Dragon Issue 122: June 1987

part 1/3

108 pages. Black dragons don't breathe fire! You of all people should know that. [/pedant] Seriously, welcome to their 11th birthday. The times, they are still a-changin around here. The upcoming edition changes for both D&D and Top Secret cause many readers much distress. Top secret in particular is a problem, because they've made it clear that the changes are going to be big and the new rules are not going to be easily convertable to the old ones. They say that they'll dual stat the crunchy bits in new articles, but we all know promises like that by a company rarely last long. Still, at least they're asking us what we want to see at the moment, rather than telling us.

In this issue:

Letters: A letter asking if they ever plan to do a D&D comic book, and what the current situation on the D&D movie is. Roger is pretty positive about the first idea, and forced to report that the second seems to have died a slow development death with Gary's departure. Bleah.
A letter from someone who didn't get one of the april fools jokes two years ago, asking for free photocopies. Howe Audacious is not a real person. Stop bugging us! Drive a man mad, int it, blood.
A letter from a 13 year old asking if conventions have age limits. Generally, no. Especially not ones covering topics with a large youth demographic. That would massively cut their profitability.
A letter praising the ecology articles, and asking to make More! Bigger! Covering non AD&D creatures as well! Roger has no objection to the idea, but really, this is up to the freelancers as much as anything. Send in your own ecologies now! Your magazine needs you!
A letter asking for help constructing their own Dragonchess game. Unfortunately, the people most involved in that have since left TSR, so Roger can't help much. The technology still isn't really there to build a good board at an economical price, either. Boo.

Forum is extra long this month, as they let people get their opinions in about the state of gaming as a whole:
Dana Foley reminds us that the spirit of the various articles is more important than their letter. Trying to follow them slavishly without understanding the reasoning behind them will only cause trouble.
Anthony Tennaro thinks that weapons ought to cause more damage next edition. Characters can be hit in vital areas repeatedly to no effect. This isn't realistic. It was never intended to be. Abstraction, my dear.
Craig Ulmer would like to see an article on how you improvise as a DM. Um. You make it up yourself. If you're following rules someone else made, then it essentially becomes playing the blues rather than true freeform improvisation. While that can be fun, it hardly compares to genuine DM'ing skill developed by years of personal trial and error.
Sylvain Robert shows up again, quibbling about the nature of weapon specialization, who can have it, and how many weapons they can specialize in. Your pregens from an adventure break the rules as written. Trusting module writers to get all the stats right is a foolish thing to do. Just fix them, and play your game the way you want too, instead of trusting to a canon that is self contradictory anyway.
Chris Patterson thinks that it's important to enforce consequences for alignment deviations, especially for classes with moral codes. We must not allow psycho dick paladins to retain their powers.
W Brian Barnes thinks that with the recent supplement bloat, UA and it's questionable ideas in particular, the AD&D game has lost it's way. The new edition needs to get back to that original spirit, of allowing us plenty of freedom to keep all the optional bits out if we choose. Flexibility is a good thing.
Ed Friedlander reminds us that for a good cleric, doing good should be a pleasure, both for them, and the people they follow. If it's not, then you're playing it wrong. Being utterly po-faced about your religion is an attitude more suited to lawful neutral and evil types. Humour, music, parables, and using magic for entertainment are all entirely suitable actions for a preacher. And the next edition really ought to have proper rules for conversion of your opponents. Pacifism ought to be a valid character choice in D&D. Hmm. Radical ideas here.
Scott Gilpatric thinks that it should be possible to allow automated reprints of old articles by loading them onto computer disk, and then allowing people to order them, and print them out from their own printer via modem connection. Plus you could double the service up as a bulletin board. My oh my. That's a very forward thinking idea indeed. I very much approve.
Martin Gibbs agrees with Craig Sessions that sexism is bad, and so is judging people without giving them a fair chance to prove themselves. That kind of prejudice is hurtful to them, and harmful to you in the long run, because you miss out on so many cool opportunities.
S D Anderson reminds us just how heavy 1000 gp is, and suggests that giving xp for money is a bad idea. It can be gamed horribly, and results in unfair and over fast advancements. This is another thing about the game that needs fixing.
Robert Montgomery thinks that the problem with alignment is not the existence of good and evil, but the way you define these words. As long as you do that properly, you can have evil PC's without any problem. That's treading perilously close to the moral relativism argument.
W Brian Barnes shows up a second time in a single issue. This time he argues that balancing out magic-users power at high levels by making them painfully wimpy at low levels is not balance at all, and actually makes things worse. True balance should be applicable at all points through the game, not over time. Some serious revision is needed to make that the case. Oh, you don't know the half of it. I wonder what his opinion of 4e is.
Jeanne McGuire is another returning forumite. She examines the math of wizard's intelligence and spells known. picking holes in all the problems that come up and suggesting solutions. One of those letters that seems like it ought to be a proper article, but couldn't quite make up the length.
Stephen Barnecut is also examining the rules for wizards, and trying to clarify the ones for spellbooks. Having them scattered throughout the books really does make getting a clear picture a bugger. Let's get working to fix this.
Scott Luzzo delivers another almost article, about the procedure for recharging charged items. The rules on this are currently unclear, so I shall make up my own and share them with you. I do not object to this idea at all.

The ecology of the rot grub: Or Ew, ew, it just crawled inside me! getitout getitout getitout! as they are colloquially known. Yeah, these are fun little bastards to trick and squick your players with, and Ed Greenwood is fully aware of this fact. Even the stuffiest of sages will show a crack in their composure at the prospect of one of these getting loose mid-lecture. Ed skips the footnotes completely this time around, but this is still a fun little feature, that feels like a throwback to the early days of the ecologies, back in '83. He knows sage and adventurer psychology inside out by now, and this is pretty well tailored to answering some of the common questions adventurers might have. Nice to see he can still knock em out when in the right mood.

A step beyond shogun: We obviously have a lot of oriental articles, because they're continuing on from last month. This is a brief review of 5 of the books from OA's bibliography, so as to give you a little more info on just what you're getting yourself into if you pick them up. The writer goes for the ones that have already made some pop culture penetration, The art of war, A book of 5 rings, another biography of Myamoto Musashi, two books on the nature of what it means to be a samurai, this is very much a japan focussed populist selection. Still, if people are daunted by that bibliography, you want to direct them towards the more accessible stuff first. Don't want them put off before they even play. Very much a filler article.

And a step beyond that: Zeb Cook gives us yet more source material to read, this time Officially Recommended. What is Japanese architecture. The Taiheiki. Ugetsu Monogatari. Japanese ghosts and demons. Japanese castles. The samurai film. The medieval Japanese Daimyo. 7 more books for you to check out if you want to fill in your OA campaigns with realistic historical detail. Nice to see he's still enthusiastic abut the topic, but as a dry listing, this doesn't make very interesting reading in itself. Yet more stuff to possibly check out once I've completed this insanely long trek through history.

Dragon Issue 122: June 1987

part 2/3

Out of Africa: Hmm. Yes, compared to europe and the orient, africa does get relatively little airtime in mythological circles. But there's no shortage of legends from there. Quite the opposite, given the number of different tribes, it's just that they're not remotely unified, or even particularly well documented in comparison to greek and norse myth. This is the advantage of writing stuff down. It really does help with the posterity thing. Even more helpful is artwork, which is important for getting a fixed form from the strange descriptions in oral tales. Still, we can extract more than enough fairly concrete creatures from those legends to make up a whole bestiary full of monsters. And if you want to make some more, there's a pretty decent bibliography for you to hunt down and read. A nicely flavourful collection that looses a couple of points for being purely fluff.

Gaming the dark continent: Fortunately, Our esteemed lead editor is here, and continues his practice of making articles that complement each other, by himself if he has too. So here's stats for 11 creatures from the preceding article. There's something here to challenge you from 1st to low name levels, taking you from tricksy little humanoids, to gigantic swamp monsters. The descriptions are very sparse, because of course most of the fluff was back in the preceding article, which results in lots of annoying flipping back and forth. Would it have been too hard to composite these two articles into a seamless whole? Oh well. Still very much better than nothing. Now what we need is some stuff on playing african PC's. Come on writers. Don't let me down.

Paranoia second edition. Now even your own clones are out to get you. Buy it now. Not upgrading is treasonous citizen, as the computer may crash from incompatible code. As the computer is perfect, this cannot be. Long live the computer!

The natural Order: Looks like following on from recent issues is the theme of this one, as we now have lots of new druid spells for you to exploit as well. Arthur Collins delivers 21 new spells of all levels. All are suitable to druid's nature control purview, and help add a little more celtic flavour to the class. Utility and combat both get their fair share, and we also get a quartet of seasonal ceremony spells, as inspired by Len Lakofka in issue 58. Someone's maintaining a proper sense of history here, and finally seeing a symmetry like this filled in is curiously pleasing to me. He may not be one of their star writers, but Arthur is certainly continuing to deliver over a longer period than most of their freelancers. And it looks like that will continue for quite some time longer, since I remember him still being around when I started reading. If he continues to deliver little gems like this, I have no objection to this state of affairs.

From the sorceror's scroll: Yes, Gary shows his face again (sorta, because the graphic that used to adorn this column is missing) after his mysterious and unheralded disappearance. However, it is only to explain what has been going down in the past year or so, and deliver a terse goodbye. He was forced out by the board of directors (naming no names, but glaring very hard at) After much unpleasantness, he resigned entirely, washing his hands of the crap, and formed a new company. Looks like Kim Mohan and Frank Mentzer decided their loyalties lay with Gary rather than the company as well, and jumped ship. That explains Kim's sudden departure from the editing job, forcing Roger to edit two magazines at once, as they wouldn't have done that intentionally. Even Penny Petticord has switched sides, albeit a bit later. Man, this is uncomfortable. He's trying to couch it in optimistic terms, but all those staff leaving must have left quite a bit of chaos in their wake and bad blood on both sides. It's surprising that they managed to keep the magazine running as smoothly as they did. He hopes to talk to us again soon, but of course I very much doubt we'll see much of that in here. They wouldn't want to give airtime to a dangerous competitor. Rather shoddy of them to stuff this in the middle and treat it like one of those little retractions you see in the newspapers, something faintly embarrassing they'd rather you didn't notice. At least they deigned to say something, even if the true extent of the backstage ugliness remains very much concealed. So long, Gary. Don't be a stranger.

Sage advice is quite short this month.
How much do oriental structures cost to make (Same as western stuff using the same material. The peasant labour process is pretty much the same anyway. Apart from paper walls, those are expensive and useless. )
What are art objects and how much are they worth? (egads man, have you no life ourtside gaming? They're paintings and sculptures and caligraphy and pottery and stuff. Like jewelery, their value is largely in the eye of the beholder, and you can use the same tables to determine their worth. (Pickled bulls heads in an unmade bed, with names of all your lovers scrawled in your own menstrual blood on the sheets probably won't sell well around here.))
What are the movement rates for oriental vehicles (Again, same as for western ones. In fact, just take that as written. Everything not specifically mentioned as different is the same! If We examined every aspect of their society in the detail you want the book'd be over a thousand pages long. This is D&D, not Advanced Physics simulator 1987. )
Will you publish an oriental suplement for greyhawk (no. Canonically, it's all set in the forgotten realms now, despite the old references to Kara-tur being on Oerth. If you want to transplant them, it's not hard. Continent shuffling is an established D&D tradition, going right back to Blackmoor. )
When can you use MA Maneuvers (whenever it's physically reasonable for them to do so. We still expect you to have common sense, y'know)
Is there a duration for the iron fist maneuver (Irrelevant. It's an action, not a magic power. It lasts as long as you're doing it. What is the duration of a punch or a kick.  What is the sound of one fist typing pointless questions.)
 How does the form of a style affect it? (not much. Method is far more important. )
The martial arts styles break the rules (No, you just don't understand them. Order of maneuvers in style is not the same as order of maneuvers of group. It's perfectly clear to me. )
What AC do you roll against when using Leap (AC10, unless there are special circumstances. Give us a proper DC system, pleeease. )
Can you use a riding horse in a joust (no. They'd panic and run away. You'd be a laughingstock amongst all the other knights)
How do you make a Drolem ( Oooh. Sgonna cost you at least 25,000gp. Plus research costs. And lets not forget you need a set of dragon bones. It'll take quite an adventure to build one. )
How do you make illusory walls. ( Cast permanency on Phantasmal force. Or if you don't want to wait until 18th level, develop a custom spell. It should only be around 4th level or so. )

The GM's ten commandments: Pff. We've seen this one plenty of times before. Don't be adversarial. Always give them a chance unless what they want to do is blatantly impossible. Don't overplan. Don't go over the top too quickly. Description description description. Consistent worlds make for better games. Stick to your rulings and don't let the game get disrupted by rules lawyers. No takebackseys. Encourage roleplaying. If the players try cool and clever stuff, reward it, don't punish it. No great surprises here. One for our new readers.

Marshalling the martial arts: A third OA article? Plus sage advice being mostly oriental. Man, at this rate this'll effectively be another special issue. Psionics never got it this good. Anyway, here's 12 new martial arts styles made using the OA rules, allowing even nonmonks to become quite capable and versatile unarmed combatants. I recommend you go for Escrima, as it has top AC, damage, no of attacks, and a decent weapon selection, plus tons of special moves. Yeah, these aren't remotely balanced. But then, MA in AD&D wasn't well designed anyway, the tiny number of flexible resource slots you got meant power always outweighed flexibility for fighter types. This fails to fix that in any way. Ho hum.

Operation Zondraker: Merle's epic series on Top Secret in spaaace gets it's third, but not final installment. Having covered the rules for operating in space, they now take us to the moon, and show us how the rules handle it's low gravity, airless plains. Previous articles from the magazine are referenced freely to help build up the big picture, and we get plenty more cool toys to use, offensive, defensive, transport and utility. Still a very crunchy business, but that's no surprise really. I'm rather enjoying this, as it's one of the few extended, in depth articles that they're doing at the moment, and look forward to seeing how they finish this one off.

Ellery Queen's mystery magazine game. How cute. It's a murder mystery game advertising in Dragon. Now that's the kind of thing I could stand to see more of.

Dragon Issue 122: June 1987

part 3/3

The leader of the pack: This month's Star frontiers article is a quick one on the nature of the two social stats, and the difference between then. Persuasion is about your charm and skill at social repartee, while leadership measures your ability to boss people around and impart critical information in crisis situations. A perfectly valid way to divide things up, if one that can probably be picked apart by rules lawyers looking for edge cases. Definitely a filler article here, with the amount of text and illustration here finely formatted to fit around the adverts. It does have the neat idea of aiding others with your advice, and actually allowing mechanical benefits from doing so, so it's not a complete waste of time. That is, after all, an idea that would go on to be much more popular in the future.

TSR Previews: A decidedly short list of new products this month. Don't worry though, because it looks like there's considerably more in the month after.
D&D is getting B1-9: In search of adventure. Another attack of rehash, this ties all these earlier adventures more closely into the Known Worlds setting, giving you a nice little sandbox to level up your characters in with plenty of choices on where to go. It's also getting DA4: The dutchy of ten. Dave Arneson's been back less than a year, and now he's buggered off again, leaving the writing of the final Blackmoor module to his collaborator. Not a very impressive run, really. What was the backstage reason behind things turning out this way?
AD&D is getting the Manual of the Planes! One of Jeff Grubb's crowning achievements, this might not have quite the style of the later planescape stuff, but it certainly makes the planes playable and then some. This opens up a lot of campaign options and is pretty fun to read as well. If you don't want to go that far afield, but have still made it to high level, you can instead try H3: Bloodstone wars. Use the mass combat system to forge an army and rid a city of marauding bandits. Must be a lot of bandits. No wonder they're a nightmare to get rid of.

Fiction: The Prince's Birthday by Keith Minnion. A question often asked of genius inventors. If you're so smart, then why are you not in charge. Why are you taking commissions from a tyrannical sadistic maniac who's likely to kill you if you fail to amuse, and almost as likely to kill you if you succeed, so no-one else can have a copy of the cool stuff you've made for them. A very valid question. Interestingly, this one has read the legend of Dadaelus and Icarus, and isn't going to make the same mistake. Not only is he smart enough to get out of dodge at the right time, but he's also smart enough to leave something behind that'll really get him out of trouble. I won't spoiler you as to the details, but I did find this pretty enjoyable, and hope that if I have to resign from some big tyrannical corporation, I can go out with half as much style.

Profiles: Jeff Butler may look like a jock, play sports like a jock, and wound up marrying a cheerleader, but he's also a skilled artist, growing up on a diet of comic books and swords and sorcery. (with lurid covers, of course) He did all sorts of freelance drawing work before joining a small comics company. When that ran into financial trouble and it all went a bit pear shaped, he was clued in to TSR's job opening, and of course got to draw the big names, as the Marvel super heroes game took off. As a sideline, he's also started creating live action superhero costumes. Seems like he's definitely living the dream.
Jane Cooper is one of our book editors. She's gone from minnesota, to wisconsin, to taiwan, and back, picking up a husband while out there. As another of the surprisingly large contingent of staff who never gamed before coming to work there,   she's had a lot to learn, but if you can learn other languages, you can probably adapt to most corporate structures.
Patrick McGilligan is yet another of our editors. They sure do have a lot of them. (well, I suppose it's better than White Wolf's only having two editors in the entire company, who give the impression they'd much rather be writers, and farming out the scutwork to Scribendi) He's written plays, biographies, edited Playgirl, (yeah, Suuuuuure you only edited it for the articles.) interviewed tons of famous people, and then decided that he'd prefer a slightly duller life, so he'd work as a book editor for TSR. He's played a big part in the making of the new Windwalker, Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms novels. What writers will he sucker in with promises of fame and fortune next?

The enemy within! Shadows over Bogenhafen. The first supplement for warhammer fantasy. Oh yeah. They're gonna sink your boat, bitches. Feel the grit.

The marvel-phile: A quick venturing into the realms of hyperpower again this month, with stats for the High Evolutionary. A medieval scientist who turned himself into an immortal advanced being, he created a duplicate of the earth, engaged in all kinds of god-playing, then went mad and committed suicide by hulk when he didn't get the respect he felt he deserved from other cosmic races. Sounds like a bit of a dick, really. As this is just a cut statblock from the corebook, this is another bit of filler that won't be of use to most groups, since high power adversaries like this can be a problem. Seems like we're getting quite a bit of that this issue.

A big book of little heroes: A single book review is separated from the crowd this month. Heroes for wargames by Stuart Parkinson is a rather strangely written book. Part introduction to wargaming and roleplaying, part coffee table book of pretty minis and guide to painting them, part collectors guide, it doesn't seem at all sure what it wants to be. It's also very britishly written, throwing off the reviewer with it's idiosyncrasies of spelling and punctuation. (:facepalm: None of you have problems with my englishness, do you?) This is a problematic review of what is probably a problematic book, and if it tried to tie into the specifics of what was just coming out then, probably has not aged well. Definitely not one I want to chase down.

The role of computers: As they said 2 months ago, this month's main review is the massive Might and Magic, an epic RPG. It seems fairly typical for games of it's time. Create a party from the usual selection of races and classes, generate their ability scores, equip them, and explore a world with the intent of saving it. However, the devil is in the details, and there's certainly plenty of those. (as ever, they advise to go back and save often, for losing several hours work sucks) Even after playing for three months, they're only a third of the way through it, and still eager to push on and discover what tricks and secrets the rest of it contains. Oh what a shame for them, for they have to constantly move on and try new games as part of their job. Still, they'll continue playing it just for pleasure, and stealing cool bits for their own rpg'ing. If I were inclined to download ROM's, I would definitely be tempted by this review. Also notable is their talking about many manufacturers not converting their games to the Atari because it's the most pirated system. Same as it ever was .

The ultimate addenda: Errata, errata. Don't try and spread it on your bread without butter. Or it'll stick in your throat, make you choke and splutter. And if you're dead, the rules won't matter. Yup, it's this time again. Advanced Marvel Superheroes has stuff missing, and stuff that needs fixing, and it's up to this humble scribe to go back to it and fix this. 9 new powers, plus some definition of terms that are mentioned in the book, but not explained. So many superheroes. There's always going to be something you failed to design for. Yet another not very exciting article.

Hmm. Leaves from The inn of the last home. Aka cooking and singsongs with Tika and Caramon. This smells like the kind of thing that gives fluff a bad name, and does nothing to make the game more fun to play. Am I wrong?

Dragonmirth features the scariest gruumsh evar. The Snarfquest crew gets cabin fever as they travel through space. Wormy's standoff turns into another incredibly dramatic battle.

One of the worst issues in a long time, if not ever, for several reasons. Obviously, there's the official announcement of Gary's departure, treated in a decidedly shoddy way, but there's also a painful amount of articles that are rehashed, overly shallow, poorly organized, leftovers from other recent issue's themes, and just plain dull. It feels like a dumping ground for a whole load of the crap they've been building up over the past year. Not pleasant reading, with a few exceptions. Lets hope they've cleared out their blockage, and they'll be back to their reliable selves next issue. It's been a new era for a while, but this really marks the ending of the old ways, and the beginning of a new regime in a way that's hard to miss. This is gonna result in flamewars.

Dragon Issue 123: July 1987

part 1/3

108 pages. Ooh, shirtlessness. A little cheesecake for our female readers this time round. See what you get if you turn the flames up a bit. They also continue their drive to have more themed issues, with wizards getting another bite at the apple. Will this give us a nice selection of roleplaying advice and spells? Or does forbidden knowledge lurk within these eldrich pages, waiting to destroy your gameworld with it's twinkedness? Guess you'll just have to watch me, as I turn the pages and read the contents, see if this degenerates into the incoherent scrawls of a madman.

In this issue:

Letters: Another request for big prints of the magazine's covers. It's all up to the individual artists, really. But they are happy to facilitate this process.
A letter complaining that nearly all the articles in the magazine are for AD&D rather than regular D&D. This sucks. Roger quite agrees. Send them in! Not that it matters much, given how cross-compatible the games are.
A letter from someone afraid that the start of the forgotten realms means oerth and krynn won't get any more stuff. Roger assures them that that is not the case. And even if it was, you don't have to play nothing but modules. Surely the worlds are now fleshed out enough for you to build your own adventures in them?

Forum is rather large again this month. The flames about sexism and oriental stuff rage intensely, often combined. Double the nerdrage, double the fun!
Nathan Perkins points out that everyone taking the min-max choices results in parties with exploitable weaknesses. And even with double specialization, fighters still aren't really balanced with wizards. So if your players are munchkins, don't be afraid to play rough in response.
Eric Krein does some analysis of wizard's spellbooks, in a piece that's almost big enough to be turned into an actual article. Cost, capacity, size and durability, they ought to be awkward choices, not no-brainers. This needs some fixing.
Alan Ristow tells us that Banded mail is not a real type of armour. It never existed! Banish it from your games! Ahh, the joys of the Historical Accuracy crew. Really, it's no great loss, is it?
Steven Van Veen is entirely in favour of people videoing their games, and has some sadistic ideas for dealing with people who keep messing around during the game, slowing everyone else up. I like the cut of your jib.
Tommy Sronce points out that D&D is intentionally unrealistic in many ways. By trying to make it more so, you make it less fun. Go play runequest or something if you want characters who develop in a realistic fashion.  
Leung Chi Kong thinks that ships in the D&D world would evolve quite differently, with spells and no gunpowder altering the tactical considerations considerably. Modern ship designs would not make a good example. Yet another case where we really need a full article to help fit things to the physics of the game universe.
Uriah Blatherwick is not happy with the onslaught of new rules in recent books and articles. The writers ought to do more optional stuff, rather than forcing us to change our game. Or at least make it more clear that the new rules are optional. Another case of the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Adam Dray reminds us that a good person is hardly good if they take the selfish path and sell out their friends whenever the going gets tough. If they do, then they're just a neutral person who likes to think of themselves as good, not the real deal, and shouldn't keep their special powers if they're a paladin or ranger.
T Fujiwara viciously attacks Jeff Klein's statement that women warriors have no place in an oriental campaign, with extensive mythological and historical citations. And even if that were not the case, D&D is supposed to be about exceptional heroes. If you can't do a little bucking of societies expectations, you're hardly a hero, are you?  
Derek Ho also disagrees about the female samurai thing, pointing out the story of Fa Mook Lan (aka Mulan. Ahh, disney disney disney. Completely mutilating classic tales since 1932) Genderbending is another perfectly valid way of becoming a hero.  
Pat Pitcavage is also against sexism. Use your imagination, people. Is it really that hard to come up with good reasons why there would be female warriors in a fantasy game?
Richard Silva returns to the forum, also presenting examples of famous female martial artists and their exploits. If anything, oriental cultures were less sexist in medieval periods than western ones. How will Jeff come back from this roasting?
Jeremy Sacco rails against the stereotyping of 14 year old boys as crude, sex-obsessed hack and slashers. You protest against discrimination against women by stereotyping and putting down another group. Charming. I find this very amusing indeed.
D Laslie Millitello is amazed such a big deal is made about people's gender, both in and out of the game. She's always been playing in a pretty mixed group, and the gender stereotypes definitely do not apply to them. Some people have all the luck.
Michael Estus is annoyed that no-one ever discusses Top Secret in the forum. Ok then. Perfectly reasonable. What would you like us to say about it?

Call of cthulhu advertises the miskatonic university graduation kit, arkham horror, Cthulhu by gaslight, and lots of other classic products. This is amusing.

Music of the forgotten realms: Oh great. Music and poetry from fantasy worlds. Now there's a topic that ha produced quite a few abominations against taste and sanity over the years. Remember folks, just because you can make it rhyme, that does not make it good. Thankfully, Ed doesn't show us his poetry, (Put it away. No-one wants to see it.) and instead talks about the actual instruments used in the Realms to create their music. Which is actually a pretty interesting topic, informing us indirectly about cultures and technology in the realms. After all, music is heavily shaped by the materials and equipment you have to make it with. From signaling gongs to primitive organs, they have distinctive variants on earthly instruments that he obviously put quite a bit of effort into developing. Once again, he's tackled a challenging subject and come up smelling of roses, having put the research in and then thought about how his world's countries would handle these things.  I very strongly approve. It's a bit odd to have an unconnected article before the themed stuff, but I can see why they gave this one pole position.

The mystic College: So your wizard has reached name level. Quite an achievement, since they have the highest XP costs and are weak at lower ones. Wouldn't it be nice to give back to the community, start a school for aspiring young wizards, so they don't have to go through the same degree of crap you did. Much nicer than building a tower, and then filling the area beneath it with monsters that you rule over and experiment on like a cruel and whimsical god, striking dread into the hearts of peasant communities for miles around. Maybe we can actually advance the culture a bit this way, make the average peasant a little less superstitious and hidebound by ensuring at least a few of their kids get a proper education. So yeah, lotsa advice on taking this route, how much it costs, and the benefits you can get from doing so. Political, financial, and personal, they can be quite substantial if you are willing to put the effort in. We get another system for advancing 0 level characters to 1st level spellcasters, which eats up substantial time and xp in typical fashion. (Far quicker to go adventuring, make it up that way.) Still, at least it's now an option in a non fiaty way, which is better than before. While not fully integrated with the existing game management systems, this is full of solid mechanical and roleplaying advice for players who want to take a few years out from active adventuring, and try their hand at a little sim game, see how they do. It may never be useful to your group, but it's nice to know it's there. Pretty cool special feature, overall.

Dragon Issue 123: July 1987

part 2/3

No guts, No Galaxy! Renegade legion. Now that's an eye catching advert, that makes it pretty clear what the game is about, even though I've never heard of it before. Nice.

Fire for effect: Ha. It's a realism in D&D article. You ought to consider the consequences using area of effect blasty spells on the surroundings. We've had this one before, but not in as much scientific detail, as Richard W Emerich, one of our more frequent forumites, graduates to doing a full article. So here's lots of pontification about the effect of heat, cold, electricity on various items, and just how much they'll really ruin your day if you get caught in them. Not too long, but with lots of footnotes and a good bibliography, this certainly looks pretty well researched. As they've managed to surpass previous attempts, I'm not too bothered about the rehash. Lets hope it doesn't wind up spawning a load of forum flamewars from other realism pedants in turn.

Arcane lore: Hmm. Looks like they've finally realized what a rich ground for freelance expansions new spells are, and have decided to actively solicit for them. That's nice. Hopefully we'll be seeing this column regularly in later issues. Interestingly, this is not only in theme with the general issues topic, but also the previous article's, as we get a whole load of fire themed spells. Elementalists are always popular, so that's a solid, if not particularly inspired way to kick things off. Flare is yer basic real world tech analogue. Smokescreen is one of the less popular transformers. Enchanted torch is a higher level than continual light, but less useful in most instances, which is a bit crap. Mellix's fire mouth is a variant on magic mouth that proves words may never hurt you, but breath can. Fallion's Fabulous fireball removes most of the tactical disadvantages of regular fireballs. Just the thing for the discerning mage with companions who still haven't mastered basic tactics 4 levels later, the twonks. Fire Phantoms takes the opposite tack, providing weedy elementals for those who don't yet have the skill for the real thing. Avissar's flaming weapon makes a weapon into a flame tongue, and I'm not sure if it's good or rubbish because the duration is left out. At that level you can make permanent magic items easily enough anyway, so it'd better be pretty long. Hellfire makes your life an endless burning torment until you die. Charming. We also get some fluff tying them all together, and a new artifact as well. This definitely shows the influence of Ed Greenwood's writings on magical books, which is not a bad thing. Lets hope it doesn't descend into formulaic variations on the same old themes too much over it's run.

Lords & Legends: Ur characters, we are wanting them. As was suggested a few months ago in a letter, sample characters are another rich ground for freelance submissions. So send them in! We can't do this without you! Interesting development. Will they be as horrendously twinked as the stuff from Giants in the earth? Signs so far do not look promising, with not a single below average stat between them. Yoshitsune, Benkei, Hsu Hsun, Myamoto Musashi, the current upsurge in oriental material continues, and most of them have some special ability that ordinary PC's can't get. This annoyed me first time round, and it looks like it's going to be bugging me again. Le sigh. Not a pleasing development.

Gamers around the world: Ooh. We finally have an article that isn't remotely rehashed. A guide on how to write letters when trying to contact people through the world gamers guide. After all, making first contacts with strangers is one of the most nerve wracking things to do for a huge number of people. Making a tit of yourself, or the fear of doing so, can be huge problems, because if you get off on the wrong foot a potential relationship is ruined before it even gets a chance. So we have a whole bunch of advice on proper letter writing procedure. What to put in, what to leave out, and roughly what order to do it in. Formal letter writing was already an art in decline in those days, and of course, the internet has hastened that process, so this does feel a little anachronistic. But the basic principles are still sound, and well worth reiterating. Whether you're looking for a new group to join nearby, trying to set up a play-by-mail game, or simply exchanging correspondence with someone who interested you, this is some valuable advice that will hopefully encourage quite a few people to make that scary first step into communicating with people across the world. Memorable and very much appreciated.

The ecology of the giant leech: What is this, gross-out season? Okay, leeches aren't as icky as rot grubs, but they still have quite a substantial squick factor. Another amusing tale, as an orc and a half-orc plot against one-another in the swamps. Who will wind up becoming dinner? Brains will win over brawn in a situation like this. Plenty of tricks nicked from real world biology in what is pretty good as a bit of fiction, but not hugely imaginative in making the conversion from little real world creature to giant fantasy creature. So overall, a fairly average entry. Moral lesson, a little real world biology info, a little encounter advice, all wrapped up in time for tea, another perfectly serviceable way to fill a couple of pages.

Time flies: You can NOT have a proper campaign unless strict timekeeping records are taken! So said Gary! Yeah. timekeeping can be a tricky business. So here's 5 pages of tables that you can photocopy, and use to help you with this. Going all the way from turns to years, you can tick off time as it passes, and make little notes as to what happened in each interval. While it may need to be adapted to your own campaign, as it chooses symmetry over realism, this is another invaluable bit of advice that they haven't given us before, and is pretty much unconnected to specific systems. Like the writing in advice, this is also applicable to subjects far beyond roleplaying, and a refreshing change from their usual fare. This is a direction I could definitely appreciate for a while, as it gives me plenty of stuff to steal for other games.

Just making time: We continue on from the last article, as is often their way. Now this is also very useful. Roger talks about making a calendar and astrological setup for your own world, and reveals that of the various D&D worlds. Toril and Krynn match earth's precisely, at 365.25 days a year. Oerth has a rather neater calendar of of 364, while Mystara is a fast one, with years only 336 days long. All except krynn have satellites fairly similar to earth's moon. Another slightly depressing reminder of how much more adventurous they could have been with the cosmologies and layouts of their worlds, but still interesting reading. Remember folks, you can do much better than this, because you don't have to worry about homogenising things for a large audience who may not be paying attention. Don't be afraid to experiment with your world design, and make things non symmetrical. It'll spice things up quite considerably. Colours, shapes, orbital periods, rotation times, cosmological influence. I look forward to making you lose track of them and have to look it up.

Sage advice: What's the point of leather barding if horses have a natural AC of 7 (Good point. Methinks a little revised table is in order. Now everything's shiny again.)
How much damage does a catapult do (See the master set. Skip don't put out unless you pay, babe. I don't care if you got the chance to use them way before 26th level.)
What's the difference between light and heavy crossbows. (range, rate of fire, cost, weight. What isn't different.)
Do you lose initiative when using a bastard sword one handed (not unless you spend several minutes flipping through the rulebook to check this.)
What is a war hammer, +3 Boomerang (I think this is another case of well duh. It's +3 to hit and damage, and if you throw it, it automatically comes back. Gives your dwarven fighter a whole new set of cool descriptions to their moves. )
How much damage does a lance do (1d10, but only on horseback. They're big awkward things. There is such a thing as being impractically well hung.)
What's a javelin (like a spear, but with a longer throwing range. Thin pointy things come in many shapes and sizes. I could make another peenar joke but I won't)
The Combat charts contradict the separate listings (oops, our bad again)
What are the split numbers on the water movement charts ( for boats that have both oars and sails)
How much food do you find when foraging. (an abstract number measured in meals per day. We can not be bothered to deal with the vagaries in human taste and appetite.  )
What is storm giant's special damage (calling lightning. You've been reading wormy, haven't you? Yeah, it's like that. )
How does a roc save (at Beaklays bank. )
What happens if a lightning bolt hits a solid object ( The DM can choose if it bounces straight back, or billiard style. Either way, hilarity may ensue, and other members of your party be hurt.
Isn't invisible stalker overpowered (Oh no. It is emminently subvertable. Summoned creatures are pains in the ass to keep under control. )

Dragon Issue 123: July 1987

part 3/3

Fiction: Palimpsest by Tais Teng. Hmm. Another twist on a few familiar topics in this month's fiction. Seemingly incomprehensible fae, 4th wall breaking stories, post apocalypse, and philosophical musing on the foolishness of humanity, willing to cut off their own hand just to spite their arm. Put together in such a way that you expect it to take one plot twist, and then it does a different one at the end, yet if you go back and reread, it all makes sense in light of that revelation, this is another pretty interesting piece that'll hopefully get your mind working to create similar twists in your own games. They are pulling a lot of surprises out of their hat this issue. Just when you think it's going to be predictable and formulaic, they throw you a curveball. Whee!

The whole-earth Ecology: The Star frontiers article this month is another one on building realistic creatures. Why are they the way they are? How common are they? What do they eat. How do they survive. What is their relationship with other creatures in the same region. Are they physically plausible. This last one is much more important in sci-fi than fantasy, for the degree of pure handwavium that the genre can tolerate is not as great. Not nearly as big or imaginative as Lew Pulspher's article on the same subject back in issue 59, this is a return to the same old rehash, slightly reflavoured for a different game. Another one that would be perfectly reasonable for a more recent reader, but doesn't really throw any new ideas or tricks into the mix for me to use. Like many a critic, novelty seems to becoming increasingly paramount in my equations of if I enjoy an article. After all, anyone can practice doing the same thing over and over again, and get better at it, but no matter how many new ideas you come up with, it never ceases being really hard coming up with more.

The marvel-phile: Jeff gets back to some long unfinished business, with three more of the heralds of galactus. (see issue 92 for the first three) Air-walker, Firelord, and Destroyer. (but not Aunt May ) More cosmic level characters who had decidedly short tenures before being destroyed or retiring. A planet eating force of nature just can't keep good help these days. Who will he try and recruit next, what amusing themes will their powers have, and how will they cope with their heavy burden? Another bit of contractual obligation filler before he carries out his next diabolical plan, a list of the people killed off by Scourge. I look forward to it.

The role of books: The king of satan's eyes by Geoffrey Marsh is a very pulpy tale of  a suit designer who winds up in all kinds of adventures around the world. With very tight, if somewhat formulaic plotting, it would make a good bit of inspiration for the more cinematic kind of Top Secret game.
With a single spell by Lawrence Watt-Evans is a story of the adventures of a young wizard who does indeed, start off with only one spell, and has to make the most of it. Seems like a typical heroes journey, going from small to large in a neatly plotted manner. Now, what will he do next? Can't get too formulaic.
Bimbos of the death sun by Sharyn McCrumb, on the other hand, isn't formulaic at all. Murder mystery? Character study of the nature of geek conventions? Fantasy? Very good question. In any case, it seems to work, despite the individual parts not being entirely satisfying on their own. It richly deserves it's memorability.
Arrows of the queen by Mercedes Lackey is the start of another trilogy. Looks like it's gonna need it, as it hints at several big plot points, and then leaves them completely unexplored. The reviewer still enjoys it though, as it's another one which does it's formulas right.
To the haunted mountains by Ru Emerson is a well described wilderness adventure, told in an interesting style that manages to be both distant and highly personal. It may not be to everyone's tastes, but as a regular reviewer, Mr Bunnel also enjoys his novelties.  
Winter of magic's return by Pamela F Service is a tale of magic returning to a postapocalyptic world. Stealing liberally from arthurian myth, a reincarnated merlin must find his way to avalon, and release Arthur so he may be king again. While aimed at the young adult market, it has enough clever references that older people can appreciate as well.
Unicorn and dragon by Lynn Abbey does not get a very good review. The plot is confusing and cluttered, and the characters don't seem to have understandable motivations beyond what the story demands, and the format of the book is a bit odd. An experiment that doesn't really work, but is still mineable for historical detail.

Paranoia takes out a full colour three page spread advertising both the new edition, and all the old adventures. Orcbusters, Yellow clearance black box blues, send in the clones. This is a nice selection.

Operation Zondraker: So we come to the end of this four part Top Secret epic just as the new edition comes out. Out with the old, in with the new. Not that it matters much here, as this installment is pretty system free, giving us a bunch of example missions using the alternate future history they've spent time building up. They really ought to have multiplied this stuff out, and made it into a full-blown sourcebook, because there is a lot more they could have said on this subject, and fleshing out the missions with maps, character stats and the like would have been an entirely reasonable thing to do. Guess like some of the forum entries which are almost articles, there's a nebulous ground where a piece doesn't quite fit into either format comfortably, and it's not quite worth it to pad it out to reach the next weight category. Still an interesting experiment, and much better reading than the attacks of rehash. Lets hope that they have a few more epic articles planned for the near future.

Top secret SI is finally out. Buy it now. Yet more well co-ordinated advert positioning.

Profiles: Warren Spector is our only, and final profilee, as they retire this regular column, presumably because they've been doing this nearly 2 years now and are running out of people to cover, plus they just introduced two new intended regulars and need to clear out space. Anyway, he's our newest editor, having been poached from Steve Jackson games, where he edited The Space Gamer, and played a big part in the creation of Toon. He takes a David Bowie influenced method of recounting his history, emphasizing the sheer randomness of how his life has turned out. An amusing framing device that makes this a pretty strong finisher to this series, covering someone who's actually better known for their non D&D work. Will it return? Good question. I'm pretty sure I remember seeing it brought back later on. But if you weren't there at the time, you'll have to wait until I get there to discover exactly when with me.

TSR previews: Something goes very wrong here, as most of the things they said would be coming out next month last month are missing. The only things mentioned as coming out are the Forgotten Realms Boxed set, and Top Secret SI. I know both are pretty big deals, but that's no reason to forget everything else. Someone in editing seriously dropped the ball here. How very curious. Tut tut Roger.

Larry has to take a break from snarfquest, but there is some rather amusing filler art. Dragonmirth gets cloned. Irving doesn't believe Wormy is in danger.

One of those issue with quite high highs, and low lows. The editorial sloppiness continues, and there's quite a bit of rehash, but still several quite cool bits and genuine surprises. It's certainly not perfect, but still considerably better than the last issue. Still it's looking touch and go, as the continuing introduction of new columns and removal of old one mean it could improve rapidly, or decline again in the next issue. Can't really predict that at the moment, given the unpredictability of recent fluctuations. Guess I'll just have to look and see.

Dragon Issue 124: August 1987

part 1/3

108 pages Hmm. As part of their drive to improve their services, they're considering setting up a BBs. Or in other words, thanks to their recently acquired computer game columnists, they're aware of what passes for the internet at the moment, and are considering getting on board. That would be forward-thinking of them. I wonder if they'll follow through on that. Our theme this month is Aerial adventuring. Something we've had the odd article on, but never a whole special feature, so hopefully there won't be too much rehash. Not a bad start. Lets see what else is new and shiny in the world of dragon publishing.  

In this issue:

Letters: Another letter from people interested in breaking the world record for playing continuously. Roger tells them that we don't do that any more, due to the health hazards. Oh, for the halcyon days of 1980, when people played 100 hours at a a time.
A letter suggesting some more regular columns. Hmm. As ever, we'll certainly consider these ideas.
Another of our regular questions. Someone wants to become a writer for the magazine, and wonders how you do it. The usual response follows. Get the writers pack, read the guidelines, and then practice practice practice, making sure you listen to constructive criticism along the way. No surprises here.

Forum: Rad Jorgensen is one of the many people who thinks that the game is actually less fun when you incorporate the new stuff from Unearthed Arcana. The characters are more powerful, which means they have to fight higher level monsters, and get gold and XP more quickly, which means you don't get to enjoy the early stages of the game. Lest we forget, many people like the bit where one good hit can kill you, and you need to be cautious if you want to survive.
Kim Eastland pops in to do a shill piece on gamma world and it's supplements. If you want more material to come out, buy the existing stuff! If it isn't profitable, we can't produce it. :rolleyes: This is even worse than Frank Mentzer's dragon thing. At least he offered a debatable point for people to run with along with his shilling.
Brock Sides suggests that magic items ought to be given power levels, so dumb DM's can know approximately what level they should start giving them to their characters at. Rather a good idea, really.
Uriah Blatherwick shows up for a second month in a row. This time he makes the point that there is no one true way of running games. It's all about what's fun for both players and DM. And since variety is the spice of life, one group can and should experiment with multiple playstyles to keep things fresh. A viewpoint I very much agree with.
Clark Timmins reminds us not to sweat the small, everyday stuff when roleplaying.
Daniel S Huffman wants to play the beastmaster as a PC, but doesn't want them to overshadow other PC's. So he suggests a whole bunch of nerfs for them to bring things back under control. Woo. Nerfs. :deadpan: I'll keep these in mind for if I ever get to try the class.
Dan Fejes is another returning forumite. He points out that he wasn't being sexist when he said that the proportion of female players, and female lead characters in fantasy books, is not very high. It's the truth. Go to any bookshop, do a random sampling, prove it for yourself. Don't shoot the messenger, maaaan. Provable statistics will not shield you from the flames, especially where sexual and racial identity is involved. Even something as simple as " A larger proportion of people of non caucasian descent are lactose intolerant" can spawn hundred post flamewars.
Pam Parisi is also against sexism in fantasy on the grounds of it's escapism, damnitt. Let us play really badass women and don't worry about it. Seems a rather popular viewpoint.

Role-playing reviews returns, due to popular demand. There's lots of games out now, many of them diverging quite substantially from D&D, and it would be a foolish company which ignored them and the ideas they have to offer. They start off with a look over the current big competitors. Runequest is currently in decline, due to 3rd edition taking a number of dumb design and setting choices. fantasy Hero and GURPS are perfectly decent systems, but you'll have to do most of the world building yourself, as they don't have much of a supplement base. Harn has a well developed world, but a woeful lack of adventures. Pendragon is kickass at what it does, but has a very narrow focus that may not be for everyone. MERP is fairly good, but a bit too crunchy to really keep many of the inexperienced gamers it's big license attracts. All of which leaves things open for another system to move in and become number two. Which is where our review really starts in earnest.
Warhammer fantasy roleplay is of course the attempt of Games Workshop to compete with TSR in fairly generic fantasy. Classes are replaced by careers, combat has an exceedingly brutal critical hits chart, magic is relatively limited, and the setting is well developed, with an interesting mix of grimness and humour. It already has it's first module series, the enemy within, in full flow. For someone who dislikes how characters increase exponentially in power in a few levels in D&D, it seems a pretty good choice for your fantasy gaming. Another interesting development. While still partisan, and presenting the D&D system as the best all around game, they are acknowledging that other games do certain things better. This definitely helps me get a better idea of what things were currently like in the world of roleplaying as a whole. Good to see them looking outwards a little more again.

Sage advice: How big or small can you get using polymorph self ( DM's choice, but remember they can't exceed the hit dice limit)
How many times a day can hellhounds breathe fire (as often as the random roll lets them. It's like 4th ed, only nonstandardised.)
Can't completely dicing a troll stop it from regenerating (No. Even if it's put miles in the negative, it can still come back if you don't kill it with fire. Trolls are bastards to get rid of.)
Will remove curse make a magic item useful. (if it was cursed in the first place. If it was designed specifically to screw you over, it still will. Ha ha. )
How do you keep a sword with a different alignment? ( don't touch it with your skin or try and fight with it. I recommend selling it on as soon as possible. )
How far can you abuse geas and quest. (Moderately. Not as far as you think. )
Can you remove Quests and Geases with dispel or remove curse (no. You need the specific counterspell. They are specifically designed to be a right nuisance to deal with. )
How do you build a stronghold ( The costs and construction times are right there on page 23. Beyond that, you'll have to design the details yourself. Reading the evil overlord list before you do would be a good idea, even if you think you're a good guy. )
How much does it cost to build a wall (page 23, again. Pay attention, people.)
Why was the method of calculating will scores changed (because Frank Mentzer thought making the battle purely mental would be a better idea. Yes, this screws over fighters. Intelligent swords are a pain in the ass. Live with it. Or write to him to complain, not me. Oh, wait, he doesn't work here anymore. )
Is the sling range listing right (Yes. We claim Historical Accuracy. Do you doubt our claims? )
Why do galleys suck at riding out storms (because their sides hang low, and they waggle too and fro. You'll have to get a giant to put your ship over it's shoulder like a regimental soldier if you want to avoid sinking. )
Why are saving throws and thief abilities worse in Mentzer ed than Moldvay (Because Moldvay was a more of a twink. You remember Giants in the earth, don't you? Seriously though, it's so high level characters still have room to advance. 36th level is a long way, and we have to ration out your bonuses more carefully correspondingly.)

In '87, the internet was military only; college student access didn't start for another year or two. In '89, it was opened to general student use, but still was pretty damned slow.

Their BBS would have either been dial-in, or hosting WWIVnet, UUCPNet or FidoNet discussions. (FidoNet's naming system became Usenet's naming system.) None of the network subs were real time. (Think UseNet, only slower to propagate.)

A few other game companies also had BBSs at the time: SJG, TFG/ADB.

To give an idea of how poor the networking was, say I made a WWIVnet post on day X. I'd see replies from that board later that day. I'd see replies from other local boards either the next day (X+1) or the day after that (x+2). I'd see regional replies ususally on days X+2 to X+6, depending on hops and uplink sequencing. Replies from across the country could be days X+4 to X+10, again depending upon hops and uplink sequencing. Now, given that many posters only accessed weekly, add up to 14 days... you'd be getting responses up to a month later.

Dragon Issue 124: August 1987

part 2/3

Sailors on the sea of air: Airships! Another cool fantasy topic we haven't seen stuff on in Aaaaages. A cool idea, with plenty of fictional sources for you to draw on for inspiration, multiple methods by which they could be constructed, and plenty of ways in which they can be used to drive the plot. Ed agrees with me, and is quite willing to insert them into the forgotten realms. Indeed, he would later go on to create an entire nation of mages that make heavy use of skyships to travel around and trade with the rest of the world. But at the moment, it's the thayvians that have their hands on a mysterious bit of ancient magitech. He's a lot more specific than he used to be about realmslore, mentioning many familiar faces and places, and filling in a fairly substantial detail in the history of the Seven Sisters. (Mary sue metaplot off the starboard bow sir! Shall we open fire? ) He's also quite detailed about the construction and functioning of his sample ships, making sure that they aren't too powerful, but players would have a decent chance of creating and maintaining one, and could also salvage their components and turn the various effects on them to imaginative ends. So this is both a flavourful and very gamable contribution from the master, well suited to kick off this special with.

On a wing and a prayer: Of course, skyships are big, expensive, much coveted and frequently a bugger to maintain. You're unlikely to be able to justify giving a group possession of one (as opposed to riding on someone else's) until name level or so. But there are other methods. Such as Gliders. These can function even without any magical intervention, but a little levitation spell can hugely increase your flying range and maneuverability. They might be fragile and require quite a bit of training, but they're accessible to low level characters, and can be quite useful in some adventures, while giving the DM plenty of easy excuses that keep players from using them all the time. (Ahh, the joys of the weather) Definitely an idea worth considering, both for players and their adversaries (Goblins and Kobolds using makeshift gliders to drop stuff on attacking parties seems curiously appropriate, somehow. ) and the writer manages to strike a nice balance between the cool stuff and the realistic inconveniences. Once again, a highly enjoyable contribution.

Flying the Friendly(?) Skies: And unsurprisingly, we have our third common method of getting airborne. Flying mounts are another thing that requires substantial upkeep, and if they cause trouble to the game having them killed or stolen is entirely an option. But although this article assumes them as the default method of getting up there, this is really more concerned with the fun you have once you've made the grade, and are now soaring through the stratosphere. Wind, clouds, and other weather issues become very important considerations, as does maneuverability in combat. This obviously requires some tables, lists of penalties, and other such inconveniencing rules. While less interesting than the previous two, someone's got to do the dirty work, and at least it's kept pretty short and efficient, rather than bogging down in endless frequently recalculated modifiers. Roger's editorial hand ensures that the other articles are referenced, but not overlapped with, and the whole thing doesn't look like it'd be much more time consuming for a DM than designing a regular dungeon adventure. They seem to have made this topic work.

The wings of eagles: And we finish off our themed section with a new PC race. Aarakocra have been around for a few years now, and as flying creatures which don't have huge amounts of HD and special abilities, plus some special disadvantages, they're about as close to a balanced flying race as you're gonna get. With not particularly brilliant class abilities, they'll be quite effective at low level, then fall behind, as other characters get the ability to fly as well via spells, only without the claustrophobia and hollow bones. So it's a typical AD&D balance by campaign, rather than by encounter. If you want to make them work, you'll need to adapt the game around them to a certain extent. Much the same as they would later appear in the complete book of humanoids, this is another example of their current upsurge in new classes and races. As with UA and the forgotten realms, the magazine is probing the way, looking for good routes for future books to follow. Another interesting, if not completely satisfying article.

Kicks and sticks: Speaking of new classes, Oriental Adventures continues to get new goodies this month. The Escrimador, practitioner of a variant set of martial arts designed to function with primarily wooden weapons in a hot jungle environment analogous to the real world Philipines. Since OA focusses strongly on china and japan in the main books, this is a pretty cool add on, giving you a chance to introduce an interesting new NPC when they venture afield, and possibly then having one join the party. Cultural Homogeny does get tiresome. (Hegemony of homogeny? Now there's a tongue twister for you) Somewhere between a monk and a conventional fighter in terms of abilities, they get plenty of tricks to help them kick butt with, which they'll need, because their weapons and armour aren't the greatest. Not sure if they're balanced overall, they seem quite strong, but as we know, monks look good on paper but are actually problematic in both 1st and 3rd ed. Guess it's another one to test out, find out the fun way.

Front-end Alignments: Hee. Looks like we have an april fools article that got away, or was simply too good to be forced to wait until next year. People have often referred to games players as having various joke alignments. But this writer has taken it upon himself to codify most of the commonly recurring ones, and then submit this stuff to the magazine. And it got accepted too. How very droll. Lawful Bored, Lawful Liar, Lawful Serious, Lawful Goody-goody, Lawful Ignored, Lawful Idiot. Neutral Absent, Neutral Confused, Neutral Puppet, Neutral Self-centred, Neutral Montyhaul, Neutral Montyhaul, Neutral Dietosser, Neutral Wound-wailer. Chaotic Crybaby, Chaotic Stupid, Chaotic Diehard, Chaotic Hotshot, Chaotic Everywhere and Chaotic Suicidal. 19 personality stereotypes, mostly negative, arranged into a rough diagram of related types. (and how to deal with them.) This is amusing, useful, and has me seriously tempted to adapt it to use as a new outer-planar cosmology and/or pantheon. Muahaha and all that. Definitely a classic article, even if only a few of these alignments are really famous in modern day forum discussions. Still relevant though, as after all, it isn't tied to the old system.

Arcane Lore: Another mage gets their personal spellbook rifled through, and the unique spells that they spent years developing laid out for all to see. This month, it's the mage Odeen. Not quite an archmage, he still developed at least 5 new spells that your players can hunt down. Odeens magic cloud is a versatile little bag of tricks that can be used for offense, defense, utility or entertainment. Odeen's impenetrable lock is a more powerful magical warding for your doors and chests. Welcome to the arms race, because Knock just won't cut it against this baby. Odeen's magic tailor lets you customize your clothes quickly. Odeen's secret word is another advanced warding spell. Dispel this one rather than using the password, and it'll erase the stuff it was hiding. How evil. Odeen's sounding stick is yer basic dowsing rod spell, adapted for the special needs of adventurers. One of these'll massively increase your odds of clearing out the dungeon and getting all the treasure. So no blatant blasty spells, but lots of stuff that adventurers will find exceedingly handy nonetheless. While there is a bit of power creep here, making higher level variants of existing spells is a perfectly reasonable thing that would happen in a real world, so I don't have a problem with that this time.

Packing it all away: Encumbrance. If there's one feature that really says D&D is not intended to be a cinematic game, for all the superhuman tricks higher level characters can pull, it's this one. Once you start tracking it in terms of both raw weight, and the inconvenience certain items cause beyond that, due to awkward shape and size, you're well and truly into high crunch territory. And when you make all kinds of different backpacks, and start tracking exactly which item is in which compartment, that's where I start to zone out. Looks like it's a bit of mid-issue filler after all the cool articles to make up space and mollify the realism in gaming people. Not for me, thanks. I'll wait, keep my appetite for the next serving.

Quote from: aramis;343765In '87, the internet was military only; college student access didn't start for another year or two. In '89, it was opened to general student use, but still was pretty damned slow.

Their BBS would have either been dial-in, or hosting WWIVnet, UUCPNet or FidoNet discussions. (FidoNet's naming system became Usenet's naming system.) None of the network subs were real time. (Think UseNet, only slower to propagate.)

A few other game companies also had BBSs at the time: SJG, TFG/ADB.

To give an idea of how poor the networking was, say I made a WWIVnet post on day X. I'd see replies from that board later that day. I'd see replies from other local boards either the next day (X+1) or the day after that (x+2). I'd see regional replies ususally on days X+2 to X+6, depending on hops and uplink sequencing. Replies from across the country could be days X+4 to X+10, again depending upon hops and uplink sequencing. Now, given that many posters only accessed weekly, add up to 14 days... you'd be getting responses up to a month later.

So essentially, the only real advantage over letters was in terms of the number of people who got to read and respond to it eventually, rather than speed and cost. Also sounds like cacheing the pages and then turning the connection off to read would save quite a bit of money, since you were probably running on full per minute phone line charges.

Quote from: (un)reason;343865So essentially, the only real advantage over letters was in terms of the number of people who got to read and respond to it eventually, rather than speed and cost. Also sounds like cacheing the pages and then turning the connection off to read would save quite a bit of money, since you were probably running on full per minute phone line charges.

Depends. If the BBS was networked, it was simply slow to get to, but generally free, IF your local BBS could get the subs. But you the end user never dealt with their BBS, only the network sub.

If you dialed in directly, however, you paid long distance as normal.

If you worked for BP, ARCo, TexaCo, Shell, or similar large companies, you might be able to use a telnet on the local mainframe to connect to a dial-out local to the BBS, which you would then dial, and aside from lag, was like direct dial-in. BP set their connection to a specific time each day, world wide. Every BP office connected back on a schedule; if you telnetted to a remote site during local dial-up, it would keep the connection open as long as there had been traffic in the last minute. So you could establish a telnet link to a remote modem local to the target BBS,  and dial the BBS that way. You needed an account on the local mainframe, however.

Hacking such mainframe connections was commonplace. Most modems were bidirectional; that is, they could initiate or receive connections.

Also, remember speeds were REALLY slow. 14.4 kilobits per second was considered pretty darned fast! (1.8 kilobytes per second)

Dragon Issue 124: August 1987

part 3/3

The ecology of the gelatenous cube: Ed returns to his familiar stomping ground, to tell another cautionary tale where the focus is on the human drama as much as the monster. Do not mock other wizards in the halls of academia, for they bear grudges a long time, and are willing to go to quite ridiculous lengths for a dramatically appropriate revenge. A pretty short one, this does still give us two very cool illustrations, a formal name for the titular cube, and the usual bunch of mechanical clarifications. Another perfect example of his writing, if a bit formulaic.

The game wizards: More second edition talk this month, as they respond to the quite ridiculous number of letters that are still coming in, including 80 page dissertations and death threats. They're taking this quite seriously, and now have a rough timetable of 2 6 month design phases, with another 6 months of brutal playtesting by the RPGA (sign up now if you want to take part :teeth ting: ) in between. And we'll be keeping you informed every step of the way. Man, that's a lot of time for us to anticipate the new edition. But then, they do seem to be going about this in a very open and careful way, listening to feedback at each step. The days when they would become arrogant and try to give the people what we want to give them, rather than what they ask for are still quite some way away. As further evidence of this, they've just adapted to some new technology that'll enable them to give us higher production values on our modules, at lower prices. How's that for cool? And on top of that, working conditions have improved. They are pretty optimistic at the moment. I guess that's what new management and pulling out from near bankruptcy (which of course, they've never mentioned) does for you. Or is it all a front, and Lorraine ( roll of thunder, stab of organ music) has cut prices by turning things into a virtual sweatshop. As ever, backstage gossip is very much welcome.

Blasters & Blunderbusses: Guns. A fairly familiar topic in this magazine, spanning multiple systems. This particular one is a system free look at the legality of guns in various places and eras. From past to future, and mentioning tons of game systems, this is an interesting, if rather americacentric little article. Owning weapons is something generally restricted in most societies, because governments don't want the population to be able to fight back. But governments aren't that good at keeping up with the advance of technology, so it'll generally be a few years after something is introduced before they get around to trying to regulate it. With a decent biblography (another thing they seem to be including more frequently these days. ) this is another one that goes on the worldbuilding checklist, as weapon regulations are definitely something you should consider when creating your own game. Poor PC's. All they want to do is strut around in heavy armour and kill things. Why should that be a crime?

A shot in the arm: Our Star Frontiers article this month is an adaption of recent D&D ones. Hit location systems. Combined with critical hit systems (and the two do often go together like shoes and socks. ) possibly the single most tiresome recurring thing that people try to introduce, but rarely sticks. This is no exception, adding a load of extra modifiers, an extra roll to many attacks, and a load of nasty extra consequences for being hurt. How very tiresome for me. To their credit, they give info for crits on robots and the common alien races, but it's still of no interest to me, on multiple levels. Please don't waste space doing this for Marvel, Top Secret, Traveller, and the other regulars as well in the next few months.

The most secret: Welcome to Top Secret, dual stat style. Or at least, if there was any crunch in this article, it would be. Guess we'll have to wait a few months before the freelancers catch up with the new system. Anyway, this is all about real life top secret research projects. Just the thing to outfit your agents with, or have them try to steal from or sabotage the work of other countries. As this is 20 years ago, much of this is superseded by modern tech, particularly the computer stuff, where we have better in our laptops than an entire building sized machine could do then. But of course, the general principles remain sound. And once again, we have some rather good artwork depicting this stuff. That's definitely one area the magazine is still improving in. This can be applied to both the freewheeling james bond and the meticulous info gathering kind of game, and is a good reminder that is is both dramatically appropriate and realistic for secret agents to have bleeding edge technology to help them out. (unless they're currently going through a period of budget cuts and governmental incompetance ) A pretty decent article.

OGRE celebrates 10 years with a deluxe new edition. Shiny.

The marvel-phile: Here's one of their big guns, for the first time in a while. The incredible hulk, in his new gray form, and the misadventures he's been through recently to change his stats. Plus a load of his normal human associates. Oh, and Rick Jones, teen hulk (snigger) Welcome to the nightmare that is comic book continuity. Just when you think you're free to live a normal life, marry the girl, ( or get to rule the world if you're a villainous type) everything gets reset, or even worse, and a new plot sweeps you away, forcing you to completely relearn the rules of the game. Or maybe it's all skrulls. Still, at least they have some neat new vehicles and hulkbuster body armour for your characters to steal, so this is a more PC useful entry than most of Jeff's. Overall, another entry that makes entertaining reading, but isn't particularly world shaking.

The role of computers: Black Magic is an arcade adventure game where you use the various spells you acquire to solve puzzles, avoid enemies and progress to the next screen. While initially skeptical, the reviewers are won over by the mix of action and thought required to do well, and became determined to beat the damn thing. Sounds like a recommendation to me.
Realms of Darkness is our main review, some more standard menu controlled RPG fare. Build a party from the usual fare of 8 classes fighty and arcane, equip them, and then embark upon an epic quest to retrieve the macguffin. Unusually, you can split the party. Not so unusually, you must make sure you save as often as possible.  While the graphics aren't that great, it's puzzles are very tricky, and it's an epic journey that they still have a long way to go on. Another massive time sink in an era that seems full of them.
They also implement another much desired feature. Hints and solutions. Woo. Once again the magazine moves closer to being the way I remember it. Someone stuck on The bard's tale gets advice on how to get out of a horrible looping room quandary. Looks like they're on the up and expanding their scope some more. Along with the return of roleplaying reviews, this looks like another good trend.

The art of dragonlance? They really are pushing the peripheral aspects of this setting, aren't they. I suppose with so many people buying the books to read, rather than simply as gaming material, they think there's a market for it.

Dragonmirth has things going wrong again. And terrible in(n)-jokes. The Snarfquest crew fills up the 8 month space journey by becoming a rock and roll band. Wormy loses some money, but the people who stole it aren't going to get the chance to enjoy it. :evil laugh:

The Sherlock Holmes solo mysteries? Another interesting advert by I.C.E on the back cover. Ahh, the joys of using public domain properties for your own ends.

A strong issue with quite a few positive changes, plus a well above average themed section. Roger really seems to be coming into his own at the moment, taking the magazine away from Kim's era, both introducing new things, bringing back old ones, and developing a distinct editorial voice of his own, which is definitely more playful and interventionist than Kim's. Just how much more will he shake things up before it settles into a new comfortable pattern? And just how much will he be shaken up in turn by the continuing growing pains of the upcoming edition change? More interesting questions that should be answered in a few months time.

Dragon Issue 125: September 1987

part 1/3

108 pages You dismiss Dark Dungeons? Fool! Do you not realize the power of Jack Chick! You wallow in sin every day, to the point where you no longer even notice how you desecrate the minds of innocents with your every word!!! Your soul is destined for the pit, and I only pray that you will not drag too many people in as you go!!!! Um, yeah. Roger delivers an entertaining editorial, that in hindsight dismisses a potential problem too quickly. He may come to regret that. In the meantime, this issue's special feature is Chivalry. For those of you who'd prefer characters with a little more class than the flaming oil throwing, backstabbing, sleep (both the spell, and the frequent rests) happy reprobates that manage to delve dungeons and survive. Another topic that they've tackled before a few times, but never done a full-on special on. (and hopefully will leave alone for a few years after this) Lets see if they can take this to the next level like they should.

In this issue:

Letters: A letter in praise of Wormy. By amazing co-incidence, it's also his hundredth strip this issue. Pop the champagne, and prepare a special feature to celebrate our longest running comic.
A letter complaining that religion should not be proscribed in D&D. Yes, but putting real world ones in fantasy worlds without any explanation or adaption does look a bit dumb. This is a topic that's gonna provoke flames whatever you do.
A letter asking for a copy of the Fineous Treasury. Unfortunately, it's been 6 years, JD is no longer in touch with them, and it's all out of print. You'll have to search second hand places untill ebay comes out.

Forum: SD Anderson presents another simple way of making mass saving throws. Just use the averages. The simple solutions are often the most effective, especially if you just want to get on with the story.
Andy Wright plays the role of sage, to gives us some more conflicting stories about the mating habits of harpies. It's all very amusing, and a quite different use of the forum to the usual.
Edward R Friedlander calls bullshit on the creation of blisters via purely psychosomatic means. As an assistant professor of pathology, he can say with reasonable confidence that this is an urban myth. While illusions may be able to accomplish more in a fantasy game, you shouldn't confuse fantasy with the real facts.
Richard Pike-Brown is in favour of manipulation of money, and creating various currencies for your games. And screwing over players in the exchange rate doesn't hurt either. Muahahaha.
Loring A Windblad points out that most real world "barbarians" are small, tough, and canny, rather than giant thewed, oiled weightlifters. That is not optimal for hunting game and living off the land, because those overinflated muscles require a lot of extra food and sleep to maintain. A very valid point, but most players would rather stick with the Arnie as Conan stereotype.
Tom James thinks that D&D and AD&D are closer than a lot of people say. Both are flexible, and both can get pretty complex when you include a load of the optional add-ons. Compared to most other games, you are probably right.
Chuck Ambum is rather conflicted about the new Top Secret edition. In some ways, he preferred it when you had to meticulously plan out a mission, and there was tons of crunch and a small margin of error. And introducing alignment to a modern day game is just dumb. There may be some improvements, but it's still problematic.
Dennis McLaughlin is also uncomfortable about certain trends in Top Secret, namely the new addition of heavier weaponry and lunar stuff. I thought this was an espionage game, not a military one. Looks like their pursuit of bigger, louder, faster, shinier is indeed starting to alienate a chunk of the existing fanbase. Question is, will it also draw in new people to replace them, or will this send the game into decline? Since it was pretty much gone by the time I started, I have to say I'm not optimistic.

The ecology of the greenhag: Nigel Findley gives us an ingenious little horror story. He does seem to specialize in those, doesn't he. Do not tell them in a wilderness where said creature is likely to be lurking, for dramatic irony is very much against you, and you'll be lucky if two of the group (one boy, one girl, of course) get out alive. Once again he also takes the opportunity to tie in several related monsters, making this one of the more genuinely ecological ecologies. He does make what some would consider a misstep by separating their lifecycle so significantly from humans, removing opportunities for foster child horror. But on it's own terms it's a success, both storywise and mechanically. Keep sending 'em in, and they'll keep publishing them.

Beyond the supernatural available this fall. Modern horror gaming takes another step towards the environment that would produce the world of darkness. Isn't that neat.

Woodlands of the realms: Ed Greenwood proves once again that he can make incredible attention to detail in seemingly unimportant matters interesting, with a whole bunch of new types of tree for his campaign setting. Many of them are tied into specific cultures, and used to make specific things referenced in earlier issues.  Most of them could really exist, yet they have distinctive features that make them useful in game in a way that you couldn't do simply using stuff from reality. One of those reminders that even though it may be becoming an official world, he already has entire filing cabinets full of this stuff, much of it we'll probably never see, and he makes up new details like this purely for his own entertainment. Which is what makes it such a joy to read. It does still feel a bit odd putting other general articles before the themed section of the issue starts though. I wonder why Roger decided to make that little change? I guess he's entitled to mix things up a bit, keep us wondering.

The code of chivalry: Knightly orders. In BD&D, they already have rules for doing the whole feudal allegiance thing, complete with fairly decent mechanical benefits. Meanwhile in OA, they have rules for personal honor affected by your deeds, and the benefits and restrictions it results in. So lets play catch-up, bring these elements together for regular AD&D, and give a specific example of a knightly order. This pretty much becomes a direct ancestor of the affiliation rules from 3.5, which is very interesting to note. This is something that can both be used immediately, and taken as an example to build your own variants for other groups and classes. An idea I definitely intend to take up. So both a strong start to a themed section, and a historically significant article in terms of inspiring future design developments. Very pleasing to see.

Meanwhile, back at the fief: No surprises that in an issue about knights, we're going to see some more stuff on domain management. A topic that's always welcome in my house, as long as it doesn't start trying to get to realistic, or overdetailed, doing the metaphorical equivalent of showing you tons of holiday snaps, and expecting you to remember all the stories associated with them. I think 5 pages is a reasonable number, don't you. So we have some fairly quick rules on fief morale, resources, the money you can get from them, and natural disasters that may come along to ruin your year. Once again done in a similar format to the year stuff in oriental adventures, this should allow you to fast-forward through a decade or two in a session. Competent and useful, but not hugely interesting. It is hard to make economics fun, and this writer is no Ed Greenwood.

Dragon Issue 125: September 1987

part 2/3

Prince Valiant! Coming soon! Greg Stafford attempts to take the themes he covered so well in pendragon, and then strip them down to a much more mechanically simple form. Very fitting to see an ad for that in this issue.

Armies from the ground up: Hello again, Mr economics. Back again to remind us just how much hard work maintaining an army is in reality, with food, money, transport, avoiding unrest in the ranks, and all that kraftwerk? (well, lets face it, the way you can predict this stuff is pretty much the opposite of jazz ) What would we do without you? This writer is very keen to encourage players to cut taxes, and generally be nice to their peasants. pointing out that the long term benefits from doing so are greater than those the fist of harsh government and high taxation will provide, especially in a world where if people don't like your policy, they can pack up and move. (such a shame this isn't sim city, and you can't whack taxes up just before they're collected each year, then cut them to nothing the rest of the time and enjoy the benefits of both worlds. ) It does not spell out the benefits for creating an army of zombies, and using them to do all the mindless labour, freeing the peasants up to develop a much more substantial intellectual class, but that's not too surprising. This is pretty dull in general, actually. My mind, it is not expanded, although my play might be expedited if I follow the rules. Guess I'll just have to try them and find out.

Lords & Legends: Katharine Kerr contributes for the first time in a couple of years. Well, realistic medieval stuff is her speciality. They were probably begging her to return just one more time for this issue. She picks an interesting selection of partially real, partially legendary historical figures: Count William of Orange, his nephew Bertrand, and his brother-in-law Count Rainouart of Tortelose. I am immediately reminded that one of the controversies that led to her departure was a tendency towards moralizing in her writing, and once again, she makes some changes for reasons of political correctness. (Hopefully that'll mean the forum isn't swamped with angry muslim complaints for the next year. ) Not a hugely enjoyable article, but still interesting nonetheless. Funny to think that this PC stuff is still going to get worse, as we reach the next edition, see the cutting out of demons and devils, and all that /shit/ bowdlerisation. That's definitely going to be fun to snark about.

Glory, danger and wounds: A slightly misleading title, this is actually all about honor, and the tendency of knights to do ridiculously foolhardy things in it's pursuit. A true knight should be last to retreat, even if it costs them their lives, eschew worldly rewards for the simple joy of doing good, tolerate all kinds of crap from their liege, but fight to the death to avenge an insult from any other, and all sorts of other extreme statements. You certainly don't have to subscribe to all of them, even if you're a paladin, but choosing some of them for your character definitely gives you plot hooks to drive adventures with. So this is more well themed roleplaying advice to remind you of the many ways you can make your character's personality 3 dimensional. An example of them finding a new spin to put on a familiar topic. After all, they've got to have roleplaying advice, or this'd just be an optimization exercise followed by a hackfest. A perfectly decent way to finish off the themed section.

The best for the best: Top secret's slush pile of articles still aren't fully caught up with the new edition, in this little piece about your agents joining /prestige classes/ Elite agencies. It does have to be said that there's a certain attraction to joining clubs so secretive no-one's heard of them. You get to mix with the most skilled agents, enjoy the coolest bleeding edge tech, and get missions personally from people right at the top of the governmental food chain. But there are drawbacks as well. You're basically on your own, only get to join after having already proved your worth in a regular agency, and may even have to fake your own death and abandon all pretenses of a normal life. But then, many PC's don't bother with that between mission stuff anyway. This was really written to address two problems suffered in the author's own games, that of the PC's not feeling special enough, and at the same time, not feeling challenged enough by the enemies they were facing. Something you could probably fix without an agency change, but sometimes it's the placebo effects of a cosmetic alteration that are important. It still has plenty of advice on how to make an exiting high stakes game full of plot twists, recurring enemies, ( and inadvertent inter-player tensions, as it encourages you to recruit the characters to the new agency one by one, not letting the others know. ) So an interesting, but flawed article, with worthy goals, but not a very insightful method of implementing them.

Year of the Phoenix. The roleplaying game of amerika in 2197. Okay then. If you say so.

Clay-O-Rama: Silliness throughout the year continues this month, with an entertaining little mini's game as this issues centrepiece. Each player takes a lump of clay, and builds a creature out of it. Assign powers based on it's size, shape, no of appendages, etc. And then they fight, as is only right and proper. There is a huge amount of GM fiat inherent in these rules, and really, it's little more than an excuse to build silly creatures, tear them up, and throw pellets of clay at each other. Not that there's anything wrong with that. but introducing someone who tries to take the game seriously would spoil the fun for all concerned very quickly, unless they simply stopped playing, and ganged up to pelt the offending pedant with clay pellets from all directions. Which means it's probably not an option for me to try out. Still, even if it doesn't match up to the classic Tom Wham creations of yore, it's good to see the magazine start doing stuff like this again as well. Since issue 112, they haven't really been trying on this front at all. Hopefully next time it'll be a little more internally cohesive.

Fiction: The passing of kings by Lois Tilton: This month's fiction is also in theme, just about. It certainly fits well with the cover, anyway. They say that Arthur rests in Avalon, waiting to fight the enemies of britain, become true king again. But really, given the number of waves of invaders, and the amount things have changed since then, what are the odds that he wouldn't really want to come back anyway. Another one that raises a bunch of interesting philosophical questions about choosing your place in the world, the problems with immortality, the futility of holding grudges down generations, compromises, selling out, and all that stuff that is slightly more common in sci-fi. Not perfect, but a decent story, well chosen for the issue.

Bazaar of the Bizarre: Masses of magic maps this month, 19 to be precise. For the first time since Gary's departure, we're also heading back to Greyhawk. Whether he will approve of other people making unsupervised additions to his world is rather doubtful, but at least the writer is trying to tie them into the established setting. Some of them are useful, some of them seem useful, but are actually directing you into trouble, and some are composites of several of the other types, and thus exceedingly valuable. So a mix of cool ideas, and filler, as they try and stretch out the ideas they have to make a full-sized article. Which isn't entirely satisfying, but a lot better than articles that are nothing but filler. Still, there's enough quirkiness in here that I'd probably enjoy introducing them to my game.

Dragon Issue 125: September 1987

part 3/3

Plane speaking: Jeff Grubb fills us in on the positive quasielementals, with the negative ones to come soon. Radiance, steam, and mineral, (lightning has already been covered independently in MMII, apropos of nothing.) each with their own interesting little quirks. Radiance quasi-elementals shoot bolts of randomly coloured light, each with an equally corresponding energy type. Steam quasi elementals can go hot or cold at great speed, and get nearly anywhere, with flight, swimming, and the ability to flow through the tiniest cracks. Radiance quasi-elementals assume odd forms, and merge with one-another to become increasingly badass in times of peril. All of them have very high damage outputs for their overall power level. Any wizard who can figure out how to summon and control them can lay waste to their enemies. Soon, this bit of symmetry will be complete. Short, but useful and flavourful.

The game wizards: Mike Breault takes charge of this column to talk about Dragonlance. The epic quest over 14 modules is over, and now it's time to give the gameline an actual corebook, containing all the setting info and new rules needed to play in Krynn. Like the forgotten realms, this is rather a backwards way of doing things to the usual, but it seems to be working for them. Before you know it, people'll be wondering how they ever managed without a corebook. So yeah, chivalry, gods, geography, history, lots of new races and variant classes. And wackiness. Mustn't forget the wackiness. :sigh: No escaping it as long as you're playing in this world. Interesting to note that they're using this to test the concept of gods granting different powers via spheres of influence, and redefine what each alignment actually means. 2nd edition might be well over a year away, but they already have many of the design elements floating around the office. Another entry that's not completely pleasing, but is quite informative, giving me another piece of the big picture when it comes to their current status and design philosophies. They do seem to be doing their best to keep these interesting, and get us on their supplement treadmill. Better it being here than not.

The daily planet gaming supplement reveals how superman has changed after crisis on infinite earths. Buy the DC heroes Superman supplement for more information. Very fitting that they design this particular advert as a newspaper cover.

A second look at zebulons guide: Errata, Errata. Once again you shatter my faith in your editahs. As you may gather, this is lots of corrections and clarifications for our eponymous Star Frontiers supplement. One of those things you'd rather they didn't have to do at all, but having made the mistakes, it's better that they admit to them and fix them than just leave them unacknowledged, only to be discovered when they mess up people's games. Bleh blah bleh.

Ultimate crisis in ultimate city-state of the invincible overlord. With a recommendation from Gary Gygax. Good to see judges guild's properties are still around.

Role-playing reviews: The grey knight is a Pendragon adventure, by our stalwart, if not regular contributor Larry DiTillio. It gets top marks, making good use of arthurian myth, and the strong cast of characters and beasties to create a strong adventure, with an interesting format (shades of nobilis in that respect) Apart from the lack of stats, forcing you to flip back to the main book, it gets top marks.
Treasure hunt is a 0 level D&D adventure. Intended to introduce new characters, and have them gradually develop class abilities based on their actions during the adventure, it takes a fairly fast and loose approach with the rules, and has good visual production values, which should also help lure in the n00bs, both players and DM's.
Phantom of the northern marches is a MERP adventure. While not brilliant, it is, in this reviewers opinion, an improvement on previous ones. Even if the production values aren't perfect, at least they're trying to make adventures that fit with middle earth. Always a problem for licensed stuff.

The role of books: The misplaced Legion and An emperor for the legion by Harry Turtledove are set in the empire of Videssos, the same world that his story in issue 113 was in. It manages to create aworld both like and unlike reality, buck several fantasy conventions, and generally be a good deal of fun to read. Another series I find myself tempted to pick up.
The phoenix bells by Kathryn Grant gets a moderately negative review, with it's design, marketing, historical accuracy, and coherence of plotting getting picked apart. Whether some of this was intentional is not certain, but it does leave a lot of questions hanging.
Worldstone by Victoria Strauss also gets a negative review, with it's psionics vs technology theme not quite working, and the central macguffin and it's powers being inconsistently defined. Curious.
Seventh son by Orson Scott Card is a tale of an alternate history in which the american war of independence turned out very differently. Worryingly, it uses it's magic and story to tell an allegorical tale of his view of Americas development. Beware the bias. Still, the reviewer can't predict the future, so he can appreciate it for the well crafted story contained therein.
Once upon a murder by Robert Randial and Kevin Randle is of course one of TSR's own windwalker books. It gets a mildly positive review, with an interesting twist on the prince and the pauper theme, and some cool plot twists and wisecracks. Seems entertaining popcorn reading.
Knight life by Peter David is the rather comic tale of King Arthur and co turning up in new york, and then launching a political career. The other characters react logically in response to this, which really doesn't work faced with a mythical king. Cleverly written and with good plot twists, it makes good use of old material for new ends.
Circuit breaker by Melinda M Snodgrass is an interesting mix of sci-fi and legal drama, as a lawsuit is launched to stop people from terraforming mars just as it's about to go ahead. With intrigue, plot twists, surprisingly explicit sex scenes, and other fun, it's a good guilty pleasure for a reviewer in a family friendly magazine.

The marvel-phile: Jeff continues to update the Hulk's rogues gallery, with stats for the new Abomination, Zzzax, and Doc Samson. One came off from the gamma exposure even worse than the hulk, another considerably better, and the last one simply wouldn't exist without radiation weirdness. All of them are subject to power and status changes at the whims of the plot, not having the same degree of reset button as the main character. Very much business as usual in this department, so I can't think of anything else to say here.

The Snarfquest crew run up against robot predjudice. Dragonmirth splits the arrow and shifts the biological clock. Wormy is almost ready to start wargaming.

With quite a few big returning names, this issue tries hard, but doesn't quite make the grade, mainly due to a lack of focus. The themed section is pretty weak overall, with many of it's articles only peripherally connected to it, and there's a well above average amount of filler in general. Guess Roger's run continues to be an unpredictable ride, full of sudden ups and downs. Will next issue have the traditional horror theme? Will he have the material to make it horrific in the good way, rather than the bad way? At the moment, I really can't tell. Still, I guess that makes it more interesting for you guys than everything getting good or bad marks. Will I like YOUR favorite issue? :points finger: Keep reading to find out. We'll get there, sooner or later.