Dragon Magazine Issue 143: March 1989

part 3/3


The marvel-phile: The second installment of our Earth-S series here, with three ambiguous villains who's powers are entirely equipment based. Mink, with her retracable claw-bracelets and canisters of mink-stink. Pinball, as dumb as he sounds, and dead as a result of it. (people complain about sexism and racism in comics, but the treatment fat people get is even worse, when they appear at all.)  Remnant, with his magical fabric he can use for all kinds of tricks. Originally villains, the survivors seem pushed towards becoming slightly nicer people, simply due to the things they've been through recently. Do serious attempts to make the world a better place always have to end with the heroes failing and becoming worse than the villains they were trying to fight? I guess in comic book land, that'll only happen if the series is just about to be cancelled. Pretty average entry here. Character building, romance, moral questions, and buttkicking. Just another day hopping the dimensions.


Role-playing reviews:
Greyhawk Adventures is the 4th book featuring the name, and the third to give much info on Gary's own original campaign world. Of course, this version was done without his involvement. Weirdly, since he left, the release schedule of materials for it has actually increased, since it's not all coming from one person anymore. The new core gets a fairly positive review. It's designed to be compatible with 2nd edition, and is full of hints as to the changes that will be made, including clerics powers being defined by spheres, new ecological info on monsters, and lots of new named spells. It also has some stuff that won't be, such as rules for creating and advancing 0 level characters that aren't completely useless. Most of the individual bits may be good, but it lacks the cohesiveness of tone a single author would bring to the table. And while it's open to supplements, you can bet they'll make that problem worse.

Talislanta also gets a pretty positive review. Heavily inspired by Jack Vance, among other things, it's a pretty rich world, presented in a pleasingly IC way that we'll see used by the likes of Volo plenty of times in the future. The rules are also quite simple, but allow for plenty of permutations, allowing you to pick from a large selection of races and roles, and get playing quickly. It's another of the burgeoning alternatives to D&D that offers something it doesn't. Can you lure your players away to try it?


The role of computers: For the first time in a while, a single product gets an epic review. Pool of Radiance is the AD&D computer game from SSI that they seem to be plugging most heavily in the magazine, and this column is no exception. This is quite understandable, as it's the closest they've come yet to replicating D&D in a computer adventure, and a big complex adventure to boot. They heap praise upon it, with the only real caveats being the way it rewards grindy behaviour, both in character generation and exploration, and the slow loading times on some systems. Buy it, and make sure we continue to have a job here

Although that's the only review, there's plenty of cool stuff mentioned in the previews. A game based on William Gibson's Neuromancer, complete with cyberjacking. Castlevania II reveals it's accursed self. Look forward to much frustration trying to solve it. Altered beast and R-type also are soon to be unleashed on gaming platforms aplenty. Wizardry is about to reach it's 5th installment. How will they find the space and time to review them all? Guess that's why the family works as a team. And they take the time to promote an open-source RPG platform, with lots of games available for virtually the price of a blank disk, and designing your own being relatively easy. Another thing that the net has really increased the frequency of, and ease of transmission. The better your networking capabilities, the more profitable pure sharing without asking for immediate reward becomes,  because you can absorb a few asses who take without contributing without ruining the system.


The role of books: The dragonbone chair by Tad Wiliams aims at being a Big Important Book™.Thankfully, it's actually pretty good, both in worldbuilding and story. Whether it can keep the pretentiousness at bay for the rest of the trilogy is still in question, however.

The labyrinth gate by Alis A Rasmussen is another one that combines lots of elements, but manages to make them feel seamless, more due to the characterisations than the plot.

The will of the wanderer by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman tries to do too much, and fails to hold it all together. While the ideas are good, there's too many stories being told at once, and they don't interact very well, or give any clear right or wrong. Plus, arabian nights stylings are getting a bit overdone lately. Choose your milieus carefully, for oversaturation leads to crashes.

Euryale by Kara Dalkey proves once again that she's a pretty versatile writer, in this story of the eponymous gorgon traveling to find a cure for her unfortunate tendency to turn people who see her to stone. Her wanderings take her to rome, which of course has lots of ancient lore collected, but also lots of complicated politics and people who want to use her for their own ends. This of course ends in nicely understated tragedy for them.  

The horsegirl by Constance Ash is an interesting yet unsettling book, with incest, worrying plot twists, and lots of general messed-uppedness that the writer creates, and then leaves open for you to think about. Unless you share her fetishes, you may want to look elsewhere for enjoyable reading.

Spellsingers, edited by Alan Bard Newcomer is (almost ludicrously appropriately for it's creators name) the start of an anthology series about Bards. It has a whole bunch of big writers, many of them regulars on the shared world circuit. A pretty good collection, it is nevertheless obviously compiled after the fact, so the main strength is in the writing rather than the editing and worldbuilding.

Fool on the hill by Matt Ruff is a collection of tales set on a university campus bordering the realms of faerie. Stories within stories, narrative logic becoming reality, mythic creatures intruding into reality, it does get a bit meta, but can still be dramatic when it needs to be. A promising start for a young novelist.


Dragonmirth has yet another bloody knight eating joke. That's getting rather cliche now. Yamara's team is reduced to two. That is not good. Snarf talks things over and comes to a compromise. You can't trust them.


A strong issue, that is however very much of it's time. The edition change is right around the corner, and while the rules may not be changing hugely, the tone certainly will be. And the magazine is ahead of the times in this respect. Well, it's a lot better than being behind them. Will there be growing pains? Will there be drama? Will there be wackiness? Or will it be business as usual again pretty soon. In any case, it'll be business as usual on my end.

Dragon Magazine Issue 144: April 1989

part 1/3


108 pages Ha. Now that's an april fools cover. The donkey's face just sells it perfectly. Welcome to the dragon swimsuit issue. Still, for all the april frivolity going on here, this is a fairly significant issue. Not only does it mark the 40% mark of my progress through the magazine's run, it's also when 2nd edition starts to hit the streets. We've definitely come quite a long way. But still, if this seemed like a long time, the 2e era is going to be even longer. This is not a time for resting on your laurels. This is a time for great deeds and epic heroism! Fortune favors the brave, as Roger's editorial so aptly illustrates. Let's emulate his example.

In this issue:


Letters: Once again, they prove that their deliberate attempts at humour have nothing on people who are trying to be serious, and in the process becoming utterly ridiculous.

A letter full of sex and gaming questions. Roger decides to move swiftly on, despite the fact that he wrote an article on this, back in issue 72. My god, that's half the magazine's lifespan away now. Spoilsport.

A letter from a priest of zeus, saying he has better things to do than run around healing stupid characters. Um, er, methinks you need a little reminder of the difference between characters and players.

A letter about conspiracy shenanigans. Some woman plotting to destroy TSR? Absolute rubbish :rumble of thunder, stab of organ music: Pay no attention to such madness.

A sage advice question that Skip refused to touch. People always try and exploit the shapeshifting spells, don't they.

An article on dwarf mud wrestling. Yeah, somehow, I think that one isn't getting past the filters either.

A terribly spelt and not particularly comprehensible letter. They can't answer it if they don't know what the question is.

A serious question that gets twisted into a terrible pun. Don't go hatin' on tree dwellers.

Another serious question about a dead artist. Some people just don't know their history.

A question that was probably perfectly sensible in it's owners brain, but looks rather silly out of context. Roger is forced to respond in kind.

Some incompetent advertising. You know, you're generally meant to give them some money to put that in the magazine.

A letter from someone who thinks Jeff Grubb is someone they know from school. Well, it makes a change from the usual thing where they mistake Roger Moore for the film star of the same name.

A reminder that all twinkitude can be defeated by the simple application of a little Erasure. Show a little respect to reality.

A system for picking up girls. Roger would like to keep this one purely between him and the letter sender. Hee.  


   Sage advice: How do I become a maiden so I can ride a unicorn (Hee. If you've already stopped being one, you can't become one again. )

   When can mystics become immortal (Anytime after 16th level. Once again a lower level limit actually turns out to be an asset, not a weakness)

   Does a weapon of wounding negate a troll's regeneration (no, it merely counteracts it. You still need to kill them with fire to make them stay down permanently. )

   Do powersuits come with scanners as standard (no. You'll have to pay even more.)  

   What are the costs and weights for helmet rafflurs and grenade launchers. (simple formulas people. We give them to you to save space. Heed them!)

   Why do paladins become cavaliers now (retcon. Nuff said.)

   Do PC halflings get the +3 bonus with missile weapons NPC ones get (No. Once again, PC's are different, and not always for the better.)

   Are elves resistant to monster charm and sleep effects as well as the spells (yes)

   What are the racial characteristics of half-dwarves (Not what you expect. Wait for dark sun)

   Can humanoids have weapon specialization (only if they have class levels )

   What do you think of my 8th level troll thief (A heretic! :points: Burn him! Your first mistake was putting a return address on the letter. Let that be a lesson to everyone. No rulebreaking. )

   Can you worship another race's deity. (yes, but it'll be a long hard path. Hey, instant drama fodder. Sounds good to me. )

   When can you build a stronghold (Name level. Let the badassednes commence)

   Which classes get exceptional con bonuses (All the fighter types.)

   Can nonthief characters do any thiefly stuff (Not really. They have some analogues, but they use entirely different rolls. Curse you, arbitrary subsystems! )

   Can you improve ability scores by excercise (What is this, the zero memory zone. For the third time, NO! Skip will cap the next muthafucka who asks that stupid question. )

   Can you avoid gasses by holding your breath (For a little bit. Suffocation has it's own dangers. )

   Do you still get con bonuses after name level (no)
If you lose con, do you lose hit points (oh yes. Dying and being raised regularly can become a declining spiral.)

   What happens when a character with exceptional strength ages (1 point = 50% Yes, we know, going up it's 1 point = 10%. Time is a cruel mistress.)

   If you increase your mental stats, can you you check again for psionic power (god, another recycled question. YES! If you keep bugging us, I may change my mind, so shut up.)

   Do you get xp in adventures where you die ( Probably not. )

   Are there rules for fatigue (buy the dungeoneers survival guide now! This and many other ways to limit your characters within!)

   What do you do it you have enough XP to advance several levels (you lose the excess. Shoulda got training earlier)

   What's the training cost for a NPC (same as for PC's)

   Where do you put kara-tur in relation to oerik (good question. You may have to mirror it, since oerik is on the east side of the landmass anyway. If twilight princess got away with it (Link should be left-handed, dammnit!) you can as well.)

Dragon Magazine Issue 144: April 1989

part 2/3


Forum: Tim Oakes tries to tread the path of compromise in the issue of low level magic-users. Maybe they should be a little more able to learn basic combat techniques, but many of the forumites are going too far in their suggestions.
 
R. J. Wenzel thinks that the problem with low level magic-users is in the emphasis on combat in most games. Fix that, and the problems with only having one spell to use each day become far less of an issue.  But how do you fix that, when the entire experience system revolves around killing things and taking their stuff?

James M Rogers is unhappy with the idea of simply getting xp for money, regardless of how you got it. He's another forumite who'd rather they got XP for class specific activities. Seems a pretty popular change. Good thing it's one they're actually making then, isn't it.
 
Tommy Sronce simply ignores the xp rules, and advances characters when he feels like they deserve it. This saves him quite a bit of time calculating. You know, if you write each death down and award xp as it happens, rather than waiting till the end of the session to tally things up, it's a lot easier, and less likely to be in error.

Nelson E Hemstreet also dislikes xp for gold. He also actively enjoys putting the players through the financial hassles that you need to go through by RAW to advance in levels. Forcing people to struggle financially and make hard compromises is fun. The challenge shouldn't end when you leave the dungeon. Hmm, and yet more hmms.

Ivy K Reynolds (any relation to Sean?) has interesting observations on the evolution of D&D and AD&D. As D&D characters are actually less powerful, and the monsters give less experience, it requires rather more skill to really succeed in. But on  the other hand, it facilitates high level adventures better than AD&D. It is not a game purely for wimpy n00bs. And the writing and editing is better than the old AD&D game. Really, which is the better one?

S D Anderson has run the math on the strength tables, and found some awkward little flaws. Str 3 characters have a carrying capacity of 0. So how much can str 2 or 1 ones carry, negative amounts? Plus, you should remember to put weights for various noncombat items. The characters are going to want to carry them off after killing their owners.


A field guide to Game-convention Ornithology: Even the geekiest of categorisation can be made humorous. We've already had a gamer type guide made by mocking the alignment system. Now bird watching gets it's naming conventions parodied. 26  personality stereotypes. Can you figure out which one applies to which creature in the picture? Are you a Goldbricker, a Crested Falsetto bird or a Rubber-necked butt-in? Well, it gave me a few minutes amusement, anyway. Nothing wrong with the odd bit of humour here.


Cheating made easy: Oooh. Tut tut. Jeff Swycaffer reveals the tricks he uses to bend probability in his favour. There are several unobtrusive ways, and a few more blatant bits of trickery with dice that increase your odds of getting a good roll quite dramatically. This is useful stuff, amusingly presented, that of course, you should absolutely not be using in your game, under any circumstances. Still, reading this will help you spot when other people try these tricks, so that they can be properly punished for doing so, so like thieves, it can be turned to good ends. And it's something they haven't covered before at all, which is always nice to see.


Cheating made even easier: Hmm. Looks like more than one person had the same idea recently. Spike Jones recycles a whole bunch of ideas he submitted to other magazines. He takes a rather more ruthless and organized approach than Jeff, bullet-pointing everything, and making it clear that the other players are the enemy just as much as the DM. Not hugely funny in a joke sense, mainly because much of this stuff would be pretty effective. I think this calls for maniacal laughter rather than genuine amusement. Muahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!


Claydonia conquers the world!: Clay-o-Rama is back! Bigger and better than ever. Now you can advance your surviving creatures, and bring them to future games. And a whole bunch of other optional rules for you to try out. New powers! Playing without a GM! Rebuilding, bigger and badder! Well, the original rules are pretty loose anyway. In this case, a little tightening up probably wouldn't hurt. Not sure about character advancement though. Seems entirely too easy to cheat on in a con game. Oh well. At least it's not useless stuff that you should keep out of your game at all costs.


Still more outrages from the mages: Such as this. 27 joke spells, which either do nothing, do something that you could do just as effectively with mundane actions, or do something that is purely useless and harmful to the caster. Bigby's interposing eye, Drawmij's instant death, speak with mud, transmute rock to stone, we get lots of subversions of existing spells here. Mildly amusing, but not useful except as booby prize scrolls to put in treasure hoards and annoy your players with. And so the joke section draws to a close.


Role-playing reviews:
Toon got reviewed way back in issue 92. But it's still going, has quite a few supplements, and is still fairly groundbreaking. As is far too often the case with retreads, this is rather less interesting than the original review, both in writing style, and level of insight involved. But the game still kicks ass, so if it sells more people on it, then it's not too bad.

The Bullwinkle and Rocky Roleplaying game tries to cover similar ground, but with a lot more visual aids, and attempts to make things modular. You can play it purely using the event cards, trying to fit together a coherent story from the prefab pieces. You can play using the spinner, and trading off narrators. And then you can progress to making your own characters. You can't really advance them beyond that, and it does seem very much designed as a party game rather than a "proper" RPG. Have fun with it, but don't expect any deep meaningful stories.

We also get reviews of two Paranoia supplements. Ruthless mockery (in a good way) ensues, as you would expect. Tom Wham's new game, Mertwig's maze, also gets mentioned. Finally, we have one of our fun rebuttals. Jim stands by his statement that the new city of the invincible overlord is rubbish. Remember, it's only opinion. If we don't provide negative contrasts, then you can't see just how good the really good ones are by comparison. Ahh, the pressure to whitewash. A perpetual and rather serious problem, particularly when the reviewers are paid by the companies they're reviewing. Always interesting to see how different people cope with it.


When gods walk the earth: Runequest gets another article on it's magic, as seems to be common choice here. Do you really want to summon the avatar of a god? There always seems to be some idiot who wants too, even in games such as call of cthulhu, where success will result in huge amounts of death and insanity for everyone in the vicinity. Even the supposedly benign ones are arrogant and obsessive beings that will demand your absolute servitude and order you around with no regard to your human limitations. You have been warned. Don't come crying to me when your god of healing transforms the entire congregation into a fleshy amorphous amalgam that regenerates so fast that it's impossible to kill. Yeah, I'll still tell you how to do it. I'll even give you some pointers on how to get rid of the blighters as well. Obviously, this is primarily intended as a way for GM's to launch adventures, rather than a spell the players would cast. And it serves quite well in that role, both as something to foil before it happens, and deal with afterwards. Fairly pleasing.

Dragon Magazine Issue 144: April 1989

part 3/3


TSR Previews: First up, completely unsurprisingly, is the 2nd edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Players Handbook. Kicking down the door, making gaming more accessable. They've been talking about this since 85, can it live up to the hype?  

AD&D is also getting a pair of modules. The forgotten realms is proving highly multimedia, with FRC2: Curse of the azure bonds. Play the module of the computer game of the book. I suspect railroading may be involved, given it's antecedents. Greyhawk also gets a rather specific module, WG9: Gargoyle. Play a gargoyle trying to get their wings back. Very curious sounding indeed. Any opinions on this one?

On the novel side, the forgotten realms finishes off the moonshae trilogy. The heroes may defeat a god, but at what cost? Meanwhile, Buck Rogers gets a whole load of short stories, in Arrival. Flint Dille personally oversees things, and I suspect Lorraine :rumble of thunder, stab of organ music: did plenty of executive meddling as well.  

Marvel Super Heroes gets MT1: All this and world war II. The start of a trilogy dealing with time travel? Hmm. One of the more problematic powers when combined with gaming. That could work, or it could go very wrong. How will they keep the plot under control?


The game wizards: Spelljammer! We're finally getting proper metasettings. And lots of other stuff. Another of their short columns where they pack in a load of stuff that wouldn't fit elsewhere, along with some more promotion of upcoming stuff. The best (or worst, depending on your point of view) entries in their recent pun contest. Another load of guidelines on writing freelance for them. They do keep having to do that. And the 5 boxed sets they're planning on releasing this year. Alphatia vs Thyatis. Greyhawk city. New york, new york. Taladas. And of course, AD&D in Spaaace! Rather a random article really. But not randomness with as much style as when Gary was in charge of this kind of thing. Oh well, at least they've still got lots of cool stuff coming out. Hopefully, this'll convince a few more people to buy those things.


The role of computers:
Arkanoid is one of those horribly addictive arcade games where you have to manipulate a bouncing ball to break all the blocks. I know your kind. Danger, danger, Will Robinson! Enormous timesink approaching off the starboard bow. These kinds of games can last aaages, getting ever trickier as you try and make it to the later levels, and get frustrating as you try and rush through the earlier ones and mess them up. Must steer well clear, or I'll never finish this.

Zany golf is exactly what it sounds like, and gets a 5 star rating. With great visuals, and a number of quirky twists on the real game, including fairys that you get extra points for hitting, moving holes, and pinball courses. Ahh, the joys of being able to create things that would be near impossible in reality.

The Legend of Blacksilver sounds like it ought to involve pirates, but doesn't. Instead, it's yer basic RPG, where you explore towns and dungeons, fight monsters, and complete quests with the aim of saving the world from it's would be conqueror.  It's pretty big, but thankfully, you can save in most places. As ever, do so frequently, or you'll regret it.

Battle Chess is basically just chess, with amusing animations as the pieces move around the board and kill each other. Still, it can be played two-player online, so you'll always have someone to give you a decent challenge. Exactly how long it'll hold your interest will obviously depend on how much you like playing chess anyway.

Space Harrier 3-D is also a bit gimmicky, using those red and green glasses to facilitate 3D visuals. If you can stand the eye strain, this can still be fun, and is as tricky as most games of this era. You'll probably have to do quite a bit of replaying to win it.

Wonder boy in monster land is a game I vaguely remember. Still primarily an action adventure game, with hidden shops, taverns, and monsters that require the right equipment and strategy to kill, it's closer to an rpg than the previous game in the series. Now, if only it had a save function as well. Restarting from the beginning does get tedious.

Also notable in the hints section is one of the cheats they give, revealing a silly easter egg in Bards Tale III. Ahh, they joys of in jokes. Amazing what programmers can squeeze in.


Through the looking glass: Battle recaps! We haven't had those since the Strategic Review days! Once again they're delivering goods more interesting than endless reviews in this column. In the Battle for Headquarters hill, Robert tells a tale of an assault on a space observatory, using the Battletech rules. With a complete list of the units used, a map of the area, and a description of the battle from the perspectives of both players, this is rather well done, giving me a very clear turn by turn picture of what happened, and the rules of the game. As is typical of these games, both sides had rounds when they couldn't hit anything at all. But they soon had a winner. This definitely makes an interesting diversion from our usual fare, although I suspect I would grow bored if they did it every issue. Still, if they cover battles in different systems each time, they could probably keep this going for a year or two.

Robert doesn't skimp on the reviews either. In mini's, we have some female adventurers, an Umber hulk, an Ogre Mage, a Battletech regiment, and a whole bunch of fairly well done Forgotten Realms and Star wars characters. More interestingly, we also get Warhammer Siege, a supplement for WFB, but insertable into other wargames as a minigame. Far too many wargames don't have rules for this battle style and it's complexities. Now you can try and gradually undermine your enemies walls while they pour boiling oil on your head. Your tactics don't have to be constrained so much by the system limitations. This is also pretty interesting reading. He is stretching himself quite a bit this issue.


Red Guns: Marvel Superheroes gets a little more gun pr0n this issue. In issue 105, they gave some info on military equipment, for those of you who want your characters to go up against tanks and planes. (providing they have the power to make this a fight that isn't completely one sided in either direction. ) Now, you can go up against the red menace, and kick their armies butts in the name of the You Ess Ayy! These are somewhat better organized in terms of their stats than the previous article on this topic, but still, the real fun with these looks to be in the actual play, rather than the reading. Now, if only they'd tabulated the stats. Then they'd be even quicker and easier to reference in a fight.


Dragonmirth is a bit fishy this month. Yamara's party continues to suffer worrying attrition. We get another amusing one-off comic, Bludgeons & Flagons. Silly wizards. Do your own research, don't go for forbidden lore. There's a good reason why it's forbidden. Snarf wraps things up rather too quickly, and then gives us an obituary. Way to end on a downer dude.


A superficially entertaining, but ultimately unsatisfying issue. The joke contents are rather less usable than they have been in recent years, and there's a lot of reviews that were a real slog to fill in stuff for. Come on, it's an edition change. Bring on the flamewars.

Dragon Magazine Issue 145: May 1989

part 1/3


108 pages. Roll playing vs Role playing? Really Roger?! That's the subject of your editorial? I suppose it wasn't quite the dead horse it is now. Anyway, the changeover continues, and this is another sign of the times, with Roger asking the freelancers to send in more role-playing stuff, and less pure crunch. Very interesting. Just how long will it take that particular pendulum to reach it's limit, and then swing the other way. I guess it'll probably be around when they start getting in financial trouble, look at the books, and figure out ones with lots of new crunch sell better. But anyway, back to the current bit of past we're going through. Our current topic is castles. We've had quite a few articles on this, plus a couple of actual castles as centrepieces in the magazine. Will they avoid the dread spectre of rehash?

In this issue:


Letters: Errata attacks again, as all our letters concern happenings in the magazine. Two of them concern the capabilities of humanoid shamans and witch doctors. You mean there's people who buy the magazines who don't also have most of the supplements? One from Vince Garcia, giving a few corrections for his Savant class article. And one goes way back, asking about the dragonlance mini's they said they would do in issue 91. Apparently, they got cancelled. So much for that idea.


Forum: Bryan A. Walker tells the story of a convention that went horribly wrong (while not naming names) People openly taking drugs and drinking in an environment which was also supposed to be child friendly was more than a little disturbing. With incidents like that, it's no wonder the hobby has image problems.

Graeme Adamson finds that the combat options in issue 127 do not bear up with his personal experience practicing with them. Same as it ever was. D&D is not a realistic game, and stuff from the magazine probably hasn't been extensively tested.

Zach Miller thinks that 1st level mages should be able to cast more spells, but at the same time doesn't want them more powerful. A tricky conundrum, which he solves by saying they should have more cantrips in independent slots. Another prophetic one then.

Michael Townsend, Dave Timmons and Bob Hempel all respond to Roger's editorial on disabilities and gaming, mostly positively. The power of fantasy can do a lot to bring people together and make a life bearable.

P. Jones is not happy about the fact that Oriental demihumans can't be multiclassed. As is often the case, he suggests his houserules on the issue.


Sage advice: How does the save against silence work (If you fail, you're stuck with it. If you succeed, it's still there, but you can just walk out. Neat way of doing it. )

   What level do you need to be to make a level draining glyph (same as you would to restore it. 16th.)

   Is tongues a universal or selective translator (Selective. Speaking truespeak tends to make it obvious you're a spellcaster)

   Can you find a portable hole with find the path (no. It's an object, not a place. )

   Can elves dispel a dust devil. No. They have specific resistance, not general magic resistance.)

   How many spells can a 124th level cleric cast (enough that you really ought to retire him. )

   Can an illusionist get out of the plane of shadow by casting shadow walk again. (Not unless they can find the planar boundary. Be careful, because the shadows can really bite around there. )

   Are high level illusionists really that crap at casting magic-user spells (yes.)

   Does alter self change your equipment ( Cosmetically!)

   Does wraithform let you fly (no)

   What counts as a 1st level illusion (any spell that is a 1st level illusionist spell. If it's higher up for other classes, then you can still see through it. )

   Who loses con from casting permanancy (the caster)

   Can massmorph turn you into things other than trees (no, but you can choose what kind of tree. No, you can't choose a carnivorous mobile tree type)

   Shouldn't there be save against cause fear (no, because it's a touch spell anyway. It's the same reason you don't get saves against undead energy drain. Hohahohahohahoha.)

   Colour spray has a contradiction in it's description (Yup. Don't worry. In just a couple of months 2nd ed'll be out and you'll have a whole different set of errata to spot. Won't that be fun! )

   Can I breathe underwater if I polymorph into a fish (wouldn't be much use if you couldn't)

   What's a small specimen. ( Talk to your girlfriend sometime. The things she says about you behind your back. Skip hates to be a bearer of bad news, but...... )

   Why won't preserve work on mistletoe. (because it's a holy symbol, not a material component. If you mess with the cycles of nature, you despoil it's holiness. PETA girl mother nature goddess are not the most sensible of deities. )

   How can whip disarm creatures if it doesn't work on things with an int above 3 ( You confuse clauses. A common mistake. Become a lawyer. They you can make a living out of exploiting vagueness and contradicting common sense.)

   What happens if someone inside an ottilukes resilient sphere is shoved in the water (if the density of the contents of the sphere is greater than the density of water displaced, it sinks. If it's higher, it floats. This is an elementary enough bit of physics that it still works in D&D)

   If you sucessfully make a magic resistance check to pass through forcecage, can you go back the other way (No. Once again, Skip finds himself feeling evil. )

   I don't understand basic geometry.  (This is your arm. This is the formula for calculating the distance between your shoulder and your hand based on the length of the two segments and the angle of incidence between them AFTER I BREAK IT AND TWIST IT 230 DEGREES MUTHAFUCKA! C2 = A2 + B2 - 2 COS AB. Are we clear now?)

   How many spells do level 30+ magic-users get. (like clerics, it really ought to be retiring time. Clear off, ya twink. )

   Can you cast spells from the ethereal to the prime material (not without extra effects. Otherwise being untouchable artillery would be just too easy. )

   Can dark elves see through their own darkness spells with infravision (no. It obstructs the whole visual spectrum.)

   Do you have to stay still the whole time you cast a spell (Yes. Five foot steps take place before or after, not during. Oh wait, I'm getting ahead of myself again, aren't I. )


Shadowrun! Another awesome game coming soon. Nice understated teaser advert as well. I'm guessing that they'll have more illuminating previews later.


A castle here, A castle there: Looks like the joys of random tables will continue even into the new edition. Here we expand upon the fairly basic tables in the old DMG, (after all, the new one isn't out yet) adding stuff from Unearthed arcana and Oriental adventures, and allowing you to quickly determine more details about it's construction, inhabitants, surroundings, and relationship with the rest of the world. Quick, but perfectly decent, this is yet another nice little time saver for me to pull out and use in my games.

It's interesting stuff

SEO in your HANDS now you rule the world.

Dragon Magazine Issue 145: May 1989

part 2/3


Holding down the fort: A bit of rehash here, as they give us another events table for those of you who've settled down. If you won't go to the adventure, the adventure will come to you, with all kinds of natural and political inconveniences cropping up with tabloid filling regularity. You have to maintain the place, monsters show up and try and kill people, armies attack, assassins infiltrate, and the court in general bickers and machinates ad nauseum. A few months of this kind of stuff, and many players'll be itching to sell up and set off again. The frequency of events is rather higher than on most tables of this sort, to the degree where it would be exceedingly hard to stay on top of things, no matter how high level you are. Interesting, but not the best example of this kind of thing I've ever seen. You'll have to push yourself a bit harder to come up with a really expansive and statistically well distributed one of these that I'll really want to use in my game.


Strongholds three: A very useful article here. Arthur Collins does exactly what you'd expect from the title, and gives us three very different strongholds to insert into your game. All are logically designed to serve a purpose, and be advantageous to the people living within, rather than just some dungeon crawl. Littlefang is designed to give you a tactical stronghold in mountainous terrain, letting you control a travel route and bombard anyone who attacks with missiles while they have a tricky time even getting to the walls. Are you ready to pay the toll? Niriath Henning is a castle glamoured to appear as an elf hill. While designed to be aesthetically pleasing, with plenty of open space in the courtyard, it's certainly not without mundane defences either, and since it's inhabited by elves, expect lots of spell based attacks. Goldworthy castle, on the other hand, is designed as an exceedingly tough conventional fortress. Hard to get into, and easy to attack out of, it has extensive walled courtyards between the outer walls and the actual castle, so even if you penetrate the first line of defense, you're now being bombarded from all sides instead of just one. Since this is basically three half-adventures, (just give them a location, flesh out inhabitants and add plot) this is pretty handy. As they're pretty good as well, I have no hesitation about using them. He is becoming one of their more notable freelancers.


Your home is your castle: So why bother to build a castle anyway? It's incredibly expensive, takes quite a bit of maintenance, and they're frequently dank, drafty, miserable places. In case you'd forgotten, the big reason is so you can protect yourself, and possibly the local community if you're the benevolent kind of lord. (and even if you're not, you'll still want to keep anyone else from ravaging your dominion.) Anyway, this is lots of info on making your own realistic medieval castles. Just the kind of thing Katharine Kerr used to specialise in, and indeed, she gets mentioned in the bibliography. This isn't as fun as the previous article, but of course stuff that requires you to do a load of your own work to make it into something you can use in a game. Oh well, It's still pretty decent, with more well integrated illustrations. You can't use prefab stuff the whole time and be called an expert game master.


Bazaar of the Bizarre: 16 new items which are suited to this month's theme for your enjoyment here. Some of them, of course, are cursed; using their resemblance to other items to make a sucker out of you, and ruin your home. Still, the abilities to create teleportation portals so you can get around conveniently, keep your house lit for long periods of time at low cost, ward it from enemies, summon an army, and ensure that you always have a decent water supply are certainly not to be sneezed at. They also include two new spells, Balliant's Stonestrength and Stonesplit. If you want to have a siege, knowing these would be damn handy, whichever side you're on. A pretty good collection, with several items that have a whole bunch of inventive exploits you can pull. If you've made it to high enough level to settle down, giving your players some of these will definitely be appreciated. A pretty good finisher to the themed section.


The role of computers: Wizardry V decides to leave out the playing the villain gimmick they used in IV, and return to good old party play. It gets a typically detailed review, as befits an established and popular RPG. The stats are spelled out, the classes and races detailed, and plenty of advice is given on how to play the game. They have developed things quite substantially in terms of gameplay sophistication. The main complaint, as is often the case, is the complex and annoying copy protection scheme. Oh, woe. I'm sure people like you can figure out how to crack it, even if you don't say so in your reviews.

Gold rush! gives you a rather different roleplaying experience. Get from new york to callifornia by whatever means, and seek your fortune. All kinds of hazards await you at each stage of the journey, plus there's the additional subplot of finding out what happened to your brother. The whole shebang is designed to be educational as well as fun, with lots of historically accurate details.

Star Wars is a conversion of the old arcade game for several platforms. Unfortunately, this is still the era where the arcade version rules supreme. Technological limitations, combined with the fact that the game is rather old now, means the visuals aren't the best. One to skip unless you're a particular fan of the franchise, or shoot-em-ups in general.

Also notable is the number of complaints they've got about the Dungeon Masters assistant. Too many disk swaps are needed. I guess that's a problem when you only have 64k of memory. Wasn't that one of the programs they outsourced? Tut tut. Shoddy work. This will not do. Good to see the magazine pointing out flaws in products the company has a personal stake in again.


TSR Previews: AD&D transitions another of it's campaign worlds to the new edition.  The forgotten realms kicks off the Avatar adventures with FRE1: Shadowdale. Prepare to become a pawn in the machinations of desperate gods who've lost (most of) their power. Mmm. I can smell the railroading from here.

D&D, meanwhile is not having an edition change, but is still keeping up with the conversions by making it's new rules compatible with AD&D 2nd ed in GAZ12: Golden Khan of Ethengar. If you wanna play a horseman in basic or advanced, there's some new crunch for you mixed with the setting stuff.

Top Secret gets futuristic in TSAC7: F.R.E.E.America. Chicago 1999. A sprawling city-hive filled with corruption, can your agents make a difference? So they're trying to get into cyberpunk as well, are they? Very interesting.

Novelwise, we see the start of the Dragonlance preludes trilogy. See what Sturm and Kitiara got up too before the big war. Enjoy the fanservice, and watch carefully for any continuity errors. If you'd prefer something standalone, we have The Jewels of elvish by Nancy Varian Berberick. Said jewels get stolen, and as they're the only thing that can avert an impending disaster, you can guess how the rest of the story goes.

Tom Wham delivers another of his fun boardgames, The Great Khan Game. Connected to the forgotten realms, really, that doesn't matter much. Just enjoy playing it. Or you could play Maxi Bourse instead. Translated from french, this is a games of stock market shenanigans. Someone's shooting for monopolies crown. But it is still going strong, while I've never heard of this before, so I shall assume they failed.

Dragon Magazine Issue 145: May 1989

part 3/3


The role of books cleans up its formatting, making the titles easier to pick out. The planet builders trilogy by Robyn Tallis manages to sneak some obscure references into a fun set of young adult stories. And as the reviewer points out, you've gotta hook 'em young if you want to ensure a future generation of gamers. Hmm. Don't underestimate the intelligence of kids if you want to sell to them.

The bristling wood by Katherine Kerr is set in the world of Dverry, her longstanding setting. It already has quite substantial amounts of mythos built up, and the reviewer recommends starting with the previous ones if you want to understand everything. He's also not sure about the attempt to combine celtic and chinese mysticism. Overall, he likes it, but he's certainly spending more time on it's flaws than it's good points.

Svaha by Charles de Lint sees him push the envelope in terms of milieus covered, while maintaining his usual standard of fun and well crafted storytelling. Combining oriental and amerindian mythology successfully, the reviewer seems to like this rather more than the previous book.

Vulcan's glory by D C Fontana gets a rather vicious review for blatantly violating existing trek canon and characterization. Spock doesn't act like that! This is highly illogical captain. I suspect the presence of an idiot ball. I recommend we pretend that this whole incident never happened.

A spell of deceit by Laurie Goodman is another young adult one that also contains decidedly mature moral questions and character dynamics. Including the question of how you keep characters of very different alignments in the same team without killing each other. Which I suppose is a useful question to consider for gamers.

The mirror maze by James P Hogan is an interesting but flawed piece of sci fi/espionage adventure. While there are plenty of interesting elements, the combination of omniscient viewpoint being in error, characters making expository speeches which are obviously intended for the reader, not the other characters, and a blatant real world political agenda, keeps them from recommending it.

Those who hunt the night by Barbara Hambly is a vampire mystery novel. Someone's killing them all, and of course, being badass creatures of de niiight, they're rather worried and want to stop this. As it also goes into quite a bit of detail on their physiology and how they fit into the world, it looks like a good one to draw on to make a game setting. And it tells a pretty good story too. Was this part of the inspiration for Vampire: the Masquerade?


Shadow world. A mysterious world plagued by the unlife, a force from beyond the dimensions. (Isn't that the plot of the neverending story? ) A new Rolemaster setting. Now with 200% more GRIMDARK!™. Well, it is nearly the 90's. And since plenty of writers still haven't got over that awkward phase, we'll probably see plenty of that in the future.


Role-playing reviews: 2300AD is the new edition of Traveller 2300, renamed so as to reduce confusion and annoying flamewars. They've revamped the visuals, advanced the setting a bit, and finally have an experience system. It all seems to be a considerable improvement. That's nice to hear dear.

Colonial atlas is a supplement for 2300AD, expanding on the various extraplanar colonies. Since it's covering 29 planets in 96 pages, the level of detail can't be that great, and it has a hellofa lot of authors, but it's more than enough to make them playable, with statistics, histories and adventure ideas. And it's definitely a lot more than could fit in the corebook. Now the stage is set for even more specific books.

Kafer Dawn is an adventure centering around the many-mandibled monstrosities. Figure out how not just to win the straightforward engagements, but also the resource war, and come to understand the enemy and their decidedly odd behaviours and tactics. It's a decent starter, but certainly not the final word on the subject, as having proved popular, they have more sourcebooks on the way.

Aurore sourcebook is one of those, covering the same planet as the last book, in more detail. With lots of history, NPC's, environmental details, adventure hooks, etc,  it certainly seems to flesh out the setting nicely on a closer scale.

Mission Arcturus is the second Kafer based adventure. Your characters are now experts on the chitinous menace, and venture to a new planet to figure out what happened to the expeditionary base there. The review doesn't spoil the ending, but says it's pretty good. Do you have what it takes to handle both the combat and problem solving?

The Kafer sourcebook gives us yet more info on these guys. Seems like they're being set up as the primary antagonists for the game. Still, with a well thought out psychology, and more than enough info to use them as PC's, should you be so inclined. If you're not, don't let the players read it and spoil all the cool surprises they should experience during play.
 
Invasion builds upon all these previous books to give you an epic campaign as the Kafers sweep through star systems, conquering and destroying. They really seem to have thought this one through. Lets hope the players can bring their best game in response to make a difference in the war.

Finally, the Ground vehicle guide isn't directly connected to the war, but of course the stuff contained within will be damn handy if you want to fight battles using hard rules. Whew. That was certainly one of the more impressive review sections. Good to see other gamelines with supplement treadmills turning furiously.


Through the looking glass: A guide to painting various emotions? We sure aren't in 1981 anymore. Another guest writer definitely brings the 2nd ed spirit to this column. Obviously, quite a bit of the emotion of a figure will be determined by the existing model, and it can be tricky to get decent definition on small and cheap models anyway. But the colour scheme you choose can make a big difference, and subtleties of shading on the face even more so. For something like this to work, you need decent illustrations to demonstrate the more complex details. Fortunately, this column does not disappoint, with the photography being excellent, and the illustrations being both detailed and amusingly exaggerated. While there is a bit of obvious advice here, this is still an excellent little article that also managed to surprise me slightly. Looks like they're still trying new stuff in this department.


Fiction: Cornwoman by Steve Rasnic Tem. A trip into primal myth territory here. Everything is magnified, anthromophicised and given extra symbolism. The woman who brought corn (and implicitly, the whole idea of cultivation. ) to the human tribe must rescue a stolen baby from Raven and his flock of crows. This is pretty scary for them, but each triumph they make codifies a little more of the world, moving it away from dream logic towards reality, and making the monsters out there a little less scary. Reminds me somewhat of Neil Gaiman's takes on mythical stuff in American gods and Anansi boys, which is definitely a good thing. With a distinctive, well crafted atmosphere, this is another memorable little story.


Dragonmirth has decidedly mixed messages about modern technology. Yamara is losing both the battle, and the war of who's funniest. Snarfquest ends it all on a cliffhanger of authorial self-insertion, instead of resolving the plot. Really Larry, you need to manage your time better. This is only marginally better than wormy's departure.


Overall, another pretty good issue, both in the themed section and the reviews. They once again seem to have a strong freelancer base to draw upon, and enough submissions that they can reject the obvious dross. The main problem now, is keeping the both the quality control and speed of production up, which as I know, is not an easy business. Just how great will the rate of turnover be? Gotta complete 'em all.

Dragon Magazine Issue 146: June 1989

part 1/3


108 pages. Welcome to their 13th anniversary. They've come a long way. But like their 10th anniversary, they're much more interested in moving forward than looking back at the moment. After all, we've got a new edition to fill up with splatbooks. And we have fairly prophetic editorial, as Roger ponders the probability that computer games will come to displace pen and paper ones. Yeah, that's the future alright, even if it'll takes ages to get there. Any activity that requires the coordination of a whole group of people is at an inherent logistical disadvantage compared to stuff you can do on your own. Back to reading for me.

In this issue:

Letters: A rather dumb letter in which someone is surprised that they don't reference their own books in the discussion on high and low fantasy. That would be a touch incestuous, non?

A letter praising the quality of their cover artwork. They do regularly have some pretty impressive pieces, don't they.

A letter about claydonia. The people who contributed to it should be properly credited!

A whole bunch of rather good questions about what they'll accept in submissions. Interesting.


Forum: Barry A. McEwen contributes his experience of gaming with people with impaired vision, working as he does in that field. He's even created a 20 sided braille die for use by fully blind people. Roleplaying games can be an excellent means of escapism for people with all kinds of physical impairments. Introducing them to a nursing home would also be a cool idea.

Katherine York responds to the piece about MA in Marvel superheroes, with her own suggestion for a new ki power. Charge that internal energy, and release it suddenly. Perfectly reasonable given the universe.

S. R. Oldson craves some more classic modules like the ones released in the late 70's. Modern stuff just doesn't cut it like the tomb of horrors or demonweb pits. Prefab politics and railroads just don't work in other campaigns like a nicely challenging dungeon crawl. You may be disappointed by the next few years then.

Wayne Roberts tells a rather interesting story of his own experiences with role vs roll playing thinkers. Of course, the two are not mutually exclusive, and good tactical thinking and knowing your adversaries  make even a combat heavy game much more fun. (and survivable)

Michael Drake contributes a rather scattershot letter, of which the main point, as far as I can tell, seems to be asking what is badwrongfun. Overall, I'm not sure what to make of this one.

Daniel Reardon also has a rather interesting and complicated point to make. The D&D system revolves around parties of adventurers working together. Selfish characters go against the whole system, and will ruin the fun of the game.

Ian Reyes, in contrast, has had plenty of evil PC's, and it hasn't caused problems, while allowing a whole bunch of fun scenarios you couldn't do with good ones. As long as you keep the PvP betrayals to when it would be logical, and find reasons to work together for greater profit, it can work just fine.

Douglas J. Hutchinson finds both the fearmongers and obsessive players tiresome. You have nothing to be ashamed of. Just get on with playing, and ignore the stupid reactionaries. They do the same thing to virtually every cool innovation, and it rarely amounts to much in a generations time.

Kirk Karste is not amused at all about the OA misrepresentation of ninja. They were a spiritual order who only used violence in adversity. Here we go again. It's as bad as the stuff about druids and barbarians.

Martin Millar also talks about samurai and ninja. As usual, in the real world, strict divisions of good and evil really do not hold up to close scrutiny. Even the samurai/ninja divide is pretty blurry, with some samurai secretly employing or being ninja. Just because D&D abstracts these things for ease of play, doesn't mean you should take them as fact.


Sage advice continues to occupy pole position. I guess with the edition change, people are really examining just what the rules of what they're playing actually do.

   How do fighters make magical swords (they don't, they get wizards to do it for them. Or they break the rules. Because there's certainly enough stuff around that's impossible to produce by a strict reading of them.)

   What spell gives weapons magical plusses (Enchant an item can do that on it's own. Relax. That's an easy trick. )

   Can bless fix a cursed item (Are you joking? That's like throwing a bucket of water on an oilslicked beach. Completely inadequate.)

   Will protection from fire or cold help you resist a fire shield spell (nope.)

   How much XP can you get from destroying Asmodeus' rod ( A quite substantial amount. It would probably be a good idea to destroy Asmodeus first though. )

   Is magical armor weightless or half weight (good question. Depends if you're carrying it or wearing it. )

   Is other magical equipment weightless (Oh, this is a can of worms. Skip's gonna say no to be on the safe side. )

   Do bracers of defense work if you're caught unawares (yes, but you still lose your dex mod. )

   Are bracers cumulative with armour (no, you use the best result. Cut the twinking. )

   What's with glowing magical weapons. (They glow when it's inconvenient to PC's, and don't when it would be useful. It's like they were diliberately given that feature to screw with you. )

   How do you determine which limb is severed by a sword of sharpness (Random tables! How else! )

   Which parts of a giantslaying sword's damage are multiplied (like backstabbing, only the dice. Their degree of aid is the same regardless of your stats. )

   Do all giant class opponents count as giants (only ones bigger than ogres )

   How many plusses can a weapon have (once you're at 6 or above, you're in rule-breaking territory. Better stop Myrland, ask him for directions )

   Do you have to be lawful to use a vorpal weapon (yes, otherwise it's your head that'll get the chopping. )

   Can a potion of longevity turn you into an infant. Can I use ghost aging to reverse this. Can an illusory ghost age people, since the fear is what causes the aging (probably, yes but we don't recommend it, and hell no that would be completely gamebreaking! )


Dragons are wizards' best friends: A whole load of minidragons is our first birthday gift. Designed to make good familiars to powerful wizards, these are typically tricksy little creatures. While they may not be able to match up to full dragons physically, they're easily as magically capable and tricksy as pseudo and faerie dragons. Scoring one of these little bastards might not be easy, but it will pay for itself in the long run, and give you plenty of fun playing out their antics.

Crystal Drakes may look pretty, and have moderate versatile magical powers, but as they eat gemstones, getting extra special powers based upon what they eat, they're probably pretty costly to keep. Once they die, you might be able to make a bit of that back by selling their hide, but it won't be much by comparison. You'll have to keep on adventuring to maintain them in the manner they're accustomed too.

Demon Drakes are as tricky as the other minidragons, with an additional sadistic edge. Not only are their tricks exceedingly dangerous, they're also pretty inventive. Their entry includes three new custom spells, and encourages you to give them more. Be very afraid, and don't hesitate to learn these tricks and turn them back at them.

Faerie Drakes are slightly bigger, tougher close relatives to faerie dragons. They aren't as magically powerful, but are more versatile, taking their powers and breath weapon from various full dragon types. Since they're pretty eager to learn spells, the chances of them becoming a familiar are pretty good, especially if treated as an equal partner rather than a servant.

Shadow Drakes are the shyest of these creatures, hiding in shadows and using connected magical abilities to misdirect anyone hunting them. They still have plenty of curiosity though, so you should be able to form a relationship if you take it slow and leave out food. Just the one for rogues and illusionists.

Dragon Magazine Issue 146: June 1989

part 2/3


The dragon's bestiary gives us yet more actual dragons to put our players up against. Of course, they still use the 1st ed rules, because we haven't seen the new ones yet, and they probably have to clear out the slush pile anyway. Oh well, they're perfectly compatible mechanically, so it matters little. Just means people are likely to use the old articles and sourcebooks with the new corebooks for a while.

Cobra dragons have the scary hood of their namesake. However, they have the full complement of limbs, plus a venomous bite that still has substantial effects if you succeed your save. Thankfully, they don't have any magical ability, so they're easier than most to outmaneuver. As usual, be very wary, for they may still have traps and allies.  

Obsidian dragons have the unusual and rather awkward distinction of not being immune to their own breath weapons. They are exceedingly powerful spellcasters though, so they can probably memorize spells to help with that. Since they also run the gamut of good and evil alignments they're also more likely to fight each other than usual. This could definitely be used to build interesting plots.
 
Gray Dragons (Not to be confused with The Grey Dragon, from issue 62 ) are smarter relations of white dragons. Their favoured tactics run towards immobilising the enemy, and picking them off one by one, which can definitely make for some unpleasant battles. Again, I believe some evil laughter would not go amiss.

Rainbow dragons continue Greg Detwiler's attempt to fill in the neutral evil part of the draconic alignment spectrum. They're talked up as scary, but really, without an AoE breath weapon, they're probably not as dangerous overall as Reds. Power isn't just in the numbers, you know.

Drakken are little three headed dragons. Has some wizard been trying to mate hydra with dragons again? :shakes head: In any case, they're not very bright, so they're more mid-level pests than the culmination of an adventure. Interesting to note that this completes a symmetry of having one dragon type intended for each current campaign world. They seem to be consciously trying to differentiate them in that respect. I suppose they are still relatively similar compared to what's to come.

Minidragons are another load of cute little things that can serve as pets both to proper dragons and people. They're pretty tough, but not that smart. Since we just had a whole article on this kind of thing earlier, it seems a bit odd to plonk these ones in here.


Snarfquest characters are lost throughout the issue. This is what happens when you go out of dimensions. It makes a dreadful mess. Now where have we seen that before? Growf growf.


The New ecology of the dragons: Is that like the new adventures of He-man? Because that came out around this time, and sucked. No, it's merely another less direct teaser that dragons are about to get a quite substantial upgrade with the edition change. Tail attacks, swoops, kicks, wingovers are in, Breath weapons are more frequent, subduing is not quite out, but no longer specific to them. They are now even more capable of demonstrating both power and finesse, and really ruining peoples days. This is an in-house production by Skip Williams, taking care to feature all their new powers specifically in the story. It comes close to shattering my suspension of belief as a story rather than a custom written promotional piece, but still manages to stay interesting. This is a case where the quality of the work manages to win me over, but I wouldn't like to see this kind of thing become common practice, with ecologies appropriate to whatever splatbook is coming out this month being a constant intrusion. You tread a perilous line here, TSR.


The hatchling magazine: A recap of the 7 issues of the strategic review. It has been quite a while. Another of those reminders that before the internet made copying things virtually free, far fewer gamers had access to any of the stuff from before they personally started playing. Only a small fraction of Dragon readers would have read these, and many would never even have heard of them. Let's see if this can shed any insights, either on the old magazines, or the current trends in historical interpretation.

The first issue, not too surprisingly, gets the most detailed examination. All the features are individually mentioned, and there is plenty of commentary. Unsurprisingly, quite a bit of it is focussed on just how far the magazine has come, both in contents and professionalism, and how little idea they obviously had about the directions the game was going to go. A particularly notable little bit is the commentary on the idea of cutting out the money off coupon, and how it would impact on the issue's collectability. They seem slightly surprised by the prevalence of PbP games, and the stuff for designing solo dungeons. We might have come a long way, but there were still some things they were doing back then that can be usefully drawn upon. Overall, the commentary is fairly neutral, neither slating or particularly gushing over the contents.

SR2, on the other hand, gets a very short description, mainly just a list of the contents. The main notable comment is the drawing attention to the fact that Brian Blume was already trying to set them apart as Gamers in general, not merely Wargamers. Thinking big, or the first signs of egomania? You decide.

SR3's description is also pretty perfunctory. It reveals that the quality of the paper went up. and they went from gluing to stapling for binding. Gary's rant of the issue is mentioned in a nonjudgemental fashion, and the fact that there is still huge variety in the contents seems important to them. I guess it would stand out in contrast to the current era, where the amount of non D&D stuff is seriously on the decline.

SR4's overview answers the question I've been wondering for ages. Yes the cartoon is by that Marc Miller. Guess he was in on things right from the beginning. Their main commentary is that FRPG's are rapidly increasing in dominance, and they too notice that the Dragon is coming. They have realized what the market wants. Poor wargaming, already being split away. In other words, this seems to be the point when they start to react to the changing market, altering their approach, and getting in new people to meet the increasing demand.

SR5 gets the biggest amount of text. The substantial improvements in production values gets lots of detailed attention, and the reviewer is pretty positive that this is where they moved from newszine to proper magazine. He's also has quite a bit to say about the sharp contrast between the willingness to throw anything into the melting pot and kitbash rules freely, and how it contrasts with Gary's calls for strict orthodoxy in the early AD&D era. Although he tries to stay neutral in this commentary, I get the impression he prefers the more freewheeling option. The kicking off of the great Gen Con Vs Origins war sees a bit of amusement peeking through. And like a lot of people, he wishes he'd taken the lifetime subscription option when he had the chance. Oh well. Your loss.

SR6 is a fairly brief one, which I find curious, since I preferred this one over SR5. The increasing dominance of RPG's is noted again, as is the fact that this issue was printed in purple ink. The rapid expansion of game clubs in mapping the dungeons is also tracked. Things might not all be going their way, but it's made all the more clear how they, and gaming as a whole are expanding.

SR7 is another fairly long look over. Gary's contributions get a lot of attention, with another bit of amusement at the intensity of his rantings peeking through. Twinks Beware! Once again, the increases in production values get noted as well. Also interesting is how much more we got to see of the writers personally, with profiles, photos, etc. They had to be more hands on in general in their handling of the various aspects of the company back then.

While overall, this is a pretty dry review, it does throw a new light on a few bits that I didn't note as significant, but probably were. And it's definitely interesting in that it's got me to look back on the first few issues of the magazine with new eyes. We're reaching a point where nostalgia can really start to come into play, and the people who've been around for a while are significantly older than when they started. How long before talk about "getting back to the roots of the game" becomes commonplace?

Dragon Magazine Issue 146: June 1989

part 3/3


Fiction: The ever-after by Eluki Bes Shahar. Another of those bits of fiction that reminds us that what we call heroes are actually mostly irresponsible wandering sociopaths who just happen to be killing creatures that we're opposed to at the moment. And many of them have pretty messed up pasts. To be truly heroic, you need to resist your urges, not indulge them. Build up civilisations, not destroy them. And do what is responsible, not what is glamorous, no matter what megalomaniacal magic items say. An interesting message to deliver around here.


TSR Previews: First up, completely unsurprisingly, is the 2nd edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Masters Guide. In fact, this is so important, it gets a little box to make it stand out even more. The players handbook never got that privilege. Hmm. Does that mean anything.

D&D recycles golden khan of ethengar from last month. Damnable sloppiness and delays.

In novels, we have Shadowdale, by Richard Awlinson. The start of the Avatar trilogy. You saw the module last month. Now you can see how the official characters do things. Their experiences are going to be the ones that really count. We also have the start of the martian wars trilogy for Buck Rogers, with 2456 by M. S. Murdock. Well, not many people are going to mind hat he's the star of that metaplot, and not their characters.

We get our first solo adventure in a while as well. They seem to be on a decline now. Still, Knight of the living dead by Allen Varney seems to be quite a big one. Play an undead paladin trying to adapt to unlife and still do good. Interesting.

Top Secret gets TSE2: The sting of the spider. Head back to San Christobal for some more underworld infiltration and elimination in an exotic location. Play that funky theme music.

It's not just AD&D that's getting relaunched this month. The Dungeon boardgame, last seen getting articles in the magazine in the late 70's, gets a new edition. How very intriguing.

And finally, the forgotten realms also gets next year's calendar, 6 months early. Why do they do that? One would think that the middle of the year would be the worst time for selling these things.


The marvel-phile is taken over by Skip, who gets the chance to be sagealicious twice in one magazine.

   Aunt May shouldn't be able to kill Galactus by spending 100 Karma! (How, pray tell, is Aunt May to earn said Karma in the first place? Remember, Galactus can spend it too to counter things anyway. )

   My players object to me using updated stats for characters from modules (Well, you shouldn't tell them that you're doing so then. Who is the boss here?)

   What defense powers can resist eldrich bolts (depends what type of eldrich bolt)

   Which table do you use for power ranges (page 16)

   How do you determine resource ranks (see pages 6 and 7. This is why you read books start to finish.)

   When's the next gamers handbook out? (The end of the year. Patience my dear. Otherwise things won't have changed enough to be worth a full book of updates. )

   Send me updated stats for all the characters that have changed recently. (Get real dude. You gotta be prepared to pay if you wanna stay up to date. )

   If two characters with the same stats work together, do they still get a bonus (yes)

   What column do cyborgs roll on to generate powers (One. Affirmative)

   How do you keep track of flying characters. (Get tactical. Or fudge. Whatever keeps you game rolling.)

   What does luck manipulation do (no such power. You want probability control mate. Gotta stay precise in your terminology.)

   Can you get 1,000 Karma for arresting someone with an invulnerability (Only if it's a very broad invulnerability. )

   Why doesn't spiderman have a higher intuition. (Superhuman abilities covering part of a stat don't boost the whole stat if the other areas are lacking. )

   How can I get replacement parts (Expensively. A lot of the time it'd be cheaper to buy a whole new model. )

   Do you need to roll just to move full speed (No. Where'd you get that silly idea? )

   Does Armour piercing shot permanently reduce body armour (No. Penetrated /= destroyed)

   How do you establish a power stunt (persistence)

   Sometimes Tony Stark can't buy a pen! The Resources system makes no sense! ( You'd be amazed how hard it can be to find a pen sometimes. Go electronic. It's much harder to lose computers.)

   One of my player's characters keep dying. What do I do (Give him tactical advice. If he still doesn't shape up, kick him out. Achtung! Ve do not tolerate incompetence at Sage Towers!)

   How do you decide who attacks who. (Tactical considerations and personal grievances. Just like in the actual comics)

   Where are all the locations in MHSP2 (some are in the maps from the corebook. Sorry if that wasn't clear.)


Dangerous terrain: Gamma world's article this month is a few extra wilderness hazards. As if there aren't more than enough of those. But you know how those random encounter tables get stale and predictable after a few years of regular play. Like a long-married couple, adding some new toys to the games room is needed to keep a group together. One of those short, not particularly consequential articles that does what it does, neither too good or too bad. I suppose I should be pleased that it's still getting any coverage at all, since they haven't released any new supplements for the game in a while.


The role of computers: Might and magic II gets a large and detailed review, as an epic adventure game should get here. This does require quite a lot of disks, and backing up your saves is a good idea. They give us plenty of advice on the various character classes and how to use them. There's plenty of cool new stuff to discover, including time travel stuff which means the same location will have different stuff in it at different points. They're generally pretty positive, with their only gripe being the endlessly respawning random encounters which seem to throw monsters together without rhyme or reason. Oh well. It's not as if that's uncommon in computer games.

Hostage, on the other hand, gets a 5 star rating. While you don't get to negotiate with the terrorists, you do get tons of tactical choices, as you co-ordinate your team to take out the enemies with minimum loss of civilian life. Set up sharpshooters, lead your strike team in, and switch between characters rapidly. Think fast, because the terrorists are pretty smart too, and the whole thing maintains an impressively persistent environment.


Arrows of the east: Oriental adventures continues to get attention. Not that alternate arrow types didn't appear in the west, but they only got codified for D&D in OA, so this falls under that aegis. This is a combination of errata and expansion, making armor-piercing arrows actually, y'know, better at penetrating armor, as well as adding several new tricks. Still, we had another one of these fairly recently (issue 133) which was more inventive in it's new tricks, so overall, this is a pretty unimpressive little article. When you've got to fill an exact page count every month, you're going to get padding, and this is another example of that.


If you wish upon a star: Wish nerfing? Here we go again. Not a promising start. However, this manages to avoid the rehash problem by covering this topic with greater detail and methodicality than any of the previous articles managed. It isn't even too restrictive, since the massive array of options drawn from tales of all kinds will really help you choose just how restricted a wish from any particular source should be. With some fairly decent tables, tons of examples, and a decent bibliography for further reading, this is actually pretty good, and about as worthy a contribution on this topic as we're probably ever going to see. If you're going to do something ill-advised, do it in style, and you might be able to pull it off.


The great khan game. Another amusingly illustrated creation from the fertile mind of Tom Wham. As ever, they would like it if you bought it.

Dragonmirth really needs to tidy up. Yamara is well and truly defeated by dreadful dialogue.

A strong start that then gradually peters out this issue. For all their statements that they're trying to look forward, this one doers seem to be somewhat stuck in the past,  with lots of stuff dependent on products that are very much old news. Just how much more OA stuff can the market bear? When will they actually start publishing submissions using the 2e rules? Come on. You've been advertising this stuff for 2 years now. I want the new shinys already.

Quote from: (un)reason;355791Greyhawk also gets a rather specific module, WG9: Gargoyle. Play a gargoyle trying to get their wings back. Very curious sounding indeed. Any opinions on this one?

It's about as lame as it sounds. The module doesn't gibe with anything we know, whether you're talking "Greyhawk" canon or real-world mythology. I recall being disappointed and having a "WTF?" reaction to the thing. Yeah, it was different, but not in a good way.

Quote from: ColonelHardisson;357311It's about as lame as it sounds. The module doesn't gibe with anything we know, whether you're talking "Greyhawk" canon or real-world mythology. I recall being disappointed and having a "WTF?" reaction to the thing. Yeah, it was different, but not in a good way.

Having managed to get hold of it since first writing that, the closest thing I can compare it to is the kids cartoons of the same period. You have misunderstood comic relief creatures who need your help while simultaneously being an almighty pain in the ass in "amusing" fashion, and a plot that requires the PC's not be the sociopathic bastards we know and love from personal experience. Eric, hank, uni & co, on the other hand, would fit into this scenario just fine.

Dragon Magazine Issue 147: July 1989

part 1/3


108 pages. Haven't you been on the cover before? I'm sure you have. Check Issue 106. Don't they look like the same person? Albeit with a little leveling up (and skankifying) having taken place in the intervening years. Even though they might not be by the same artist, they really do look like they're working with the same subject. We'll be seeing you reprinted as well. The theme is pretty familiar too. Magic! Of the arcane variety! Yawn. Lets hope there's a few neat new toys in here.

In this issue:

Letters: A letter from the cover artist artist of issue 139, about the award she's just won for the piece. Woo. Go Carol Heyer.

A whole bunch of errata for issue 139's druid article, from it's original writer.

Another question about said druid article, clearing up another ambiguity. Yet more evidence that it wasn't a very well written article.

A piece encouraging them to take more risks. Sure, a few people'll complain, but the silent majority will approve. But the million dollar question is, Will they keep buying the magazine?


Forum is comprised almost entirely of recurring writers writing about religion this month. Seems like it's becoming quite the old boys club.

S. D. Anderson isn't happy about the idea of speciality clerics having limited spell lists. Cleric's spell lists are already pretty crap compared to wizards. Gods shouldn't intentionally handicap their followers. Hmm. You may not be pleased with the new edition's changes then, especially when the splatbooks start rollin' out.

Ed Friedlander is also tackling the topic of religion. Faith is an important manner, and developing the beliefs of our characters and worlds, and the organizations that serve the gods in them definitely deserves attention. You shouldn't just slap your own modern beliefs and values onto your characters.

Fr Patrick J Dolan takes a more pragmatic attitude to the problem of ministering. So clerics don't have nearly enough spells to properly care for a whole community. This is what low power, mass produced magic items such as sacred oils are for. One annointment may only heal a couple of hit points, but that's all you need for normal humans, and you can do hundreds of them in a single day.

Paul Astle also thinks Greg Detwiler was being unimaginative and overly pessimistic about the capacity of clerics to change lives. Sure, they can't save everyone, but they can solve several of the most significant problems that crop up every day. Over time, that really adds up, seriously reducing the number of deaths and invalids. If they're doing their job properly, they will make a difference to the community.

Dan Fehler talks about his own experience with someone who cuts out real world religious references from his games. We've all got to do our bit to keep the people who demonise gaming from having ammunition. Looks like it really is that time now.


Palladium celebrates having sold a million books. Just think, a few years ago, they were jazzed that TMNT had sold 7,000. Now look at them. Pleased as punch.


Sage advice is still looking at 1st ed magical items. Last chance saloon and all that.

   Can a potion of undead control usurp control for someone else (yup, but it reverts back afterwards.)

   Can I replicate a potion miscabiity result if I duplicate the formulae of both potions precisely. (I am afraid not. Magic isn't that scientific and reliable. )

   Can rings of regeneration revive someone killed by special attacks rather than hit points (no. You've gotta have some threat)

   Can rings of regeneration revive someone if put on their hand after they die (No. It's a condom, not a morning after pill. )

   How quickly do you regrow limbs ( A matter of days. Worry not.)

   Are two rings of protection cumulative (same bonus type, so they don't stack. )

   Does an activated ring of earth elemental command still act as a ring of feather falling (no)

   Does wearing of fire resistance protect the wearers equipment. (It would be a good idea if it did )

   How do you recharge an item (Tediously. Very very tediously. Magic requires ridiculous amounts of prepwork for each boom. )

   How do you make a rod of cancellation. ( Sacrificing your favourite TV show on the altar of your ambition, with the blood of a hundred babies. Or is that the Exalted method. Ehh, you should never pass up an excuse to sacrifice a hundred babies. )

   Are rods permanent items (In D&D they generally are. In AD&D they generally aren't. How'd that happen? )

   What proficiency do you need to wield a rod (staff. They're basically the same thing.  They certainly get used with the same phallic metaphors.)

   How do non druids get to use the staff of slinging's powers. (They can't. Trade secrets, etc etc. )

   Do you need a proficiency to use a /lightsaber/ wand of force (nope. )

   How do you penetrate a wall of darkness (stick your head through it. Duh. )

   What's the range of a wand of flame extinguishing (barely worth it, if you forget how D&D scaling works. )

   What's the duration of a tome ( Longer than your lifetime. )

   When are gauntlets and girdles cumulative (When you're ripping off Thor.)

   What happens if your strength is drained when you're wearing a girdle (good thing too, otherwise your hernias'd give you so much gyp.)

   Isn't the price for girdles of giant strength a bit low. (Hmm. Haven't we had this question before? Eeexcellent. Another chance for Skip to show
how much better he is than Jean ever was! I cast Overturn Precedent at the question! Multiply the price and XP by 10! That ought to do it.)

   Can you wear gloves and gauntlets at the same time (no. They use up the same item slot.)

   Can the lyre of building destroy everything built with it if you mess up (No, only stuff built that week. Otherwise it'd be so much of a liability that it's funny)

How long can you use a crystal ball for( Like using the internet, time'll fly by before you know it. Spying on things is rather addictive, and more than one wizard has neglected their studies because they were too busy keeping up with current events. )

   Can a helm of brilliance buff any sword (yes)

   Can you wear a hat and a helm simultaneously. (No. We really ought to formalize the item slots system. Unfortunately, it's too late to put it in 2nd edition. Great. Skip will have to put up with another 10 years of this crap before we finally get round to fixing it. )

   Is a hat of disguise an illusory or shapechanging effect (nonfunctional cosmetic shapechanging )

   Can a cloak of protection be worn with elfin chain (nope)

   Can I wear more than one cloak at once ( Haaaa. :points and laughs:)

   Can a cloak be combined with armor ( Mayyyybe. )

   Can you wear a cloak and a mantle (No, but you can wear a robe and a mantle. It's kingly, uh huh huh. )

   How many people can draw from a deck of many things (4/x Where X is the number of cards each draws. )    

   Does the level boosting ion stone burn out after bestowing it's power (no. You have to keep it around to keep the buff, and if it gets nicked, you lose the extra power. )

   Does the white spindle's regeneration keep working when you're dead (as long as they don't think to grab it. If they do, you're screwed.

   What can a quiver of ehlonna produce ( Nothing! More Errata!)

   Will a stone of good luck affect your ressurection roll (only if you had it before you died)

   What's a freedom word. (Zagyg needed to make sure he couldn't be captured in his own extradimensional dungeon when dallying with kinky villainesses. So he took precautions. Remember folks, children are the least of your worries when dealing with women like that. )

   Does a gem of insight let you check for psionic power (eventually. Remember, temporary buffs don't count for stuff like this. )

   Are two substances found within a philosophers stone (Only in certain combinations.  Green and white totally lacks style. )

   What happens when a bag of holding is turned inside out (Man, that's gonna be non euclidian. Thankfully, most wizards put safety precautions to stop the universe being destroyed by this possibility. Well, they must have, because the universe is still around. Isn't it? .................. Oh, Maaaan. Is Skip gonna have to hit the reset button again? )

   Can an amulet of proof against detection keep an invisible character from being seen by detect invisibility (yes indeedy)
 

Ghostbusters gets a new edition to tie in with the new movie. Will it be an improvement on the original? Ha. Win some, lose some.

Quote from: (un)reason;357340Ghostbusters gets a new edition to tie in with the new movie. Will it be an improvement on the original? Ha. Win some, lose some.

Yeah, this was definitely in the "lose" category. The Ghostbusters II revision of the game stripped away a lot of the charm of the original game, particularly the stuff that featured the characters from the movie. Then it larded it down with more detailed yet less fun rules. I have both editions, and I find the original very inspiring in that I want to run it. Even the adventures are more fun.