Dragon Magazine Issue 129: January 1988

part 2/3

Sage advice is absolutely huge this month. This is what happens when you skip them. You wind up having to binge later on. Everyone knows that aint healthy.

How should you divide experience (Equally amongst everyone, even if they died or were lazy bastiches. Other methods promote competitive play, and may result in bad blood. And we can't possibly risk that in the new safehappy family friendly TSR.)

How much damage does a two handed staff do. (Same as it ever was. This is not your beautiful 3.5)

What is a concealed door (one hidden by having something put in front of it. It's like a secret door, only an amateur production.)

Can a good creature be convinced to join an adventuring party. (Hmm. Can you convince a good creature to tag along with a bunch of random humanoids for some  indiscriminate killing and looting. Tough sell. )

How do you get yellow mold spores out (neutralize poison. For even the toughest toxins. )

When can you exchange ability scores (Only during character generation. And really, you should just roll a new character instead. S'not like they're hard to come by in BD&D )

Can crossbows hurl rocks? Can clerics use them if they do (yes, no. We don't want to mess with established game balance. Clerics'll have to stick to slings. )

How long is a round (10 seconds. Doesn't that make waay more sense than AD&D's minute long ones. )

How do you determine how fast you move. (Encumbrance table, muthafucka. Do you use it. Honestly. Skip swears that if he see's one more person ignoring encumbrance, Skip is gonna kneecap that bitch. )

What's the difference between chain mail and plate mail (Do the books not have diagrams? Is Skip gonna have to carve one on your chest?)

What's the difference between different races of elves (None. This is D&D, not AD&D. That would be way too fine a granulation for a quick pick up and play game. )

If elves are such great archers, why don't they get a bonus. (Again, you're thinking of AD&D, not D&D. The two are completely separate games, and we have to keep them so, otherwise Dave Arneson will sue us. )

What is encumbrance (What are you, some kind of computer with no experience of the real human body. Pick stuff up. See how much you can carry before you can't walk. That's encumbrance. )

When you use a wand of magic or enemy detection, who can see the glow. (everyone, including the creature detected. Violence may ensue rapidly)

Which monsters have infravision (Nearly all of them. It really isn't fair on humans, is it.)

Do you turn to stone if you see a medusa using infravision (Yup. No weaseling out that way. )

Can you see undead with infravision (probably. Even cold bodies don't radiate heat quite like the surrounding air.  As for the insubstantial ones, it would be entirely in genre for them to artificially chill the air around them )

Can you see invisible things with infravision (no. It's be a bloody sloppy spell that only affected the visual spectrum. That'd be the kind of cut price variant Bargle would sell people. )

Can you use a mirror to look around a corner with infravision ( not unless it's made specially. As infra red is of a longer wavelength, it diffuses into objects more readily, plus the longer the wavelength the lower the resolution of fine detail in general. But enough of real world physics. What place does that have in a D&D game? )

Do character levels equal hit dice for purposes of calculating how something is affected (in most cases. We'll probably think up some arbitrary exceptions at some point.)

Can you copy spells from scrolls into your own book (yes, but this erases the scroll. Conservation of something is at play. Not sure what exactly.)

What's the penalty for using a weapon forbidden to your class (none, you just can't do it. It's like asking out a really hot girl. No matter how much you'd like too, you just can't make that move. And then you watch the bloody jock do it no trouble and you're left wondering why and how. Bitter, Moi? )

What's the highest level (36 for humans. Other races generally have lower limits. )

What's the best saving throw you can have (2. Failure is always an option.)

What does 2 in 6 mean (Are you Dense? Are you retarded or something? I'm the Goddamn Skip Williams. Roll a d6. if you roll a 1 or 2, you succeeded. How much simpler do you need it?)

Why aren't there rules for half-breeds (Again, simplicity. To squeeze the game into 64 pages, you need to leave stuff out)

How many Hp do you regain when you eat (none, this is D&D, not a computer game. )

How do you determine hit points (What is this, the remedial class? What happened to the hard ones about specific spells and social contracts. Skip so does not need this. )

How much food does a pack of iron rations have (A weeks worth. Not a very nice or satisfying weeks worth, though. )

Can you turn a stoned character back (yes, but you'll need a 12th level wizard to help you out. This may not be easy, depending on how rare high level characters are. )

How much Xp are rats worth (1. A good ratcatcher could gain several levels in a year. Don't underestimate your NPC's)

What's the AC of a sprite (5. I can't even be bothered to rant about how dumb you are this time. )

How long does a potion of gaseous form last (same as any other. 7-12 turns. I'm now going to be an idiot, and forget the difference between rounds and turns. Oopsie daisy)

Do area attacks hit automatically (yes. You're doomed. This is why smart teams treat their wizards like artillery)

Which weapons can halflings use (Any that are small enough. It's not some arbitrary absolute restriction like the spellcasters have to deal with. )

How do you run missile fire (Same as melee. If they're in range, shoot. If you hit, roll damage. Skip would be happy to demonstrate using you as a target, because skip is not having a good day. )

Can you restore hit points without magic (You get 1 hp per day of rest back. Getting better from being sliced up takes a lot of work in D&D)

Are holy symbols magic (no, but clerics can't cast spells without them. They're like a catalyst in chemistry. Or a beacon so your god doesn't forget where you are and to grant you spells )

Are creatures that need magic weapons to hit immune to paralysis (not nececarily)

Can you get a benefit from one gauntlet of ogre power (No. If one gets eaten by the washing machine, you might as well throw the other one out)

How many charges do rods have (none. They aren't like those one trick wands or flashy exhaustible staves. Rods can go on and on and on. Yeah baby. Who's the daddy now then? )

What's the encumbrance of a magic item (normally the same as a normal item of the same type)

What's the Xp value for monsters (calculate it using the table. It's easy enough. )

I don't understand why you need to keep track of time ( You're gonna have a tricky time getting on in life then, and get fired from jobs pretty damn often. Knowing who is where doing what when is vital for maintaining a consistent universe. This can not be stressed enough. Write it down, because it's less stress than trying to remember everything everyone has done and intends to do. )

What do you keep when you become undead or lycanthropic (DM's choice. What you don't get is to keep them as a PC. They're a monster now, raaar. )


The dragon's bestiary goes planar. Dean Shomshak points out that the para-elemental planes are seriously lacking in inhabitants. Course, ironically he picks the one that does have several already, including it's own statted out ruler, the paraelemental plane of Ice. I guess it's easier to think of interesting looking and behaving creatures for that than it is for vaccum or ash. And more planar stuff is always welcome.

Shiverbugs are odd looking crystaline creatures that emulate no particular earthly phyla. But if you step on them, they'll rouse the rest of their swarm, and then you'll face death by a dozen chilly nips. Seems like they could still be a hassle at higher level.

Icelings also take their aesthetic cues from Modrons, being three sided crystaline humanoids which can make a chilly situation all the more confusing. Again, they're not hugely aggressive, but that doesn't mean they won't defend themselves. Remember, just because it isn't immediately lethal, doesn't mean you shouldn't stack up on your cold resistance powers before visiting. Nearly everything has cold based blasty powers (that don't do much to each other) and you don't want to fall prey to them, or the more mundane toe losing crap frostbite can cause.

Snowfuries are basically semi-intelligent snowstorms. Hot things make them cranky, so they may be a problem to adventurers intruding in their territory. They can still hurt you if you're immune to cold, so don't think you can just wander around, messing up their environment.

Frigidarch are a third creature using the crystaline ice structure theme. Hexagonal pyramid things with tentacles coming from each side, they are smart, fairly magically capable, and frequently in charge, assuming they can find sentient creatures on the plane to be in charge of. If you're traveling there, finding one and ingratiating yourself into their court could definitely be to your benefit.

Just like the reviews, this is an unusually strong delivery taken as a whole, as it presents a consistent aesthetic for creatures from this plane that is easy to extrapolate upon, to create similar monsters of your own. Since the plane of ice has always been one of the easier ones to design adventures for anyway, this makes it even more tempting to find excuses to get my players to visit. Rather pleasing, that.


 The game wizards: Jim Ward continues to reassure us that Greyhawk will still be getting plenty of love under the new regime. Just what kind of love, precisely, is up to you, the reader. After all, we can't fit everything in the new corebook, so what gets cut depends on what you demand least. Even the biggest company in the industry has to worry about commercial concerns such as these, and listen to it's fans to know what to provide them. More evidence that this is a vibrant company again, and hubris has yet to set in, but otherwise a pretty unremarkable little bulletin. Onto the next thing.

Dragon Magazine Issue 129: January 1988

part 3/3

Fiction: The old ways are best by Larry Walker. Oh, now this is very amusing indeed. The derangedly humorous story of a man who's daughter wants to marry a troll, his irritating wife, the trolls father, and his great^8 grandfather. With some inventive descriptions, pithy commentary on human nature, and some interesting ideas in terms of magic that actually feels magical. A highly entertaining tale that still manages to squeeze in a little drama and sense of danger as well. A well above average little story here.


Who's in charge here?: Demographics has never been something D&D has been particularly comfortable with. Here's another attempt at figuring out just how many higher level characters there are around for a particular sized community of normal humans or demihumans. Their answer is that it's an exponential decrease, going up to slightly below name levels for groups of 1,000+. Seems reasonable enough. Beyond those kinds of levels, the really high level characters will be singular, and have agendas that may or may not tie them to a particular community, so you'll want to develop them individually. It is probably a bit too generous with the spellcasting classes, unless you want a fairly high magic setting like mystara where many businesses use minor magics to increase their efficiency. But this kind of ratio'll keep players from rampaging through cities and taking stuff at their whim, which is important. And it remembers to account for demihuman limits and propensities, so it's obvious quite a bit of thought went into it. Not a bad attempt, even if it won't be appropriate for many campaigns.


Armored and dangerous: Star frontiers gets an article covering another thing that really should have been in the game all along. Powered Armor. Allowing you to pile on even more protection and not be slowed down so much. At least, until the batteries run out. And unlike laptops, you can't just find a hotspot and plug in for a few hours during a dangerous mission in deep space. Like computers, you get best  value custom building them, and the price can vary hugely depending on what nifty add-ons you give them. Not sure how accessable this would be to most PC's, given the prices to buy and maintain one of these, but it does look like fun. This line still isn't completely dead yet, and as long as fans send stuff in, hopefully they'll keep publishing it.


The role of books: Murder at the war by Mary Monica Pulver is a tale of a murder during an SCA LARP. IC waring and OOC politics collide, and the quirks of the subculture are referenced and punctured with the affectionate eye of someone who is intimately involved with it IRL. Like Bimbos of the death sun, this seems like it would be a good deal of fun to read for anyone involved in the scene.

Agnes day by Lionel Fenn (aka Charles Grant, writing under a pseudonym) gets a decidedly unimpressed review. It tries to be funny, but isn't. Cliched, with a poor plot, it fails to hold together as a story. Learn from his mistakes.

Masterplay by William F Wu is an interesting bit of speculative fiction, positing a world in which duels using wargames become a means of settling legal disputes. This is not a move that pleases everybody, and there's plenty of drama, both on the table and off it. Another interesting combination of interests here, handled well, in a book that is far less implausible than most of these.

Sword and sorceress IV, Edited by Marion Zimmer Bradley is her 4th book of fantasy short stories featuring female protagonists. Writers both well-known and brand new contribute, and her editorial hand keeps them at a consistently high quality.

Tales of the witch world, created by Andre Norton, is not quite as consistently edited as the previous anthology, but it still has several good stories contained within. Some of them may not fit very well within the shared universe, but when you're a young writer trying to get published, you've gotta use the material you've got.  

War for the oaks by Emma Bull gets pretty high praise, along with a shout out to the Minneapolis-based writing group that has produced quite a few other published authors. A tale of fae war behind the scenes of the local american music scene, this is more evidence that Changeling:the Dreaming didn't spring from nowhere, and there were plenty of people playing with this kind of modern urban fantasy before White Wolf made a series of hit games involving it. More evidence that writing is more fun when you have a little help from your friends.

Triplet by Timothy Zahn is an interesting combination of sci-fi and fantasy. As a logically explored setting up of a world and metaphysics, it's pretty good. As a story, the pacing of the plot leaves something to be desired. Not his best work.


The marvel-phile: Jeff finally delivers the first part of the victims of Scourge. Marvel attempted to clear house recently, getting rid of a big chunk of their Z-list villains. And on the whole this managed to stick, because no-one liked these guys enough to bring them back. Enforcer. Miracle man. Hate-monger III. Megatak. Melter. Titania. Basilisk. Hammer & Anvil. The Fly. Death Adder. Blue Streak. Wraith. These 13 unfortunates get stats, and very short descriptions here. Just looking at the puns in their names is enough to make me groan. The art direction is pretty interesting as well (Pum as the sound for gunshots? What's up with that? ) Jeff proves he is quite capable of cutting the crap when necessary. Definitely another interesting bit of history, that has had me googling away to find out more info on how this went down, and the aftermath of these plots. Funny that this has had the side effect of increasing my comics knowledge quite a bit. Hopefully there's more of that to come as well, as long as TSR keep the license and carry on putting out these columns.


Role-playing reviews once again gives us a history lesson before getting down to the reviews. This time, it's on world-building, and TSR's initial reluctance to get involved with it. While Tekumel had some cool setting stuff, stuff like Runequest and Harn massively outdid D&D until 1983, when they decided to play catch-up. And really, they've been playing catch-up ever since, and won't really pull ahead for another year or so, when the Forgotten Realms really starts filling up with supplements covering every area in detail. Ken offers a pretty balanced take on this, pointing out both the good aspects and the flaws in TSR and it's competitor's approaches. Very interesting to see the perspective of someone who lived through that era.

GAZ3 The principalities of Glantri is one of the D&D Gazetteers, filling in rather more setting details of the Known World than the old modules did.  The whole line is rapidly becoming notable for being much more high magic than any of the AD&D settings, and this one really takes that to the limit, with it's nobility consisting entirely of name+ level wizards and magically powerful creatures such as liches, vampires, immortals in disguise, some of them from other planets. Religion is outlawed, and magic use is common in every strata of society. Bruce and co have great fun building up a setting that is simultaneously gonzo and well considered, making the ridiculous commonplace, and filling the place with plot hooks. The writing is good, there's plenty of cool new crunch to differentiate your wizards in a MU centric campaign set there, and it makes good use of D&D's rules quirks and implied tropes.  You can have a lot of fun there.

The Forgotten Realms campaign set gets an even more comprehensive review, with plenty more comparing and contrasting with the other D&D settings, and even other companies stuff. Each of the booklets is examined individually, and most of it comes off pretty well. Ken probably has more caveats with this than he did with the Glantri stuff, but it's still entirely serviceable as a core product, giving more than enough detail to get going, while still leaving plenty of room for future books to fill in more specific bits in detail.

We also get several significant micro-reviews. Whimsy Cards are a creation of Mark Rein·Hagen (damn that pretentious splodge, it's a nightmare to find on a keyboard.) and Jonathan Tweet. Pull one out whenever you need a random plot twist.  How very amusing. Nice to see those two names who'll go on to bigger things showing up now. Warhammer 40k has also just been released. Ken gets rather ranty about this one, liking the visuals, and lots of the setting elements but being really frustrated that there isn't an RPG based upon it. You're gonna have a Loooooooooooooooooong wait there mate.

Overall, this has been one of the most entertaining review columns ever, both in terms of critical depth, significant products covered, and the way it was done being entertaining reading in itself. We're definitely into the magazine's golden years now as far as reviews are concerned, with books, computers and RPG's all getting plenty of well thought out attention. How very pleasing.
 

Dragonmirth has lots of food related jokes. Snarf runs over another innocent creature. Wormy is missing.


The last word: Hee. Comedy central continues with this little feature, which is exactly what it sounds like. Did you suspect your immanent death? The kind of thing we see forum threads on on a regular basis, and is always good for a laugh or two. Another amusing little experiment by Roger, including things like this to keep the format getting too predictable. Keep it up.


One of those issues with a somewhat iffy themed section, but the rest of it is pretty good. Of particular note is the quality of the reviews, which have improved massively over recent years. While the quality of the RPG articles is as scattershot as it has been recently, they really are getting the hang of assessing other companies works in an informative, interesting, and often humorous manner. This does result in a more open feeling magazine, and if they maintain or improve on this showing over the next decade or so, before they get cut out, they'll definitely contribute quite a bit more to my overall enjoyment of this journey, and give me plenty more things that I want to investigate at some point in the future. Course, the page count for this is probably coming out of the same bit that would otherwise be used for non TSR RPG's, so it's not all good, but as long as they provide something enjoyable, I'm not complaining too much.

Dragon Magazine Issue 130: February 1988

part 1/3

112 pages. Back to familiar topics here. In 1984, it was Clerics who not only got two specials, but also got godly stuff nearly every issue. Now it's wizards turn, with their regular arcane lore columns being added too further, with a whole batch of magical articles. Couldn't we have some more mundane plot hooks instead? Ironically, that is exactly what Roger's editorial is about, pointing out some of the stranger and more dramatic things that have happened in recent history. He also points out that in some ways, technology has already overtaken sci-fi, and this is only going to get more extreme in the future, given the breakneck rate computers are progressing. And with that interesting little set of contrasts setting the scene, let's launch off into another massive issue, explore it's outer limits.

In this issue:

Letters: Another letter asking for more coverage of minis. Roger replies that they are seriously considering this, since quite a few people do seem to want it. Keep sending in suggestions, to help us refine the format to a form that'll please the greatest number of people.
A letter asking how you get your games published. Hee. We're always getting that one. And we have to break the hearts of most of the people asking it. Better us do so than you self-publishing and facing the horror of absolute public indifference.
A letter changing their recent format change. They've finally decided to start calling a magazine a magazine, not a "monthly adventure role-playing aid" We also get some questions on fonts used, which they duely answer.
Some more layout questions and praise. All complements and criticism on this go to Roger Raupp.
A letter from someone having problems finding people to play with. Oh, woe, etc etc.

Forum: Christopher Earley introduces a more complicated new system for determining how likely magic-users are to learn a new spell, based on intelligence, level, and the level of the spell being examined. Yawn.
Brent Silvis debates the D&D handling on PC's becoming lycanthropes, where they seem to adapt to their new condition straight away, and would prefer to remain that way with no angst at all. This doesn't seem right, especially when their player would prefer to retain control of them. Roll on Ravenloft.
Kelly Calabro is one of the people who thinks getting rid of the illusionist entirely and merging their spells with wizards is a damn good idea.
David Carl Argall continues to be a regular contributor. He continues the rather amusing debate on the nature and frequency of male harpies. You may of course choose any of these explanations for your game.
Tom Brincefield thinks that when the characters get to higher level, you ought to change the enemies, instead of just having them face more. Can't we do a bit of both?

Get the most from your magic: Tactical advice for spellcasters. Haven't had that in a while. And we haven't had many of the specific bits of advice this article gives us before at all, which is very good. Particular attention is paid to spells which have long-lasting effects. Buff yourself up with a load of those as preparation, and then rememorize your spells, and you are at a substantial advantage compared to someone who just walks into dungeons with a load of magic missiles and fireballs. (which lest we forget, are frequently unintentional suicide in enclosed spaces) Ethics go out the window, as they encourage you to charm all your companions just in case to ensure their loyalty, polymorph things liberally and exploit the hell out of this, and raise the corpses of your fallen foes to use against the next bunch of opposition. This is how you make people really dread your spellcaster. Just be grateful that personal buff spells aren't too common yet. Apart from stoneskin and contingency, you don't have to worry too much about tracking endlessly overlapping, long lasting stacking buffs, even if you wanted too. This is definitely one for players who play to win, and have to deal with GM's that are similarly ruthless, but have no objection to their players exploiting every little rules quirk for maximum personal advantage. Or to be less diplomatic, this is total twink fodder, likely to polarize the readerbase. Still, if it results in flamewars, that means more fun for me. Definitely an interesting decision for Roger to put this one first.

Arcane Lore: Len Carpenter takes the reins of this column for the second time in a row. And once again, they are ensuring that it's not just wizards that get the cool toys. This one is all about figuring out which of the new spells detailed in Oriental Adventures are suitable for converting back into standard cleric and wizard ones. Some of them are culturally inappropriate, and should be left out or modified to reflect those differences, while others are less thematicly appropriate, and should be left out or increased in level to ensure that the oriental classes have their own niche and special strengths. So here's several pages of lists, which do exactly that. Seems a reasonable enough premise, and if my characters head east and want to learn the cool new spells from the natives, this seems like a good set of guidelines, so I don't have to make up my own. Perfectly decent, but not hugely interesting.

From the creators of Dragonlance comes the Darksword trilogy! Honestly, can't you tell a story in less than three books? It's just a marketing strategy anyway. I'll bet that in terms of total length they come to considerably less than War and Peace. Tolkien's original publishers have a lot to answer for.

Hold onto your illusions!: Illusion adjudication. One of the forum's biggest topics of late. Looks like we have a second article springing from that little controversy in quick succession. Thankfully it takes a completely different tack than the one in issue 128. Where that was all about chances of resisting, this is more about just what images illusions can produce, how they do it, and your chances of spotting an error which would lead you to try and save. The further you try to create things that have multiple complicated moving parts, skills you don't know, or of things you haven't seen, the more likely there are to be obvious errors, and the bigger the bonuses they get to save. Seems fairly logical, but like the previous one, also pretty dull, particularly where it gets statistical. Let's hope there's at least one more interesting article in this themed section. What there isn't is the article referred too at the end of this article. (checking ahead, it appears in the next issue) Sloppy editing there Roger.

Dragon Magazine Issue 130: February 1988

part 2/3

The faces of magic: This is more like it. A cool bit of fiction, and a guide to mimicking the identities and abilities of other classes by using wizard spells. Given the dangers they face, some pretty handy advice. After all, if you go around advertising your wizardliness, you'll be the first target of any tactically inclined enemy party, for low HP and high damage output means you should be permitted as few actions as possible. It's also a good demonstration of just how redundant thieves can become after the first few levels, with magic able to duplicate most of their skills, often more reliably as well. There's more than enough spell overlap to imitate clerics as well, it's only fighter that may be a problem, and if you're multi-classed, even that disappears easily enough. Like the tactical advice earlier, this is a strong encouragement to use your powers sneakily, twisting them to ends above and beyond what is intended. It's also a good demonstration of the power of bluffing. With the right illusions, you can pretend to be far more powerful than you are, and given that those spells do actually exist, it wouldn't be too implausible if you actually did them. I approve. Subverting archetypes and applying powers creatively is a good thing in my book.

Better living through Alchemy: Oh, here we go again. What is this, the 4th time they've tried to give us alchemist characters? (Checks, yup, issue 2, 45, & 49, and Roger got his external references wrong again. :Shakes head and sighs: ) Guess like Witches, they think that 7 years is a long enough gap to validly revisit this topic.) Curiously though, the writer does not draw from the previous versions in the specifics of the design, despite having been a reader and contributer back then.  And it is probably an improvement over them in terms of design rigour and formatting. However, they are still grossly underpowered when compared to standard wizards and priests, while also having higher XP costs, and far more inconvenient material requirements to utilize their powers. They really aren't competitive as PC's, so unless you ban regular spellcasters and use them to play a gritty game where all magic requires substantial preparation and ritual of some kind or another, they won't get much use. I do wonder why they bother sometimes, knowing this.

Fiction: Shark-killer by Carol Severance. Off to polynesian tribal territory for this little tale of a disgraced warrior, the sorceress who wants to steal her lifeforce, the little girl who wants to learn from her, and the enemy warriors who don't give a crap and will just massacre the village if they get a chance. You've already betrayed one set of vows. Why not break another? People will benefit if you do so. A nice little morality play here, with hard choices and a bittersweet ending. Seems closer to Runequest than D&D in it's handling of magic. A fairly enjoyable read.

The game wizards: This month, they consider how to rework the magic system for second edition. Many people still want a spell point system, but they aint gonna get it. We're sticking with the slot based method, and that's final. That does not mean we aren't making some fairly substantial improvements though, both in clarity of writing and organization, and actual alterations. Quite a few spells need moving from one school to another to better fit their concepts, several schools need adding too, especially in terms of high level spells to make sure all the specialists are viable, cantrips are out again, and we're stripping back on silly fluff details. Once again we see how they are approaching this with a cautious and logical tone, trying to please as many people as possible, and only change things when they really have too. After all, we mustn't alienate our fanbase. And so we get more historical context, that tells us much the same info as the previous few installments. Whether you agree with the changes 2nd ed made or not, I think we can be fairly clear about the designers intentions.

The dragon's bestiary gives us more out of date gamma world stuff this month. Whirrzlers are essentially the Peahats from the Zelda games, (which of course started recently, so it's quite possible this is a direct rip-off) bushy plants that fly by rotating their petals. They'll slice you up, and then settle on your corpse, use it for nutrients. Makes sense to me. One of gamma world's less gonzo elements, ironically. A not too impressive single-pager.

Miniatures in wonderland: From a single pager, to a half-pager. They declare their intention to make this years conventions the biggest miniature gaming events yet. Bring in your armies, play in battles of a scale impossible to do at home. We need you to make this happen! Interesting. Hopefully they'll report on the success of this endeavour afterwards as well, so I can see how it went.

Keeping a good watch: Top Secret's article this month is a interesting little bit of gadgetry. Watches are useful for more than just telling the time. Because so many people wear them on an everyday basis, they can be easily overlooked in a search. You can put quite a few different types of gadgetry in them, and then use them to gain a substantial tactical advantage. Garrotes, hidden compartments, swiss army knives, radio transmitters and recievers, X-rays and radiation counters, magnifying glasses and microreaders. It's amazing what you can fit into such a tiny space. Having something like this could definitely save your life in a tight spot. This is also a case where the advancement of RL technology has outstripped the imagination of this writer. A watch that has all the utility of a mobile phone, including full filming capability with several gigs of interchangable memory using micro SD cards would not be beyond the bounds of real life tech these days. Another reminder that we live in an age of wonders, and shouldn't hesitate to buy cool things in reality. You too can be a swiss army knife of miniaturized utility devices for every occasion, and be the envy of all your friends. Doesn't that sound like fun?

Dungeon Etiquette: Another entertaining little piece here. When one of your players doesn't show up, has to leave early, or falls asleep mid-game, what should you do to their character? There are some very wrong ways you can handle this, like the DM who automatically killed anyone who had the temerity to leave before the game was properly over. (and also liked running marathon sessions to 4 in the morning. Definite creepiest gamer candidate there.) You can assume they automatically vanish, and reappear next session, which can hurt the immersion and internal consistency of the game. You can run them as an NPC, which means they might behave in a way the player doesn't want or wind up getting killed while they aren't there. You can give the player a good prodding, and hope they aren't the cranky sort when woken unexpectedly. Similarly, if characters are killed, do you allow the players to stick around and advise the remaining ones, possibly causing some metagame info to be passed on? How do you deal with outbreaks of puns and digressive storytelling? Eating while gaming? Having the TV or music on in the background? Cheating bastards? Another topic that they haven't covered in detail before, and which could be the source of large amounts of debate. What is perfectly reasonable to one person is unbearably pedantic and strict to another. In any case this made for highly entertaining reading, steeped as it is in the worst case scenarios for these situations, as delivered by someone who seems to have been there personally. I approve, and hopefully we'll see some responses to this in the forum in future months.

Dragon Magazine Issue 130: February 1988

part 3/3

The oriental sea: Looks like OA is going to be getting at least one article most issues for the forseeable future. This time, the conversions are going in the usual direction, giving us info on something that's already had it's western counterparts covered in a previous issue. Ships. Although they might not do as much open ocean sailing, China has no shortage of massive rivers to traverse, and many people make a living on these waterways. So here's the stats for 14 more ship types, and some of the additional hazards they are likely to face in the east like typhoon dragons and cranky nature spirits. One of those articles that isn't likely to be useful often, but when it is, it'll be very handy. One of the great things about having decades of this magazine to draw upon is that it does give you a safety net to try different stuff when your players suggest unusual courses of action, without having to make rules up for it wholecloth. Once again, I have no objection to this at all.

If looks could kill: Gaze attacks also get another look at, 7 years later. (our last article on this one was way back in issue 50.) And pleasingly, this writer does not try and step on Lew's shoes, instead examining the physics behind them as much as their adjudication. This is a bit of a pain, as many of the monsters with them work differently on a case by case basis. Some are consciously controllable, some shouldn't be, and some are more spell-like abilities than actual gaze attacks. It also addresses the tricky issue of mating when you can't look directly at each other. Thankfully, we already have a solution for this, taken from the ecology of the Basikisk. (issue 81) Nictating Membranes! (resists urge to filk) I must say, I would prefer my medusae a little more tragic and less in control, and frankly, this article goes on a little longer than the topic really deserves. But I do have to respect it for it's comprehensiveness of research and logical attitude, even if it doesn't quite hold my interest.

The marvel-phile: Jeff finishes serving up justice, (pum pum pum) finding the time to level a cheap shot at Rogar of Mooria's hairline in retaliation for the editing job on his work. We are reminded that before the internet and gigabytes of storage space on computers, Jeff actually had to physically chase down all these issues that these minor villains appeared in to do his research. Quite a lot of effort for a few pages writing. So here we have Bird-man II (powersuit bogaloo), Turner D Century, Cheetah, Commander Kracken, Cyclone, Firebrand, Grappler, Hijacker, Jaguar, Letha, Mind-Wave, Mirage I, Rapier, Ringer, Shellshock, Steeplejack II (more powersuit inheritance going on here), and Vamp. None of them hugely impressive individually, and many of them lacking any powers at all after their humiliating defeats at the hands of various heroes, when all 17 of them were gathered in one bar, inverse ninja syndrome made them easy meat for Scourge. Still, even if they themselves are gone for good, someone else could take up their super-gadgets and start the cycle again. Gotta keep the copyright on those names. We also get stats for Scourge, although since he may well be more than one person, they aren't strictly reliable. Jeff is driven to madness trying to find 17 different ways of saying the villains died in the same way, at the same place, which only adds to the entertainment this issue. And so this rather distinctive chapter of their history draws to a close. At least .......... Until Scourge serves justice again!!!! Ahahahahaha!!!!!! Pum.

The role of computers is sequelariffic this month. Wizardry IV gets an extensive bit of writing which is technically not a review, but that's just because they don't think they've got far enough yet. So a proper review will show up in a month or two. They still give plenty of detail on the plot and gameplay. This time, you're the bad guy, and you have to foil the adventurers and escape the ghost of your adversary. Iiinteresting. I can definitely see the fun in that, especially as it introduces a whole bunch of clever effects, such as adversaries that rest and regain powers in the same way that you do, and a keylogger that determines how many actions you've performed so far. (and how many you have left) Nice to see this series not only still going, but experimenting with it's playstyle as well.
Phantasie III is our main actual review. A more conventional continuation of the series, you have to assemble the usual group of reprobates from the classes and races available, and can import characters from the previous two games if you choose. In addition to the usual hit point system, they also have a hit location one, and your characters can have their various limbs broken, or even severed entirely. Getting new ones is not easy, and so the usual advice about saving frequently, and not being ashamed to surrender or run away when faced with superior opponents applies. Another tricky epic that you need both patience and wit to complete.
Sanxion is a shoot-em-up combining 2d and 3d perspectives. You'll have to practice your flying and shooting, because killing every alien ship and not being hit will not be easy.
We also get the usual selection of hints, and an amusing epilogue that hints at gamer stupidity in the recent past. Please don't call them at their home address anymore, especially at odd hours in the morning. They're only a normal family, not some corporation. Hee. Shouldn't have given it out then. Most of our freelancers have the sense to get their fanmail forwarded from the TSR Offices. Another entertaining and quirky entry in this series.

Dragonmirth does disturbing and grimdark. Snarf continues to suffer weird stuff unexpectedly. Wormy once again goes back to a plotline we haven't heard anything on in years.

A rather advert heavy issue. Despite it's increased size, it actually had less game material than most of the recent issues. It also had another case of the special themed material being of substantially lower average quality than the rest of the material. Roger really ought to wait a little longer, make sure they have enough good stuff before doing them, instead of trying to squeeze one into most issues. The rest of the issue is rather more entertaining, with an above average amount of stuff I can see myself using at some point. But it's obvious by now that Roger's run is going to have a lot more dramatic month by month fluctuations in quality and usability than Kim's did. Will next issue be a good one, or a bad one? I'm just as unsure as you are. Lets keep going. The sooner we bypass the hazards and kill the monsters, the sooner we get the treasure.

Dragon Magazine Issue 131: March 1988

part 1/3

108 pages. Roger takes the time to reminisce about his old FGLS. Back in those days, having one of those was essential is you wanted to have any idea what books were worth getting, and successfully get hold of them. If they did things right, they also served as a social centre, for gamers to meet each other, form groups, and possibly even play in the shop. A bad one, on the other hand, could cut off the air supply to the scene in an entire town, slowly killing it. Appreciate your FGLS if you have one, and let them know you do. If you're a regular, they'll return the goodwill. And then we all wind up a little happier. But enough moral messaging. We've got some killing and taking of stuff to do. And this month's theme is the underdark, so there's a lot of things to get through. You snooze, you lose. Last one out gets their brain eaten!

In this issue:

Warhammer 40,000! The very first companion volume, the book of the astronomicon. Rejoice, for the emperor is generous. Nice to see the core of the game hasn't changed.

Letters: Some pedantry over the nature and numbers of undead and lycanthropes. Myths are inconsistent, you should know that. We defend the decisions we made adapting from the sources we have.
A letter asking them if they plan to do a Dragonlance themed chess set. They don't, but it's not a terrible idea, is it?
How many gamers does it take to change a lightbulb? 5. 1 to steal the lightbulb. 1 to figure out how it works, 1 to absorb aggro from the socket while changing it, and 1 to flick the switch. Oh, and one to sing about it and encourage everyone else to do their best.   Shouldn't this belong in next month's issue? Guess Roger needed to fill in a couple of lines, and this was the closest thing to hand.  

Forum: Barbara Curtis gives us yet another alternate ecology of the Harpy. This is starting to get silly. Still highly entertaining though. How long can they keep this up for?
Timothy Makinson and Daryl Short have more comments about Banded Mail, and other nonexistant forms of armour. Just because it doesn't exist in reality, doesn't mean it shouldn't in game.
Matt Wright doesn't think that assassins are the problem, it's the people that are attracted to them. If you get rid of that class, they'll just play something else equally annoying, like kender, malkavians and assamites. Yeah, lets fob them off on White wolf, so they have to deal with them instead of us. Muahahahaha!  
Ed Friedlander is back, talking about the medical condition that probably is the origin of real world vampire and werewolf myths. Interesting.
David Carl Argall is also contributing again, pointing out all the ways D&D is actually biased towards good. Funny how different people can interpret the same writings in such different ways.

Twilight 2000, weapons of the world. Someone's been sketching from a photograph for this advert.

The role of books: Forging the darksword by Margaret Weis and Tracey Hickman is of course the first book of their new trilogy, advertised last issue. Darker than their Dragonlance work, it contains surprisingly hard scientific principles applied to the workings of their magic, and thoughts about their logical concequences on the culture. Seems like they've taken a leaf from Lyndon Hardy's book. Which sounds quite appealing, actually. Can anyone else give their opinions on these?
The wizard of 4th street by Simon Hawke doesn't impress the reviewer too much. Drawing liberally from arthurian myth, it then fails to characterize or integrate the mythical characters very well. Only his inventive attitude towards magic and the sparky protagonists save it from being a loss. Rent rather than buy.
The Crown jewels by Walter Jon Williams is a space opera crime caper book. The protagonist has extravagant tastes, and grand larceny is the only way he can sustain them. Operatic in both senses of the word, it's fun to read, but would be tricky to emulate. Will you take your chances at the opera tonight?
Time pressure by Spider Robinson also gets a somewhat negative review, as it's character development is rather flawed, with the author's voice poking through, making the characters act in ways that aren't consistent with their own experiences, and doing things purely because the plot demands it. The comic elements of the book are rather more sucessfull, with plenty of wit, punnery, and amusing observations on the state of the world. Become a stand-up comedian instead of a novelist.
The first named by Jonathan Wylie is a surprisingly traditional bit of no frills high fantasy. While nothing special, the reviewer finds it refreshing in this era of endless formulaic trilogies. Remember, you imitate the spirit, not the letter if you want to be true to your inspirations.
Shadowspawn by Andrew J Offutt is a tale set in the Thieves World setting. The main character has appeared in several short stories in previous anthologies, and now gets his own full book. He's left the city of sanctuary to start a new, hopefully more respectable life elsewhere. But of course, it's not going to be that simple. A fun swashbuckling yarn, full of useful tricks every thief should learn.  
Oh dear god. They also review some filk tapes, for some reason. Someone really needs to suffer for this, and I hope it's not going to be my ears. Heralds, Harpers & Havoc was written by Mercedes Lackey about her own stories, and the songs are sung by various people. Horse-tamers dughter is by Julia Ecklar, and the songs cover all manner of stories with female protagonists. If you want to find out more, here's where to write too. Okay then. :shivers: Another entertaining, if slightly worrying broadening of their remit here.

Even Ghostbusters has three supplements out now. They're lying when they say ghostbusting is big bucks by the way. That's just to sucker you in.

Illusory solutions: As I noted last month, this should have been there, but presumably last minute reorganizations caused it to be cut. Oh well, better late than never. Once again, the writer tries to regulate the power of illusionists by granting their opponents saving throw bonuses if they try and imitate things wildly above their experience level. No longer can an 6th level illusionist convince an 18th level wizard that he is their superior with a bit of creative spellcasting and good roleplaying. And for a third time, we have a new way of handling this process. This is a quite substantial nerf to what is already one of the less powerful classes. Let's hope this is the last of these for a few years, and people are satisfied by at least one of the explanations. This is no fun at all.

Fantasy first class: What. People are still playing PbM games when they now have the technology for basic MMO's? I guess the rolling out of progress is usually slower than you expect, and there are always going to be a few holdouts. So here's another overview of an epic multi-player game that'll take you over a year to complete, and eat up quite substantial amounts of money each month playing it. Alamaze is a fantasy strategy game, where you have to build up armies, explore the map, spy on the other players, and battle them for victory. There can be only one winner! The usual selections of classes and races are available, both battle and diplomacy are important, and you have to do lots of resource management if you want to win. There are still a few bugs, but the programmer is proving pretty willing to fix them when they are pointed out. A review that is pretty much completely useless to me now, but still reveals a little more about the current trends in gaming and design. And they keep up their strong standards in terms of reviewing style. So this becomes a pleasant diversion rather than a total waste of time.

To the center of the Oerth: Mmm. Welcome to the start of the underdark special. The logical extension of having all those underground dungeons everywhere. Link them up into one endless, miles deep uberdungeon that you could spend years exploring and only see a fraction of. And the first thing they do is give us some sample areas, followed up by rather old skool random tables and design advice. Well, you can't be expected to map up miles of tunnels all by yourself, can you? This is the kind of thing that is pretty much instantly useful for any game, and is another definite sign of progress on the worldbuilding side as well. D&D's implied settings just got a bit more solid and a lot nastier. I squee in delight. You goin down, adventurers. Oh yeeeeeaaaaaaah. Just remember, choose your targets wisely. Going down on Drow might work. Going down on aboleths ..... really doesn't bear thinking about. Caution and keeping track of your supplies and escape routes is, as ever, strongly recommended. Because getting lost and winding up dying from starvation rather than actual enemies is not a good way to go. A pretty darn awesome way to kick off this themed section. What lies beneath YOUR city, just waiting to be unearthed?

Renegade legion BLOOD & STEEL! Now that's an attention grabbing advert for you.

Awesome!  The first issue of Dragon I ever read!  Telerie Windyarm in skimpy nightclothes!  The Ecology of the Aboleth! The Hook Horror!

I should have told my ass to get out then!

Dragon Magazine Issue 131: March 1988

part 2/3

The svirfneblin point of view: It's been a while since we had one of these articles. Yay for new PC races. One of the more powerful options, they have to be given the power and unpleasantness of most of their neighbours. This leads to an excellent example of good not nececerally being peaceful or trusting, and their gnomish love of practical jokes is twisted into a decidedly lethal form, focussed against their racial enemies. You've gotta be ruthless and closely co-operative to survive when faced with so many powerful, smart and decidedly diabolical neighbours, especially when you have a low birthrate, so you can't afford to be cavalier with the lives of your fellows. A fairly decent piece that takes care to hit all the various class and race interaction checkboxes. Not brilliant, but not too bad either.


The ecology of the aboleth: Speak of the devil. It's the creepy fish things that are born with all the memories of their parents and transform your skin into a transparent slimy membrane. How's that for idiosyncratic powers. Like sahuguin, the fact that they are aquatic and underground based means you can justify them having massive empires that dominate huge areas of the world, and the only reason people don't realize how hopeless their situation is is because we're beneath their notice. And this ecology does exactly that, creating an entire hierarchy of even more scary aboleth subraces, right up to the Grand Aboleth, the most powerful one on the planet, with it's city sized entourage of lesser aboleths and slaves easily a decent match for demon princes, demigods, and maxed out parties of adventurers. Like the order of the dragon article in issue 110, this turns what was previously a singular fairly badass monster into a social even more badass society of monsters that make suitable adversaries for an epic campaign spanning years. If you wanna be a big hero, you've really got to step up your game, because once again, this article shows just how massive and challenging you can make the opposition. And so this themed section continues to kick ass.


Lords & legends: Two original characters are introduced here this time round. Both of them are dwarves, and both of them have forumite namesakes around these days :waves:

Kordan Badaxe is a blue-eyed boy with twin returning magical axes. He's kicked the ass of many a giant, and freed slaves to earn his name.

Gnarly Bones is an outcast dwarf, who's lost his beard. How very tragic. He's also had a pretty eventful life, going from hedonistic outcast, to responsible leader, with occasional relapses. A good demonstration of just how different you can make two characters, despite them being the same class, race and level. This is considerably better than their usual fare of twinked out literary adaptions. Now that is an unexpected further benefit of this theme.


The ecology of the Hook Horror: How nice. A second of these articles in one issue. This one hews closer to the conventional ecology format, once again bringing in a story involving the guild of naturalists. Hook horrors aren't a world threatening problem, since they're essentially just humanoid crab thingies that don't even have proper manipulators to build stuff with. But as a part of the underground ecosystem, they have a fairly solid niche, eating fungi, climbing from cavern to cavern as they exhaust supplies in one area, steering clear of big cities full of drow and the like, and serving as vectors for disease of all kinds. So yeah, plenty of actual ecological info here, as they go into plenty of detail on it's lifecycle and relationship with other creatures. Remember, these caverns are living, growing places with their own food chains, even if the bottom layer is fungi that grow from geothermal vents and magical radiation. Think about that when designing your own campaign. Going somewhere and wiping out it's inhabitants will have knock-on consequences in all the neighbouring regions. This is a good way of reminding us of that without getting into heavyhanded preachy windbaggery. Once again, they've really served up the goods, in both fluff and crunch.


The chasm bridge: An adventure? In Dragon magazine? Surely you jest. They've all been sent off to Dungeon, to be with their own kind. Nope. This seems to be on the level. I wasn't expecting that. I wonder if they'll put any more in. Or is this just a way of whetting our appetite and getting people who only buy Dragon to diversify, boost their overall sales? Anyway, this is an interesting little 8-pager, joining in with the underdark theme. Intended for a team of level 4-6th level adventurers, but fairly easily adaptable to higher or lower level ones, this is more a single encounter than a full-on module, but it's a lot more detailed than the ones in the past, with lots of attention paid to backstory, roleplaying of the various creatures, and their combat tactics for when things get ugly. It can be a one-shot encounter, or if the PC's go spelunking regularly, it can become a regular crossroads full of recurring NPC's. Once again, they've made this section highly accessable in terms of quick plug-in and playability. You can get a lot out of this. And so we draw to the end of one of the most impressive, broadranging, and widely applicable themed sections the magazine has ever done. Roger's really rolled a natural 20 this time.


TSR Previews is back! Bout time. Of all the silly things to cut. What was the logic behind that? Since they've been away for a while, they fill us in on what came last month, as well as this month and next.

February sees Castle Greyhawk. Explore the Hil-arious dungeon below the titular castle of the original campaign world. Shoulda saved this one for April.

We're also getting one of the bits of rehash several people have asked for. The Art of Dragon magazine reprints lots of the best pictures, plus 4 of the short stories as well. A chance for the usual suspects to make some more money from their art.

In solo gamebooks, we have Marvel gamebook no 8: Guilt by Association. Daredevil has to balance his day and night jobs do-gooding if he wants to make the maximum impact on the criminal population of hell's kitchen.

And finally, we have The crystal shard, by R.A Salvadore. Say hello to Wulfgar and his sidekick Drizzt. Soon the billing positions will be reversed. Just you wait.

In March, our D&D product is The elves of Alfheim. Another part of the Known World gets filled in, another formerly monolithic class/race gets several new variants. Cool.

AD&D is still Forgotten Realms heavy, with FR3: Empires of the sands. Head south to the lands of Amn, Tethyr and Calimshan. The ones that are going to seem rather redundant once Al-Qadim appears as it's own gameline.

The Dragonlance chronicles get compiled into a single book. Probably cheaper than buying them individually, if you're curious, this is the way to go.

In our solo gamebook lines, we have Shadow over Nordmaar, AD&D adventure book 16. They get increasingly formulaic in their descriptions of these.

Finally, we have The demon hand, Greyhawke (sic) adventure 5. Rose Estes continues spinning tales which will take the world ever further from Gary's conception of it.


Sage advice: Will a monster join a party if asked (We had this one last time. As ever, proper application of common sense based on the monster's intelligence, personality, and situation will determine under what conditions it will do so, and if they will stick to any bargains they make. Smart adventurers should always be ready for treachery.)

Can you change a captured monsters alignment. (Possible, but not easy. Remember, you catch more flies with a little sugar than with a whole vatfull of vinegar. )

How do you determine effective HD of monsters with only hp listed (divide by 4.5, unless stated otherwise)

Where are psionics explained (In AD&D, not D&D. )

What weapons work on ochre jellies (none. You'll have to blast them. If you don't have a wizard, torches and flaming oil'll do the job as well. )

How do you determine if a gray ooze destroys your weapon (Roll to save vs acid )

What is a magical creature ( Complicated business. It's just an excuse so really powerfull creatures can't be beaten by some weak thing that's immune to nonmagical attacks. )

How do you fight a phase spider without magical aid (Win initiative, then hold your action. Smack it when it appears. Zelda is as ever, a good source of visual demonstration )

Do giants get strength bonuses. (Not normally. PC's are special, everyone else is just abstracted)

What missiles can giants catch (anything big and non pointy. )

Can monsters use magic items (That is so broad a question as to be meaningless. Some can, some can't)

Can monsters get weapon specialization (not unless they have class levels)

Can a spellcaster exceed their normal spell limit by eating obliviax. (Yes, if they make the save. There's a potentialy lucrative cultivation industry in there for enterprising adventurers. )

Do draconians count as persons, or giant class monsters (yes and no)

How many eggs do dragons lay at once (take the max number appearing, and subtract 2. Easy enough. )

What is the mind flayers mind blast (same as the psionic power)

Where is the info on 0 level demihumans (There are none. They might not have the same limits of advancement as humans, but their baseline of badass is considerably higher. )

Gold dragons can polymorph themselves without harm? (Oh yes. They are rather badass)

What does molecular attraction do (Oops. Our bad. That should be molecular agitation. Duergar are pyromaniacs, not cave climbing geckos. )

Dragon Magazine Issue 131: March 1988

part 3/3

The game wizards: Doug Niles returns to give us some feedback on the reception of Top Secret/S.I . Choosing to make a redesign that big was a stressful decision, with a lot to lose. Thankfully for him, the number of people who've written in are 5 to 1 in favour of the changes, so it's sigh of relief time. This pretty good showing also means that they get to go ahead with a whole bunch of supplements, adding on lots more crunchy stuff, as is their wont. Guess we'll also be seeing articles around for another few years then. Another chirpily optimistic little article in this series then. Just how much of that optimism is real, and how much of it is a show to boost sales, on the other hand, is less certain. Should I be a little less suspicious? Better safe than sorry.


Role-playing reviews goes sci-fi. There's certainly been no shortage of sci-fi games, although they've never been a serious competitor for fantasy's supremacy. You have plenty of choice between hard sci-fi universes, and ones that are basically just fantasy with rayguns and spaceships instead of wands and dragons. It would make sense to review a wide spectrum of games, so people can make an informed choice as to what they want to buy. So that's exactly what they're going to do.  

The star wars RPG by West End Games, as you would expect, falls firmly on the side of fast paced action. With a simple multiple action mechanic that allows high power heroes to do quite a few cool things in a single round, character templates that allow you to get through character generation and into the action quickly, and force points giving everyone the chance to push themselves for that extra edge in a pinch, it certainly seems to be aiming for fast paced cinematics like the movies, which is definitely a good thing. The work of familiar names Greg Costikyan and Bill Slavicsek, this is one that may be defunct, but still gets plenty of positive mentions on forums, which is definitely a good indicator of it's quality. Let's hear your tales of playing with this.

Traveller 2300, on the other hand, takes the opposite tack. It retains the same gritty atmosphere, with a well developed lengthy character generation process that really  defines your past, but has no system for advancement beyond that; but puts it in a setting that's rather closer to home than the previous edition. Earth is just recovering from WWIII, and we're starting to extend out into space. The reviewer doesn't hesitate to point out the flaws in the system and presentation. The adventure guidelines are rather sketchy, not much help to novice GM's. Ship combat is exceedingly brutal, with one mistake spelling a TPK for the whole party. And of course, still no advancement system. No getting away from it. It may have been innovative a decade ago, but it's all starting to seem a bit dated now. You can see why they slid into obsolescence and went out of print for years.

Battletech is an interesting fish. It's basically a mech fighting boardgame, with the rules for roleplaying the pilots and doing human level stuff tacked on afterwards in a supplement. Unsurprisingly, it's very combat focussed, and also has plenty of focus on the stats needed to design, build and repair your mech, making support characters invaluable. Certainly seems distinctive, even if the ground level stuff doesn't quite hold up as a game in it's own right. Guess it depends if you like that kind of stuff.


The role of computers: A rather snarky editorial here, as they defend their preferences for some computer systems over others. This isn't tribalism, it's rooted in years of playing with and reviewing games on all systems, and really getting to know their capabilities and idiosyncracies. Some of them are simply objectively better than others. And some are definitely, statistically more pirated than others. Don't presume you know better than us. Ahh, joy. I do love a good rant, and this is about as good as we've got from the official writers since Gary left. Don't be afraid to defend and justify your position in the face of criticism.

The legacy of the ancients is our main review. Engage in a world-hopping adventure to retrieve and eliminate a world destroying macguffin. Explore the galactic museum, and find the warp points to the various other worlds in the game, and then travel to them to get the things you need. Reminds me of Head over Heels As in many of these games, frequent saving is essential, and exploring everywhere and not taking the most obvious route to immediate benefit will result in greater long term profit. Learn new spells, find new weapons, and go delve those dungeons.

Lots of mini-reviews this month. Golf, Marble Madness, Basketball, Scrabble, RISK, Baseball, flight simulation, they give us brief synopses of all kinds of stuff. Hopefully there'll be at least something to your liking amid the dross.


The marvel-phile goes back to the short articles filling in a few characters. Can't have epic crossovers where someone dies every month, or the readers lose interest. This time, it's that boisterous trio of Asgardians: Hogan the grim, Fandral the dashing, and Volstag the enormous. The musketeers to Thor's D'arganan, they are generally on the same side (unless Loki's trickery and/or alcohol are involved), and will back him up in a fight. Which is good to know. Jeff makes the interesting point that Thor's alter ego gets much less attention than most of our other heroes. Increasingly, all his personal drama is based around his godly relationships, and his human guise is merely a disguise, rather than the costume being the disguise, as is more commonly the case. Interesting observation. One that has been deconstructed quite a bit in comics circles since then. Sometimes the man wears the mask, sometimes the man is the mask. Unfortunately, I don't have time for a detailed philosophical discourse on this matter, so I guess I'll have to return another fairly positive verdict on this one for being thought provoking, and revealing a few more comic tidbits I didn't know before.


Dragonmirth once again has ideas that would be distinctly disturbing if played straight. Snarf tries to get out of the canyon, but is thwarted at every turn. Wormy gets all flashbackeriffic.


Join America's greatest hero! Oooh. Sounds interesting. Who, who, who could it be? We're all agog, rushing to see! Buck Rogers?! Fuuuuuuuck. Looks like the bleeding off of the company by Lorrane Williams (dun dun dur, organ music, crash of thunder, etc etc, you know the drill) has already started. This sucks beavis. Change the channel.


Ahh, now this is more like it. Ravenloft, house of strahd. The expanded reworking of the best selling module ever (well, there are probably actually more copies of B1&2 and X1 in existence, but that's because they came free with the boxed sets) becomes the centrepiece of a whole new campaign world for AD&D 2nd edition. Face the dread vampire Strahd von Zarovich (dun dun dur, organ music, crash of thunder, etc etc, you know the drill ) in his equally dread abode. Now that's a nice way to kick off the new, more story focussed edition. Have fun. Hang on, wait a minute, 2nd edition isn't out yet.  And this doesn't come out until 1994. Tch. Looks like the person assembling the archive messed up. Well, 250 issues, you can't get it all perfect. Mutter mutter mutter grumble.


The roles are reversed this month, with an utterly awesome themed section that shines brightly both as reading material and stuff to play with. The rest of the issue is also reasonably good (apart from last month's leftovers), with plenty of variety, drama, and fun bits and pieces. This is easily the best issue since the start of Roger's run, and probably in the top 10 overall of issues so far. Is Roger finally starting to hit his stride, or will it be down again next month. In any case, this definitely raises my enthusiasm, knowing that they're willing to try new things like this, and experiment with the way they cover things. Keep it dramatic, folks.

Dragon Magazine Issue 132: April 1988

part 1/3

116 pages. Snarf and co get to be on the cover, courtesy of Mr Elmore. Man, that's a lot of yellows and oranges. Deserts really need a better exterior design co-ordinator. Anyway, looks like they're continuing their recent policy of alternating serious april issues (84, 86) with ones with full on special features full of goofiness. And this year is serious face time. Not that this means it's going to be bad, but it certainly doesn't mean it's definitely going to be full of high quality material useful in your game either. What has Roger got lined up for us? And has he managed to get it properly lined up in terms of formatting? Good question, especially since he devotes the editorial to apologizing for his errors in recent issues. We discover by doing.

In this issue:


White dwarf has reached it's 100th issue. Pretty good. Unfortunately, not long now before it cuts off contact with RPG's and third party stuff and becomes a warhammer house organ. Peh. So it goes.


Letters: A little King's Table question, duely answered.

A letter from someone who is fining that the hobby is declining in their area, and fears for the future of it and the magazine. Please say D&D won't die. Roger gives no false comfort. It is the duty of each of you to seek out and create new players!

A letter from someone who has found his character's name appearing in Dragon. You have drawn from common sources. Plus true originality is tricky.


Forum: Daniel U Thibault recommends The Skeptical Enquirer magazine to anyone interested in real life supernatural phenomena. Many famous sci-fi authors write in it, and it has a very lively letters page. (I can guess) Anyone read this? Looks like like Dragon, it's still going online.

David Howery gives some expansions and corrections to his own article in issue 126. Always something you think of after sending it off, isn't there.

Mark R Shipley has some rather heated tactical advice on the battle of Scud and Allycia. If you play to the strengths of your opponent, of course you'll lose, and lose hard. What are you thinking, man?! And don't forget to metagame! Hmm. I suspect we have not seen the last of this one.

Bob James comments on a whole bunch of different things from issue 126. Proving rather controversial, that issue.

Craig Dudek thinks that good characters ought to be able to use nonlethal poisons that cause sleep or paralysis without it being an alignment violation. After all, winning an encounter without unneeded bloodshed is a good thing to do, right? Yes, but if you slit their throats after paralyzing them, then your claims of moral superiority go out the window again. Mercy to the helpless (even when it's only temporary) is one thing that they are pretty definite on.

Steve & Cynthia Higginbotham tell us Banded armour did exist! Roman legionaries wore it. So did the turks. And let's not forget the japanese. They just didn't call it that. Don't be so eurocentric.

Shaun DeMers is fed up of the OMG D&D is satanic!!1! crowd, and thinks a video would be a good way to prove it isn't. I don't think they're particularly interested in facts.

Rusty Ballinger gives us another reminder that real life is more complicated than the systems in the magazine, and one size does not fit all. This includes hiring military units.  

Mike Montesano responds with amusement at the tuckers kobolds editorial. He's dealt with them too. Organized, tactically astute enemies are fun from both sides of the GM screen.

Craig Flescher has some tactics for dealing with said clever enemies. Turnaround is very much fair play here. Turn up the cleverness on both sides.

Richard Devens IV thinks that forcing you to have proficiencies for everything you want to do is a bad idea. you should be able to try cool tricks without specific training, and shields should count as cover rather than AC bonuses against missiles. I have no great objection to any of those statements.

Stephen Rasmussen introduces the idea of specializing not only in attacking with specific weapons, but also parrying and two-weapon fighting. Another good idea that can go wrong oh so very easily. Beware the twinks.

Michael A Costa doesn't have a problem with the majority of articles being AD&D specific. It's easier to strip stuff away to convert to D&D than going the other way would be. And it's not as if they're that different.


Bazaar of the Bizarre: Our token comical contribution this year is another little article from Stewart Wieck. The chainsword! For when manual hack-and-slashing just doesn't have enough power. This is a curious article, going into plenty of detail about the inconveniences of making the item, maintaining it, and what happens when it goes wrong. For all the inherent goofiness of the premise and punniness of the flavour text, this is one that's not at all overpowered, entirely legal, and could be put into a serious campaign with only a little adaption. And of course, it would be perfect for an Exalted game. Ahh, the joys of magitech. He may be subverting the genre, but that still makes for fun games.


Role-playing reviews is also in a humorous mood, reviewing some of the more lightheated roleplaying games out there.

Paranoia is now on it's second edition. Which in the reviewers opinion, is a considerable improvement on the first one, the mechanics substantially simplified so the game can be as fast, furious and insane as it's supposed to be with less GM fudging. There's a pretty decent number of adventures out for it by now, and you should be able to get a clear idea of the distinctive tone of the game from this. Are you ready to betray everyone you know, deal with the most annoying bureaucracy ever, and die repeatedly for fun?

Ghostbusters is also a lighthearted game, but is much easier to turn into a serious one. With 4 basic stats, and highly streamlined skill, dramatic editing and motivation traits, it's another one that you can create characters quickly and easily for, and then play fun, highly dramatic games with. It's low on death, but high on goofy mishaps for your characters. And adventure designing is a breeze. It's another one that gets plenty of praise.

Teenagers from outer space takes the cartoon aesthetic even further, creating a game with no actual death, just a little bashed around (they'll be right as rain next scene, although their clothes may not be.) The rules aren't quite as solid as the previous two, but it's still hardly a bad game.


Beyond the gate of dreams: A decidedly weird new class, this is definitely cut from the mould of the bard and thief-acrobat in design. The Dreamer can be a split class like the ninja, or a single classed NPC. They get a whole bunch of divination and mind-affecting powers, most of which can only be used while asleep, so they won't be much more use than a normal member of their other class in combat, but can pull some pretty neat tricks given a bit of downtime. Like Rituals in 4E, this seems to be an attempt to separate out the plot device magic from the blasty magic. Which is a laudable goal, even if the power organization isn't the greatest. This is another one that's never going to cause problems the way a regular wizard getting all spell researchy will, so it's welcome in my game anytime, at least unless you wind up spending half an hour every sleep period doing solo adventure stuff, while the rest of the party gets bored.

Dragon Magazine Issue 132: April 1988

part 2/3

Resourceful sorcery: Runequest gets another magical article in relatively quick succession. Interesting. This is a rather cool examination of the mechanics of learning magic. It seems that once you've learnt a certain amount, if you do so in the wrong order, you can wind up slowing your progression to a crawl, as you don't have enough free points to learn more without danger. But if you load up on familiars, magic storage batteries, an assistant, and make sure you have long-term buffs up while in danger, you can not only be more powerful in individual encounters, but continue your more linear upward progression between adventures. Ahh, the joys of gaming the system. That seems to be another thing that's on the up these days. Not sure if I should approve of that or not. Still definitely an intriguing little article here.


The second volume of the darksword trilogy is already out?! How fast do that pair write stuff? This is decidedly surprising.


With all the trappings: Muahahaha. Trap design. It's been a while. Whatever happened to Dastardly deeds and devious devices? It only got 4 columns before dying back in the day, while the Dragon's Bestiary and Bazaar of the Bizarre lasted ages, and are now back again. Guess people prefer facing monsters to devices. Still, they definitely have a place in adventures, and here's 3 1/2 pages of advice not only on creating them and placing them well, but the economic and societal ramifications of doing so. After all, complex technical devices require skilled labour, and that does not come cheap. Plus if the owner intends to access the place being guarded, they need to have a method of bypassing the traps without ruining them. With a whole mini-dungeon of interlinked example traps as well, this is a pretty cool little feature, full of instantly usable ideas, and sparkers for your own imagination. Definitely one to return too if you find yourself short of ideas for your latest megadungeon.


Sage advice is tiny this month. That's a relieving change.

Can woodland creatures charge in the woods (only as long as they aren't part of a unit.)

Will flying over the woods negate the sight penalties. (only with respect to other flying creatures. And the pope's big pointy hat. )

Do you need initiative to do a wrap-around (nope)

Can you do a wrap around if attacked from the rear (Muuuust resist making your mom jokes. So hard. (your mom makes me so hard) Damnitt! And I was so close. )

Can missiles be fired into melee (only if you don't mind hitting your allies as well)

How do you hit a tree (Shoot at it.  Roll to hit normally. It'll probably be AC10, as trees don't move unless the grand druid (ie, celtic pope ) asks them too.)

How fast will a forest burn. (Fairly slowly. Wind direction will play a big part in how it spreads. )

How do you calculate damage against creatures with different HD sizes. ( blah blah, average hit points, blah blah divide by 4.5, blah blah statistical gubbins. )


Let the good dice roll: Another attack of statistical analysis here, showing us the probabilities of getting various ability scores with the various rolling methods. All seems pretty familiar. Come on, there's plenty of other stuff to run the math on. We don't need this again. Next!


Fiction: Out of hand by Nina Kiriki Hoffman. Kids with uncontrolled powerful magic. Just one of the things that's common in fiction, that really doesn't work in D&D. (although a really good roll on the psionic wild talents tables could just about emulate it. ) Here's that trope mixed with another common one, that of pictures stepping off the paper and coming to life. And of course, events proceed from there as you'd expect. Some people want to keep her talent under wraps, while others want to exploit it. A rather formulaic entry really. Still, deserves credit for it's strong portrayal of the life of a craftsman and their dealings with the clergy. Holy blessings don't pay the bills, and a man's gotta keep working no matter how you curse him. Overall, I think this comes out about average.


The ecology of the Aurumvorax: Now this is a nice story. One of the monsters that demands ecological and social consequences to their existence gets them in spades. Greed, envy, use as a tracking device, material shortages, these guys definitely get the interest of adventurers of all stripes, trying to study or kill it. You can profit substantially if you can kill one, but you can potentially profit even more if you can manage the expensive process of raising one from a kitten. Of course, you'll have to watch out for envious people wanting a slice of the benefits without paying the costs. We see the trend for unreliable narrators turned up a notch in this one, keeping the "truth" back for the footnotes. And although there are less of those than in many of these, this is still a pretty enjoyable entry. There's definitely several extended and possibly convoluted adventures to be built using these ideas.


Orcwars: This month's centrepiece is another mildly humorous, but still entirely playable little complete game. Even more than Nibar's keep, this is easily integrated into an actual D&D game, and indeed, is set in the Known World. Unite the Orc hordes, and ravage the civilized lands. Whoza get ta be da warboss? Sound like fun? Certainly looks like fun, with multiple winning objectives, and plenty of tactical choices. Will you obey da code of ethnics? Will you primarily raid da hooman caravans, or beat up the the other tribes? Decisions, decisions. Ug tired of decisions, want to SMASH! As ever, if I get the chance to try this out, I will report back on how it turned out.


Arcane Lore: More druidic goodies in here this month. Want to be able to use animal tricks without completely transforming into one? Not a bad idea, and seems entirely within their thematic remit. So heres 6 new spells. Bat sonar, Deer speed, Lions claws, Oxen strength, bear hug, and vipers bite (with full power save or die poison, amazingly enough. ) That's some serious buffing, especially if you start combining them and developing your own animal power imitators. So a pretty cool idea, but one which may open the door to even greater feats of twinkery. Anyone who underestimates druids is a fool, as has been proven far too many times in the magazine.


The king of conventions: Looks like this year, they're definitely trying to promote con going more in the magazine. Gen Con and Origins have finally got over the bad blood that polarised people in the late 70's/early 80's, and are working together with the RPGA to make an even bigger and better experience for YOU! As they said a couple of months ago, mini's in particular are getting a big push, as they try once again to stem the decline in wargaming. Poor old guard, trying so hard, when we know in hindsight they are doomed to fail. So this is one that is somewhere between amusing and sobering, for it could well be us next. What are we to do? Move on quickly, before things get too morbid. :brrr:


Cash and carry, gamma style: Another article asking you to apply proper economic principles here. Course the economic pressures on a community in gamma world are very different from those in D&D, modern day earth, or Star Frontiers. Strangely powered mutants are both an obstacle and an opportunity, but good food and water is much rarer, and as a result, much much more valuable. The power to defend what you've got also becomes more important, for if there's not enough to go round, people will fight and kill to survive personally. Yeah, this is exceedingly low on the gonzo scale, trying to introduce considerably more realism and worldbuilding to the game. Combined with the fact that most of this is stuff we've seen before for D&D, and this isn't a hugely consequential article. Another month, another bit of filler.

Dragon Magazine Issue 132: April 1988

part 3/3

TSR previews: Still a bit messed up in here, smudging the stuff for last month and the one before together. Lets just look at now, shall we.

AD&D is getting OP1: Tales of the outer planes. Like with oriental adventures, they've opened up a milieu with a spiffy hardback, and now they want to milk it. Will we see any more in this series? Guess it depends on sales.

Top secret/S.I. gets High Stakes Gamble. A boxed set focussing on suave high society adventures, it certainly seems a good way to continue their desire to make the game more cinematic and social encounter based.

Marvel Superheroes gets ME1: Cosmos Cubed. I'm guessing the E stands for epic, because this is a really high power one. Are you ready to go cosmic, again. Are you ready to go back if it doesn't work?

Special Forces is our wargaming contribution. An SPI Sniper™ game, this seems to be a game of modern counterterrorist actions. Interesting. Rather a risky topic, really.

Our solo gamebooks are also tying into this theme, with book 5: ULTRA Deadly. Don't let the Nazi's crack the allies secret code early, change the course of history.

Appropriately, we get two Double Agent books this month. Hollow earth affair/The royal pain and Web of danger/Acolytes of darkness. Sebastian Cord and Agent 13 penetrate secrets and kick ass.

And finally, in pure fiction we have The Legend of Huma. Read about the legendary knight of Solamnia and his part in keeping evil from taking over Krynn. Poor Takhisis. She tries so hard, and never gets a break.


A little less super: A DC heroes article? They are covering different systems quite a bit lately. And as the title says, this is sort of a nerfing one, from someone who would prefer that not every character ends up at superman levels after a few years play. Curiously though, it's also one that would prefer not everyone starts at street level either, increasing the randomness in power levels at character generation, and then implementing a few house rules to ensure that while characters still advance, they don't go through the same kind of quantum leaps in power level. Which I guess brings things closer to the way things actually work in comics. It'd definitely require the right type of group to keep the game fun for everyone despite the power disparities. But it's still a good idea. I think we can make this one work.


Superheroes alive! Jeff Grubb gets in on the book reviews under a different name

The encyclopedias of super heroes and villains by Jeff Rovin are a pair of massive books that do exactly what they say. Not just the major comics, but cartoons, mythical characters, pulp novels, and anything else with superpowered characters gets meticulously combed. The villains one isn't quite as well written or edited as the heroes one (diminishing returns strike again), but both are massive, rather impressive works. You can both learn quite a bit, and get some enjoyable reading out of flipping through these.

Superman at fifty: the persistence of a legend by Dennis Dooley and Gary Engle is another bit of historical analysis. How did he become such an iconic figure, and how has he changed over the years to maintain that status. A whole bunch of people contribute, with examinations from the scholarly to the humourous, throwing their own interpretations on his personality, and why he works so well. As with so many successful characters, peoples ability to project their own ideas onto him seems to be an integral part of his success. Even Krypto the wonder dog can't spoil that.

Aces high, and jokers wild, edited by George R.R Martin, are the second and third books in the Wild Cards series. It continues to apply superhero powers to a decidedly non comic-booky world, weaving together stories by various authors into a larger whole. We find out a lot more about the history, and possible future of their world. Not entirely family-friendly, this is nonetheless highly recommended as story and a worldbuilding exercise. Even before getting it's own game, it seems very gamable.


The frontiers of design: Star frontiers' article this month is about improving the ship design process. Just how much can you fit in a ship? More than you'd think, if modern gadgetry is a good guideline. But it'll cost ya. Fairly dry stuff here, which by it's own admission has a bit of power creep. Whether it'll result in a more balanced or fun game is very much open to speculation. Another bit of filler, really.


The paranoia enquirer joins in on the adverts disguised as newspapers game. Space aliens eat Elvis's (sic) brain. The computer wants you to be well-informed. Buy it. But do not read the sections in colours higher than your clearance. That would be treasonous.


Looks very much like The marvel-phile: Rocket Raccoon! Jeff once again delivers the fun when all around him are staying resolutely sensible. Born on a planet inhabited largely by anthropomorphic animals, created to serve as doctors and security for all the insane people from worlds around, he became chief law officer, and faced down all kinds of opposition. We also get stats for Wal Russ, Uncle Pyko, Judson Jakes, Lord Dyvyne, and a whole bunch of generic creatures, including Killer Clowns, Prank Tanks, and Drakillers. Ahh, the joys of the marvel universe, mixing so many wacky elements together that somehow it manages to come full circle and become a serious story. Which has recently been resurrected in an even more serious form, as I see from wikipedia. (obsessive compulsive disorder?! :shakes head: ) Which cycles things back to amusing. So another entertaining but hardly worldshaking article here, especially once context is factored in.


The role of Computers: Beyond Zork, despite it's silly name, is an entirely serious text adventure game.(well, as serious as you can get when the macguffin is the coconut of quendor) Thankfully, they've been improving their parsers over the years, so our experienced reviewers have no trouble controlling the game. They also have automapping, randomisation of puzzle elements, and a booklet which will be nearly essential in completing the game. Well, you've gotta do something to fight piracy. Another tricky entry in a well-known series.

Pirates! (speaking of piracy) is an adventure game where you take the role of a ship's captain and go adventuring. Will you engage in legal trading, privateering for your country, or just raid all and sundry? While you can't really win it, if you're good, you can adventure for years of game time, and amass quite the fortune. With a wide range of choices and playstyles, they give it another 5 star rating.

Tons of mini-reviews as well, 17 to be exact, ranging from 2 to 5 stars. They certainly aren't short of material to cover. Less pleasing is the fact that they are unable to give awards for the best software of last year because not enough people voted. Even though they might be a fairly popular column, they aren't getting quite the reader responses they'd like. Oh well, I can understand how that happens.


Dragonmirth has several hellish jokes. Snarf gets out of one pit, but may well find himself in more trouble soon.


And so we come to the unceremonious end of Wormy, as the storyline simply cuts itself off midflow (at quite a dramatic point as well), and dissappears without a trace. Such a shame. Oh well. It's happened before, it'll happen again. Often the Fox network will be involved. All we can do is complain, write letters, and do our best to not let our own creative projects suffer the same fate. I'm doing my best. Are you?


An orcish map of the known world. Quite amusing. This of course ties in with the Orcwars game.


Despite the lack of a full themed section, this has been a fairly decent issue overall, both in terms of humour and usability. By spreading the mischief around, they keep it from being so groan-worthy, using it as a spice rather than a main course. Not such a bad idea, really. They're still covering a wide range of games, but the quality of their articles is even more variable than the D&D ones. Still, once again, I think they've managed to provide at least one thing that I'll use again later. So this is still a worthwhile exercise. Looks like zaniness will still go through several more ups and downs over the years. So let's get a filking move on. We three gamers of orient are. Killing things to gain ever more power :fade out:

Dragon Magazine Issue 133: May 1988


part 1/3


108 pages. Roger takes the time to give a nod to the other magazines in the field in this month's editorial. Now he's an editor himself, he can appreciate the work that goes into them all the more. Be they big or small, there's something to learn from all of them, even if sometimes it's what not to do. And he doesn't mind recommending a few of them either. A fairly promising start which shows that they're staying in touch with the rest of the hobby. No special feature this time, but that hasn't proved too great an indicator of quality. As usual, let's get to work.


In this issue:


Letters: A question about them doing an art collection. They must not have been paying attention, because they answered that a few months ago. They are indeed doing one. Still, never hurts to promote it again.

A letter suggesting that instead of setting up their own BBs, they should just set one up on compuserve. It'd be cheaper and more accessable. Roger agrees with this point and tells us that he already does some forum surfing and question answering. An early adopter, I see. And yet I don't recall him being a regular forumgoer in recent years. Is he still involved in gaming in any way?

A letter with 4 questions, mostly about future releases. All are answered with ease.

A letter from someone who's suffering burnout. Take a break, or make a change. There are tons of other systems out there.


Forum: David Godwin thinks advantages should always be balanced with disadvantages. Super-powerfull familiars break that balance, particularly if you get them at low level. They shouldn't overshadow their master.

S.D. Anderson on the other hand, thinks that at the moment, familiars are more of a liability than a advantage. They need a little redefining, to be more magical. Interesting. It could work.

Denise L Voskull is in favour of sorting out monty haulism by taking away adventurer's stuff, and disallowing unbalancing rules from supplements. If your gaming group disagrees, take a vote on it. That way, less than half of your group will walk out on you

Jason Greff thinks that there's nothing wrong with the odds being stacked against magic-users at low level. What's life without a bit of challenge?


The ecology of the carnivorous ape: Back to the detached sagely pontification this month, with a fairly mundane creature. After all, there could be carnivorous apes in reality. It would only require a few minor evolutionary adaptions. The rest of this article is largely extrapolative as well, with lots of details stolen from real world animals. They don't hesitate to make sly King Kong references either. However, the lack of drama in the fiction bit, combined with the lightness of the footnotes, means that overall, this adds up to one of the less impressive entries in the series. They could definitely have done more with this one, as modules from this era (and much of Terra Primate) show. Where's Stephen Inniss when you need him?


Bazaar of the Bizarre turns it's attention to magical quivers. Why should bows and arrows be the only parts of the equation that makes a really badass archer?

Frief's magical quiver has the ingenious trick of making magical arrows multiply into lots of arrows of a slightly lower power. A a quirky trick, but a rather useful one. An item that is very exploitable by clever adventurers, but also has a hidden drawback, this could definitely spice up your adventure.  

The Quiver of arrow storing is normal sized and weight, but can fit up to 200 arrows without causing any encumbrance. Just the thing for lengthy treks. Now your biggest problem is finding the right one in an emergency.

And then it's back to the arrows. They don't actually give us any magical arrows, instead giving us a load of mundane ways of customizing them, such as flaming arrows, grappling ones, and nasty barbed ones that do extra damage when pulled out. But then again, magical arrows are stupidly expensive for the amount of use you get from them, and not worth making most of the time. These, on the other hand, can make any archer quite a bit more versatile, and are cheap enough for you to restock. Quite a clever entry really. You can definitely use this one to the benefit of your characters, as it'll mesh nicely with their other enhancements.


Notice anything different: Ahh, perception. One area where White Wolf got things spectacularly right, and D&D still struggles to this day, with your ability to tell what's going on in an emergency awkwardly kludged into wisdom, where it isn't very appropriate for the classes that most use the connected skills. This would certainly be a far better and more frequently used addition to the ability score list than that bloody stupid double dump stat comeliness. This does pretty much as you would expect, setting up the new ability, and what bonuses and penalties high and low scores in it offer. I very much approve, and wish this had been incorporated into the official rules in some way. (maybe making it a bit more subtly graded, because at the moment only extreme scores have any effect) It would have saved thousands of us years of bother, really. Fools! Why did you not heed their advice decades ago!  An article that isn't historically significant, but could have been, and quite possibly should have been. Ahh, the joys and woes of hindsight.


Role-playing reviews turns it's eye to tournament modules. One of the trickiest things to design, because they have to be played precisely as written, so if you screw up, it's gonna suck for most of the parties. It's no surprise they playtest them rather more intensively than normal modules. Ken is as usual full of contextual info on his current topic, sharing his insider knowledge of how these things come to pass. We get a recap of the old idea that AD&D was supposed to be primarily a tournament game (I remember that! ) the differences between tournament and regular campaign play, and plenty of other stuff that makes it look like this is going to be another strong selection of reviews.

C6, the official RPGA tournament handbook is a guide to constructing your own scenarios, and also has two sample ones within. Not just for prospective tournament writers and DM's, most of this is applicable to home games as well. It gets Ken's wholehearted recommendation.

A1-4 Scourge of the slavelords is the compiled version of the slaver series from 1980. Like B1-9, it's been rewritten to tie it in much more closely with the setting developed since then, and to bridge the gaps between the 4 original scenarios. This is not a perfect stitching together, but it does the job. You may still have to do a bit of railroading, particularly if you want to use the 4th scenario as written, but you could also deviate from the path, and use the locations and characters in your own way.

I12, Egg of the phoenix, on the other hand gets a pretty mixed review. While the individual scenarios are cool, the new plot trying to stitch them together is not well done, and there is quite a bit of editorial sloppiness. It all smacks of changes made due to marketing decisions, quite possibly at the last minute. If you can get the originals instead, do so.

Ken also takes the time to comment on comments about his reviewing, and clear up a few misconceptions. This is also fairly entertaining to read, and hopefully he'll use the criticisms to become an even better reviewer. He does seem to be a very strong part of the team at the moment.

Dragon Magazine Issue 133: May 1988

part 2/3


The imperial gods: Ahhh, the roman pantheon. Not given much attention here because they're basically a reskinned greek pantheon, and that was covered quite adequately in Deities and Demigods. But as is often the case, the big similarities obscure the little cultural differences, and there are quite a few of those to examine. So this makes for a curious article, presenting a culture in which the gods may be important, but they are treated in quite a pragmatic manner. We give you veneration and sacrifices on a regular basis, you give us omens, good crops and other various goodies back. Clerics frequently give service to more than one god as the need arises, and are often quite cynical about the whole arrangement. Which is actually a pretty good model to adapt for a D&D campaign. After all, if the players are going to treat the cleric like a healbot and not actually give a damn about the IC religions anyway, you might as well make the problem into an opportunity to have a little fun. Perfect in particular for your god of business and the like. We also get the usual godly stats for Aeneas, Cybele, Divis Imperator, Eris, (Hail Discordia!) Janus, Mithras, Saturn, Serapis and Vesta. This is definitely a helpful article for me, being just what I needed to solve one of my current worldbuilding conundrums. After all, in a world where the gods are definitely real, active, and of great, but not omnipotent power, people are more likely to treat staying on their good side in a pragmatic manner rather than a mystical one. Considerably better than I was expecting.


The role of books: Aria takes off by Michel Wayland is a graphic novel from france. Stylisticly, it differs quite a bit from the current american comic book trends, with soft, rounded art, and a not particularly epic plot. Overall, it doesn't really impress the reviewer. Maybe it doesn't translate well, since it certainly seems to be doing pretty well over there, with over 30 volumes in the series now.

The dragonlance saga book 1 by Roy Thomas and Thomas Yeates is the graphic novel adaption of the first book in the series. It manages to convert the story fairly faithfully, even if the visuals and sound effects are sometimes a bit garish and overdone for the reviewers taste. If you liked the original, this is an entirely worthwhile purchase. If you didn't, you probably won't be converted.

The serpent's egg by Caroline Stevermer is a fun little tale of fantasy intrigue. Light on the supernatural Macguffins, and heavy on wit and plot twists, it manages to stand out both in tone and world-building.

Napoleon disentimed by Hayford Peirce gets a fairly negative review. Too many gimmicks, too much fast universe switching to get a good sense of the rules of the various realities, not enough tying together of the various elements. This is why you need to edit and split up your ideas to get the most out of them.

Soulstring by Midori Snyder is a classic fairy story with a twist, as told from the perspective of the rescued princess. A tyrannical wizard-king, a curse transforming the hero into a stag, it's romantic without being fluffy, and has plenty of stealable ideas for your game.

The burning realm by Michael Reaves is the long awaited sequel to The Shattered world. Not content with earth being reduced to a bunch of floating islands in space, now demons want to destroy the whole shebang. At least, some of them do, and they're as prone to making devious alliances to achieve their goals as demons in many other realities. The human characters are just as well developed and diverse in motivation, and the many elements are weaved together properly to build up to an epic finale. See. This is how you do it.

Greenbriar queen by Sheila Gilluly is another book that gets a mediocre review. It began life as a D&D game, and while it's not that the story is bad, it was probably a lot more fun, and made more sense when you were playing in it. Such is the nature of trying to get stuff from your head onto the page.


Wards against evil: Our Oriental Adventures article for this month is a little sumpin sumpin for the shukenja, if you know what I mean. The writer wants to boost their power a bit by making their power against spirits more akin to western clerics turning. Since this is a no cost power up, I somewhat disapprove. Even the editor doesn't seem too keen on the idea, pointing out that it doesn't appear in the literature, so not only does it makes them less differentiated, it does not help with emulation either. Which is no good at all. Guess this is an example of them providing explicitly optional material that they don't expect most of us to use. I'll definitely be leaving this one out.


The game wizards: More info on the upcoming D&D computer games this month. The dread hand of trilogyitus reaches even here, with not one, not two, but three Forgotten Realms computer games in development. They must be awfully confident they're going to be profitable. They also have two Dragonlance games, and two generic programs in the works. Quite an impressive list. I'll be even more impressed if they all actually come out in a timely fashion. This of course requires a whole bunch of development teams, and Jim talks about the various companies these projects have been farmed out too. He seems rather pleased with this development, currently having a good relationship with the companies responsible. Another optimistic entry in this column that is probably genuine. After all, they're trying something new, and it seems to be coming along nicely. It'll definitely be interesting to see what our game reviewers think about this stuff when it comes out.


The role of computers: Quarterstaff is another game which takes advantage of the burgeoning processing power of computers to create creatures with artificial intelligence. This means you have a rather better chance of making them friendly than in most games. Rather than having to figure out what vocabulary the parser has, you select options from a drop-down menu, and the instruction manual will help if you do need to describe more complex actions. Once again technology has brought computers closer to emulating the tabletop gaming experience and they give this 5 stars.

Dragon's Lair is of course a conversion of the classic arcade game. It has very good visuals for the era, but manages this by being exceedingly linear, with many of the rooms requiring a single exact sequence of actions to complete, and nothing else working. This makes it very tricky indeed to do, but once you've finished it there's no point going back, nothing new to discover. Still, now you can do it without burning away ridiculous amounts of money at the arcade. The reviewers give the impression they enjoyed playing it more than I did.

Not a huge amount of microreviews this month. However, they do have lots of news on the goings on at various companies. Moves, projects, new licenses, the computer industry continues it's meteoric rise to something that will rival TV, music and books as a economic force.


Mutants down under, a supplement for TMNT. Seems fitting. Kangaroos with mohawks and uzi's would fit right in in that universe.


Agents for hire: Top secret goes back to the idea of breaking away from your agency, and becoming a spy for hire. A risky business, with treachery from your employers a constant risk. Is it worth it, just to get a little more money? If you haven't built up a rep and some contacts, then you'll struggle to get any work at all. And rooting through bins for passwords, doing stakeouts for someone suspecting their wife of infidelity and similar stuff is a far cry from international espionage which influences the fate of nations. A rather lengthy article that seems mostly designed to point out how tricky this path is to tread, and mechanically codify the process of jobhunting, this is very much in the old edition's spirit (indeed, all it's rules references are to the 2nd ed books) and seems more likely to drive people away from this playstyle than encourage it. And I think that an article that discourages you from trying it out is a failure by most criteria, don't you.

Dragon Magazine Issue 133: May 1988

part 3/3


Success by conventional means: This year's focus on wargaming conventions continues with this article on running your own. Setting up something like this is not an easy proposition, and can consume vast amounts of time and money even if done right. So here's advice from someone who built their own con up from nothing, and has been going for 5 years now. Don't overestimate, for you will be disappointed. One person cannot do everything. There is no such thing as too much publicity. Make sure everything works and is rehearsed before the night otherwise you will screw up somehow. Consider your pricing policies carefully. Always consider food, for it can make or break peoples experience. If you are careful, you can make at least a small profit at every stage. Like the freelancing advice that pops up every year or two, this is the kind of advice that can be applied to any commercial venture. Ignore it at your peril. One of those diversions that I'm quite happy to see in the magazine, as it helps break up the monotony.


Sage advice: How does ensnare restrict demons (They can't teleport away or summon more demons, but they can still pull lots of other tricks. Be vewy vewy wawy. )

Can I have some guidelines on wish. (Another nerfer? Not satisfied with the number of articles on this subject already. Skip is very very bored now. Unleash the didactics.)

Can a ring of spell turning affect a wish. (if its effect is aimed at the wearer. )
Can a magic user replace a spell in their book (yes. This is an entirely acceptable way of circumventing the spells known limit. )

Isn't polymorph incredibly abusable (Oh yes, but not quite as much as you seem to think. People who are transformed have an annoying habit of forgetting their original form. Also, system shock's a bitch. Like wish and haste, this'll come back and bite you if you use it frequently. )


Surprise!: Ahh yes, the problem of nonstandardised surprise probabilities in D&D. What do you do when one thing has a power that increases the chances, another has one that reduces them, and neither even use the same dice type. How do we fix that? Same way they do for the Monk and Sentinel, convert the probabilities into percentages, and then add or subtract the two differences from the base 33%. While there are probably more elegant ways of doing it, they would require a substantial system overhaul, and this seems to work, so I think I'll adopt it. So it's a compact and useful article here. I quite approve.


TSR previews: D&D goes from elves, to dwarves, with The Dwarves of Rockhome gazetteer. Find out more about the known world, and introduce dwarven clerics to your game.

AD&D gives us H4: The throne of bloodstone. Their highest level module ever, this may not have quite the level of the BD&D immortal level modules, but it's still pretty ridiculous. Go kick Orcus' butt. You have the Power! We need to set things up for the second edition changeover, so it may even stick for a bit.  

Marvel superheroes gets MU1: gamers handbook of the marvel universe 1. A-D of every character, all with stats, and we're already up to 256 pages? There's gonna be quite a few more installments coming.

On the boardgame side, we have The Hunt for Red October game. Can you avert WWIII? The stakes are high in this little license.

Our novel this month is Black Wizards. Doug Niles continues his Moonshae trilogy. The plot thickens, just as it must. Will there be a satisfactory resolution?

And our solo gamebook this month is a Top Secret/S.I. one, The Final Bug. Descriptions are rather sketchy. The problem with solving this puzzle is not lack of evidence, but too much of it. Just slap it in the supercomputer and let that solve the problem.


The wild warriors: Berserkers. Now they were one of the weirder parts of the D&D monster list. Technically human, yet treated very much as just another marauding creature to kill or be killed by. This is also another one we've seen presented as an actual class before as well, way back in issue 3. Since the writeup then was pretty perfunctory, I think they are well due a more detailed revisiting.

Unsurprisingly, they draw quite heavily from the Barbarian stuff from issue 63 and UA. After all, they are from the same culture. And even more than them, they are designed to be problematic for a group. Not only do they have the same distaste for magic equipment and wizards, but they also have the blind battle rage problem which means they may end up attacking their allies in battle. Even if the player tries to play them as reasonably as possible, a little inadvertent PvP may wind up taking place. Since they are also combat monsters, especially when berserk, this is likely to end badly for the other character unless you have some way of escaping from or incapacitating them. (a barbarian cleric loaded with several hold person spells, for example) Unless you're playing a solo or comedy game, exercise great caution about allowing them as PC's.


The dragon's bestiary: Wormy may be gone, but this month's bestiary has a decidedly wormy theme. Scaling up tiny and microscopic creatures has already given us several cool articles, but given the numbers and diversity of these creatures all around us, you could do a whole book on this subject and only scratch the surface. Lets see how we can use reality to make our fiction stranger this time.

Neresis are little bristle worms that pounce out from their burrows to grab things. Course, in reality they're mostly herbivorous, but that won't stop the giant ones from trying to get their jaws around you.

Diopatra are one of those disturbing creatures with multiple mandible type jaws that allow them to both grab, hold and chew at the same time. They tend to appear in colonies as well, so several of them can be holding you down and trying to strip the flesh from you ASAP. Definitely nightmare fuel to be had there.

Vanadis evert their bodies to swallow you whole. Since they're pretty stretchy, they can even fit ogres inside. Sounds like a combination of snakes and Krenshar. Another excellent reason for adventurers to travel in parties. It's much easier to cut them out than it is to get out from inside.

Eurythoe are fairly slow and inoffensive, but their bristles are covered with agony inflicting poison. Just leave them alone.

Glyceria have venomous bites that paralyze you, which means they make good ambush predators. Another thing with decidedly disturbing looking jaw structures for creeping your players out with.

Sabella are another harmless bottom feeder. I don't think we need to worry too much about stats for those.

Terebella are also harmless, but they have the quirk of sorting the stuff they filter and dumping the inedible stuff in a pile next to them. This means you can get some treasure off them if you're lucky.

Pectinaria, also known as the ice-cream-cone worm, constructs a portable conical home for itself out of pebbles and mucus. Sometimes there are a few valuable ones amongst them. Another inoffensive creature in an entry rather high on them. This is definitely an entry that you use for flavour rather than just another combat encounter.


The marvel-phile creates an index of all the characters they've covered so far. This is the third time in only 5 years. What's up with that? 5 pages of rather small type follow, going from Abomination to ZZZax, and all the modules and stuff released so far. It's a good thing the marvel universe is constantly evolving, otherwise they would be running out of material to fill this column with. Obviously useful, but not hugely interesting, particularly as the hints of humour that livened the last couple of times have been lost in the attempt to compress the info as much as possible. Wonder how long it'll be before this turns up again.


Dragonmirth tells some more jokes (badum-tish) Snarf falls for the trap. Silly snarf.


A fairly polarized issue, with plenty of good ideas that I'd really like to use, but also an above average number of genuinely poor and ill-thought out articles as well. The reviews continue their strong showing, and the editing seems to be improving, but the articles are very much hit and miss. Overall, pretty decent though.