Dragon Magazine Issue 238: August 1997


part 4/8


Wyrms of the north: Ed is pretty whimsical most of the time anyway. But it seems like his second contribution this month was intended as an april fools one as well. A happy go lucky dragon who constantly crashes into things when flying, and treats evil creatures as a game to be played with, humiliating them, but never taking them seriously or killing them, and has insane amounts of lucky co-incidence insuring things work out for him. Like Master Furli from the gangsters article, I can trace the cartoon antecedents of this character with great ease and pity anyone who encounters him. If he's on your side, it'll be excruciating, and if he's an enemy it will be doubly so. Stuff like this makes Elminster look better by comparison, as at least he knows when he's irritating people, does it on purpose, and has the sense to get sensible when it's needed. The new spells give new uses for teleportation that also have extensive comical applications, particularly Frame Teleport, which makes for serious oh shit moments when he extends the duration and poses as a stuffed Dragon head. So this is one of those instances where Ed is simultaneously brilliant and incredibly annoying, and I'm not sure which to give more weight too. I guess your milage will probably vary. Still, he certainly remains interesting.


Frequently asked questions: But not many answers, it seems. They might be assuring us that they're aware of our concerns in light of the takeover, but they're still being very cagey indeed on their decisions. The main thing we can draw from this is that they're definitely going to go where the money is, dropping anything that isn't profitable, and keeping the gamelines that are. Any vanity projects by the old company are fucked. They probably will introduce a new edition at some point, but they would have done that anyway, and they certainly don't want to rush into it and alienate people. This isn't satisfying at all, but at least tells us things are likely to be more sensible from here on out. Whether that's a good thing or not, is very much a matter of opinion.


Bookwyrms: The widowmaker by Mike Resnick showcases another thing that's different about this than the proper reviews. They do a lot more books that are in a continuing series. In this case it's the story of a terminally ill gunslinger and his younger healthier clone that's being used to fund his survival. This allows you to fit plenty of questions about ethics and identity into the action, which sounds like it makes for good sci-fi.

Orion among the stars by Ben Bova sees them pull a bit of nepotism for the magazine's new contributor and recommend his latest book. This time, it's enough with the real world history and into the far future for some epic interstellar war. Once again, I don't really have a complaint about the book, just the fact that this seems rather obvious in light of recent events.

3001: the final odyssey by Arthur C Clarke sees the editing go out of the window as the 1's are replaced with 7's not just once but 3 times. WTF man? More dawizard to your credibility, methinks. Anyway, we finally get a few more answers as to what the hell this was about, presuming you can get through the pacing, which if anything is even more ponderous than the first one. I think we may have to differ in opinions on this one.

Nightlamp by Jack Vance once again takes us to unusual worlds and cultures, and gives us heroes who go against them, at a rather faster pace than Mr Clarke. Again, this seems like such an obvious choice that I'm not sure why they need to recommend it. Actually, looking at wikipedia, it does seem that many of his books have had small runs and gone out of print over the years, so he might not be a rich as we'd expect from an author this big. Hmm. Better safe than sorry, I suppose.

Desperation by Stephen King seems to have a lot of familiar elements too, drawn directly from his own life. Another tale of small town horror against a mysterious supernatural being. Course, he's very good at writing this stuff, so that just means it's a safe buy if you like this stuff.

The regulators by Richard Bachman is one worthy of note, because this is a psudonym of Stephen King, and the two books are strongly linked thematically, showing us the same characters, confronting the same adversary in two rather different parallel realities. That's interesting as both writing and a marketing trick. I approve.

The sandman: book of dreams, edited by by Neil Gaiman & Ed Kramer is a short fiction anthology set in the world of the comics. This proves that the art is not essential to making good stories here, and they manage to be both good and quite varied. Neil isn't bad as a critic either it seems.

Lord of the Isles by David Drake is a little less predictable, as the sci-fi author tries his hand at a fantasy doorstopper. Obviously the writer considers it a success, otherwise it wouldn't be appearing in this column.

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman is another no-brainer recommendation, especially as they just mentioned another book by him just a moment ago. This just feels like playing it safe to a ridiculous level. Who do they think is reading this? We are quite capable of doing a little follow-up investigation of our own, especially now we have access to the internet.

Dragon Magazine Issue 238: August 1997


part 5/8


Fiction: Nothing but trouble by Ed Greenwood. A third contribution by Ed this month. Well, if they're having to make some hard choices which articles to keep, and which to drop from their 6 month hiatus, it's certainly not going to be Ed's. And if they're short of contributors because people are pissed off they haven't been answering mail for ages, I'm pretty sure he has enough spare material to make up the deficit, so he wins either way. Actually, I don't think he's done completely system-free fiction in the magazine before, so this shows him once again showing off his flexibility. And also his dirty mind, because this story is so filled with innuendo and dirty humour (and full-on genderswitching, just to underscore what a filthy bugger Elminster is) as to make many a young geek blush. They may not have officially repealed the TSR code of conduct yet, but he's already getting away with rather more than he could under the old regime. Which amuses me no end. Also pleasing is that we finally get to meet Mirt the Moneylender, who's been mentioned casually before, but not really filled in as a character. And he certainly distinguishes himself from Elminster nicely, being competent and quick-witted, but certainly not godlike or immune to the ravages of time and chance. In fact, he makes for a rather more interesting protagonist. So this definitely helps me fill in a little more knowledge of the Realms, and makes it clear Ed's not going anywhere soon. In fact, he might be even more entertaining now. Mwa ha, muahaha!


The dragon's bestiary: Sewers! For the first time in over 2 years, we have a monster topic that isn't rehashed! One I'm surprised we haven't seen before too, given that they make another good excuse for interesting and distinctive dungeon environments. This seems rather promising.

Necromantic sludge is what happens when wizards keep on performing alchemical experiments and just dumping the remains. It may well develop intelligence and start oozing around making a pest of itself. No good deed goes unpunished.

Plague moths are another magical experiment that backfired. Instead of a poison, they produce the effects of some random potion when they bite you. Course, since they come in large groups, that means the miscibility table becomes an issue. What an ingenious idea. You could definitely profit from these little guys, but it would be a painful process requiring lots of suffering and careful sorting of captured moths. I strongly approve.

Albino Crocodiles are your basic urban legend fuel. Years of being exposed to magical goop does not make them easier to beat. Another neat little encounter idea.

Water cats are not only good swimmers, but intelligent and with a very special poisonous bite that can provide an excuse for another classic sewer trope, the clan of mutants lurking beneath the city. They can simultaneously save your life and ruin it. How's that for fun.

Lich's blood is another form of malfunctioning magical goop. It eats your magic, so spells will be useless against it. A decent end to a nicely themed collection that are perfectly designed to be weaved together into a single adventure.


Forum pulls itself together as they try and ease back into a regular routine again. There is something different though. Hmm, what is it? It's a lot bigger than it's been for a year for a start. Oh, oh, oh! They now have headers on the letters, for the tl:dr amongst you. That is interesting. Not a bad idea, really.

Peter Johansson backs up the people who say spellbooks should be pretty hefty. In case you'd forgotten during the interim. And again I yawn.

Kevin McMahon puts a very specific slant on the low magic issue by bringing up resurrection. Of all magics, this is one that changes people's behaviour the most. When you have life insurance that really means something, it really affects how you play your character, often for the worse. Ban it, make death regain it's sting.

Amber Decker also supports lower magic than the average D&D world. The 5th age stuff has particularly regained it's mystery with the recent changes.

LT Bruce F. Beyers wants the cavalier back as a full class in itself. The 2e kit is ridiculously nerfed! Nostalgia does silly things. I wonder if anyone's going to deconstruct you.

Chuck Moffat shares his multiple specialisation rules with us. Players really fear Driz'zt under these house rules. And his own drow fighter/mage/thief with exploding cigars. He's obviously heavily inclined towards the cheese side.  

Daniel Bishop disagrees with Dale. PC's and NPC's ought to operate under the same physics, even if they don't have the same abilities, and there ought to be an IC rationale for why they can make exceptions to the game rules. Because is not a reason in itself.

John Cudmore gives his reasoning for why high and grey elves have the names and behaviour they do. Semantics, like statistics, can make the same thing appear to be many things, all perfectly plausible to the casual observer.  

Alexander Fontenot tries to defend dual classing. The first reason, that of powerful subclass combinations is reasonable, the rest doesn't hold up so well. A lot of us get pretty good at multiple things in our so-called short lifespans, often simultaneously.

Paul A Schreiber brings back the parrying problem. Weapon sizes ought to play into it significantly, but skill is still the primary determiner. This one still needs a little refinement.

Dragon Magazine Issue 238: August 1997


part 6/8


Sage advice also seems to be in a time warp from april this month. How silly is that.
Define spasmed, shocked and scorched. ( Oh yeah, we have formal game effects for each of those words now. Isn't that useful. We must remember to keep those for the next edition. )

Where does righteous wrath of the faithful transport allies too. Which sphere is it really in? (it transports them emotionally, maaaaaaan. Skip thinks it fits better in combat than war. )

What happens if a lupin becomes a werewolf. (much emoness. They have become the thing they hate the most, and will do anything they can to be rid of the curse. )

My druid kept summoning fire elementals in the hope of getting an efreeti, and then wishing his ability scores up until they were all level 25. Is this allowed. (Technically, but lets look at the math. You've only got a 4% chance per casting, which means if you're 16+ level and fill all your slots, you still only get a an average of 0.24 efreeti per day. Plus it takes 10 wishes to raise your scores after 18, and 20 for each point above 20. It'll take years to do this even if you're lucky. And if you're not, who knows what tricks the efreet might pull for this kind of indignity. This is a great plot opportunity for you to screw him over.)

Are bracers of defense armour or not (no, but you should still punish attempts to twink due to that fact. Skip keeps old skool antagonism alive, just for you.)

Can you have a sepia snake sigil tattoo (no)

Can you repair an apparatus of kawalish (yes, but a regular blacksmith wouldn't have a clue how. )

Does an enchanted shield count as a magic weapon if you bash with it (Hmm. Skip will say yes, but gives individual GM's full freedom to say no.)

I have my own interpretation of how frisky chest works (Excuse me?! Are you The Sage? No. Skip is The Sage. You ask the questions. Skip answers them. Of all the nerve. Kids these days. No respect.)

Shove 29 tiny marshmallows up your nose and try and sneeze them out (man what. And Skip thought Skip was cracking up under the pressure of She who must not be named's rule. Skip can't be bothered with this. )

What happens if the character is smarter than the player. (let them make ability checks to solve problems they can't)

What happens if you drink sovereign glue (Hmm. Let's try it, shall we. Glug, peh, peh, peh. Morf morf gnorf schplorf. Schnorplf hgnorplf ooooruuuugh! )

Does cure disease prevent you from developing resistance to diseases (probably. This is why overreliance on magic is bad for the fibre. Makes you soft.)

Can you lay on hands if your hands are cut off (yes. Just use the stumps. )

If hit points are abstract getting better at fighting, rather than being able to actually sustain more damage, why don't healing spells restore more to high level characters ( Because we didn't think it through at the time. It was 1979. We were more concerned with our hairstyles and funky disco moves than engaging our brains.)

Can you use shocking grasp as a defibrilator (no)


The dragon's bestiary II: A second bestiary this month? Dear oh dear. In the chaos and uncertainty, they're retreating, relying heavily on proven topics. In this case, it's back to the undead to add a couple new varieties of Mummy.

Bog Mummies, unsurprisingly, are from peaty places like oierland. They aren't diseased, but their waterlogged nature makes them a bitch to deal with. Another thing with an annoying tendency towards advancing relentlessly.

Ice Mummies bring the south american preservation to the party. Unsurprisingly, they then ruin said party. They too are pretty predictable really. This is nowhere near as good as the other bestiary entry.

Dragon Magazine Issue 238: August 1997


part 7/8


Rogues Gallery: Silent Sheehan is our only character this month, a grave-robbing dwarf sucked into Ravenloft and given a snake's tongue for his incessant lying. This has slowed him down a little bit, since Ravenloft peasants tend to be superstitious and take weird stuff like that seriously. He definitely seems like he might be useful as an antagonist or uneasy ally, and could develop (or degenerate) with the party as a campaign went on. Obviously it doesn't work so well in another campaign world, but this definitely has potential, and works quite nicely thematically. I think I approve.


Dungeon Mastery: Some 5th age stuff in this column, as we get advice on building an intrigue focussed campaign. Actually, it's system free, and the 5th age stuff is merely used as an example, which is one of the better compromises they can do to keep it's profile up in the magazine without getting in the way. And the advice is quite solid, while the example is very amusing. A scheming spoiled teenage princess as the main villain. Who'd suspect that when you aren't playing in a high school drama? I like this. I didn't think I would at first, and it is a bit more long-winded than I'd prefer, but it's still quite an enjoyable read once I got into it. And it also shows that the 5th age game's different mechanical focus means it might be better suited to this than D&D. Which does help us justify buying it as well, so this does it's job.


KotDT has an aesop's fable to deliver to everyone out there in readerland. Dragonmirth has some ridiculous weaponry. Swordplay are actually working together properly for a change. Floyd is about to face an empire of tiefling bunnies. Er, maybe.


Role-playing reviews: Back to Sci-fi again. Seems it's doing better than it has the last few years. Or maybe it's just doing better by comparison, given that D&D, Runequest and Rolemaster are all undergoing difficulties at the moment. Well, at least there's no shortage of games to choose. Buy now, because you never know when they might disappear again.

Traveller 4th edition tries to take things back to basics after the fragmentation of megatraveller and the new era. Character generation is mostly the same as ever, and the setting information in the corebook has been stripped back considerably, while taking us to after the war. So really, if you like it, this would be a good time to try and get new people interested.

Fading suns seems to be an attempt to apply the White Wolf aesthetic to far future sci-fi. Civilisation is in decline, resources are running out, and everyone is dooooooomed. Eventually. In the meantime, the stage is set for a rich and atmospheric universe for you to explore, and plenty of adversaries both internal and external for you to face. It all seems ready for a good long line of supplements filling things in, such as Byzantium Secundus, which gives us plenty of extra detail on the history and politics of the central worlds. And since it managed 7 years, 34 sourcebooks, plus d20 and LARP conversions before going on hiatus, I think this counts as a reasonable success.

Gatecrasher 2nd edition goes completely the opposite direction, converting the rules to FUDGE, and filling the setting with kitchen sink zaniness of the highest order. That's not to say it isn't highly playable, with plenty of the elements having potential to be quite scary if played straight. After all, transdimensional chaos means never knowing for sure what the rules are, which gets very stressful if you have to live through it the whole time.

Dragon Magazine Issue 238: August 1997


part 8/8


TSR Previews: Yup, as I thought last month, there have been lots of delays. Although we've updated to July, August, September and October this month, much of the stuff mentioned is a repeat of last time. So I shall skim that, and only go into more detail on the new stuff.  

July repeats Finder's bane, Lord Soth, Planar Powers, and Tale of the Comet. (the novel)

August repeats Heroes of Defiance, The Day of the Tempest, The sea devils, Tale of the comet ( the sourcebook) Domains of Dread, The falcon and the wolf and Vinas Solamnus. There is some new stuff though.

The forgotten realms gets 4 books again. Powers and Pantheons. Isn't this like, the 3rd book on them. Just how many more secrets do they have to reveal. Lands of Intrigue gives us more info on Amn and Tethyr. If you want your adventures full of scheming and double dealing head there. We also get two sodding Drizzt novels. See what delays get you. Passage to Dawn by R. A. Salvadore and Shores of Dusk by Mark Anthony certainly sound like they belong to the same series. Guess his life is as eventful as ever.

There's also King of the Giantdowns for Birthright. A quite atmospheric sounding supplement. Isn't often you can manage much mystery in D&D, but this seems quite decent at it. Can you call on the buried giants in your hour of need, or will they ravage the country when their day comes.

September is mostly new stuff. It does, however rehash Faces of Evil, and War. Blaah. Onto the interesting bits.

Dragonlance gets the SAGA fate deck. Now you don't have to share if you want to play the 5th age game. If you just want to read, there's The Wayward Knights, number 7 in the Warriors series. The Tale of Sir Pirvan comes to a conclusion. Is it a happy one?

The Forgotten Realms is up to number 5 in the Nobles novels. Council of Blades by Paul Kidd. More swashbuckling action. No further info given.

The Sahuagin get their first tie-in adventure. Evil tide is the start of another trilogy. Living on the coast never seemed a less attractive option. This is why you need heroes to keep property prices from falling too far.

And Dragon Dice gets a strategy manual, following in Spellfire's footsteps. Now you can spend even more money on becoming optimal. The pokemon comparisons become increasingly apt around here.

October reschedules Lord of the Necropolis and Frostwings to then. Is that all of it, or will we have more schedule revisions detailed next month?

The Forgotten Realms finally gets a novel devoted to the Simbul. The Simbul's gift by Lynn Abbey. Once again, they are obviously relying on the name's selling power because they give no info on the plot at all.

Dragonlance gets Fistandantilus reborn by Doug Niles. You know, even if you bring him back, he'll have to start from scratch learning the new magic system. He won't be the great messiah you'd hoped for.

Planescape starts being really messed around. The Great Modron March is happening out of schedule! What the devil? Oh well, we're adventurers, lets go see what this is about.

And the wizard's spell compendium gets it's second volume. Yet more spells to make you so versatile you'll never lack for a trick to take down an enemy. Fear any player given free access to this.


The current clack, on the other hand, is still oblivious to the recent changes in schedule around here. Indeed, neither TSR or WotC get mentioned at all, the attention being on various other companies. As is often the case, the various licences are the most interesting part. Xena and Men in Black RPG's? Highly amusing. How did they wind up doing? Plus Indiana Jones and Star Wars are still doing nicely for themselves, and the Star Trek CCG has expansions for all the new shows and movies, which is the kind of thing that takes quite a bit of negotiating. I wonder how long they'll keep hold of the property. Also of interest is that they've finally released In Nomine, quite substantially altered from the French version. Another area where I'm quite curious. Why the redesign instead of a straight translation, and was it an improvement?


This issue is definitely better put together than the last issue, but there are still some fairly substantial problems. The tone is all over the place, with most of the articles playing it extra safe, but Ed is suddenly getting away with even more than he used too, which makes him stand out all the more. They've shown they're aware of the problems that led up to TSR's collapse, but still aren't sure what to do in response to them, which also comes off as a little wishy-washy. And they still aren't quite caught up on the schedule. Still, it made an interesting read precisely because of these problems, and leaves me rather optimistic for the immediate future. Just how much further will they have progressed by next month? I'll start finding out right away.

Dragon Magazine Issue 239: September 1997


part 1/8


124 pages Another draconic close-up showing only the head and a bit of the wings on the cover. Give us the whole picture please, it looks more impressive when there's a real sense of scale. Plus if you miss things, it leaves you vulnerable to tricks from the hand you can't see. Which is this issues' theme again. Looks like we'll be getting a few more traps and diabolical schemes to make weak monsters scary and keep players on their toes. Will some of them be recycled? Previous issues and page references at the ready.


In this issue:


The wyrms turn: Ahh yes, illusionists pulling double fakeouts. There's a topic we've seen before. (issue 229) Dave Gross again gives his personal experience of this lovely bit of meanness. Plus the equally cruel trick of mixing gas spores and beholders, and having the big bad use extra tricks to make them more convincing. And the reaction to these kind of tricks is straight out of Knights of the Dinner Table. That's two entertaining editorials in a row. I think he might be getting better at this. In addition we see another sign that they're catching up with themselves here, as the staff list has changed again, with them losing an associate producer and changing their advertising guy. Ok, they're now a smaller team than they've been for quite some time, but I guess they don't have so much money. So this definitely shows them moving forward, while not losing touch with their past. I think that's a good sign.


D-Mail: Our first letter is from someone who missed the magazine, and is very pleased they're back. Guess the two issue lead in time continues to apply in this department, despite everything.

A letter praising their Dungeon Mastery article on incorporating more acting into your game. May this column long continue to flourish!

A letter from someone who thinks Dragon should cover other forms of gaming more. It's not as if we're a bunch of monomaniacs. And people will remember things better if there's more contrast.

In typical contrast, someone annoyed by Dragon Dice, because the same common monsters show up again and again, and there's not enough people to trade with in his area. The game isn't taking off the way they'd hoped, is it.

Another letter from someone who really liked the changes they made in the last year. They certainly seem to have no shortage of them writing in, despite everything that's happened.


Sneaky sea Devils: Sahuguin have never particularly been underdogs, with substantial scaling (fnarr) capabilities built in, plus spellcasting right from their original entry. But with their undersea environment, you have to think a little differently to come up with the best tactics and create the best possible technology with the resources available to them. Fortunately we have Skip on the job, and he's not only got enough to say on the subject to fill an entire book, but also has some leftovers for the magazine. So this is cut material, but pretty good cut material, that mostly stands alone, and goes into plenty of detail on each of the tactics they use, and how they work in context, given sahuguin's strengths and weaknesses. So they may be relying a little too much on staff writers, but since they're probably trying to get their submission flow back up and running, I can't complain too much, especially as long as the quality stays good. (which hasn't always been the case, as there have been issues where I've found the staff contributions to be the least interesting parts)

Dragon Magazine Issue 239: September 1997


part 2/8


101 dirty orc tricks: Tuckers kobolds style advice hits double digits! And well into the triple digits in terms of specific tactics! What more can I say at this point? I really don't know, since we've been here so many times before. I'm definitely running out of ideas. So yeah. 101 ideas, some new, some old, some borrowed, all concisely presented and useful. Th-th-that's all I have to say folks.


Legend of the 5 rings. A teaser advert that is once again out of date. I guess they paid for it ages ago, and still have to fulfil their commitments. Not very satisfying for either side at this point, as who's benefiting from it?


Aurora's undermountain sale: Now this is kind of another tie-in article, but not nearly so blatant. After all, Aurora's whole realms catalogue was released a good 5 years ago now, so this isn't commercially motivated at all and more of a follow-up, showing that this still has quite a few fans for it's detailed and playful worldbuilding. So here's 16 more nonmagical items that would be rather handy for adventurers, just in case you still have a bit of room in your pockets. And if you don't, they have better backpacks for you to buy too, so you can carry more with less risk of doing your back in. Power creep! Hey, if magic improved in RPG's at the same rate as computers in real life, people would be complaining it's totally unfair and breaks the game in no time. So yeah, there are a few improvements on standard fantasy technology, but none that don't work in reality as well. It just makes the realms a little more fantastical and less gritty. (not that it was ever hugely gritty, even at the start, what with all the hypermagical empires popping up and then blowing themselves to smithereens every few centuries. ) I have no problem with this, and found this a reasonably enjoyable read.


Magical locks: Another themed collection of magical items. Well, we've had doors ( issues 106 + 115) and keys. (issue 200) This would synergise well with those two. Perhaps one on magical chests some time as well please. Maybe. We'll have to see. In the meantime, it's the usual runthrough of what's in here and how imaginative it is.

Locks of Cages transport anyone trying to pick them into the classic minimus containment. They can't hold that many people though, so you'd better check them regularly if you're a big bad, and bring lots of henchmen if you're a PC. Yeah, bringing henchmen to go ahead of you is a good idea in general in dungeons.

Locks of Curses deliver personalised blights on anyone trying to get through them in unorthodox ways. Another classic, or highly cliched idea, depending on your current cynicism level.

Locks of Displacement are rather cleverer. The innards are not where they appear to be, making picking them a good deal trickier. Anything that doesn't rely on manipulating the mechanics can bypass this no trouble, so this isn't too valuable.

Locks of the Elemental Guardians summon an elemental to kick the butt of the lockpicker. Best to run. Guardians generally stick around, and if they do follow you, someone else can sneak through while they're distracted.

Locks of Etherealness just whisk your target away. Best used on chests, not doors.

Locks of Exploding are another one that has pretty limited use, for once blown, it's pretty much gone. Once again, henchmen to take the brunt will come in handy. RIP, Baldrick the 37th. Hello Baldrick the 38th. Nice to have you on the team.

Locks of petrification are meaner than I thought, because they only turn your hands to stone. This is painful and slowly fatal due to weight distribution and bloodflow issues rather than just freezing you in place. Not a nice way to go.

Locks of Riddles trap you in with them until you can crack their conundrum. Another method that'll make you exceedingly cautious next time if you manage to get out this time.

Locks of Shadow fade away, but keep their door closed. This can be solved by the gordian knot solution of breaking the whole door. Well, isn't that true of most of these. Don't forget to put protections on the walls, windows floor and roof too. Any weak spot can be exploited.

Locks of Shearing eat up anything used to pick them and spit it out in amusing fashion. Om nom nom. Another one that's best to get round by finding an alternate route, for losing your tools and possibly fingers doesn't sound cool.

Locks of Spell Holding, like the cursing ones, are mainly limited by your imagination. Still, they will need regular recharging. Acererak probably wouldn't get round to it between adventurer visits.

Locks of Transferrance teleport your stuff elsewhere, leaving you there naked. The standard is to put them just beyond the barrier, adding taunting to humiliation, but that is very open to customisation. Better hope the other henchmen in the team have the same size clothes.

Locks of Warning just make a racket, attracting any other safeguards the placer may have. So as usual, this is a fairly mixed bag, both in inventiveness and effectiveness. Should keep players busy and paranoid for a while.

Dragon Magazine Issue 239: September 1997


part 3/8


Wyrms of the north: Up to G this month. Here we take advantage of the draconic ability to live long, and help others prosper, with a copper dragon that has associated (serves really doesn't seem to be the right term) with a company of adventurers, and derives quite a bit of pleasure from seeing them develop over the years, and eventually have families, many of which have become adventurers themselves. Really, he occupies a place somewhere between kindly uncle and animal breeder, depending how cynical you are. This also becomes another opportunity for Ed to reveal there's been a lot more sex and smutty shenanigans over the years than the official records of the Realms have been allowed to let on, with matters of breeding playing a substantial part of this episode. So once again, we see him already getting away with far more than he used to. One wonders how much it was Kim and Roger editing out his excesses in the old days, and how much this is due to having been a regular for years and knowing he's valuable enough to the company that they can't say no so easily anymore. This adds an additional layer of entertainment to my reading. I guess it's the beginning of a new chapter in his story as well as the game's in general.


A saga of your own: Or how to convert other settings to the SAGA ruleset. The mechanics may be fairly simple in general, but there's still knack to making sure any new things you create are balanced with the existing ones. Unless you want them to be blatantly under or overpowered, that is, which is your prerogative in a homebrew game. Stephen Kenson provides some fairly balanced commentary on the quirks of the system, and how to convert to them. Of course, even if you do a bit of modding, the nature of the system means actual play will feel quite different from D&D, and whether that's a good or bad thing will depend upon you. So the question is what kind of games does the system encourage (and how does that compare to what the promoters say it encourages. ) and if you want to run games like that.


The ecology of the stirge: Warning, rehash alert! Hordes of low level biologicals approaching. If you haven't fought some of these guys several times in your adventuring career, you were probably playing in a game without random encounters, because stirges seem to be absolutely ubiquitous in a lot of environments. Since these are the kind of creature that could exist in reality, they get a fairly serious lifecycle examination. This is our first repeated ecology, strangely (see issue 83) and it is rather longer than the first time round. There are a few contradictory details, with this writer making them slightly less smart and co-operative than Ed did, but most of the stuff can be incorporated. I am a bit annoyed to find them rehashing ecologies even before 3rd edition, but the blame for that can go squarely at the editor rather than the writer. Don't do it again. :waves finger:

Dragon Magazine Issue 239: September 1997


part 4/8


The dragon's bestiary: More fae creatures? Fucks sake. They really do seem to be overrepresented in this magazine, third only to undead and dragons. What did we do to deserve this? It's not even as if they're nearly as used in D&D in general. Another symptom of the problematic times.
 
Boggarts already appeared in issue 54, making this REALLY rehashed. Personality wise, they're near opposite to their previous incarnation, favouring the housework & well meaning tricks side over sadism. Just leave them alone and you'll be fine.

Clurichaun sneak into your wine cellar, and live off it. So you're safe if you do not drink ...... wine. An irritating footnote in most adventurer's careers.

Wicked Leprechauns do exactly what it says on the tin. They trick you out of your stuff, or might just kill you with poison, depending how they're feeling.

Leshy are another reused name, also seen in issue 119. Your barrel, it is seriously scraped. I definitely think we need to find a new one. You know what havoc stuff like this plays with my indexing? They too are statistically quite different from their previous incarnation, but still probably a pain in the ass. I do not approve of this at all.


Arcane Lore: Stuff for larcenous spellcasters? Hmm. We've already had one article on how existing spells can enable wizards to beat thieves at their on job. I guess this'll make it even easier. Ho hum.

Appraisal lets you figure out how valuable something is. Seen this before in multiple contexts. Next!

Disawareness makes you look boring and unremarkable. This is often more useful than full invisibility. Everyone gets suspicious if a door opens and closes by itself. Some guy who looks like they belong can go anywhere. Basic principle I have profited from many times.

Instant Lockpick ensures you are never without equipment. No more smuggling stuff into prison up your butt if you're captured and stripped. Course, you'll still need to get your spellbook back, but that's next on the list. Good luck.

Lock Inspection gives you a good 25% bonus on your mechanical skills. A multiclass mage/thief will more than compensate for the xp splitting with stuff like this.

Muffling Blow silences whoever it hits temporarily, so you can have a battle without worrying about reinforcements. You cannot expect to take enemies out in one blow in D&D, even with backstab bonuses.

Audio Enhancer boosts your hear noise capabilities. The usual warning about loud noises being bad for you applies.

Feet of the cat lets you run and jump silently and with ease, for those rooftop gigs. Now you can keep up with those annoying psionicists, appearing and disappearing unexpectedly.

Forgery should also be pretty obvious. Doctor that shit to get in places. Yeah man, you'll never spot this one. Now if you can only remember the password. Oh well, a little ESP'll let you know exactly what the guards want to hear.

Minor Disarm automatically removes one trap, obsoleting remove traps just as Knock does open locks. 3rd level and wizards already make thieves look like chumps at their own game. Multiclass really is the way to go.

Silent Saw lets you cut through things at a distance, and completely silently. Another perfect espionage visual, that could also save your life by ruining machinery and architecture at a crucial point in an encounter.  

Ghostly Garrotte is of course for remote strangling. If the big bad is at the other end of the room looking smug, this'll wipe the grin off his face and keep him from casting spells to support his minions.

Major Disarm lets you take all the hard work out of eliminating traps. It even has them automatically spring back to life afterwards, so you can waltz through and leave the owners bemused as to how they weren't triggered or disarmed. Man, being a wizard makes the ninja gig so much easier.

Remote Access creates a brief extradimensional window, perfect for a quick bit of filching or an impossible backstab. This could well be a tide turner if you use it right.  Yoink the macguffin and high-tail it outta there. Yeah, this is a lot easier and more fun than learning to pick pockets the hard way.

Dragon Magazine Issue 239: September 1997


part 5/8


Fiction: And a ship to sail by Chris Pierson. Poetry attack!! Well, this is a romance. I shouldn't be too shocked really. And as a romance, it does have a certain number of cliches. A high born lady being forced into a loveless marriage and planning suicide to escape it. A young working-class man who falls in love with her, and isn't sure how to deal with this. Some comic relief sidekicks. And a grand gesture of the kind that only works if everyone is willing to chip in. (which incidentally proves your social value and smooths over any questions of the class gap. ) Obviously I can't speak for the magazine's female readers, all I have to go on is do as you would be done by. And I can say that a gesture of this style and magnitude would be a pretty strong persuader in letting someone do me. So I'll give this story three and a half Oh yes, baby's ......... out of four.


Network news: A little negative advertising here this month. Join the RPGA because unlicenced convention games suck! Too many people, too few, nepotism, the DM hitting on players, poor organisation, railroads, lack of continuity. You know, those can all happen in official play too, from what I've heard. The main difference is that you have someone to complain too when things go wrong. (although in the case of nepotism, it probably won't help ) Still, it seems likely that the average convention play experience is more civilised than it was in 1978. And with the living campaigns, you can play characters repeatedly and have them advance despite not having the same DM and companions each time. So this is one of the few articles with any real bite this issue, along with Ed's one. Like the fights for equality by various minority groups, this isn't a war that will ever have a definitive ending, but there have been real improvements, and more can be made if we keep trying. Just got to keep at it, not get complacent.


Dungeon Mastery: This column is in theme this month, with more tricks for the sadistic DM to spice up their plots. Most of them should be pretty familiar by now, making the primary value that they're being collected into one place. This is another one that's sufficiently rehashed that I can't think of much to say, but is sufficiently polished enough that I can't be too critical either. Just bland really. I just hope we don't get too many more articles that are too bland to comment on in the immediate future.

Dragon Magazine Issue 239: September 1997


part 6/8


Bookwyrms wins the battle of the novel columns. Seems like John Bunnel is another of the people who decided not to stick around after the company changed hands. From here on in, it's all fricken recommendations. This is definitely cause for grumpiness on my part. If you don't provide a target for my bitchiness, you will become the target yourself.

Ignition by Kevin J Anderson & Doug Beason is basically Die Hard - IIINNNN SPAAAACCCEEEEE!!!!!. Yeah, that's about it for the description. This will either sell you instantly, or not. Now, how do they get a movie adaption going so they can rake in the megabucks.

The tranquility alternative by Allen Steele is basically Die Hard - ON THE MOON!!!! The staff are obviously in the mood for some fact paced popcorn action books to consume. Well, when you're twiddling your thumbs for months uncertain of your job, you want fantasies of playing the big hero barreling around the place solving problems, don't you.

The waterborn by J Gregory Keyes changes gears, starting off slow, but building into a fairly complex plot with characters that are well-developed, but not always likable. Therefore they mark him as an author to watch. Right back atcha, if I remember correctly.

Sorcerers of Majipoor by Robert Silverberg is another story set on his enormous fantastical world with sci-fi underpinnings. This is one of those recommendations that's pretty much a no-brainer. Gotta reach out to those new fantasy readers.

Reliquary by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child seems to be one of those sequels where they have to turn everything up a notch, with a substantially higher body count and larger scale. Fortunately, it doesn't do it at the expense of the science part of the fiction. One for Michael Crichton fans, apparently.

Millennium 1: the frenchman by Elizabeth Hand is a fairly straight conversion of one of the TV series' episodes. This does mean you can skip some bits that were ponderous in the actual show, but otherwise, meh. Once again, I am pretty unsure why they would bother to recommend this.


Sage advice: Can you combine deity specific kits and regional kits. (Skip recommends not. Just because one writer breaks the rules, doesn't mean you can.)

What HD do crusaders use (d8)

How long does a horse take to grow up (3-5 years )

How do true dweomers & quest spells interact with the spell point rules (they don't. They are entirely independent special subsystems)

Why do firbolgs get such good weapons (Good question. We may have to alter this for the sake of game balance. We also need to fix giant sized weapons in general.)

What xp chart do shamans & witch doctors use (Cleric ones. Yeth, thath tho unfair.)

Can witch doctors be elementalists, wild mages, or some other special school (probably)

I thought you said 30th is the maximum level. Faiths and avatars lets you get up to 40th level (Gods of different worlds have different levels of generosity. The Krynnish gods dispose of you if you get above 18th, while the toril guys and gals let you get up to level 40 because they like watching twinky bastards messing things up. All you can do is suffer their whims, since we don't let PC's challenge gods anymore, no matter how high level they get. )

How do you determine your odds of blind-fighting successfully (9)

Dragon Magazine Issue 239: September 1997


part 7/8


Forum is cut down to a single page. Fluctuations, reorganisations.

Remy Verhove reminds us all the rules are optional, even the ones they say aren't. He's having much more fun now he's realized that. Houserule it into unrecognisability, you know you want too.

Mark Fitzpatrick doesn't want to kick out his problem players, because his group is too small. That shouldn't deter you. Kick them out and recruit new ones.

Paul Crowe is yet another person heaping disdain on the players option rules for inviting min-maxing and other twinkery. They cause far more problems than they fix. Guess I'm not at all alone in my distaste for them.


KotDT has the tables turned. Sometimes the players will add up all the clues and come to the right answer. Dragonmirth brings in the clowns and other cartoonish hijinks. Swordplay is being held up deciding on outfits. The magic 8 ball says floyd's future is about to get rather topsy-turvey.


Role-playing reviews: Witchcraft is CJ Carella's very own WoD clone, trying to combine the atmospherics of White Wolf and the flexible point buy system of GURPS. Course, this is CJ Carella we're talking about here, the author of Rifts South America and Nightbane, the king of power creep. What starts off as an interesting empowered humans in the shadows game with some neat mechanics that make the magic flexible, thematic and co-operative rapidly became filled with near invulnerable metahuman types and exceedingly breakable combo tricks. Still, those certainly don't stop the game from being versatile and fun, even if characters actually become more fragile as they advance, as one of the actual plays I've done indicates.

Netheril: Empire of magic finally gives people what they've been begging for for years - a proper official spell point system for AD&D. Such a shame it was buried in a relatively obscure sourcebook and came out around the time the company wasn't in a position to promote it, or it might have got more traction and been a bigger influence on the next edition.

How the mighty are fallen is the tie-in adventure for the netheril books, letting the players participate in ruining things for everyone and ensuring the gods limit everyone to 40th level and memorising their spells. Or not. But then, how hard would that be, changing time against the forces of historical inevitability?

The book of crafts brings us some more down to earth arcane groups for Mage: the Ascension, drawn from real world cultural stuff. This of course gives them plenty of opportunity to show you how to construct mythological spells within the Sphere framework. It's an easy target, but it may well draw in a few more people not interested in making the power of belief central to their games.

Serenades: the first book of powers covers the music magic of Immortal. Once again, Rick finds the jargon a bit impenetrable, but the specific spells are fun. Maybe you should steal them and transfer the ideas to another system. After all, Rick's done it often enough. Looks like it's all positive reviews here as well. Guess that's already one bad thing I can say about this changeover.

Dragon Magazine Issue 239: September 1997


part 8/8


TSR Previews: Things have just about stabilised here. They detail september, october and november. The first two of these are just the same as they appear in last month's issue, so I shall have to just do the one two months ahead.

November has The last tower, Four from Cormyr, and Elminster in Myth Drannor rescheduled to here, leaving only 4 new products to cover.

Night of the Shark sees the Sahuagin continue their deadly assault. If you don't stop them, the whole kingdom is under threat.

Birthright gives us another splatbook. The book of Priestcraft shows us how their clerics and druids differ from the norm. I bet they don't get as many cool new bits as the wizards did.

Planescape follows straight on from the great modron march with Dead Gods. Another annoying metaplot module where canonically, the PC's lose, this sees Orcus return to active service in the AD&D multiverse. Gods in D&D are about as easy to finish off for good as Marvel Superheroes.

Dragonlance has Tales of Uncle Trapspringer by Dixie Lee McKeone. Tasslehoff, a respected elder? Dear god, what is the world coming too. :shudders: Haven't we suffered enough? Do we need to hear how he's mates with demogorgon again, ever more exaggerated? What else has he got up to in the intervening years?


The current Clack has finally caught up with actual current events as well.  WotC has not only bought D&D, but Legend of the 5 rings as well. Will there be a crossover? Many of you already know the answer to this. A little more surprising is a tale of incompetence involving Aaron Allston being booked to do Star Wars novels, but not actually being told until the deadline approached, and having to do some serious overtime to catch up. Editors eh? How do you get them to do their jobs? Plus HARN gives it's corebook away for the price of shipping, hoping that'll drive sales of the supplements, and a cthulhu punk filk band manages to release their second album, showing there's a real audience for this stuff. Companies may be struggling, but that just makes the news all the more interesting. Let's hope they're still managing to get product out there despite all this trouble.


Once again they play it safe this issue, with lots of repeated stuff, and exceedingly boring and timid reviews. They are still improving quite a bit in terms of organisation, with only a couple of out-of time adverts, and are starting to fix up the presentation as well. And even if many of the articles are rehashed, the info is still very useful. While it doesn't hold up particularly well as a whole package, the individual parts would each contribute to your game just fine in actual play. Well, they're trying to make a new start. I shouldn't be surprised if the continuity goes to hell. Anyway, let's see if they've finished rebuilding next issue.

Dragon Magazine Issue 240: October 1997


part 1/8


124 pages. Well, we've finally made it to the 2/3rds point of this journey, even if it has been more than a year since the halfway mark. Woo. Actually, it doesn't feel like much of a landmark compared to the recent company changeover, or the upcoming 250th issue. Just them trying to get back to business as usual. Although things are still messed up enough that they've decided to tone down the usual october horrorfest, and instead go for a little mystery and suspense. Still, I don't object to variety. I'm sure it'll be back next year. Let's see if they can build up a little tension and anticipation.


In this issue:


The wyrms turn: Another editorial full of reorganisation and staff changes. They've replaced 2 of their editors and their subscriptions person, and added a new face to their advertising team. That's a good 50% turnover. Much of this is because they're upping sticks and moving those TSR staff who want to stay on all the way over to their own offices in Renton, on the other side of the country. That's a pretty big upheaval, and I'm not surprised that more than a few people would bow out because they don't want to leave their current lives and family. And just think of the transport costs for all the paperwork, equipment and archives. It's no wonder they'll want to liquidate a great chunk of the unsold stock that was a big factor in bringing the old company down. So this is another handy snapshot in showing what progress they're making getting things back on track. Really, things are already a good deal better than they were a couple of months ago, when they still weren't sure what they were doing. That's worth rather a lot.


D-Mail: Bafflingly, we lead this month with exactly the same welcome back letter we did last month. Editorial sloppiness, or simply the only letter about their absence that wasn't vitriolic. Either way, that's the kind of dumbass mistake everyone's going to notice.

A letter supporting the dungeon crawl above all that plot stuff. We want puzzles to solve and monsters to kill! Do not forget it.

In typical contrast, a letter from someone who prefers roleplaying detail over dungeon crawls. Of course, the magazine has to figure out how to cater to both if they want to remain viable, don't they.

Some nitpicking about the nature of dogs, and what it's hard or easy to train them to do. What they do naturally doesn't map to an obvious power level structure.

And finally we have a bit of errata from Bruce Heard regarding his lupin breed article. Something with that much concentrated crunch is harder for editors to examine, because as long as it's technically legal, it could also not be what the author intended to write and still get past the radar.

Dragon Magazine Issue 240: October 1997


part 2/8


Forum: Christopher Manning is vaguely negative about the dragonlance saga rules, and wants to see where general opinion lies. Since it's long discontinued while D&D still lives, I think I can guess what the majority of replies will be.

Mike Wilson is another person who thinks humans don't live long enough to get really good at multiple things. Since many adventurers go from 1st to 20th in a matter of months, not years, I again laugh at this. High stress situations make people learn FAST, as I can attest from reality.

Greg Gartland tells us again that a wizard's greatest weapon is not their spells, but their mind. Well, the truly innovative ones anyway. The others'd still panic and be screwed when their spells suddenly stop working.

Wayne S. Rossi reminds us that the existence or not of resurrection matters not if players are not attached to them, and can just roll up a different character of similar power. You've got to make them care before ripping it away will actually hurt. Oh, cruel fate and DM's. Why must you torment us so.

Phil Page thinks that players tend to be blase about everything. No point being too stingy with magic, they still be just the same once they have it. Yeah, humans are pretty good at losing our sense of wonder about things we're regularly exposed too.   Get a different race for players if you really want magic to stay magical


Sage advice: How do you determine the rogue skills for a thief/gypsy bard (add together the points each class level gives you. This is indeed a twinky combo that breaks the usual game rules.)

Do thieves have to spend a slot on thieves cant (no)

Can you cast find familiar for someone else (no)

What counts as a proper surface for tensers floating disk (good question. Skip recommends twinky players be suitably punished.)

What does a zombie lord's weakness power do. (Hmm. Skip thinks some fudge would be tasty around now. Reverse of the strength spell'll do nicely)

Does stoneskin protect you from critical hits (yes)

What happens if you combine stoneskin with fire shield (if you suffer no damage, none can be reflected. Basic logic.)

What happens if a wizard gets animate dead as a priest spell (Ahh, players option. See the problems you cause us. Terrible business. )

What happens if you cast inverted ethics on a dragon. ( A sexy party! : cue benny hill theme music: Or possibly part of the Cleric Quintet. Your choice. )

Delayed magic missile contradicts itself (No it doesn't. See. That's a contradiction. The example you just cited, on the other hand, isn't.)

Can you resurrect a headless character (Sure. No problemo! Assuming you have 7th level spells. You do have 7th level spells, don't you? )

What is evil magic (magic cast by evil creatures)

Are 9th level characters immune to death spell. Does this also make them immune to a beholders death ray. (yes, and probably not. )