Dragon Magazine Annual 1996


part 3/8


Bazaar of the Bizarre: Another bunch of new magical armours? That was quick. They must be running out of ideas to approve this. Couldn't you do staves or scrolls, something you haven't done in a few years? Mutter mutter mutter.

Rabak Armor is made of multiple layers of wood with sticky sap smeared on top. This makes it maintenance heavy, but very stealthy for it's AC and able to trap weapons that hit you. Another one that would be nowhere near as much benefit for the PC's as the enemies, as without the materials to fix it, it loses it's special qualities in weeks.

Sindar web armor is less of a bugger to maintain, but even rarer than elven chain. A rogue who wants some really tough spider silk armor like this will probably have to steal it, given the stupid prices it goes for.

Asheiran armor is made from tons of tiny crustaceans. This makes it another one that takes ages to make and tons of maintenance. Don't even think of using it out of the water.

Sul Armor is even more gross, made of trained cockroaches that cover your body and respond to the will of their wearer. Since they are chameleonic, they actually boost your thiefly hiding skills. They're perfectly designed for drama and I like this one.

Armor of the Ventadari is made out of layers of transparent force, allowing you to be fully armored and still cheesecake. :rolleyes: They also absorb magic, although unlike last time's item that does the same, they don't get stronger from doing so, and can be overloaded and fail. Still, this is another definite case of paucity of ideas, even if this variant has some nice fluff added to it.


The dragon's bestiary: Another collection of underdark monsters in quick succession as well. They really are running short on original ideas this year. Not really a surprise, given the amount of time they've been doing this. Oh well, on I trudge wearily.
 
Gohlbrorn are to bulettes as people are to chimpanzees, using tactics and missile weapons where regular landsharks would just wade in biting and slashing. They can burrow ridiculously fast, making setting up ambushes and escaping if things turn against them a cinch. One for the kobold lovers to really take advantage of.

Lukhorn are gigantic worms with camouflage so good, you could just walk right into them, and not realise until you get swallowed. Now there's something that's been missing from D&D and I didn't even realise it. I know I've seen that kind of trick more than once in books. How pleasing to add in.  

Varkha are another variant humanoid, slightly smaller and more vicious lizard men. These really do not add anything new in the slightest. Peh.

Chromatic mold is another annoying threat that gives you good reason to be deeply suspicious of anything fungal. Curiously, it's a lot more dangerous to things with infravision. Oh the dilemma. To take torches or use magic to see in the dark. Looks like there's a monster designed to catch you out either way.

Eighonn is a mysterious unique shadowy being that kills without remorse. Unique? Ha. That's every other mysterious cloaked badass to a tee. Once again, I'm really not impressed here. A decidedly mediocre collection overall.

Dragon Magazine Annual 1996


part 4/8


Rogues gallery: Another set of characters from a recent novel stated out here, courtesy of their actual author. Now, given that I've never seen Elaine Cunningham produce any game books, I do wonder if she actually plays D&D much, or if she's like Simon Hawke, just someone who writes in their worlds. Well, it's not as if D&D is that hard to learn. We shall see if there's any rules-breaking going on here.

Hasheth, Lord Venazir is an annoyingly talented teenage nobleman who has trained as an assassin, worked for the harpers, and also managed to amass an independent fortune through merchant work at the age of 16. Sounds more like an anime protagonist than a D&D one. Can you say Cheeeese. Ahh, the joys of flexible timekeeping.

Ferret is an elf who disguises herself as a human, in the process wearing some rather sleazy outfits to ensure people's attention is always on the wrong features. Fanservice! She too works as an assassin, but has an agenda behind many of the targets she chooses. Interesting. Still, if the next one is a shaved dwarf on stilts, I shall laugh a lot.

Foxfire is another elf with a literally translated name. He also reads as author fanservice for women, with great detail gone into just how sexy he is, strong and with a dark past, but also considerate and a good leader. So yeah, there is a hell of a lot of cheese in this collection. I really don't think I'm the target audience for her books. Let's move on.


Campaign Classics: Spelljammer's turn now. This is one that doesn't feel basic or rehashed, instead being Roger Moore's look at the scro, and how to make the most of them in any setting. They're reasonably capable in a fight, and have even more tricks up their sleeves than regular goblinoids. Plus spaceships scare the shit out of people in a regular fantasy campaign, because it means you have an enormous mobility advantage. You'll need the original monster entry as it doesn't repeat that stuff, but if you do, there's plenty of cool ideas for you to take advantage of. Actually, in terms of presentation, it's quite similar to his old classic articles on demihumans in 1982. And that's a very good thing indeed in my book, as it gives this article more weight in general. Not being constantly occupied by editorial work has indeed helped him return to being a valuable writer for them.


Forgotten realms: Ed Greenwood introduces this one of course, with his usual impish sense of humour making things so much more entertaining to read. The realms is now packed full of characters competent, and not so much. And good gods they get up to some funny stuff. Well, when you're Elminster, and they offer very little threat to you, it's easy to laugh. How big does the body count in the various Realms novels become before they get the mandated happy ending? I guess even here, you can make a real difference to individual lives. There's still plenty of people having fun with this world, and actually, you could be one of them. Don't forget that, amid all the overcrowding canon.

Dragon Magazine Annual 1996


part 5/8


Gem of the north: Hmm. A description of Alustriel's palace. You know, a map would only take up a page or two, and help quite a lot, especially for adventurers who might want to get a little combative. But no, instead we have to visualise it all ourself, and accept that there's great wodges of stuff that we're not being told about, as they want to maintain the supreme power of mystra's chosen, and that means always being able to pull another deus ex machina out of their arse. So while there's a good deal of cool descriptive detail in this article, it is very much part of the problem, both in the 2e sense of putting description over stuff that will be useful in actual play, and the Realms specific issue of tying everything down and making it feel like the PC's can't really affect the world. I don't really feel comfortable reading it.


Dragonlance fifth age: Now, the Realms started slow and gradually built to dominance, but was a success from day one, and never really flagged in popularity. If anything, it's supremacy over the other D&D settings is all the more obvious today, as it's the only one getting repeated support in 4e and fairly regular novels anymore. Dragonlance, by contrast, started in a big fanfare, and then really, it's been mostly downhill from there. Still, that means they've been less afraid to shake things up, for it's less of a cash cow to kill in the first place if it does fail. And next year they're really going to go to town filling in the 5th age. After all, they have to get this stuff out quick, for things aren't great in the company, and if it doesn't sell, this setting'll be put on the backburner for good. Once again, this does make for slightly depressing reading in hindsight. Oh well, at least they went out experimenting.


Between the ages: In which it is revealed just how long it took for things to reach their current state. Sure it seems like everything has changed. But when you lived through it day by day for 30 years, it doesn't seem so bad, especially when you remember these events are scattered across the entire continent. But it does show just how annoying the dragons are being at this point, and how many there are. I guess the important thing this once again demonstrates is that this is the setting made to showcase the Dragons in D&D, and they're making substantial attempts to make them bigger, scarier and more integral to the setting. It also puts the 5th age stories from the magazine into better context. Really, there's a 27 year gap between the 1st and last ones. That's longer than, say, the whole real world history of D&D at this point. So this makes their actions over the last year seem a little more palatable to me. There was a bigger plan in their redesign of the setting. We just don't get to see it until after the fact. And hopefully that'll make it a little easier to run a game here, should I ever decide to do so.


Ravenloft: as befits the gothic setting, Ravenloft is really starting to be weighed down by it's history at this point. After all, like the Forgotten Realms, it started off slow, and built up popularity by proof of demand for quite a few years before getting a full gameline. But like Dragonlance, it's actually changed quite a bit as time went on. The geography has gone through a full-scale rearrangement, and they've also killed off the biggest good guy NPC and city in the setting, thus really driving home that no-one and nothing is safe here. Just about the only thing that remains constant is that it's near impossible to get out of here. And now it's getting it's third core set. Even the Forgotten Realms hasn't got that privilege yet. Goes to show just how popular and enduring horror is, and how many writers in the TSR stable want to put their own spins upon it, dragging the setting in different directions in the process. Just how much more stretching can it take before it too is torn apart by nerdrage over it's metaplot choices?

Dragon Magazine Annual 1996


part 6/8


Vampires A-Z: Now we've definitely had this topic before. Yeah, right back in issue 25, plus another in issue 126. People like their variant undead from around the world. Although looking at this and comparing them, it seems to be substantially inferior to those previous articles. For a start, it's completely crunch free, simply renaming existing undead for new cultural setups, saying there's not enough room for statistics. This despite being a good 3 times as long as the first one in issue 25, and not having that many more entries. (26 compared to 15. ) It really is a great demonstration of how much more tied down by convention and less can-do writers are now. It wouldn't be impossible at all to detail how they differ statistically as well from their primary template in the space you have. You'd just have to cut down on the descriptive fluff a little bit. Fail.


Beyond the Flanaess: Greyhawk doesn't get an introduction, as like spelljammer, it's not a live setting anymore, but it still gets an article. Actually, this is a rather interesting one, as it's very old material indeed. An original sketch of the whole continent, approximately tripling the amount of area detailed in the previous books, by Ga :rumble of thunder, organ stab, wolves howl: sorry mistress, by it's original creator himself. That's both tremendously useful, and also an important hint of what the political situation is like in the TSR offices. Are they now aware that the company is in trouble, and trying to sneak out valuable information they haven't been allowed to relay for years, just in case this is the end? Or is it just generalised breakdown in discipline. Ok, there's still a bit of whitewashing in force, but still, we are getting valuable old skool information in highly condensed form. Of course, if Greyhawk were ever to come back, the details of these new areas might turn out to be as different as the expanded continents in Mystara were from their Master Set map. Well, we shall cross that bridge if it ever comes. In any case, this article is a joy to see.  


Planescape: A fairly straight introduction here, covering all the usual bases. Fantastical locations, not for hack-and-slash, power of belief, anything can be found, Sigil ties it all together. Yawn. Pretty much what they said before it was released, only without the IC teasing. I suppose it contrasts with the previous settings, which have changed quite a bit over the years. But then, you don't really want the planes as a whole changing. That's the whole point. Individual worlds and species may come and go, but the universe remains, too vast for one creature to make a difference. Try and change that, and people get very pissed off. It's like if we suddenly woke up, and the sun was green, the moon was tiny and orange, and all the stars were different. (oh wait, they just pulled that kind of stunt in Dragonlance and look where it gets them) Oh wait, I'm getting ahead of myself again. Back to now then.


A handful of keys: Proper control of your portals is vital for a low level Planescape campaign. Until they get hold of magic that gives them the choice of where to go, they are purely dependent on your generosity as a DM to control where they can go, how easy and costly it will be to get there, and how much travelling they'll have to do at the other end. So a bit of advice on how to do it right comes as welcome. Frequency, type of keys, random places in sigil in which they can be found, how to have them cycle in game, and alternate key ideas such as magical items, spells and thoughts. Yeah, this seems like exactly the kind of handy little reference that you'll want to take a look at if you have an adventure to run in a few hours and are running short on ideas. Basic, but not bad at all.

Dragon Magazine Annual 1996


part 7/8


Birthright: Birthright is expanding outwards in it's own way. While it doesn't have a central city, it does seem to have a default starting point for your characters, down in the southwest. And in traditional D&D style, the further away you go from that, the further you go from the default medieval assumptions of the game, into different landscapes and political setups, as well as the intention that characters will be higher level. Interesting. So it looks like there's still plenty for them to build upon in this setting, even without opening up other continents on the same world. I wonder how much they'll actually get done before the line dies.


Guilds of cerilia: A fairly short article for this world, that's about thieves going legit. Or at least, giving themselves a nice plausible front business for laundering money and keeping the authorities off your scent. Which is a very funny business when you might actually have a more noble bloodline than them. How does that work, when the guy who is in charge uses their power for ends like this? Well, I suppose we have plenty of real world examples of banana republics where the leaders bleed the population dry and then bugger of to switzerland when things go bad. Why shouldn't you enjoy doing that kind of thing? So this shows just how much you can do when you're a rogue that's in charge. They don't have to be the odd ones out at all. A pretty decent little article really.


Dark sun: Really, has Athas become more or less dangerous over the years? That's the big question they have to face given how many things have happened. And really, the messages are pretty mixed. The existing areas have probably become less dangerous, but they've opened up a whole bunch of new areas with their own challenges for you to face. And the PC's, already more powerful than ones from other worlds, have gained tons of new stuff in the various supplements, while the bad guys have become fairly pinned down and codified, so we know exactly what it takes to beat them. I think we can probably say that while still daunting, the place is less scary than it used to be. All the over-the-top descriptiveness in this intro can't make up for the facts.


Heroes of Athas: Bah. And I was hoping we'd get through this issue without having to deal with more Skills & Powers stuff. Instead, I have to wade through 12 pages of it, the largest article in the issue. Well, when you have to allocate costs to all their standard racial and class abilities, plus a bunch of new extrapolated ones which do tend to be more powerful than the basic set, it really adds up. I'm struggling to get through this set without zoning out, which isn't a particularly good sign. I do note that there seems to be quite a lot of healing/regeneration innate powers, which reduces the need for clerics in a team. There's also plenty of resistances to specific energy types, ability score bonuses, and natural AC lowerers. All that good stuff that'll come in handy nearly every session, in contrast to being able to detect sloping passages. I think I can say pretty safely that there is opportunity for twinkery here. Once again, this is not to my tastes.

Dragon Magazine Annual 1996


part 8/8


Dragon dice: Mixed Race Armies? Well, this is interesting. Once again it is proved hybridisation is the path to maximum twinkitude! Although you do still have to maintain some level of compatibility. It seems some of the best choices have one element in common, but the two races bring other things to the table as well. Still, they don't seem too keen on you combining a bit of everything, for reasons I'm not sure of. Would that be even more powerful, or would it actually result in a weaker army overall? Once again, I do somewhat regret not knowing any more about this game than I've read in the magazine.


Deckbuilding Revisited: You know, we haven't actually seen any Spellfire articles over the last year, as Dragon Dice seems to have replaced it in the affections of the writers. What's up with that? Short attention spans, I guess. And this is already a return to basic deckbuilding advice. Can't they take a break from something for any amount of time without assuming people have forgotten about it and need to start from the bottom again? So yeah, this tells you that you can't expect to win by just throwing money at hundreds of booster packs, and then putting the most powerful cards you find into your deck. Synergy is the name of the game, and all types of cards are needed to win. Picking stuff from the same world can make you predictable, but does often have real combo advantages. And never forget to have enough realms to give you a chance of winning quickly. Another article that seems sensible, but not groundbreaking in the slightest. You could do stuff like this all day, should you be so inclined. But sensible is not exciting. Zzzzzz.


An 8 page spread of artwork recycled from recent products finishes this off. Not that it's bad at all, as they've obviously picked what they think is the best of the year, but it once again smells of padding because they don't have enough material, not making the most efficient use of the space they have available.


This definitely seems to have been designed to attract the interest of more casual buyers, who wouldn't normally pick up issues regularly. With it's heavy emphasis on settings, familiar topics, and noncontroversial crunch that's easily incorporated into existing games, it wants to take people who've already bought a little, and get them diversifying so they buy a greater proportion of TSR's stuff. So I'm left feeling that this really isn't aimed at me, and this is rather less satisfying as a whole product than the regular issues. Even the number of external adverts is vastly reduced, which also contributes to making the whole thing feel much more like a house organ. It also feels like they don't really have the ideas to fill all this extra space, and are resorting to self-promotional padding a lot. Really, it brings the end of the year down. I hope next year's annual has a better idea what it wants to do with itself.

Dragon Magazine Issue 237:  very late unspecified date sometime in the middle of 1997


part 1/8


124 pages. So they're back. Where've they been, and what happened to them? You already have a rough idea, but lets see what the magazine themselves has to say about their unscheduled absence. Amusingly, not a lot. This issue appears to have been pushed out using their preprepared material, with no thought as to it's relevance. Big chunks of it look amusingly out-of place and inaccurate in light of events. Well, if they'd restarted from scratch, they'd probably have been out for several months more. I doubt there were particularly good options here. Let's stop skimming, and delve a little deeper.


In this issue:


The wyrms turn: Here we see the only bit that's really up to date, where they apologise for their lengthy unscheduled absence. They've been bought by Wizards of the Coast! They of course try and spin this as positively as possible, saying the future is going to be better instead of dwelling on how bad the past may have become. We'll be the judge of that. I also note that they've also lost two members of staff, but only gained one, so there's a gap in their staff listing now. This does feel very much like they're giving us an official party line, rather than talking honestly about all the troubles they've been facing in the past few months. Maybe they'll give us more info later, but for now, it's only a teaser, making us curious as to what this means for us. I'm going to have to try and get to next month as quickly as possible in light of this.


D-Mail is completely oblivious, and stuck in the end of last year. Still, at least the commentary on earlier issues mostly makes sense.

Regular forumite Steve Shawler once again complains about one of Rick's reviews.  Dungeon Crawls are the adventures we remember, because we have the chance to play them differently and make them our own that you don't have when the story is the main attraction. Especially when we die in unexpected and funny ways. That's not a pleasure we grow out of.

A letter praising the Dragon Annual. Gee, what a surprise. Well, there's always someone who likes nearly anything they try. Even Buck Rogers had a few hardcore fans.

A letter pointing out a couple of bits of eratta. They duly fill in the missing statistics. It's always those little details you forget when in a hurry.

A letter from someone who misses first quest. Why did it have to go? Not enough people with interesting stories to interview, I think. It is a shame though. It could have run indefinitely with a wider writerbase.

A letter asking them to do themed issues on campaign worlds. They have done that occasionally, particularly Athas. Still, I'm sure it would be popular, and would be their only real chance of contributing significantly to the development of cancelled worlds. I'm sure they'll do it if they can get the submissions. Which may be harder after this little hiatus, as that's the kind of thing that messes up relationships with established writers.

Dragon Magazine Issue 237: Mid 1997


part 2/8


Wild at heart: Well, at least it looks like we're getting a quite substantial themed section this month, even if it is on a repeated topic. Time to get close to nature again again again again. Here's a selection of nature related kits suitable for all classes. Ecofroofery! It's fun for the whole family! Not enough things you can say that about really.

Ferals are warriors bonded with animal spirits. Oh, like we've never seen that before. Their benefits and penalties are also completely unsurprising. Basic animal specific abilities, eventual shapeshifting, temper control issues and excessive respect for their totem animal. Yawn.

Greenfellows are rather more interesting. What happens to the kids swapped for changelings and raised by faeries? If they take a roguish path, and many do, they'll get this selection of benefits and penalties. If anyone can understand them and play them at their own games, it's these guys. Plus there's plenty of opportunities for roleplaying fun as they discover the human world as well. Ha. I suspect people wanting a SERIOUS game may object.

Stridesmen are another potentially irritating kit for their tendency to just keep walking, and trust that if they turn up somewhere, they're not lost, they're exactly where their god planned them to be. They also need less rest than normal people, so they'll also be annoyingly energetic., wanting to press on when the rest of the team are tired and cranky. Mechanically, they're ok, but I can once again see this fostering party conflict. Maybe if they use their spells to buff the rest of the party they'll be able to keep up.

Merlanes are wizards that specialise in genetic engineering. Finally, someone's taking responsibility for all the weird stuff you find in dungeons. And you can become one of them, with 8 new spells which allow you to transform and hybridise to substantial degrees, trace the ancestry of created creatures, and if needed, make them devolve back into their base form. I believe that's sufficiently awesome to redeem this otherwise somewhat sketchy article. Want want want!


Man's best friend: Doggies! Man's best friend, supposedly, although I've always preferred cats. They've had a few appearances in the magazine (issues 67, 94, 103, 117) but maybe not as much as you'd expect given their real world popularity and potential usefulness in dungeoneering. After all, they get bred for all sorts of applications in reality, including digging, hunting, tracking and guarding; that would be useful for a dungeon explorer. They'd be more versatile and less trouble than mules, that's for sure. Here's an attempt to mechanically codify how much they can learn, and how long it takes to teach them. I have no idea how true to life this is, but it does seem quite solid mechanically, even if it won't really allow your companions to scale up with you as you face challenges together. I suppose they're just not that analytical and gamist yet. In any case, it's a good reminder that there's stuff in the players handbook that will not only be helpful, but also give you a ton of roleplaying hooks if you drop a little money on it. That you'll probably have to deal with the tragedy of it being killed a few levels later will just provide more roleplaying hooks.


On a waterless sea: Naval combat got an article a mere 5 issues ago. Now it's time for boating on Athas to get a good examination, with this solid 8 page look at silt skimmers. These take a good deal more effort to keep up and going, because silt varies widely in density and doesn't handle like water at all. Fortunately, they have psionics to help them out. Still, that does mean they'll have to trade navigators, or only go for short periods of time each day. So once again this demonstrates that life finds a way, but you certainly don't have things easy on Athas. (thongs, on the other hand, are not hard to come by if you take the artwork as canon  ) And a DM can make getting somewhere a pretty significant part of the adventure without resorting to fiat. With plenty of different tricks and options, I find this article both useful and likable. Even if you aren't using Dark Sun, you may want to make your world work differently from the norm, and this is the kind of thing that'll help you get ideas for implementing that.

Dragon Magazine Issue 237: Mid 1997


part 3/8


Wyrms of the north: Ed once again shows off like crazy in demonstrating his talents with creating high level creatures and their survival strategies in a big, complicated and dangerous world. Curiously, the method this dragon has adopted is almost exactly the inverse of Liches one. While they hide their soul in an item, keeping them safe and able to possess a new body as long as the item remains safe, he instead hides his body away, and sends his awareness hopping from item to item, mostly swords. This is far less conspicuous than having a great wyrm dragon wandering about the place, and allows him to observe adventures easily and help out if needed by pretending to be just an intelligent magical item. Now that does sound like a fun life, especially when you're old and patient enough to snooze through the walky and sleepy bits between stuff happening. He's seeking a longer-term method of life extension, but hasn't got there yet, and being a dragon, isn't in a great hurry. So this is one creature that could easily be encountered at low levels, and repeatedly throughout a parties career without their knowing, and the plot hooks contained in this article are similarly suited for long-term pursuit and being used independently. And the new spells are really cool. It feels almost redundant to say how awesome he is again at this point, but as long as he's still got it, I'll have to keep on praising him.


Hidden talents: Oh dear. Another case of people instantly trying to move the Dragonlance 5th age system away from being highly abstracted, this time by adding a skill system. They just can't let go, can they. We had tons of hassle with this in AD&D as well, and many people still find the game faster and more fun if you just ignore the proficiency system entirely. Still, I can't see this slowing the system down much, as the system is insufficiently granular to model levels of skill beyond trained and untrained, so all it does is give you a tiebreaker where the skills you have would be appropriate. The whole mechanical details bit is sorted within half a page, and then the rest is just a rather too long and dull list of skills which again, seems to be trying to put it's simulationism in a very narrativist game. So this article is counterproductive and filled with fail on almost every level. - it doesn't improve the game, it's not faithful to it's original intent despite being by one of the official writers, it doesn't promote it very well, it's not pleasant to read, and it illustrates how problematic it is trying to add new stuff onto a rules light game in general, which means it is going to be hard for the magazine to give it regular coverage. I'm completely boggled at just how bad this is. I'm not even going to laugh. I'm just going to point and sneer.


The dragon's bestiary: Yet another previously covered topic gets revisited with snakes getting another turn on the merry go round (see issue 115, among others.) This is a bit tiresome, and doesn't even have the numbers or ecological stuff of the previous. Yeah, things are really going to crap around here.

Bushmaster still sounds like a bad joke, all these years later. Damn you, and your forked tongued ways. No cunning linguist is a bad cunning linguist! [/cartman] Keep your horny tail spikes away from me.

Fer-de-lance is one I haven't seen before, so it's not all bad. They have much more realisticly applied poison than the corebook snakes, which is interesting to see. Guess this is good for something after all.

Gaboon are another rehashed one. Aside from the more detailed venom effects, they're pretty similar to last time. If you're hit by this one, you're in trouble even if you make your save. Ahh, the joys of clerics. Doing what modern medicine still can't.

Black mamba are another very familiar and already covered name. They hit hard and fast, with cumulative poison effects. Just what you need.

Boomslang are another one with a comical name, but plenty of deadliness. Remember, if it's not aggressive, you don't need to fight it. How hard a lesson is that to take in?

Cobras are of course the venom spitters. Seen them before plenty as well.

Gila monsters take us beyond snakes, to poisonous legged reptiles. They may be tiny, but you don't want one of these attached to your finger. Once again, these are converted completely straight, and aren't that interesting.

Rough-skinned newts have poisonous skins, making having them for dinner a dubious prospect. Wear gloves when handling.

Poisonous frogs also have unpleasant effects to touch. Wear gloves. Hell, wear a whole body suit in the jungle. It's safer that way, even if it will make the heat even more stifling.

Neotropical toads are also pretty boring. Man, this has been a waste of time and a half. Next!

Dragon Magazine Issue 237: Mid 1997


part 4/8


TSR Product line previews: Oh dear oh dear. 9 full pages of release schedules for the year. All of which is now late or cancelled. You really shouldn't have. No, really, you shouldn't have. It would make you look less of a mess if you'd bumped this entirely and pulled out a couple of extra articles from the slush pile instead. Now exactly how far you've let things slide is on full show to the world. Well, I suppose it's valuable for us anyway, and it means that despite any future attempts at whitewashing we can point at this and say yes, they were planning such and such products. Still, even if the takeover hadn't happened, this would be promotional filler that wouldn't particularly please me. It isn't a very comfortable feeling reading through this section.


Game wizards: Another outdated promotional article here. Coming this summer - Alternity! 4 years after their last attempt, here's another shot at creating a new system for sci-fi gaming. This time, they're staying rather closer to the AD&D system than previous attempts, although they are introducing a universal resolution mechanic and a setting that hits all the modern storygaming cliches. Gah. They're being trend followers instead of trendsetters again aren't they. As with the 5th age stuff, I am left with a tremendous sense of cynicism about this new endeavour, albeit for different reasons. Wheras that felt like them trying to revive a property that still had some support, just not the right kind by wild experimentation, this feels like trying to follow the market rather than genuine creativity. And neither of these extremes is going to work out particularly well. Plus of course there's the fact that they've now missed their deadline. This once again reminds us how messy things have got around here. I look forward to seeing how they revise their plans and change things around in upcoming issues.


I'm a what?: Don't tell me we haven't already had an article expanding on Reincarnation?! Apparently not, aside from a few bits in last year's indian articles. And like Infravision and Alignment Tongues, it's been in the game from the start, and is perfect for a good examining. So I'm rather happy to see this. Figuring out what they can do in their new form, what prospects for advancement they have, and  what obstacles they'll face is something many DM's wouldn't mind a little help upon.  It is a little conservative on strength scores, but we know they won't fix the game's scaling until next edition. It also reinforces that this kind of death is still a fairly substantial blow, and the things you lose from being stuck in an animal form will probably outweigh the benefits. Still, plentiful reincarnation seems considerably less game-breaking than straight resurrection. I'm going to rate this one at slightly above average.


Campaign classics: An article on dogs, and an article on dog-people? Shoulda got a few more, and made a whole themed issue on canine stuff in general. Oh well, this is pretty great anyway. Bruce Heard revisits our old favourites, the lupins.  And gives us more detail on them in a way that is both very interesting, and more than a little silly. Lupin versions of the dozens of real world dog breeds, complete with variant ability modifiers, level limits and racial abilities. Although it can't go into as much detail on each one, there's actually more options here than there are in the entire complete book of humanoids. You could easily make a whole party from these guys - in fact, if you wanted to do dogtanian & the three muskethounds, you could run a dog-people only campaign and have no trouble differentiating characters from all around the world by using the different breeds. Indeed, many of the special abilities specialised breeds get are very distinctive and idiosyncratic, far exceeding ordinary races in the way they distinguish themselves from one-another.  Bruce has always been good at packing tons of information into a small package, and here he's really surpassed himself, with an article that's more useful than many full books, and would be a definite classic if anyone was still paying attention during this mess. This is one instance where I really wish Mystara hadn't died. The Realms needs competition like this to keep it sharp and adventurous.

Dragon Magazine Issue 237: Mid 1997


part 5/8


Network news: Double promotional fail here this month. Not only is this promotional article for Winter Fantasy coming out long after it should have happened, but the convention itself actually got cancelled, as they note in a footnote. This of course means all the tournament games, particularly the multi-parters that were supposed to tell an ongoing story, have been thrown into disarray. This hurts their plans for Dragonlance: the 5th age the most, as after all, the system was on shaky ground right from the start, and having the company drop out underneath it certainly can't have helped persuading people to buy it. But really, everyone's a loser here. It goes to show how important TSR still was despite their accumulated debts, that their fall had immediate knock-on effects upon the rest of the roleplaying industry. Another thing I suspect I'll be seeing more of in the next few issues.


The triviathlon finally gets answers. Nice to see the new management hasn't forgotten about little things like this in the chaos.


Sage advice: I don't care how much you apologize. Skip ain't comin' back. Skip's enjoyin' skip's independence. Skip is still much in demand. There aint no way in hell skip is workin for she who must not be named again. What's that you say. She's gone for good? And you'll pay Skip better rates? Weeeeeeeeeeeell, ok then. What are you waiting for. Send in the clients.

Can you cast a flame strike sideways (no. It can't go through ceilings either.)
When you dispel magic, do you roll once, or per effect affected ( Once would be quicker, but for some reason, most people haven't realized that. )

Is casting animate dead inherently evil. (fraid so. Gods get squeamish about dead bodies wandering around too, and they will judge you for doing it, even if you don't actually do anything evil with the undead. )

What spells can pass through walls of force. (Anything that tries to go through rather than around it. Apart from illusions. They're fine)

Do walls of force stop infravision and divination spells (no, and usually)

If a wall of force's edge is infinitely thin, can you use it to cut stuff (No. Cut out the rules lawyering. You could hurt yourself, son. Leave it to the professionals. )

What happens when you turn a paladin. Why can't you turn clerics. (Same thing that happens to undead. They run off and cower somewhere. Clerics can't be turned because they're not as intrinsically holy. Sometimes too much faith can be a bad thing.

Can paladins and rangers cast from the All sphere. (no. The All is for all clerics, not everyone. Some alls are more all'ey than others. )

Do multi-classed clerics have to abide by their armour restrictions (yes. Their god will not give them a pass if they claim multiple commitments. )

Can you backstab, and then activate an item to become invisible again instantaneously (no. You've already used up your standard action for that round. )

Can you parry a two-handed sword with a rapier (sure. Abstract combat system, remember)

Can wild mages become dual-classed characters. (Skip recommends not. It can get messy. Skip specifically forbids wild mages/chronomancers, as that messed up the universe something fierce.)

Dragon Magazine Issue 237: Mid 1997


part 6/8


Bazaar of the Bizarre: No surprise that like last time, their holding pattern has resulted in a tried and tested topic being dug up for another go in this department. Magical bows and arrows. The last time they got specials on them was in 87 and 88, so I think this is probably about due, unlike the Armor ones just before the break. Let's see if any of the ideas are new.

Arachne arrows work as a high quality grappling hook. As usual, they're one use, so save them for when you really really need them.

Arrows of billaro wrap the person hit up with great brutality. Always a useful trick. Again, one use, so make sure you need it.

The arrow of endless archery gives you exactly that as long as it stays in it's quiver. It even has a failsafe to make sure you don't waste it accidentally. Very handy.  

Arrows of pyros obviously add a load of fire damage to the hit. Some of them also provide an AoE fireball effect. Make sure you don't shoot them into melee with your friends, as usual.

An arrow of the thunderst(r?)ike go boom when they hit, providing an AoE hit. Another thing we saw a variant upon very recently.

Arrows of withering aren't permanently crippling like I'd hoped, just another one that inflicts tons of themed damage. Well, it keeps spellcasters from totally dominating the artillery role.

Diamond tipped arrows hurt a lot, but are very expensive. Unusually for magic arrows, they're sometimes reusable if you can recover them. Good luck with that.

Ruby-tipped arrows teleport the person hit home. This can of course be useful whether you target friends or foes, and definitely deserves thinking about before use. Very interesting idea I'd like to see used cleverly in a book.

Emerald-tipped arrows are another explosive hit triggered AoE attack. Really, they could come up with endless variants on this by putting different spells into the equation.

Gnimshan oil lets you enhance rather more arrows with burning death. Honestly, have these people never heard of mundane flaming oil? That'd be cheaper and almost as effective.

The bow of Ehlonna has the best aspects of several bow types, plus a few more benefits. Not very impressive, but just generally useful.

Duell's iron bow folds up into a tiny size for easy carrying. Another trick that can be applied to nearly any item type, and I think already has. This is one I can't work up much enthusiasm for.


KotDT suffer from overattachment to their characters. Dragonmirth makes another Marilyn Monroe joke in quick succession. Swordplay starts playing a game within the game. A whole host of crossovers make cameos in Floyd. Growf.

Rifts has a checklist of their release schedule for that year. How many of these were late as well?

Dragon Magazine Issue 237: Mid 1997


part 7/8


Role-playing reviews: Dragonlance: the fifth age sees Rick think that diceless gaming is the wave of the future. Haha. Nice idea bro. Well, freeform gaming probably outnumbers all roleplaying games put together, but I'm sure most people would say that doesn't count. In any case, he certainly thinks it deserves more credit than it got, with both presentation and writing being top-notch, and the system pretty easy to understand. Just another victim of circumstance, another twist of fate.

Necromunda is another Games Workshop gateway drug, taking the warhammer 40k rules, simplifying them a little, and giving you a pretty cityscape for your minis to fight in. Rick finds this both amusing and impressive. His main complaints are that it can sometimes be tricky to calculate line-of sight, and that the board is large and takes so long to put together that assembling it for every game or storing it between them would be pains. Get a bigger house.

Blood dawn tries to bring white wolf style pretentiousness to postapocalyptic cyberpunk. Once again, the base system is simple, but combat fills things up with a ton of conditional modifiers of the sort that makes rick yawn, and the setting needs a few supplements to fill things out. Same old story. These things need a while to get going, that they might not get due to the buying public's fickleness.


TSR Previews: One of the bits rendered most laughable by the hiatus. I'm sure this is not only out of date, but pretty inaccurate, Nevertheless, I shall handle February and Marsh (sic) as they appear here. This means this is going to be a big one, but hopefully repetitions as we find out where things actually got delayed to in future issues will keep the overall bloat from being too great.

February sees the Forgotten Realms move up to show Birthright how it's done, with a full 4 books. Three of these are novels. That department really is getting too big for it's boots. Errand of Mercy is well into another series I've never seen before. The double diamond triangle saga book 4? Right. Would it be so hard to give the magazine another page so we can actually see everything you release? On the other hand, we know exactly where Elminster in Myth Drannor comes from. Filling more backstory and tying into the recent themed adventures, Ed gets to kill two birds with one stone. Jeff Grubb and Kate Novak cross over with planescape in Finder's Bane. Someone's trying to bring Bane back to life. We've gotta stop them! Unfortunately, this is another case where good isn't going to win. You may succeed this time, but he'll be back come 4e. And our single lonesome game product is Four from Cormyr. 4 mini adventures. Hey, Isn't Azoun IV still dead? This is getting headache inducing again. The continuity is snarling up to the point where I certainly can't keep track of it.

Talking about Planescape, they get Faces of evil: The fiends. When you consider that they got a big boxed set focussing on them just half a year ago, I have to wonder if this will involve rehash.

Ravenloft ties in with it's recent modules, in Lord of the Necropolis by Gene DeWesse. Was all this part of another convoluted plan by Azalin to escape the demiplane? You're the biggest fish in a small pond. Learn to appreciate what you've got, and be a better person. Ceasing to be evil is the only true way to quit being a darklord, you pillock.

Birthright gets Hogunmark, another domain sourcebook. Want miserable weather and lots of druids in your domain. Come from here! Doesn't seem very inviting when you phrase it like that.

Having given beholders plenty of love, the Monstrous Arcana series decides it's second subject is to be the Sahuguin. The Sea Devils takes us under the water to see just how powerful and in control they are. Will the follow-up adventures let you put a dent in that?

And finally, it looks like they're starting a new Sci-fi book imprint, Fantastic Adventures. The first one is Tale of the Comet by Roland Green. Two alien forces, and earth is caught in the middle.

Onto March then. Once again, the forgotten realms is driven by it's novels, just like Dragonlance. Mortal Consequences by Clayton Emery finishes the Netheril Trilogy. This themed bit seems to be coming to an end. Where next for them? The Double Diamond Triangle saga (man, that's a mouthful) is up to 5 books. An Opportunity for Profit by Dave Gross. Pirate assassins see their plans go wrong. Can't say I'm surprised.

Dragonlance gets Heroes of Defiance. As far as I can tell this is a game supplement about roguish sorts, and their new place in the 5th age. I could be wrong, with the ad copy being both vague and pretentious. They also get The day of the Tempest by Jean Rabe. The superdragons are oppressing Ansalon. Can puny humans make any difference at all? Only if they stand together, and use the power of their hearts. Blergh. Changing the laws of physics has done little for their cheese quotient.

Ravenloft gets Domains of dread. Again, they are vague, but this looks like a new corebook, so they can enshrine all the metaplot changes of the last few years and force everyone to adopt them. Thanks for that, dudes.

Birthright's War by Simon Hawke gets a new printing. Probably going from hardback to paperback or something. I wish they'd say.

The Odyssey line gets Tale of the comet, presumably tying in with the recent book. Magic vs Sci-fi. Been a while since they let that into their D&D.

And Dragon Dice get their 5th "kicker pack" Who came up with that name anyway? Frostwings seems to involve some spooky vaguely draconic humanoids. Which side are they on, or will they just kill everyone.

Dragon Magazine Issue 237: Mid 1997


part 8/8


The current Clack: No surprise that this column is also very out of date and laughable in light of events. TSR experiencing substantial growth over the year?! I don't think they were being entirely honest in their reporting. That or it's the old story of expanding profits, but new expenditures exceeding revenue, resulting in spiralling debts even as they technically succeed. Other companies have been suffering pretty badly as well. The blame is laid upon the distributors as much as the public. They've been taken in by the CCG craze, and are only carrying the biggest items, leaving the others to rot, which hurts diversity quite a bit. Once again I wonder what history would have turned out like if CCG's hadn't been invented, or didn't wind up appealing so strongly to the same demographic as RPG's. If they weren't competing for shelf space, might TSR have survived? In any case, it would have been someone else than WotC that bought them if they'd still killed themselves through poor management and 3e would have been a very different beast. So I think this proves that you can't believe everything you read here, and that the explosion of CCG's did make a real difference to the RPG market. Very worth noting indeed.


I don't think it'll surprise you to hear that this issue is an absolute mess, with huge amounts of the articles stuck in different time zones, and the whole thing having the air of someone who's just woken up after being knocked out and trying to stagger their way home on automatic. That said, it still has two absolutely brilliant articles, and it's fair share of ok ones, so it doesn't feel wasted either. They've still got plenty of people sending in material, some of it quite good, and a fully built up infrastructure. They're not in a bad position to make a recovery, unlike far too many companies. Let's see how they pull it off.

Dragon Magazine Issue 238: August 1997


part 1/8


124 pages. Our second issue after the changeover, and things still look pretty much the same. The perspective on that dragon looks a bit awkward though. Not sure exactly where they're supposed to sit, and no way will that lance reach ahead of it's neck to actually be useful. I guess Dragonlance might have moved on from the actual lance thing, but people still haven't learnt from it's mistakes. Let's see if WotC is starting to learn from the mistakes of it's predecessor yet.


In this issue:


Even before the editorial, we have an updated product list for the rest of the year. It fits everything in in just 2 pages as well. When you contrast that with the 9 pages of cruft they had last issue, that looks like a huge improvement. They're already getting their acts together and hopefully cutting waste, which is a positive sign.


The Wyrm's turn: Dave Gross finally gets the hang of this telling stories from his past gaming experiences thing and making it entertaining. This is helped by the fact that he's picked the most insane parts of his youthful experiences, including cameos by the smurfs and the dread disco dragon. This kind of experience must be pretty much universal with first generation gamers, particularly ones that started young and made it up as they went along with their first group. And like most people, they eventually decided that was enough silliness, it's time to get Serious. It's pretty obvious that this editorial was originally intended for their april issue, one of the most anticipated (or dreaded) months of the year. But heaven knows we could do with a little levity about now, so they're bringing a good chunk of their joke articles over, and trying to get the right balance between comedy and serious ones.  A development I have no problem with at all. Still, the real test of the new management will be seeing how they handle april next year, when they've had time to start writing their own material.


D-Mail is still stuck in last year, and being mainly positive. Actually it seems very strange that the proportion of positive letters would increase as the sales dropped. Are the editors being selective to make themselves look better, or is the removal of casuals leaving only hardcore fanboys, creating an echo chamber effect that leaves them out of touch with reality. Either way, it makes it even harder for them to figure out how to genuinely improve the magazine. But anyway.

We start with some nitpicking about Forgotten Realms dating. Like a long-running soap opera, even the official writers can't keep continuity straight anymore. Fortunately, they have a 4th wall breaking excuse to help them out. Elminster may have mastered 9th level spells, but his handwriting still sucks.

A letter from someone who thinks the magazine has improved quite a bit over the last year. Congratulations, at least you're winning some people back.

A complaint about them publishing articles that are basically just bits from recent supplements. The article you're specifically calling out wasn't one of those actually, but the basic point is valid. It is something that lowers the value of the magazine if they do it regularly.

A generally positive letter from someone who would like to see elves maintain their dominant position in the magazine. I think that's another fairly safe bet, given the number of freelancers that also enjoy writing about them.

A letter from someone who wants the dragons in Wyrms of the North more codified mechanically. But then DM's won't be so able to change things around for their game. Once again it's the Realms in particular that's being strangled by canon.

Yet another letter from someone who wants more Wyrms of the north and Wizards Three. The vote is in and the ayes win. Ed'd better keep cranking then. I hope he's getting well paid for all this.


Mommy dearest: Bwahahahaha! This is an old school comedy article and a half. We haven't had a cheesy new class for April since back in the 1e days. And since this isn't april, I guess we still haven't. So here's the Mother Class. In classic style, it has branching advancement paths, going to Grandmother, and then giving you the choice of Great-Grandmother or Fairy Godmother at really high level. Their abilities are pretty much what you would expect. Kissing it better, sending you to your room, mastery of gossip, always being able to find something wrong in what you're doing. Anyone of the politically correct ilk will not find this funny. Me? I find more issue with the fact that the granted powers show up really unevenly, with huge amounts at 9th and 16th level, and tons of dead levels inbetween. Is that what you call a fair way to build a class dear? I don't think so. Go back upstairs and don't come down again until you've sorted yourself out.