured ( We recommend you don't. Once again, family friendly game and all that. )
How old is D&D (It started officially in 1974, but the proto rules were being played as early as 1970. Know your antecedents.)
What are the stats for Durandal and Excalibur ( Here you go. Enjoy the twinkedness)
How do I make a will ( Good question. Remember. The benificiaries only get what you can bring home. If it's a TPK, they're screwed)  
Which part of the hex do you measure distance from (middle of one to the middle of the next. Most reliable way)

Dragon Issue 126: October 1987

part 2/3

Hearts of darkness: Ahh, vampires. The first thing most people think of when you say undead (and the other third or so will say zombies) They've turned up fairly frequently in D&D, and will continue to do so. Here Tom Moldvay gives us some real world mythological stuff on vampires of various eras and areas, before turning his attention to the most famous vampire of all. Dracula. We then get (typically twinked out) stats for him, plus a few more vampire variants, Vyrokolakas, Baobhan Sith, and Ch'ing Shih. As with the Witch article last year, there is a bit of repetition, but it's been so long, the magazine has changed readerbase enough in the interim,  and the production values have improved enough that this doesn't feel too egregious. You can both use the stuff from the article as is, and develop the ideas referenced further to create your own cool variants on the lifesucking monster theme. Solid, but not too innovative, it'll keep the punters coming in.

Dead on target: So some people aren't finding undead scary enough. How can we make them more so? How about by making their weapons even less effective if they aren't the right type. Skeletons and zombies already have the bashing vs slashing thing. Lets encourage people to need a whole golfbag of weapons of different shapes and materials if they don't want to be ineffective and have a very hard fight on their hands. The kind of thing if you want your game on the gritty end of the scale, and want to encourage players being cautious, paranoid, and carrying ridiculously huge backpacks. Since I'm not currently in a gritty mood, I'm not that enthralled by this. Use with caution, for if applied wrong, it will result in frustrated, bored players.

A touch of evil: Vince Garcia continues to rise as a writer this month, with a whole load of adventure seeds based around the various types of undead. Every AD&D monster gets a look at their origins, and a way to use them, many quite clever. Since many undead look quite similar (and that's not even getting into the whole pseudo-undead rigamarole), you are quite justified in playing with people's expectations. Tactical advice for death knights. Trickery from crypt things. Attacks from behind by mummies. Attacks that only paralyze particular body parts. And all manner of other things that I won't spoil you on, because I plan to use them myself. A tremendously fun article to read, that looks like it'll produce pretty fun results, easily integrated into actual play as well. Easily our strongest article in this section, putting not just one, but lots of new spins on our familiar faces.

The game wizards: Steve Winter takes over from Zeb to give his perspective on the work on second edition. As he's the editor, and the editing is the aspect that they most want to improve over the first edition books, he has a pretty important job. Fortunately, technology has advanced quite a bit since 1979, so they can write it all up on computer, and shift paragraphs around with a simple copy/paste action. However, despite wanting to make an efficient, nicely organized reference work, they are not unaware of the fact that if you make something too slick and glossy, it actually becomes less appealing to many people, and they'll actually sell less. Which puts them in a pretty pickle. Still, it shows a pretty high level of insight for people in their position, and shows that they haven't been taken over by marketing executives making changes just for the hell of it, as happens far too often in the film industry. Very interesting in terms of revealing the though processes of the people behind the update. Hopefully the responses they get in future issues will be just as interesting.

The ecology of the shade: So life sucks, and you feel the inevitable pull of death and decay on all you see, including yourself. You want to escape it, but undeath does not appeal to you, as you will still decay physically, or be forced to slake foul thirsts upon the living, and lose much of your free will. There is another way. A middle path, if you will. Combining light and darkness to produce shadow, and then infuse that shadow into yourself. You will become an immortal shadowy being, able to step into shadows and disappear, venture to and from the plane of shadow virtually at will. And you still keep all your class abilities. The price is that bright light will pain you, and you will become prone to brooding in the shadows, suspicious and misanthropic. Not really a sacrifice for many adventurers, is it? Go, go, mysterious badass brooding loner prana. On the other hand, while they've picked a cool monster, and it has some nicely evocative, understated fiction, this article decides to nerf them by instituting a charisma drain, and prevent them from advancing in levels afterwards, which of course makes them much less appealing for PC's. If I get to use them, I don't think I'll be using those options, thank you very much. I like my transhumanism, and the prospect of my PC's engaging in transformations like this is something I'd like to encourage, not make pointless. So an interesting article, but not one I entirely agree with.

Fiction: Well bottled at slab's by John Gregory Betancourt: Well well. It's the second appearance of our put-upon barkeep in the magazine. (see issue 105 for the first) Uleander may find slab a pain in the ass a lot of the time, but when faced with the prospect of losing him to a vengeful wizard, determined to put him in a bottle, he decides the devil you know is better for business. Another fun S&Sish romp, with mischevious and alien ghosts, an earnest but not too bright wizard's apprentice, dim henchmen, and a nice sense of humour. Definitely a good fit for our halloween issue without being too dark and horrific.

Bazaar of the Bizarre: My, oriental adventires is getting quite a bit of attention in here. Most products, they give it one issue of special focus, and then leave it to sink or swim. People not only like this, but are unusually willing to write in with new stuff for the milieu as well. This is a grab bag of a dozen items, covering most of the big categories. Many of them aren't really that OA specific, but I suppose that just makes them easier to use in your games. While there's no Greenwoodesque strokes of genius here, these items do have some useful tricks, and aren't all combat focussed. Another solid but unexeptional entry I'd have no objection to using stuff from.

A ghastly grimoire: An article for call of cthulhu. Well, this is slightly surprising. Very fitting to the issue's theme as well. Hopefully this marks the beginning of them allowing more articles on third party games in again. This is a collection of 8 spells, some of which are obviously stolen from D&D, but all of them have a delightfully flavourful horrific twist, as befits the game. Feigning death has you caught in a nightmarish dream state for the duration, blur involves some eye hurting geometry, and stinking cloud gets a suitably graphic makeover. We also get the clever idea of allowing investigators to face an ediolon of an elder creature, rather than the full thing. With Avatars and Aspects of gods becoming common in later editions of D&D, I'm not sure where the idea came from originally, but it's interesting to see it show up here. So this isn't just a token non TSR article, it's actually pretty decent. Let that be an encouragement to other writers. They can't publish it unless you try.

Dragon Issue 126: October 1987

part 3/3

The dragon's bestiary gives us a load of gamma world monsters. Now that's mixing it up. Once again, they are not up to date, as these are 2nd ed stats, despite 3rd ed being well out by now. Doesn't seem very promising.
Buzzbirds are intelligent mutant hummingbirds. They have sonic blasts and bursts of light to defend themselves, which seems sensible enough given the environment. Try and befriend trhem, as one would make an excellent scout for a party.
Dagmits are another of your basic goblin-esque tribal marauding humanoids.  These one's gimmick is that they have permanent density increase on them, making them a lot heavier and tougher than their size would indicate. This can probably be exploited.
Giggle bugs look so utterly ridiculous that it's nearly impossible to look at one without laughing. This is actually a pretty effective defense mechanism. They're pretty inoffensive, but laughing yourself to death is no laughing matter. As usual, Gamma world has the goofy going on in spades.
Molnangs are giant snails that instead of just sliming, leave a track of dead earth wherever they go, messing the ecosystem right up. If you see one, steer well clear, because they also shoot lasers from their eyestalks. Seems a very mad wizard thing to create.
Reptoads are another attack of the pun names. Thankfully, the rep in their name refers to repulsion, not replication. They're grumpy bastards as well, enjoying trapping things in forcefields and watching them slowly starve to death. Get a sleeth to hunt them down.
Stuhumphagas are giant telepathic tortoises. They're nice guys, and will transport you through radioactive wastelands safely inside their shell. A bit goofy, but certainly a welcome relief after facing all the other creatures in this feature. Very much business as usual around here, even though it probably shouldn't be. Come on, you need to move with the times, or everyone'll lose interest.

There are ways of making you talk: Top Secret's article this month is all about the various social skills in the game. What they do, the best time to use them, and suggested modifiers based on situational matters. You do of course need to use your GM discretion, as there's always going to be other things they haven't though of, plus people will react differently based on their own personality, and who else is around. While generally in favour of better defined social mechanics, I did find this article somewhat dull. It's one of those cases where I've seen this kind of advice given before, in considerably greater depth than a 3 page article can do, and it being for a system I don't have doesn't particularly help. Bit of a filler article really.

The marvel-phile is also getting in on the creepy shenanigans, with stats for Dracula in FASERIP. For all the mythology that vampires can only come in if invited, he sure gets into a lot of other ongoing series. He's currently dead, but even if this wasn't the Marvel universe, we know that would be a precarious state. I think we can be pretty damn certain he'll be back. On the other hand he might have a few new powers, and/or be missing some of the old ones. It all depends on the needs of the plot. After all, it can be a little tricky writing challenges for someone who can shapechange, control minds, manipulate the weather, and has all round superhuman abilities. Maybe you should use a lesser vampire for your plot instead.  A bit of editorial sloppiness aside, this is both an enjoyable and appropriate entry. It's usually interesting to see how different groups treat established bits of mythology when they incorporate them into their world, and of course, playing in other people's sandboxes is one of Jeff's talents, so it's no surprise this one turned out well.

A marvel monster-phile: A second Marvel article in quick succession sticks with the theme, by delivering the stats for Frankenstein's monster, who is played pretty much straight from the book. The living mummy, who puts an interesting spin on this myth, just as Michael Morbus does on the vampire one, and Jack Russell ( :rolleyes: ) a Werewolf who has some measure of control over his shapeshifting, and like the Hulk, can be a nice guy, or a problem as the plot demands. A perfectly decent way to fill in a few more pages, and respond to the game's general popularity. And this brings the number of themed articles up to 8, making this a good deal more focussed than any of their previous horror issues. Now let's hope roger can put a different spin on the theme next year, ghosts instead of vampires, or something.

The Star Wars RPG by west end games gets a full colour four page spread. My oh my. That'll grab the interest of a lot of people.

The role of computers goes monthly. They've proved their popularity quite well over the past year, and now it's time to step their game up in response. This is interesting to hear. They decide to switch things up a bit this month. Instead of reviewing games, they give us an overview of the current situation in the computer industry. How it works, (games companies and publishing companies are normally separate entities, kinda like bands and record labels. ) The margin of sales at which a game starts to break even (around 15 to 20 thousand units, oh how things have changed) The big companies out there. (Still apple, Amiga, Commodore, almost Atari, but Microsoft are just starting their inexorable rise to supremacy. ) The problems of piracy bedeviling the computer industry. And a little excerpt from an interview with a game designer about the current limitations on computer based RPG's. We also get a look back over their earlier reviews, tabulating the stuff so far, so you can see what they rated top and bottom. One of our historical perspective articles, as we get to see another snapshot of the wider world. And it is indeed very different in many ways, a lot less centralized, with programmers having considerably more freedom, and more competition between companies. It'll be interesting to see how it changes over the next few years, and the magazine's perspective on computer gaming changes with it. This definitely adds a good bit of variety to my reading.

Snarfquest screws the pooch and pays for it in kind. Not very nice at all. Dragonmirth needs to consume a little less, in more ways than one.

 Wormy celebrates his 101st issue (it was going to be the hundredth, but they were late) with a rather tricky hexagonal crossword puzzle. Even if you have all the back issues, this'll take quite a bit of work to solve. In the actual comic, the trolls challenge wormy to an all-or nothing wargame. That's certainly upping the stakes quite a bit.

Another mediocre issue, I'm afraid. Some good articles, but also quite a few dull ones. At least they're still having plenty of variety in the topics covered, which means that most people'll be able to find at least one to their taste in each issue. Still, by now it seems that their decision to "lighten up, go with the flow a bit more, stop sweating the small stuff" has definitely resulted in the average quality of articles going down a bit in the long term. Hopefully they're reconsidering this. Let's hope we don't go too much further down before the rollercoaster heads back up again.

Dragon Issue 127: November 1987

part 1/3

108 pages. Oh dear oh dear. We get another look at their sales figures this month. And it does not make pretty viewing. An average of 85,000, which is down a good 15% from last year. That is quite the slide. From the looks of things, most of the slide happened early in the year, during the crisis of leadership. Guess that had more impact on the distributer confidence than it did on the actual contents, which IMO really went downhill a bit later. Or maybe that's just human variations, who can say. In any case, they definitely need to get cracking on designing a new edition. After all, they've got to boost their cash flow somehow, and if they don't have so many players, that means they have to milk the existing ones harder. Anyway, back to this issue. Finally, it's fighters turn to get a themed one devoted to them. About time. Everyone else is way ahead on the cool toys stake. Let's hope none of them are nerfs.

In this issue:

Letters: Another letter from someone worried about the new campaign worlds displacing the older ones, and the compatibility of modules from one to another. Roger tries to be comforting, but is unable to disguise that the facts will not be palatable to everyone.
Another letter about releasing compilations from the magazine, possibly of magical items, monsters, or something similar. As ever, they're always considering ways of making a little more money from their existing material.
Another letter about setting up a BBs, and how this would be a good thing for them. Look, just get on with it, will you. Stop faffing around saying maybe. The rewards are more than worth the outlay needed to set it up.

This month's editorial is also of note, given the number of times I've seen it referenced. Tuckers kobolds is of course about how you can make the little guys really scary by proper use of equipment and tactics. An idea we've seen before (see issue 60 ) this time it's taken more seriously. In one of the games in Roger's army days, the eponymous Tucker managed to make his kobolds so scarily effective that the group dreaded leaving the dungeon again even more than they did tackling the class VI demons on level 10, because of course they'd have to go back through them again. If you can emulate his example, you are a sadistic DM indeed. And remember, you can apply clever tactics to slightly more powerful creatures (I've found kenku work really well for this) and then the players really have to step up their game in response or die horribly. An important lesson to learn, presented in an amusing fashion. Don't hesitate to heed it.

Forum: Tim McNally replies to SD Anderson's writings on XP with his own house rules for how and when you should be rewarded for getting treasure. Seems fairly reasonable.  
Ed Friedlander continues to establish himself as one of our most prolific forumites, with a mini article on familiars. They can be both helpful and a liability to their masters. Here's how to accentuate the positives, and minimize the negatives. Also, we really ought to have rules for falling damage that vary according to creature size. (my own personal fix on this is to use the weapon size damage tables, and move up or down one column per size category change.
Tim Jensen suggests that there needs to be two neutral alignments, one which actively tries to preserve the balance, and one that doesn't give a shit about all that crap and just does what's convenient. Interesting thought. It might just work.
Peter Phillips pontificates about oriental naming conventions. Yawnaroo.

Role-playing reviews seems to be in a godly mood this month:
D&D Immortals set gets a surprisingly negative review. Even someone inside the company just can't figure out what you actually do with this curates egg of a system.  It completely ignores one of the most important factors of deities, how they relate to their worshippers, and things like beliefs, rituals and heirachy. What do you do with these powers? How do you make the leap from human to god and keep the players interested. How do you integrate them into the world and multiverse. How do you run fun adventures for them. It's all a bit of a mystery, and is badly in need of some good supplements to sort this out. How very disappointing, and also indicative of TSR's current tendency to tread over-carefully around the subject of real faith.
Gods of harn, on the other hand, takes a relatively bottom up approach, detailing 10 gods, the myths surrounding them, and the churches that worship them. It remains vague about whether the gods are really real, but this doesn't matter, because it does have plenty of concrete setting details for PC's to interact with such as doctrine, sacred locations, history, saints, and even basics like what they wear. As this is Harn, the interrelationships between the 10 religions is also handled with plenty of detail. Ken considers it a success both as a sourcebook, as reading material, and a source of ideas to mine for other games.  
Gods of glorantha becomes another casualty of Ken's preference for the older runequest material over the new. While not bad by any stretch of the imagination, it doesn't hold up to the likes of Gods of Prax, sacrificing depth of detail for a wider overview of lots of faiths. Still, the old stuff isn't in print any more, and this does manage to have a strong combination of coherence, and preservation of the contradictions in the various religions. Just don't consider it a must buy.
Lords of middle-earth volume I covers the Valar, lots of maiar, and other high power, legendary figures such as Feanor and Tom Bombadil. This includes stats for them, which are of course disgustingly high. Thankfully it also gives advice on how to handle high level campaigns in the system. rationalizations for why these guys generally don't use their full power, and plenty of other stuff to keep them useful in actual play. If you like to roll like that, of course, which may not be easy if you're started off from 1st level.

Sage advice is focussing on the BATTLESYSTEM this month.
 What benefits do infra and ultravision have on the battlefield. (They let you see in the dark. This will negate penalties and put enemies that don't have it at a disadvantage. )
What angles can a unit cross a wall at ( Any, as long as they pay the extra movement costs )
How do you determine if a unit is at the edge of the woods ( If it's part in, part out, it's on the edge. Even the pope should be able to understand that.)
When can enemy archers shoot at a hero (Whenever they're not hiding inside a unit like a nancy boy, or in the thick of battle, so you can't shoot at them without hitting your mates.)
What does detect invisibility do in battlesystem (if you say they're trying to detect invisible units in the right place, they do. )
When do heroes check morale (NEVER! They are real men! Real men do not change their actions based on the vagaries of dice rolls. (What about spells?) Shut up, you. )
Is there a movement cost for being forced into open order (no)
Where do routing units go if their avenue of escape is blocked ( Wherever looks clear. Set a trap, kill 'em all)
What happens when a wraparound unit routs. ( Boomerang shape! Whoo whoo  whoo!)
Is there any way to stop a routing unit without rallying it (Surround them. Or kill them all and raise them as zombies. Zombies don't rout. Sweeet sweeeet zombies.)  
Do routing units have to pay for their heel-turn (no)
Can any hero attempt to rally a passing unit. (only one per phase. Otherwise it's just everyone talking at once.)
Can you double or half wheel (if you pay the price. )
Can spells be disrupted (only by missile fire in the right phase. )
Do you suffer penalties for moving along the top of an obstacle (use your common sense. Walls are cool, thorny bushes pierce your balls. )
Can you cast spells from horseback (Only if they stay still. Jolting around is rather distracting.)
What happens when you kill more units than are in contact with the enemy (erase stuff backwards. War is hell. )
How much damage does insect plague do (None. It's just a terrorist tactic)  
How does insect plague affect individual units. (if it's not a unit, it does regular damage.)
How do one inch wide counters defend a wall (They'll have to choose a very small wall to defend. )
What is THAC0 (Ahh, A D&D person who's never checked out AD&D. You might want to do so.)
What happens when a unit force marching meets an enemy unit. (they can't. They have to stop when they realise they would run into them. It's like chess. You never actually take the king, only checkmate it. )
What stats does a tree animated by changestaff have (same as in the regular game. Big smashy tree)
How many hits does it take to kill a thing with two wounds (Two. You can count to two, can't you? )
The text and image on page 11 don't match (correct. )
Can you wraparound if you don't have initiative (you snooze you lose)
When is a melee round finished (when each side has acted once)
How do you put a PC in a unit (Average the stats. Doing this mid play is not recommended )
Do woods affect melee ( Does a falling tree make no sound if it knocks the pope unconscious so he can't hear anything? )
Do woods affect missile fire (does a bear shit on the pope? )
What does no premeasurement mean? ( Battle is chaotic. You need to make tactics based on eyeballing. If you get it wrong, there's no takebackseys.)
Why can't you just turn around when an enemy attacks your rear (mass surprise buttsecks is harder to counter than individual surprise buttsecks )
Do heroes have to pay to turn around (no!)
Does fireball get larger outside (no, but the range increases. D&D is not consistent or unified)
How much is psionics worth (You work it out yo'self. Skip is not a miracle worker. Skip has to take care of his own bad self first, mofo. )
How far can an elf see in the woods (As far as the pope says he can.)
When can a dragon breathe ( Quite often. When the choice is them dying, or you,  most of them will choose to kill you. )
Can dragons split fire (no. Archers can though.)
How do draconian deaths work in mass combat. (Not that well, apart from Kapak and Aurak. Otherwise Takhisis wouldn't lose so often. Evil is dumb. )

Dragon Issue 127: November 1987

part 2/3

Lords & Legends: If there's one area fighters have better than other classes, it's the number of legendary characters from myth you have to draw inspiration from. It's no great surprise that this kicks off our themed section, with a bunch of characters who would also have fit in just fine in issue 125. Siegfried from the Ring cycle. Yvain from Arthurian myth. Roland and Bradamante from the tales of Charlemagne. They're relatively light on the stuff that normal players can't get, and of course, in the case of the paladins, actually hold back on their more supernatural elements because of course, they couldn't do that in the original myths. Less objectionable than most of these, I still can't actually say I enjoyed this. I think we can be pretty certain by now that obscenely statted NPC's just aren't my bag.

No quarter: Looks like their writers are thinking in the same vein as me. Spell casters have got tons of cool new stuff over the years. Fighters, not so much. How can we fix that without just giving them a ton of no strings power-ups? How about giving them a load of combat maneuvers, and then giving them the ability to select a limited number? That allows you to mechanically differentiate your fighter characters a lot more as well. A rather forward thinking article, and another trick that they really could have adopted a lot sooner, instead of taking 20 years for it to become standard. And the actual powers detailed feel a good deal more naturalistic than the stuff in Bo9S and 4e as well. I very much approve, and would have no objection to incorporating this system into my game. Definitely one both useful in it's own right, and citing in the historical perspective fights. Woo. Let's let our fighters do some more rocking.

Bazaar of the Bizarre: Another bumper pack of magic items from many contributors this month. 18 magical bows, for those fighters who prefer to pick off their enemies at range, and with style. Do you want raw power. Do you want a blatant rip-off of the bow from the D&D cartoon. Do you want accuracy. Do you want range. Do you want rate of fire. Do you want elemental effects added on to your shots. Do you want to be able to attack underwater or from high in the air. Such a difficult choice. Better pray you're lucky, or has a DM who lets you choose your treasure, because you could also end up with the one that automatically misses and alerts the enemies to your position. So yeah, this is exactly the kind of articles that makes players go "Sweeeeeeeet. Can I have one?" And in my current mood, I would be pretty likely to say yes. Knock yourselves out. They seem to be hitting some good runs this time round.

Two hands are better than one: Ahh, hands. A vital part of the creation of human civilization. But you can only do so much, when you only have two of them. Here's a little reminder of that fact, that goes over the various weapons in the game, and exactly how many limbs you need to devote to operating them. Not a hugely interesting subject, and one you can mostly figure out using common sense. But there are many people who would prefer not to wing it, and for them, there is this article. Very much a filler article. Whether it's filler that will nourish your game and keep it healthy, or just make it bloated and sluggish is a matter of personal taste.

In defense of the shield: Another short article giving you a few more options for a part of your equipment usually abstracted away. While shields are often treated as just another part of your armour, there is actually quite a bit of skill involved in using them to deflect the greatest number of attacks. Do you want to sacrifice some of your number of weapons known to become a better shield user instead? Seems perfectly reasonable, as they make sure that getting the full benefit from the really big shields takes quite a bit of expenditure, keeping you from tanking obscenely at first level. But like weapon specialization, as long as the DM is generous in terms of granting magical equipment of the type specialized in, and not making you fight you in precarious positions where you really need a hand free too often a shield, this could become unbalancing. Remember, balancing factors are not unless you apply them properly. This is important, dammnit. Any system breaks if you use it out of context.

Fighting for keeps: Unsurprisingly for a fighter special, they decide to show the Battlesystem some more love. When you get to name level, you get the right to build a stronghold and go into the land management business. But what happens if all the nearby land is occupied, and the current owners have no desire to let you into their power structure, even as a subordinate? You'll have to either fight them and take it, or go out into the unclaimed wilderness, and pacify that enough that you can build a settlement there. Either way involves lots of violence, and more than a little social machination as you raise an army to fight for you. Rich ground for adventures. And here's a sample one for you, plus plenty of general advice on how to handle this kind of scenario. As ever, the more followers you have the more support they require, and the more costly additional specialists you need to have as part of your supply train. (don't forget the harlots) Sounds like fun to me. And we get such lovely opponents as Baron Demento and The Black Knight to conquer. So this article manages to avoid falling into the trap of dryness that these sometimes suffer. and gives us lots of helpful stuff to back up it's ideas. Another pretty sweeeeet article.

Heat of the fight: More tactics to differentiate one battle your weapon wielding characters face from another. While earlier we had selections of individual abilities, here we have a grab bag of mostly group based stuff such as ambushes, battle standards, and psyching your army up into one of three types of stat enhancing states. Overall, this is stuff that is probably more useful to the DM than players, as they rarely get the chance to plan ahead, hire help, and control the conditions of the fight like this. While hardly paradigm shattering, or particularly unified in terms of design, this is still useful, so I'll put it on the upper end of filler.

A menagerie of martial arts: Oriental adventures once again gets a new add-on, in the form of 20 new martial arts. That's way more than any one person could learn, let alone master. 12 animal styles, which are fairly common, because humans are a bunch of copycats, and animals turn up everywhere and seem to be fairly effective. And 8 specialist styles, which are somewhat harder to find teachers for. It doesn't actually introduce any new maneuvers though, so it feels a bit like running through the motions, squeezing every permutation out of the existing rules. Another bit of filler to make sure this issue really gives you your money's worth on the topic (because chances are, you aren't seeing any more fighter focussed stuff for a year or two. )

The ecology of the yeti: Hmm. Now this is a monster that might still be out there, in reality. A very suitable subject for an ecology. Course, as with neanderthals, D&D has to take a perfectly reasonable concept and put it's own weird touches in, like a metabolism that actually absorbs heat, hypnotic eyes, and the usual tendency towards unreasonable bloodthirstiness that distinguishes monsters from real animals and ensures adventurers get get to enjoy regular stand-up fights.  Another ecology that lives and dies on the quality of it's banter this month, as a pair of settled down adventurers meet up again to deal with a threat to their new home, and find that the other still retains the same irritating traits. Can they figure out a way to exploit the yeti's weaknesses and kick it's ass? Hopefully, and in the process they give quite a few ideas that are good for players as well as DM's. Another fairly solid ecology, both in the fiction and footnotes sections. It fleshes out the creature nicely, giving you plenty of hooks to play with. Nice to see this part of the magazine is still chugging along smoothly.

It's the no sase ogre. Now that's a face that triggers the nostalgia. An amusing way of saying we expect you to incur all the expenses when submitting stuff, so there. Thank god for the internet, making that crap redundant. Course, in many cases your applications for things are still likely to be met with a resounding silence, but such is life.

DC heroes is still putting daily planet newsletters in the magazine. Nice of them to come up with a new one for each month.

Dragon Issue 127: November 1987

part 3/3

Arcane Lore: Despite it being a fighter special, wizards continue to get their now regular dose of additional options. Well, actually it's illusionist's turn this time, which is mildly pleasing. Arthur Collins gives us 9 new tricks to mess around with people's  perceptions. Making them see things in black and white, massively exaggerating echoes, masking the smell and taste of something, temporarily blocking their memory of memorized spells, this is a strongly focussed, and quite amusing set of tricks that could really mess up someone's day, or be used by inventive adventurers to provide benefits for themselves by selectively negating senses. Since this is the kind of stuff that encourages intelligent use of your powers, I definitely approve. Illusionists can be a fun class to play. Take advantage of that, because it's not long before they get rolled into wizards, and lose a big chunk of their uniqueness.

The dragon's bestiary is very much not in theme this month, choosing, for no obvious reasons, to give us two new oozes. Xador's Fluid oozes over your skin, and then hardens, turning you into a living statue which then suffocates, putting you in a good position to be digested. Delightful, eh? If you capture small amounts of it, you can apply it to only parts of your skin, making it useful as armour. Bloodsucking armour that is decidedly detrimental to your health in the long run. I'm sure that in the hands of inventive players, it has many other uses, possibly gross. I strongly approve, as I do of anything which encourages you to apply your own evil imagination.
Quagmires are somewhat less interesting, basically being your basic ambush predator that pretends to be a patch of swampy water, and then grabs you with a pseudopod if you get too close. Another gloopy death awaits you if not rescued. Giggety giggety, the joys of the old school.

The role of books: The paradise tree by Diana L Paxton mixes drug research, occultism, and some general sci-fi trappings, and then weaves them into a dreamlike book that holds the reviewers interest while reading, but slips away afterwards, and is tricky to analyze. This is a bit of a pain in the ass for a critic, but does not mean it's actually a bad book.
Sea of death by Gary Gygax is of course a Gord book. It does read very much like an actual campaign turned into a book, with authorial dice-rolling clearly detectable in many of the fight scenes. As a fast paced potboiler, and a guide to crafting good D&D adventures, it's useful, but it doesn't really succeed as a novel.  
Dark walker on moonshae by Douglas Niles is another AD&D based book, but is much more plot-driven and setting building. While the reviewer isn't too keen on the narrative style, calling it a bit too eager to please, and over analyze itself, it's probably better as a novel. Still both demonstrate how differently you can interpret the D&D game. Other official novels should vary just as widely.
Issac asimov's robot city by Michael Kube-McDowell shows the venerable author opening up his robot universe for other writers to play in, just as Larry Niven was around this time with the Man-Kzin war series. This doesn't work too badly, with the writer managing a decent pastiche of Asimov's writing style, but losing focus and integration the more they introduce their own elements. The reviewer has their doubts about it's ability to sustain a 6 book series.
Dragonharper by Jody Lynn Nye is a strange fish. A multiple choice adventure book, set in Anne McCaffrey's world of Pern, more attention has been paid to the plotline and social conflicts than is usual in these kinds of books. It isn't that challenging as a gamebook, and you don't have that much ability to really change the overall outcome, but it's still interesting to explore the world, and see cameos from existing characters. This kind of licensing definitely has potential, especially if the authors themselves decide to experiment with this medium of storytelling.
The luck of Relian Kru by Paula Volsky displays a warped imagination befitting the most sadistic of DM's. Ingenious characters, strange plot twists, quirky magic, the author is having a good deal of fun writing this, and the reviewer enjoyed it as well, despite it not being the most highbrow of works. A bit of fun is much more interesting than another pretentious meandering pontification on the meaning of life and the tragedy of the human condition.
The romulan way by Diane Duane and Peter Morwood is of course a star trek novel. Starring Dr McCoy, he leaves behind Kirk and Spock to get himself in, and then out of some serious trouble on Romulus. It features big chunks of worldbuilding alternating with the plot, which slows things down a bit, but would be very useful for anyone planning to play in the trek universe. An interesting literary experiment.
The pig, the prince and the unicorn by Karen A Brush seems a typical save the world adventure, only the person destined to save it from the invasions of chaos happens to be a pig. An otherwise fairly normal pig, who has to figure out how to deal with the usual quests, chases, and, erm, romantic subplots without any hands. Drawing parallels to the narnia books, it gets a fairly positive review.  

The role of computers: Maniac Mansion. Hee. I remember this. One of the more eccentric and in depth old adventure games gets mentioned here. However, the primary focus, once again, is not on the reviews, but this time on the licensing out of the AD&D brand to SSI, so they can create computer games based upon it. This is a complicated business, as you have to fit most of the rules from three books into a game disk, and adapt them to work in computer language (with the usual restrictions on your imagination. ) They are working closely with TSR to ensure the storyline is fully integrated with the forgotten realms, many of the 2nd ed rules are incorporated into the game, and you get to customize things quite a bit. This is very interesting stuff, once again revealing their attitude to multimedia products, and some cool tidbits about how programming worked in that era, but it does feel a little like they've been hijacked into doing a shill piece. Two issues in a row without full size reviews. They'd better get back to that next month.

Megatraveller! the updated game of battle in the shattered Imperium after 11,000 years of peace. Contrasts rather with the tone of fresh space exploration in Traveller 2300. I smell an edition war in the brewing, especially as this advertises itself as the First True Updated Edition. Way to split the fanbase dude.

The marvel-phile: The everlovin' blue eyed thing gets looked at this month, as Jeff ponders what could have been, if things had only turned out a little different for him. After all, he's actually a pretty smart guy. It's just that he hangs around people even smarter than him, and seems to have got out of the habit of using his head. What would happen if he fell out with the other FF, went back to the streets of new york, and started working his way up the underworld. What if he'd worked for tony stark instead of Reed Richards? Jeff may have struggled long and hard with this entry, but he's come up with some pretty cool ideas. Taking existing things and mixing them around a bit can be very effective, as it allows you to both get a quick emotional connection, and keep people guessing. It's the impetus behind a million reboots and alternate universe stories. And although it has been used badly quite a few times, hasn't everything? Another entertaining and thought-provoking delivery from Jeff.

Cyborg commando. Such a wonderful phrase. Gary Gygax's Cyborg Commando? Hmm. Okay then. Welcome to the new infinities of gaming. Where people have very hairy forearms. Dear oh dear. What are we to make of this?

The fury of dracula, a boardgame from games workshop for 2-4 players. This should have been in last issue. Delays lose sales people. Chop chop.

Dragonmirth actually uses a pun I haven't thought up before. Snarf fights, and people get hit on the head. Wormy proves once again that he's the brains around here, and the ogres are very much not.

A pretty good issue, overall. While there is some filler, there's also been an above average quotient of seriously kickass articles, going quite a way to redress the warrior/spellcaster balance. Definitely another one to bookmark and use stuff from for the campaign. Plus the reviews and adverts are also of above average quality and interest as well. They do seem to be scaling down the non D&D stuff even further, though. Is it that time already? Or will it do some more rising and falling before fading away for good. Similarly, just how dramatic will the sales fluctuations be before they go into freefall a decade from now? Plenty more gems, but also plenty more rocky territory to cover. So I've gotta keep on fighting.

2300 was always meant to be a parallel line to Traveller; after much fan-grousing, they changed the 2300 line name to distance it from traveller.

Further, 2300 was always overshadowed by the Kafer War; it was never really an exploration kind of game from the in print materials.

Quote from: aramis;3451732300 was always meant to be a parallel line to Traveller; after much fan-grousing, they changed the 2300 line name to distance it from traveller.

Further, 2300 was always overshadowed by the Kafer War; it was never really an exploration kind of game from the in print materials.

It's interesting you have that opinion, because it contrasts quite a bit with mine. I love the 2300 universe, mostly because it seems so ripe for exploratory campaigning. Certainly it doesn't have the sheer breadth of the Imperium of Traveller, but it has a lot of mysteries to be found and worked on. Some of that has to do with the Kafer war - SPOILER AHEAD - the sapient alien race that has been fighting a losing battle with the kafers, and which could provide the key to humanity turning the tide, is a good example - SPOILER DONE.

In addition, I think the material was more bound to longer campaigns on individual planets than in the original Traveller, but which involved quite a bit of exploration on those planets. A great example, and one of my favorite adventure sourcebooks for any scifi RPG, is Ranger.

I'm not arguing, really. I just found your comment and point to be interesting, as I'd always seen the Kafer War as a lot less pervasive, and exploration much more integral to 2300.

Quote from: ColonelHardisson;345179It's interesting you have that opinion, because it contrasts quite a bit with mine. I love the 2300 universe, mostly because it seems so ripe for exploratory campaigning.

Problem is that they never supported that end of play...

Dragon Magazine Issue 128: December 1987

part 1/3

110 pages. Notice the name change? It may be small, but it's still very much there. Another step towards the magazine being the way I remember it. Curiously, after a year filled with them, they've decided not to have a particular theme for christmas. Hopefully that means they're only giving us the best they have in their reserves, whatever that may be, instead of putting in several filler articles to make up the numbers, but you never can tell. In any case, it definitely looks like we're getting another board game, which is interesting. Lets see if they can make this fun, despite it being just another year at the office for the writers.

In this issue:

Letters: Two more letters from people still fiddling around with Dragonchess. One has been trying to program it on the computer, while the other has been busy assembling the best minis for representing it.
Two letters on Clay-O-Rama. Despite it being an obvious joke game, they still have rules questions. Sometimes I dispair of you people.
A letter asking for more frequent board games. Quite a reasonable request, really. You may be in luck.

Cthulhu wishes all you puny mortals a merry christmas! Be happy, for tomorrow I may decide to eat you all. Rather missing the point there, methinks. When have cosmic entities cared about human naming conventions?

Forum: David Rudge talks about the mystic college rules from issue 123. Drawing from his own experience as a postgraduate, he picks holes in the amount of time you would reasonably expect faculty members to devote to teaching and their own researches. After all, wizards are an iconoclastic bunch, and if the terms of work aren't convenient for them, they are quite capable of going elsewhere.
David Carl Argall returns. He's also in favor of mystic colleges in principle, but picking holes in issue 123's article. In his case, this is on the grounds of economics.   As written, it's near impossible to make a profit on running one. Given that real life schools often charge students (or their parents) obscene fees, and make up the rest from government subsidy, this seems pretty realistic to me. Most teachers do it because they want too, (or as the saying goes, because they can't do) not for the money. If you want to make a profit, you've should sell spells for commercial ends, using the apprentices to handle all the low level stuff, and only teaching them what they need to know.
Timothy J Cunningham thinks that the magazine shouldn't publish multiple different conflicting sets of new rules. It makes a mess out of the game, and no-one knows which ones to use.
Steve Shrewchuk points out a whole bunch of tricks even a low level magic-user can pull to make themselves highly effective. If they're multi-classed, as most elf and half elf ones will be, they can be even scarier, combing cantrips and mundane tricks to great aplomb. That's what high intelligence should involve, and that's how you get them to survive to higher levels.
K.B. LaBaw also thinks that the unsurvivability of magic-users at low level has been greatly exaggerated. This is why adventurers adventure in teams. A group of people with varied skills can accomplish what one on their own cannot. You should try and figure out why the designer made the rules the way they are, and what playstyle they intended to encourage with them, before simply saying they're crap and changing them.

Welcome to waterdeep: Ed delivers some Forgotten Realms goodies to kick off the issue with. Waterdeep is going to be one of the most important and well documented locations in the world. As usual, Ed has written far more than can fit in a reasonably sized sourcebook, but it's still kickass stuff they want to get out there, so the magazine gets the bonus material. A map detailing the region over a hundred miles in each direction, and 14 locations of note that your adventurers might want to visit. Quite a few of them are obvious adventure locations for the DM to use to challenge players with, which is definitely a good thing. Others are friendly, but still have plot hooks and distinctive flavours added which make them interesting places to visit. This is another volley of classic Ed material, full of ideas that could be extracted fairly easily and placed into your own campaign, but which tie together to create a greater whole in his. I could praise his skills all day, but I don't want to turn this into a sickly love-fest, so I won't. Lets just say it richly deserves it's place as our pole position christmas present and leave it at that.

A nightmare on elm street game. Man, the number of board games has been increasing recently. Either more general toy companies know about D&D and are putting adverts in here, or their standards have dropped. Worth noting, in any case.

Matters of mystery: It's a book review, but not as we know it jim. Role-playing mastery by Gary Gygax (at least the magazine isn't trying to whitewash him out of history) gets special attention. However, as with the Gord novel last month, that attention is not particularly favourable. Particular criticism is given to the poor organization, unclear writing objectives and schizophrenic design, at some points aimed at new people, at others expecting you to already have a decent grounding in what he's talking about at the time. It also falls heavily into one-true-wayism, advocating the idea that gaming can only be truly appreciated by few elite masters of the artform (which of course includes him and his inner circle) Overall, it seems more likely to drive people away than bring them into the hobby. As with Gary's farewell message in issue 122, I'm not sure how much of this is the reviewer's real opinion, and how much editorial interference has taken place. But given things like the 1E DMG, the nature of the criticisms seem entirely plausible. Which makes them more likely to stick and be taken seriously, unfortunately. In any case, this is some very definite bad-mouthing. They don't want New Infinities to succeed and become a viable competitor. As ever, it'll be interesting seeing just how much of this stuff shows up over the next decade, until the company collapses, and he is welcomed back into the fold.

To believe or not to believe: Ahh, here's a subject they've complained about in the forum recently. Adjudicating illusions is a pain in the ass. It's no surprise someone'd send in a article on it. If anything, the surprise is that they don't have multiple. Guess they're already reconsidering last year's idea of deliberately presenting multiple conflicting options so you can choose, if the forum is anything to go by.
Anyway, specifics. Looks like it's time for a new exception based subsystem. Not my favourite thing, but if done well, they can be better than applying the same rule formulae to everything. The writer takes a fairly simple approach, cross referencing the caster's level and the victims wisdom, adding a few other basic modifiers, and then rolling a % die (which since all the modifiers are in increments of 5, would work just as well as a d20 roll) This shows a definite FASERIP influence, and seems easy enough to use. On the other hand, it completely leaves out that can of worms of figuring out when you're supposed to try and disbelieve, and how much of the onus should be on the players to figure this out from the DM's descriptions. So it falls into the servicable, but unexceptional box. Probably not one I'll bother to use.

Quote from: aramis;345259Problem is that they never supported that end of play...

It's tricky to support constant expansion to new lands. Even the forgotten realms only managed it for a few years before giving up on maztica, kara tur and all the rest and just going round the same lands again. You either have to be constantly moving on, or the places become settled and no longer mysterious and challenging. Perhaps the easiest way to handle it would be a good, partially randomised planet generation system, quite possibly using design elements from the career system.

Quote from: aramis;345259Problem is that they never supported that end of play...

I think they did with the various adventures and sourcebooks. Ranger, for example, presented a planet and alien culture that bore in-depth investigation and exploration, as well as an interstellar mystery tied to both. The Kafer sourcebook provided a number of planets for exploration, as well as a couple of alien cultures and another mystery that spanned the stars. The atlas that was published also was a sourcebook of planets to explore.

Dragon Magazine Issue 128: December 1987

part 2/3

Role-playing reviews: Empire of the petal throne gets the spotlight on it this month. God, we haven't seen anything on this in years. As Ken points out in the introduction, too much originality is actually a bad thing from a commercial point of view. You need a decent number of familiar reference points to orient from, otherwise you don't have the context to take new things in and really understand them. And Tekumel certainly has unfamiliar elements in spades, even after being around over a decade, and 3 different editions. Mechanically, it may be just a fairly close relation of D&D, but the setting is a tremendously idiosyncratic one, with most of it's derivations from mayan & aztec culture rather than the more common medieval or oriental ones. For a third time in a row, Ken examines the current edition in contrast with previous editions, and finds it wanting in some respects. I suspect he may be feeling the pull of grognardia, as this is becoming a definite pattern. Still, better a new edition than a cool game like this goes out of print and can't be played by new people anymore. Hopefully this turned a few of the magazine's newer readers onto the game back in the day.
Skyrealms of Jorune is another highly distinctive game that takes rather a lot of buy-in to really capture properly. This is another case where Ken is torn between loving many of the ideas, and being frustrated by the flaws in their presentation. Character generation in particular is a bit of a chore, with some unclear writing and quite a bit of errata. But if you can make it through that, you'll get to enjoy a clever, richly detailed sci-fantasy game, with well integrated magic, mechanical design that encourages the players to become responsible citizens rather than hack and slashing sociopaths, and a generally delightful setting. Even if you don't play it, it's well worth stealing ideas from.

The game wizards: Jim Ward turns up to give a combination of advice and teasers this month. As ever, people are asking how you become a writer for TSR, and as ever, they are happy to provide their guidelines. Don't expect it to be easy getting in though, with competition as stiff as it is. Secondly, he gives us an overview of the big products coming next year. (which reminds me, what happened to TSR Previews? It's been AWOL for the last half a year. )
Castle Greyhawk (wacky edition with no input from Gygax ) will be out in January. Look forward to much humour, and much screwage. Sigh.
February features the first volume of the Gamers handbook of the Marvel Universe. So many preexisting characters that need covering, it's going to take a total of 1024 pages. It's a bit excessive, frankly.
March has quite a lot of stuff. Top Secret is getting a snazzy mega adventure boxed set, High Stakes Gamble. It's also getting two books. Well, two halves of books. They're releasing books with two stories in, one a Top Secret one, and one an Agent 13 one. This smells like a gimmicky attempt to boost sales for two product lines that aren't doing well enough individually to credit continued releases. Dragonlance is also getting a book, The legend of Huma.
April sees a new wargame, The hunt for Red October. Based on the novel, this is another attempt to bring in new players that's not going to turn around the decline.
May sees another wacky licenced experiment. The Rocky and Bullwinkle roleplaying game? Man what. Who's gonna want to play that? What exactly do you do in it?
June sees the 1989 forgotten realms calendar, 6 months early. Now that's one you definitely ought to have held back on a few months if you want to maximize sales. No-one thinks of buying calendars in June. Agent 13 gets a graphic novel, while greyhawk gets a solo adventure gamebook. Is is just me or is he deliberately not taking about actual D&D products.
July sees another double whammy of board games, with Dragonlance and Buck Rogers both getting one.
August sees Greyhawk get a new corebook, 5 years after the last big setting book for it. Just how will it have changed in the meantime? Given it's war torn history, they have plenty of leeway to mess with the political situation.
September gives us another art book. Like the Dragon best of's, money for recycled material is an economical way to go if you can get away with it.
October sees Oriental adventures rewarded for it's continued popularity with a big boxed set giving extensive details on the realms of Kara-Tur. Now that's more like it. And of course, this helps fill out the forgotten realms as well, so it should sell extra well.
November is all about the spies, and the Buck Rogers. Bleah. Lorraine (roll of thunder, stab of organ music) has wasted no time in figuring out how to draw extra money from her new company.
December sees Lords of darkness, a sourcebook for the undead; the 10th D&D gazetteer (which means plenty more are coming out next year, even though they didn't mention them earlier) and another Oriental module.
So there are some cool things coming our way, but it also looks like there's lots of dross as well. With the new edition planned for 89, and everyone well aware of that, they've probably seen a drop in AD&D sales, so they're concentrating on the settings and diversifying their product base. Another interesting one to draw on for a little historical perspective. And so we wind ever closer to the present.

Fiction: The spirit way by Leigh Anne Hussey. Ahh, initiation tests. For becoming is among the most dangerous aspects of our life, and so it is the one the greatest number of stories are about. This is typical teen insecurity stuff, set in a generic tribal backdrop. The lead character is the niece of the shaman, and she'd really rather like to live up to her family legacy. But so far, she seems pretty lacking in magical talent. Will she come back from the wilderness a hero, a nobody, or dead. As this is currently a fairly family friendly magazine, and likes to encourage the heroic ideal, I think you can guess which one it is. Weep not for her, but for the ones that don't get to have stories told about their exploits. This does actually have a few interesting twists, so it's not that bad. But the formula is very much there. Writers gotta make a living, and all that.

King's table: Our centrepiece this month does not spring from the deranged minds of our game designers, but instead is an actual historical boardgame dug out from the historical records, and given to us to try out. Originally called Hnefatafl, and played by the vikings, this has been around for over 1,300 years, with several variants. The king is surrounded by marauding hordes. One side takes that role, and has to defeat them or get the king to escape by reaching the corner of the board.  The other, of course, has to trap him if they want to win. It looks simple enough to set up and learn the rules too, and even the epic variant with 19x19 squares, and 73 pieces should progress at a pretty pacey speed as long as you don't have the kind of player who spends minutes deliberating over every move. They do admit that the king's side is slightly more likely to win, but the imbalance certainly isn't so great as to keep it from being fun. A nicely multipurpose centrepiece, that you could use as a bit of standalone entertainment, or incorporate into your campaign as a game played by the people within, and also gives us some real world historical info I didn't know before. This is well within their remit, and I quite approve.

Plane speaking belatedly delivers us the negative quasielementals. All of them have the lovely effect of absorbing their related element, to the detriment of the environment when on the prime material. Not a good idea to mess with them. But if you're a druid who wants to stop ecological devastation, as is your job, you may have too. Blasting them from long range with spells and magic weapons is probably the way to go here. A short and too the point contribution, that completes the symmetry here. (although I don't thing we've seen pure positive and negative elementals (energentals?)) I have no problem with this, but as we've already exhausted most of our talk about it, not much more to say either. I look forward to seeing if I can use them in actual play.

Dragon Magazine Issue 128: December 1987

part 3/3

Stardate magazine. Another publication I don't remember. Any info on this one?

Chopper power!: Top Secret's articles continue to be behind the times, with these fairly crunchy stats for helicopters. Invaluable for both transport and combat, they're another thing that may push your game away from espionage, and towards military gaming if overused. Still, as they've pointed out recently, espionage and war go hand in hand a lot of the time, so drawing a hard line is tricky. It's up to your GM to choose if they want to allow this stuff. The magazine can't hold your hand the whole time. At least now you have the option.

A mutant by any other name: Gamma world skips the edition support questions this month with a system free one on slang and naming conventions in the far future. It's no surprise that things like that would carry on evolving, especially when the culture has changed radically, and there's no more mass media to standardize things across the world. There's the usual mix of corrupted existing cultural references, in-jokes, and stuff that seems random to me, but that may just because I don't get all the references. It certainly doesn't seem as immediately memorable and natural to slip into as planescape cant, but that may just be the familiarity speaking. Course, we're not likely to see this stuff go into common use, as it's just a magazine article, so it probably won't get the chance to grow on me either. Still, this is definitely the kind of world-building I approve of, so here's hoping.

Polyhedron took our second edition scoop. Sonofabitch. Do they want us to shell out money for three magazines now to keep up with everything D&D?

Robotech is now up to four books. Another game line is building up quite nicely.

The island in your computer: Another internet-centric article. One of the earliest MMORPG's gets a good looking over. Island of Kesmai is a game on Compuserve's network. (of course, they didn't have standardized protocols, so who had access to what and how much it cost varied widely from region to region. We have no world wide web yet) Anyway, this is a text based adventure game where you build your character, advance them, join teams of other adventures, and complete quests to deal with the (endlessly respawning) threats to the kingdom. Curiously, they deal with the powerful characters dominating the game problem, by giving each character a limited lifespan. So no matter how well you do, your character will die permanently after a while, and you'll have to start a new one. Now that's definitely a sign we're still a long way from home. There are plenty of familiar elements though, such as the classes, alignment system, and scenarios. The message boards and chat system are pretty friendly and helpful. This is another article that's very interesting indeed in terms of getting a view of historical progress. I never even heard of the internet until the mid 90's, when it was already exploding onto the mass market. Seeing stuff from when it was still the preserve of tech nerds with lots of money to burn does make me feel like I've missed something. Oh well, guess I get to see it from nostalgia free eyes. Let's hope there's some more of this stuff to come as well.

Gord the rogue is now up too three books plus a short story collection. Not bad for a character no-one apparently likes.

The marvel-phile: Jeff cedes the floor due to other writing commitments again, but this time allows the substitute freelancer to use the brand name. We get another case of an already existing character being covered again, due to recent continuity events changing that character. Due to government corruption, Captain America has recently become disillusioned with serving them, and quit. However, John Walker, formerly known as the Super-Patriot, has stepped into that role, bringing a new, more fundamentalist edge to the job. He's got some pretty big boots to fill, and given the nature of the story, we know he won't fill them entirely satisfactorily. We also get stats for Lemar Hoskins, the new Bucky, Karl Malus, the man responsible for augmenting both of them, but also lots of less successful augmentation experiments, creating flawed heroes and psychopathic monstrosities aplenty. Another of his creations, Demolition man, who may have badass strength and toughness, but also has a serious heart condition that could kill him any time. He really ought to get some Stark co medical assistance if he wants to last long as a hero. And on the definitely villainous side, we have Flag-smasher and the terrorist organization ULTIMATUM. Seems like they're going through one of their periods of political disillusionment, with grey being pitted against black, and no-one coming out brilliantly. It'll take a bit of work to get that reset button pushed without it seeming ham-fisted. As ever, I'm interested in hearing people's opinions on this arc, particularly if you were reading the comics at the time. Just how well was it handled, and did it mesh with contemporary concerns?

The role of computers: Shadowgate is another brutal old skool fantasy game, where you have to solve puzzles using the items you encounter along the way in your quest. Save frequently, click on everything, and be prepared for much frustration as you try and figure out how to get through this place. If you enjoyed the Tomb of Horrors, this is one for you.
S.D.I is an arcade game where you have to defend the USA from attacking soviet rebels. It has a pretty broad set of objectives, and you need to master both tactical and strategic thinking to survive and win. Still, once you've got the hang of it, it doesn't have that much replay value.
In to the eagles nest features another of our legitimate real world bad guys. Nazi's! Infiltrate the eponymous nazi stronghold, rescue prisoners from it, them blow the place sky high. A nice combination of shoot-em-up, and strategy game, as you have to sneak around, and conserve your health and ammo carefully.
Plenty of other mini-reviews in this month as well, including one of an after-school special, Drug Alert! and Delta patrol, another arcade shoot-em-up. Looks like it's back to business as usual for this column.

U2 kan ern BIG BUX: Another amusing questionnaire (and beefcake pics of Rogar of Mooria ) finishes off this year's articles. Just how experienced an adventurer are you? Have you got what it takes to make a living by killing people and taking their stuff? Or would a nice accountancy job suit you better? Do not take their advice seriously, for it is not meant to be done so, and may result in the unfortunate loss of much of your money. Another good example of Roger bringing more of a sense of mischief to his job than Kim did, even in the non-april issues. Which is one change I have no real objection to. This year may have seen things become more erratic than they were under Kim's tenure, but there's still been plenty of entertaining moments. Whether things will get better or worse next year is still uncertain, but it's still going to be interesting finding out.

The 1988 Dragonlance calendar. And a dragonlance graphic novel as well. I guess quite a few people like it.

Things go horribly wrong again in snarfquest. Dragonmirth is unusually highbrow this month. Wormy once again has the ogres think they're smart when they aren't.

A pretty good finisher to this year. As I'd hoped, skipping the theme also meant they mostly skipped the filler, with most of the articles at average or above. Let's hope that doesn't mean they've exhausted their current buffer of good stuff, and the nexdt few issues are going to be crap again. A little consistency is just what they need to recover their lost readerbase. So let's press on, through these borderlands. We've left behind the old ways, but we still haven't reached 2nd edition. Just how painful will the next year of transitions be? Read along with me, or skip ahead, and see for yourself. As ever, the choice is yours.

Dragon Magazine Issue 129: January 1988

part 1/3

108 pages. Another month, another return to familiar themes. Back in 1982, we had a whole series of issues devoted to the various demihuman races. This time, they're all getting lumped together, and being given a special collectively. Well, at least it's not a straight off rehash. Since Roger was responsible for writing the originals, that means the contents probably won't be a straight recycle either. And it has been 6 years, so it wouldn't be too unreasonable if they did reuse a bit. Can they surprise me this time? Onward, through another year.

In this issue:

Letters: A letter asking two basic questions about the contents of the magazine. Yes, we do have an article on running a business. No, most of our short stories are self-contained works.
A letter asking for Top Secret mini's. Use GI joes!
A question on the winners of previous year's Origins awards.  Also, what does the S.I in the new top secret stand for? Special Intelligence, apparently.
And we finish off with some of the amusing titles people sent in for issue 127's cover. Ha. Unfortunately, none of them really tickle me.

Forum: Scott Whitmore is not happy with the restrictions on weapons and armour faced by wizards, finding them illogical. Clerics are almost as good at spellcasting, and they still get to wear heavy armour and be fairly capable in combat. It can't just be because of game balance. A passionate argument, but not enough to overcome decades of design inertia, I'm afraid.
Kurt R A Giambastini, on the other hand, warns against powering up wizards. Anything you do to make them balanced at lower levels will result in them outclassing everyone else even more at higher ones, unless you do a complete redesign. Not to deny that tweaks aren't needed, but if it were that simple to balance them someone would already have done it.
Larry Madden is also against the idea of powering up magic-users further. They really do not need it, especially when played cleverly. Ironically, he suggests as a joke, and then mocks, ideas that would go on to be taken seriously in 3rd ed, such as allowing higher level casters to use certain lower level spells at will. The joke's on you sir.
Bruce Johnson also has amusing contributions to make on the power of magic users debate. Overall, it seems people do not want it powered up further.
Keith Sutton, on the other hand, thinks that they should be allowed to wear armour, but suffer chances of spell failure on spells with somatic components. How very visionary. Once again we see that quite a few things that would become actual rules in 3rd ed were being used as houserules in people's games long before.
Elizabeth Atwood takes a tangent, picking apart the ridiculous size and thickness of magic-user spellbooks. How the hell are they supposed to carry these things? What exactly are they made of. Even the biggest real life books aren't that big. Yes, but real life books don't let you cast spells. Maybe if we did make books of those dimensions, they would.
Douglas M Burck picks holes in the arguments of several other recent forumites. Oh, Globbits.
Stephen C Paylor dislikes the idea of putting a character in jail for things that they probably would have logically done, but their player didn't explicitly say they did. One of those cases where both sides have a valid argument, and I'm really not sure which to support.

Arcane Lore: Once again Len Carpenter takes this series away from covering the same old wizardly tomes, with some discussion of, and new spells for dwarven clerics. You certainly can't expect them to regard and apply their spells in exactly the same way as humans. So this is approximately 45-55% advice on existing spells and new spells. Since most of them are designed for the underground lifestyle, they are generally pretty useful for adventurers as well. After all, detecting precious materials, extending your senses through the ground, and healing your siege fortifications can lead to great profit. As it also includes optional rules removing some spells from their list, but also adding some appropriate MU ones in turn, it definitely helps differentiate dwarven clerics from other races. Since this is pretty good, both mechanically, and flavourwise, this is one I would rather like to incorporate into my own game. Another strong choice to kick off a section with.

Children of the spider goddess: Ahh, drow. One of the great jackass prettyboy races. Even more so than regular elves, they attract a certain kind of fanbase. When you combine the dominatrix females, the brooding outcasts, the spider fetishism, and the quite considerable amount of magical tricks and powers they have up their sleeves, it's no wonder people flock to them. But how do they hold together as a society, when they're so arrogant, backstabbing and chaotic? The answer, of course, is ego, and tribal loyalty. By constantly competing to prove their family superior, they ensure their individual badassedness, and even if a family dies, the race survives. This is one of the articles that probably increased the frequency of good Drow PC's quite a bit, as it talks about them as an entirely viable PC option, and goes into detail on the way they tend to approach each class, and other races. The awesomeness of Drow rangers is mentioned (Drizzt is coming, Drizzt is coming!) and we get plenty of roleplaying hints. So another pretty solid article, that has something to say that hasn't been detailed before. Course, they get whole books on them later, so it will be said again, in far greater detail. Such are the rewards of notoriety.

Give demihumans an even break: Hmm. UA included twinked new ability generation methods, but restricted them to humans. Of course, some people aren't happy with this, even though they did get a substantial boost to their class capabilities, and want yet more equality. Once more unto the power creep here, as they give a new optional system for ensuring your various races have appropriate high stats, with a few wiggle dice to allow you to customize for your desired class. Sigh. No thanks.

Don't sell them short: A halfling exclusive class? Hee. How very interesting. It's not even a direct analogue of an existing class, a la the Elven Cavalier. Well, given the huge number of classes only open to humans, someone really ought to redress the balance. So here we have stats for the Halfling Defender. Closely analogous to rangers and paladins for humans, they are fighters with modest nature affecting powers at higher levels, and a duty to defend their communities and the halfling race in general. Really, it's close enough to Rangers mechanically that if they were allowed to become them anyway, this could be represented by a minor tweaking to powers and accessable spells like the dwarven cleric one earlier. In any case, it doesn't look particularly overpowered, so even if it isn't hugely imaginative mechanically, it's another one I'd have no objection to my players trying out.

Entering the Drider's web: Drow get a second article this month, proving that they must already be pretty popular amongst certain freelancers. Lolth is a weird one. Putting promising drow through a test of skill and loyalty, failures are cursed with awesome, and sent back to the prime material to serve as an object lesson, a boogeyman to both the drow and other races in the underdark,  and a massive source of fossilized angstium for future generations to mine. Makes a certain degree of warped sense, especially when you consider that one of a god's primary pleasures in life is watching mortals do stuff and playing with them like pieces in a game, throwing obstacles in their way to keep things interesting and advance their cause. This is essentially the footnotes of an ecology without the fiction coming first, expanding on their entry in the fiend folio, and detailing exactly how all their capabilities are changed by the transformation. Useful if you want to have one as a major villain, or possibly as a PC, (although that might be a bit tricky to engineer plotwise. ) this does still feel curiously incomplete without the fiction. Goes to show how much of a fixture those ecology articles have become over the years. It also makes a few curious mechanical decisions, and requires you to reference issue 119 to fully understand all the new capabilities given in the article. So overall, it is a somewhat flawed one, that is an interesting read, but could definitely have been handled better.

The role of computers: Tower of Myraglen is the main review this month. It's one of those adventures where you have to explore a massive dungeon complex, find stuff, and complete the quest. So far, so familiar. It does have several distinctive features to recommend it though. Proper stereo sound that also gives you clues as to what's around corners and through doors. Interesting tactical considerations, including the ability to move and fire in different directions independently. Design that encourages you not to kill everything and grab every tiny bit of treasure. Plenty of clues and hidden bits. And like the sound, the graphics also show off the new advances in computer technology if you have an up to date machine. If not, sucks to be you.
The rest of the column has the usual assortment of news, game tips and mini-reviews. From a pinball game, to a sex comedy (ahh, leisure suit larry. Of all the deranged series to remind me of.) they cover a pretty wide variety here. It's not just RPG's and wargames anymore. Which makes it a very pleasant diversion for me, with lots of contextual stuff on the wider gaming industry around.

A sorcerer's supplement: New spells for runequest. Another game that had an article here years ago, and nothing since. I know there's at least a couple more to come, but how infrequent will they be? Anyway, here's 12 new spells. From basic temperature control, to reversing aging, this is about 50-50 cool stuff that puts a distinctive spin on the spell idea, and dull stuff that simply converts it from D&D. Overall, a pretty decent article, with several ideas that I'd like to steal and back-convert. (creating the illusion you're wearing clothes? Now there's one you can make plenty of jokes about. ) While they may not be covering as much non D&D stuff in terms of page count as they did in the days of the ARES section, they do seem to be trying to cover a wider variety these days. That's not a bad thing.