General RPG DiscussionDiscussion of all RPGs and non-system-specific topics. DM/GM/player issues, settings, etc. Rules discussion belongs in one the forums below.
Saturday morning monsters: Bugs bunny and daffy duck, Popeye, Rocky and bullwinkle, and dudley do-right. Just about statistically legitimate, you still don't want to use these guys in your game unless you want your players to hate you forever. Because they're bigger pains in the ass to defeat than the denebian slime devil.
I think I saw this issue back in the day - a friend of a friend had it or something. . . I remember a later issue more clearly that had stats for Donald Duck (either it is after UA came out and they gave him levels of barbarian, or he just some kind of rage attack), and I remember wanting to take some of the cartoon character stat disguise their look and introduce them - but then again, I used to run must wackier games in my teens.
I think I saw this issue back in the day - a friend of a friend had it or something. . . I remember a later issue more clearly that had stats for Donald Duck (either it is after UA came out and they gave him levels of barbarian, or he just some kind of rage attack), and I remember wanting to take some of the cartoon character stat disguise their look and introduce them - but then again, I used to run must wackier games in my teens.
That's just next year, actually. And he's a berserker (1st ed barbarians didn't rage anyway. ) a la BD&D. Blame Tom Moldvay.
Up on a soapbox: Two rants under this ageis this issue.
When choosing a DM, be choosy considers the problem of finding a fun game to play in. How do you spot a good GM before you start playing, and so avoid wasting time with a crap or creepy group. This article gives you lots of good hints that are still relevant today, and can also be pretty easily turned round for when a GM is assessing prospective players. Not even vague wishy washy ones either, but some tight quantifiable guidelines. So I like it quite a lot, and have added it to my list of thing I intend to use next time it comes up.
What is gaming's role in life continues the morality in fantasy debate. And is dull. After the cool of the last one, this is rather a letdown. I shall say no more.
Minarian Legends: The Mercenary ships of minaria. Pirates, privateers, and navies, plus the obligatory named character in charge of them, the Bilge Rat. Good guy, bad guy, not really either guy? You ought to know the formula of these entries by now.
The floating island mission: This month's module is a second Top Secret one. Can you thwart the evil plans of the mysterious Dr Yes? You'd better be considerably above starting ability to do so. (see, vagueness like this this is why D&D is so much more friendly for casual GM's. The level system makes it easy to create pregenerated adventures for characters of different power levels, with an easy gauge. Which means you can continue to use modules beyond the starting level) The underwater fun continues, as you'll have to do some diving to infiltrate the island. And then you get to face Bruce Nee, Chuck Morris, and "Sweetbeam" Leotard, the good doctors amusingly named henchmen. And I think that's enough spoilers for now. A pretty decent adventure overall.
Carrying a heavy load? Mules. The benefits and drawbacks to bringing an extra loadbearer such as this into the dungeon with you. Encumbrance is a bitch, and there's always something extra you wish you'd brought. But the more you have, the more it costs, the more you're slowed down, and the more you have to lose if things go wrong. Really, It'd be better to get yourself a bag of holding as soon as possible. Then you can laugh and stroll past all the low level adventurers struggling with their mules. Also introduces Black Bart to us, who I vaguely remember, so I think we'll see him again in the future.
Giants in the earth: This month's statistical impossibilities by the D&D rules as written are Ursula le guins Sparrowhawk, and Andrew Offut's Tiana Highrider.
Sage advice: Can A dual classed character switch back and advance in a previous class if they have high enough stats? (no)
Can clerics and paladins heal themselves (yes)
Do spellcasters get XP for casting spells. (only if they actually accomplish something with that casting)
Can a neutral good bard backstab (if it's in a good cause, just like any thief.)
Does power word kill destroy the bodies of the creatures it kills? (Entirely up to you. But yeah, it does kill in a way that prevents ressurection. Ahahahahaha)
Can magic resistance negate magic weapon's plusses? (no)
Instant adventures: Random plothooks, random plothooks. We can always do with more random plothooks. Spin the wheel, roll the dice, and lets see what fate'll throw at the players tonight.
Leomund's tiny hut: Once again, Len pushes at redesigning the system, this time looking at balance in encounter design and treasure awards. Which again turns into 7 pages of complicated math that have some good ideas that would be refined and used again in later editions, but are currently way too clunky. I really ought to give him more credit for doing this stuff, so the rest of us don't have too anymore.
Figuratively speaking reviews 21 mini's in 2 pages, which means there isn't much detail on each one. Once again, the picture shading is too bad for me to make my own judgments. Which is a shame.
GenCon South: A review of the con's new franchise. (with gencon east to follow in july) Not as big as the main one, this still had a quite extensive and exciting tournament schedule, headed up by the Champions of DM's, Frank Mentzer, and administered by the TRS-80 computer program they've been talking about in recent issues. Seems pretty positive, and they intend to do it again next year. Soon there'll be gencon's everywhere.
New orders for Russian Campaign: The wargame gets the Historically Accurate treatment in this article, with the author claiming the revised figures he's giving are the real ones from the official documents. Maybe, but will this make the game more fun to play, or unbalance it further in favour of the RL winners? I couldn't say, having never seen the game. As ever, clarification on matters like this would be welcomed.
Adding airpower options: More Russian Campaign stuff, this optional rule increases the randomness of the amount of airpower each side has. Again, I can't comment on if that would improve the game or not.
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Reviews: Asteroid is a quick game of saving the earth from an approaching, well, you know. (I don't wanna close my eyes, I don't wanna fall asleep) Individual games may be short, but the amount of customisability in both character and adversary design should keep replays interesting for a while.
Titan is a fantasy wargame, that may be cheaply produced, but contains a sophistication in rules design that is better than many games produced on a far bigger budget.
Space fighters is a game of star warsesque dogfights, albeit with the serial numbers filed off. Like the film, the games action style is strongly reminicent of WWII dogfight games. It also seems to please the reviewer. Frankly, I would prefer my reviews more critical. It's more fun to read, and gives me more to comment on.
Pinsom, wormy, jasmine and fineous are all here. Quite the turnout. I guess they needed all the artists for the crossover issue.
Who's bright idea was it to put the ad on the back page upside down? They've been doing that quite frequently, but I never got round to mentioning it. Were they that way on the original mags, or is this scanning wierdness?
The upward slope in overall quality continues again. Kim's stronger hand on the editing process seems to be resulting in a better overall quality of articles. How long is it before he takes over again?
This is the first Dragon magazine I ever bought.........Good times.
__________________ [A]ny good dungeon will have undiscovered treasures in areas that have been explored by the players, simply because it is impossible to expect that they will find every one of them.
RCFG - My free mostly-OGC OGL game! RCFG is intended to be a fusion between OS & NS playstyles, giving the advantages of SRD-based gaming coupled with quick character and adventure generation and an Old School feel.
Dragon Issue 48: April 1981Who's bright idea was it to put the ad on the back page upside down? They've been doing that quite frequently, but I never got round to mentioning it. Were they that way on the original mags, or is this scanning wierdness?
I assume that its a Martian Metals mini's ad. If so, the company had them printed that way. And if the effete Earthers can't deal with it, too bad!
__________________ Scrag 'em all and let the gods sort 'em out!
96 pages. Speak of the devil. (I wasn't looking ahead when I wrote last issue's postscript, honest) This issue is the one where Gary steps down as publisher of the magazine. Jake Jaquet moves up to fill his place, while Kim Mohan becomes editor in chief. Which mean's Gary's taking his hands off the reins of the company and going off to LA to negotiate with ghastly executives, and the D&D cartoon will be along soon, if my memory serves me correctly. Oh god. I look forward to seeing how that's treated in the magazine. (particularly in light of the roasting they gave bakshi's LotR) Should be amusing.
In this issue:
Dragon Rumbles: Oohh. Looks like their circulation is now exceeding 150,000. Quite a growth from their humble beginnings. But they still aren't immune to delays. Nor are they ignoring the competition. It's a big responsibility, running a magazine of this size. Lets hope Kim and co are up to it.
Out on a limb: A letter with some quite substantial (and quite well substantiated) complaints directed at Len Lakofa's Archer article from issue 45. They counter with the same old canard, that it's all optional, D&D is not realistic, and D&D halflings are not LotR hobbits. Doesn't come off very well this time Kim.
A letter from someone writing a book on miniatures painting, asking for ideas and opinions to help him develop it further. I wonder if anything'll come of this.
A letter praising the magazine's recent increases in quality, and also in accesability to newcomers. The hobby needs new blood to expand, which means it needs to be easy for new people to pick up gaming. Which means keeping the number of articles using impenetrable gamespeak and discussing tedious rules minutinae down.
A letter complaining at the size of many recent articles, wondering why they don't break them up into smaller parts over several issues. They'd get more complaints if they did it that way, trust me. Plus lots of other commentary.
A letter praising them for publishing top secret modules, and asking people to send in more articles for it, as he likes the game, and knows it's quite popular in his area. As they've said before, they can't publish what they don't get.
In the interest of fairness: An article about arbitrary and bad GM decisions in tournament play, and how more needs to be done to prevent it. Cue lots of stuff about establishing standards, and objective scoring systems for acts that are easily adjudicated, as well as establishing what behaviour should lead to instant disqualification and ejection from the tournament. Not that even the strictest rules'll prevent a bad GM from making it a crap experience. But you've gotta be seen to be doing something. Once again, the serious problems with the tournament playstyle are thrown into sharp relief, as the comprises needed to make it work strike directly at the unique strengths of tabletop roleplaying as an entertainment form, openended storytelling and story creation where everyone wins as long as they have fun. This sucks.
The slave pits revisited: More thoughts on the A series, and tournament modules in general. The author reccomends that in future years they design the modules for smaller groups of players, as that reduces the difficulties in social dynamics, allowing groups of people who already know each other to join as a team and avoid the odds that your team will have some random asshat put in it who ruins things for everyone else. It then goes into a load of mathematics and logicistical discussion, proving that this would work better than the current system. Which is also tedious.
It isn't that easy: Frank Mentzer rebutts the previous article. Training up DM's to the standard needed to apply all your would be rules is not an easy task. Plus, it's hard to predict how many you'll need, particularly with the speed the hobby is expanding at. If you want to help with this, apply to become a GM at the next con you go too. We can always use the help. Ahh, reality, always getting in the way of our best laid plans.
God, that's a lot of cons coming up this year. Bigger and more frequent, the upswing in their popularity continues. Competitions, seminars, tournaments, famous people talking, exclusive stuff, they've got it all.
The samurai: Yes folks, its a second attempt at this class, (honestly. Three witch classes, two alchemist and samurai ones. Can't people come up with something more original) This bears little relation to the OA samurai, being an unarmoured fighter as comfortable with unarmed fighting as with katana, and getting stealth, supernatural illusion powers and psionic ability. Like druids, they have an overarching organization with a limited number of top level characters, so you'll need to fight your former master to get there. Really, they're more monk/ninja variants than fighter ones. But if you can get over that naming disconnect, in terms of rules they are fairly solid, and not too overpowered. (at least, compared to cavaliers, rangers, druids, and the other upper tier classes; they'll still make fighters look like the one trick ponies they are) I wouldn't say no to a player using them if I was running an old skool game.
The rasmussen files: Lots of nasty little new rules this month, mostly revolving around gun fire and its unfortunate concequences. One of those ones that includes lots of random tables to determine just what unpleasant side effects result from your hit location. Which isn't very cinematic, but can be amusingly gruesome, as rolemaster afficionados know. Still, 'tis the kind of thing I would rather not incorporate into my games.
Getting a world into shape: Now this is a fun one. Karl Horak talks about choosing a shape for your world as a whole, be it spherical like earth, an endless flat map, or some kind of more interesting shape, (such as any of the polyhedrons that we use for dice ) and then goes into detail on how to create maps that accommodate these odd geometries. Includes a neat little cut-out that can be used to make your world. Cool stuff. And yet all the canon D&D worlds apart from Ravenloft fell into the bog-standard spherical planet model (although Mystara had it's hollow interior, which added a neat spin to things) What happened? :shakes head: Bloody design by committee. We want weirdness. We want weirdness.
Giants in the Earth: This month's characters without a single below average stat between them are Poul Anderson's Holger Carlsen (now there's a character you'd think could be converted to D&D without any rules breaking, but no. :sighs heavily: ) and Hugi, and T.J. Morgan's Ellide.
Historical names make for better games: Glenn Rahman takes time out from his Divine Right writings to offer a big load of historical names from various cultures, to aid you in naming your characters. Just pick an appropriate culture and roll d20, if you're short of ideas. Much mehness.
Monster Mixing: Adapting D&D monsters to chivalry & sorcery. 23 classic monsters get conversion, including the full range of idiosyncratic fungi, slimes and oozes that were popular back then. Plus two new monsters, the mind thorns, and lemex, get stats for both systems. Pretty decent, as it also goes into some interesting discussion on fitting the monsters together into an ecology, including food chains (umber hulks like to eat ankhegs) Once again we see how other systems were ahead of D&D in quite a few ways. But it'll catch up with a vengance eventually, with the ecology of articles. Come on, any issue now.
The samurai: Yes folks, its a second attempt at this class, (honestly. Three witch classes, two alchemist and samurai ones. Can't people come up with something more original)
You might as well give up that criticism now, because I can tell you you will see more versions of all of those as time goes on.
Remember, these version are years apart and people are creating them based on a(n ostensibly) greater understanding of the rules, and are accessible to a greater number of readers.
I think I remember issue #114 had a version of the witch (and a nudie cover) that I used for a long time.
And yet all the canon D&D worlds apart from Ravenloft fell into the bog-standard spherical planet model (although Mystara had it's hollow interior, which added a neat spin to things) What happened? :shakes head: Bloody design by committee. We want weirdness. We want weirdness.
It's easier to run that way. Less questions from player about how the physics of the world works to a DM who hadn't bothered figuring that out, plus it just makes it easier to incorporate things. I was running a flat world for a while to make mapping easier (you know, no distortions by trying to present spherical surface in 2d), but I went back to a sphere because it was easier to figure out stuff like climate bands or work in stuff like crashed spaceships or other things what would be much more difficult to stick in a non-standard world.
__________________ "Y'know, I think my favorite thing about being a hero of destiny is that it gives you all kinds of narrative justification to just slay any ol' jerk who gets in your way." -- 8-bit Theater
"i did not serve with napolean in his artillery. but i did play wargames with him and his men." -- diaglo
You might as well give up that criticism now, because I can tell you you will see more versions of all of those as time goes on.
Oh quite the opposite. I'm keeping track of regular recurrances, and I fully intend to give a "special award" to the most overused topic/idea at the end. Statistics and bitching. Two great tastes that taste great together.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Orius
It's easier to run that way. Less questions from player about how the physics of the world works to a DM who hadn't bothered figuring that out, plus it just makes it easier to incorporate things.
As a top down designer, I find designing the physics and cosmology one of the most fun parts. And if they ask a metaphysical question I can't answer immediately, I just say "your character doesnt know that. How do you intend to find out." Put the onus of researching their universe's physics on them.
Quote:
I was running a flat world for a while to make mapping easier (you know, no distortions by trying to present spherical surface in 2d), but I went back to a sphere because it was easier to figure out stuff like climate bands or work in stuff like crashed spaceships or other things what would be much more difficult to stick in a non-standard world.
I've found one of my best compromises in this area is creating a barrel shaped world. That way, you avoid mercator distortions in the round bit, and can do circular continents at the poles that are cut off from the rest of the world by a 90 degree angle. (and possible edge of the world giant waterfall or similar coolness) It seems to hold up quite well from both a convenience of design and a plot reveal perspective. And if you mess around with the ratios you get tubular and coin shaped worlds. Putting them all in the same universe where things naturally agglomerate in stacked circles rather than spheres allows for plenty of variety while maintaining a good theme.
This month, instead of a module, we have an extensive interview of painter Tim Hildebrandt. With lots of color photos and pics of him and his his creations. Which makes a nice change. Having produced illustrations for both lord of the rings and star wars, he's in a pretty enviable position. Still, he had to pay his dues with 16 hour a day work stints for readers digest, and other crappy jobs. And no matter how big you get, you still have to deal with executive meddling and media stupidity. Another good example of just how hard being a professional artist is, and how mad you'd have to be to do it if you didn't enjoy it. And these are the lucky ones. A bit depressing, isn't it.
Dragon's bestiary: The Nogra. Didn't we already have this in a previous issue. I'm gonna have to start keeping an index so I can quickly check questions like this. :Sigh: More bloody work. (quite a bit of checking later) No, I must be premembering things, or I've seen this guy elsewhere in mythology, only exactly where has slipped my concious mind. Anyway, tis a creepy felinoid that is constantly enveloped in darkness. Quite possibly a distant relative of the displacer beast, as they have a similar appearance and schtick.
Leomunds tiny hut: What was I just saying about too much recycling? Len takes another shot at the alchemist. Not that they're badly done, like the other recent classes, they have definitely improved on their previous versions in the design stakes. They're still poor cousins to the wizard though. Frankly, the frequency with which they come up baffles me.
Legendaria. A new magazine devoted to a specific FRP campaign? Yeah, that'll last long.
Best Wishes: Another attempt at keeping Wishes from completely breaking the game. The author introduces the Ten Principles of wishing, that are his vision of what even wishes should no be able to do. Oh, nerfers, nerfers nerfers. Bored now. Make them go away.
Wishing makes it so: A short story by Roger Moore. If you had a wish in real life, would you wish you were your character? If you did, would that character notice the difference afterwards? Uh, yeah. I guess you end up better off than the D&D character who wished they were god and found themself the Dungeon master in this world. Not much more to this one. I guess it follows up the last one ok.
Travel & threads for Dragonquest: A short article expanding on Dragonquest, introducing overland travel rules, and adding some extra bits of clothing to the equipment list. Well, I guess D&D didn't add that until the expert set, so why should other rpg's put it in the corebook? One of those short articles that does what it does with a minimum of fuss, and a little humour in the process. (mm, chainmail bikinis. How much should one cost.)
Simulation corner: This month they tackle the tricky question of if it is preferable for a writer to be a freelancer, or fully employed by a particular company. The usual question of assured income or freedom to write for who you chose. They seem to think that things are on the up for freelancers, but it's still hardly a certain thing. Well the hobby is expanding, so that means talent is wanted and the number of companies you have to choose from is increasing. But still, don't ever think it'll be easy. It never will be.
Squad leader: This months scenario is the russian siege of budapest. 17.01.1945. They do seem to be concentrating on WW2, don't they. Was that an explicit part of the game as written, or is it just this authors area of expertise?
Minarian Legends: Glenn turns the spotlight on the magical order, the eaters of wisdom. With aspects of wizards, priests and martial artists, they're a pretty versatile bunch. And as educators of nobles from many countries, they have their fingers in many political pies. Like everyone else in the setting, they've made mistakes and had setbacks, but come through them. But the big question is, can they survive the actual play. Only you can answer that one.
The electric eye: A rather dry article this month, as they give us the code for programing a D&D combat sequence into the computer, allowing you to keep track of everyone's actions right down to the segment, in two different types of code. I didn't enjoy this when Len was doing it, and its not much more interesting here now computers involved, save as an intellectual exercise to prove they can do it.
Oi. Don't disguise your adverts as comics! You had me fooled there for a minute, Jeff & Ernies Dungeon Hobby Shop.
Up on a soapbox: Now this is classic topic. Ed Greenwood floats the idea that players don''t need to know the rules of the game, and in some ways it can be advantageous for the roleplaying aspect if they don't, as they are more likely to play a character concept, rather than fitting the concept around a min-maxed optimized build based more around rules quirks than literary concepts. Which can work, and make for a fun game, as I know from experience. But how can you be sure the GM isn't cheating on his end if you don't know the rules. What's to stop it from turning into freeform? What if you enjoy the tactical side of things, and feel out of control without access to it it. I predict some heated rebuttals to this from the gamist crowd. Which is exactly what this column should be doing, provoking debate and making you think.
Figuratively Speaking: This month, they concentrate on minis that work as PC classes. Wizards, fighters, thieves, even bards and druids, plus generic hirelings to carry your crap. But clerics get no love. ( and neither do mules. (Damn sheep stealing all the good guys away with their pretty eyes and pert fluffy swaying backsides( er, I think I'll stop now, I'm creeping myself out here (plus, way too many nesting brackets)))) That's no good, is it? How are you going to have a complete party (for long) without a healer? You'll have to improvise something.
Reviews: The hammer of Thor is an exceedingly crunchy card game, that is almost more fun to read than it is to play. Too many shiny bits can get in the way, not make things better.
Assault on leningrad is one of those wargames that concentrates on doing one single battle and nothing else. But it is not a particularly good emulation of even that, and would need some reworking to accurately simulate the supply lines and armoured vehicles that were important in that scenario.
World Campaigns is a play by mail game. As with all play by mail games it has a turn rate measured in weeks, so you've got to do lots of planning ahead and stuff in one go. But it's GM gets lots of praise, for being friendly, fair, and willing to talk about the rationale behind the game, as well as tinker with it to improve it.
Wohrom is a game of battle for the throne in a mythical land. While high quality, it is rather expensive $50? Wouldn't that be equivilant to more than $200 nowadays, and the translation of the rules from the original italian is not the greatest.
They really need to standardize the review format. Each of the reviews was done by a different person, and it really did show this time, to the point of being jarring.
Dragonmirth is present, and gets some colour stuff as well.
Whats new? This is! Phil Foglio finally gets his own regular comic strip, having been pretty popular for quite some time. And it is rather silly. I suppose the two newer ones have both been more serious, so they feel the need to introduce another lighter one to redress the balance. Is authorial self-insertion really the way to go? And who is Dixie based off? Does it matter? How long before they start teasing about doing a sex in D&D strip? How long before they actually follow through on that promise.
Wormy and Fineous Fingers are also here. Jasmine and Pinsom are not, having been unceremoniously cancelled mid-storyline without notice. Not that most people'll realize they're gone for good for a few months, as they don't even mention their absence. What brought that decision on? Were they unpopular, did the artists do something wrong, did they quit in response to having their characters used by J.D in the crossover last issue without permission, did Kim decide to throw his new weight around with some arbitrary sackings? Anyone have any idea at all? Well, I guess 5 different comic strips in the same magazine would be pushing it a bit, wouldn't it. Maybe sometime, when it's a bit bigger.
As often seems to be the case, oddly enough, its the issues with significant changes in staff that feel most similar to their recent precursors, as they don't get to stamp their own personality on the running process until they really know the ropes. This is also one of those issues that was really hard to finish, with some really dull bits in it I struggled to find anything to say about. But any job like this is at least 90% perspiration, so I persevered. And if common wisdom is to be believed, things are about to get even better soon, now kim's officially in charge. Lets see if thats true.
80 pages. Welcome to a landmark issue, in more ways than one. Both their 50th issue, and their 5th birthday, this means it's time to do a little looking back. My, hasn't the time just flown by. They also have another slew of dragon related articles, as is their habit, and most of the usual suspects show their faces.
In this issue:
Out on a limb: A letter criticizing them for not offering enough material useful to D&D players in issue 46. They also want more wilderness and urban adventures.
Another letter asking for reprints. Which they deny. Even with the massive increase in readership, the logistics involved in reprints make it still not profitable. Just go buy the best ofs instead.
A letter telling a story of another monty haul DM. They aren't going away.
A letter complaining that recent centerpieces have sometimes been off center, so you can't remove them from the magazine cleanly. They apologize, give us permission to photocopy those pages, so you don't have to ruin your magazine to extract them, and promise to do better in the future. How nice of them.
Another letter complaining about how expensive gaming can become.
A letter criticizing the Top secret Module Dr Yes from issue 48. Oh well, can't please everyone.
We also get a nice birthday piccie and get to see the story behind its creation.
Self defense for dragons: Ha ha! This is an article that'll have quite a substantial impact on next edition's dragons. Wing buffets! Kicks! Tail lashes! Scaling damage based upon size. Watch out adventurers, the namesake of the system just got a hell of a lot more badass.
True dragons: Lew Pulsipher also believes dragons as presented in the rules are insufficiently mysterious, magical and badass, and has his own suggestions on how to beef them up and give them more variety. Polymorphing, supernatural terror aura, magic resistance, invisibility detection, again, all suggestions that got incorporated into the next editions dragons. Plus several that didn't, such as anti-magic breath, truenames and custom spell lists. Reminds me of arcana evolved in the way it posits a single race of dragons, each of which has individual powers, rather than dozens of subraces that could never maintain viable breeding populations in an ecology. Again, I quite like most of this.
Hatching is only the beginning: Want to raise a baby dragon? This gives you lots of help, by giving the probabilities that various things will happen, based on how you treat the little nipper. Teach it how to fly and wash itself properly when its young, or it'll have bad habits in those areas for the rest of its life. And watch out, because if you treat it badly, it'll turn on you pretty quickly. Without the inherent sociability of humans, they aren't the kind of creature to put up with abusive relationships. Obviously, using this puts in quite a bit of implied setting and ecology, but I guess you have to make decisions on matters like that. Still, another high quality article, that can be adapted to later editions without too much problem.
The kzinti: They got into the Star trek cartoon. Now Larry Niven's misogynistic alien felines make their way into the D&D multiverse (as usual, a wizard did it.) They go into a lot of detail on their social structure and ecology (because as prime predators, they need quite an infrastructure to support them. If worst come to worst, they can just butcher their troll slaves and eat them repeatedly and let them regenerate.) A well written article, although it does come a little close to mary-sueing its subject as badasses. Still, they did end up losing to humans in the original stories, and he doesn't forget why. You'll just have to make sure the PC's work hard so they don't get outshone by the antagonists.
Bazaar of the Bizarre: Only one item this month. However, it is an exceedingly powerful item, with a long and interesting history and set of powers. Barlithian's Magical Mirror. Like many artifacts, though, it'll often be more trouble than it's worth to own, with all manner of strange creatures coming to look at their reflections in it. Maybe it would be best to sell it on. After all, there'll be no shortage of creatures willing to pay ridiculous prices for it, not know what they're getting themselves into.
The 'zines: A big load of fanzines get reviewed this month. Which is intriguing. Nice to see them acknowledging the other people trying to get into their field. I wonder if this'll become a regular feature. Like the computer game reviews, they use a system where each magazine gets marks out of 10 in 4 different fields, allowing you to make a better value judgement than just reading the descriptions.
Abyss is a short AD&D focussed zine with a tendency to go into arcane and complex subjects that they can't really do justice to in the time they have. Still, that does mean they're enthusiastic and knowledgeable about the subjects. But when you get too geeky, its hard to get mass appeal.
Alarums and Excursions is the top amateur press association zine, with a circulation of around 500, and regular monthly issues. Obviously pretty well produced, its main flaw is a tendency towards smugness and back-patting commentary between the regular writers. To cover their costs, they charge the writers to get their stuff published in it. Which does suck a little, but thats working in the amateur world for you.
The beholder is a D&D zine that is good on campaign building, but lacks exceptional standout articles.
The lords of chaos has lots of cool ideas from enthusiastic writers, but most of it is from peoples home campaigns, and may not be that adaptable to your game.
Morningstar is from australia, and is consistent and reliable, but not exceptional.
Pandemonium is a magazine based in new york, with lots of communication between industry insiders in it that will probably be impenetrable to an outsider looking in.
Quick quincy Gazette (a rather silly name) is largely written and run by its editor. While short, it packs lots of little tidbits within to snack upon and put in your campaign.
The stormlord is a small magazine that probably isn't quite worth its cost.
Trollcrusher is a british magazine that is organized as a series of columns, largely written independently by its various writers.
The wild hunt is a debate focussed magazine, doing the kind of thing that would be handled by forums nowadays in terms of critical scrutiny of products and ideas. Which means it may be a bit highbrow for the average reader.
Zeppelin has been around even longer than Dragon itself (1974). Made in canada, it covers a wide range of stuff in both wargaming and roleplaying, and is fairly professionally produced.
Don't look! Its A...: Lew Pulsipher gets another article published this month, this time on the intricacies of adjudicating gaze attacks. The principle of firghting them while not looking directly at them is an old one, as old as the idea of monsters with gaze attacks itself. So he creates a fairly simple formula that determines the odds of accidentally looking at at their face when trying to fight them based on ability scores, level, distance, equipment, etc. In this case it's a d20, roll under one. Most of it seems pretty reasonable, although I'd put more emphasis on level and less on dexterity. But thats the kind of tedious quibbling I sneer at in the letters page, so I won't dwell on that.
The glyphs of Cerilon: Another regular writer gets another article published. Larry DiTillio expands on the list of effects available to glyphs of warding. This also includes quite a bit of implied setting, as he also gives them flavourful names and pictures of what the various glyphs look like. As is often the case, it's better to go for the more inventive effects than the straight damaging ones, as they are substantially more dangerous overall, plus the players reactions will be more amusing than if it were just a bit of burning they can heal no trouble. (disintegrate all paper items on in their possession. Muahahahaha. Now you have no map of the way out, and no spellbook. Shrunken to 6 inches tall. Random teleportation. Memory loss.) They'd never allow much of this stuff in more recent editions. Oh well, nothing's stopping me from playing older ones save finding a group of players. I know there's still plenty of people around who enjoy this stuff, especially when their players can learn it as well.
Thieves do it in the shadows? Someone's using that joke in an actual advert?! Man, that is such a cheap shot. My eyes, they are rolling.
The Chapel of Silence: This months module is only 8 pages long, a bit of a letdown after the more epic recent features. Designed for low level characters, it's the kind of 1-3 session dungeon you can drop pretty much anywhere. They forgot to clear out the railroady tournament intro that forces the players into the plot, and there are are several horrible no save effects, and monsters which a party of the suggested level won't be able to beat by straight combat, instead having to use the items found earlier on in the adventure cleverly to have a decent chance. So another frustrating dungeon that you have to really work at to survive and solve then, because they wanted a big chunk of the people attempting it to fail outright. It also has several awkwardly written bits that leave it unclear as to what the author actually intended for certain sections. So all in all, it is not a very good module, for either the players or the DM. I think you can safely skip this.
Minarian legends: Gobins! Even these guys get a balanced account in Minaria. Yes, they do eat people from other races. But they also love their children, and have a fascinating cultural and economic setup (which includes democratic elections in a world still largely governed by heriditary monarchies.) And really given the things humans eat if we have the chance, are we actually any better? Another high quality article full of setting ideas to steal.
The ups and downs of riding high: Flying mounts! One of the things that really changes the overall tone of a campaign, moving it from the mundane towards the awesome. Of course, there are quite substantial logistical issues in obtaining and caring for a flying mount, and that's what this article is here to help with. Intelligent vs nonintelligent mounts. One big mount for everyone or smaller ones for each person, good or evil, each has their own advantages and disadvantages, and optimal ways of caring for them. A solid, but not exceptional article that seems pretty well thought out.
Up on a soapbox: One of those articles that attempts to define the proper way a GM should run their game. This particular soapboxer seems to fall on the firm side of things, encouraging making a ruling and sticking to it, ignoring all further complaints from the players, letting the dice fall as they may, so people know that their life is always on the line, but the GM isn't cheating to make it easier or harder than it should be, and making sure that digression and messing around while the game is on is kept to a minimum. Oh, and don't run games way into the night. Tired players and GM's get cranky and make mistakes. One of those articles that generally seems reasonable, but every now and then throws up something that makes me go man what, and reminds me that the fashion for what is commonly considered good GM'ing has changed quite a bit since then, particularly as regards frequency of character death and use of preprepared modules. They may be starting to build familiar settings, but we're still very much in old skool territory in many ways.
Figuratively speaking only gets a single page this month. And once again, the scanning leaves me unable to really get a good picture of the models. You could definitely have done a better job of this, WotC.
Reviews: The fury of the norsemen is a fun little boardgame of rape and pillaging. Slightly stacked in the favour of the viking players, but you'd expect that, wouldn't you.
The morrow project is another post-apocalyptic game where you play cryogenically frozen soldiers trying to reclaim an earth full of mutants and . Technically a roleplaying game, it seems more oriented towards tactical combat situations than character development, with a heavy emphasis on realistic weaponry. Still, if you want a less zany post apoc game than gamma world, this could do the job. After all, roleplaying is more a matter of a good group than system.
Dragons bestiary: Giant vampire frogs! Adapted from an article in OMNI magazine. And definitely not written by PETA girl. Man, these things are pains in the ass. One of those monsters which grabs onto you, meaning any attacks against it have a good chance of hitting the victim instead. And there are few things more annoying than being accidentally killed by another PC. One of those monsters designed to annoy players as much as they are to fight characters.
Simulation Corner: More talk on the cold hard economics of being a professional game designer, this time from the perspective of a company owner. The need for starting capital to get the first games designed and advertised, the question of mail order vs retail distribution, and the respective benefits and drawbacks of each. ( a question that is being seriously revisited in the modern day, as the internet makes direct ordering a far more viable option. ) The problem of offering too many discounts and freebies and undercutting your profits. All stuff that is relevant for virtually any business in any field. Just because this is a labour of love, don't get the idea that working in gaming won't be bloody hard work.
The electric eye: More on choosing your computer properly. Computers are changing rapidly, and dropping in price, even though virtually everything else is going up, so you might want to hold off on buying one until the market is a little more stable (but don't keep doing it, or you'll be waiting 30 years at least ) Look out for hidden costs, and don't buy any old books about computers, because they'll be useless. Once again we are reminded how much things have changed in this area. But other things are still the same, such as the tricks people try to sell you things.
Dragonmirth is here, and really rather amusing. What's new has a failure of artwork, and resorts to the old tricks Dirt used, turning out the lights, and recycling pictures. Fineous fingers gets King Kong in to help him flush out those halflings. And Wormy reveals the secret of how he got his treasure hoard. And it's a doozy of a revelation that'll be important for the rest of the run. Feel the meta.
I think they've just about pulled off making this a proper celebratory issue. A combination of looking back, bringing in familiar faces, and trying new things. There are still a few dull articles, but I suspect that'll be the case for the rest of the run, as they're too big and diverse now for every article to please everyone.
I sense that you are becoming enthusastic again, after a period of less interesting issues. It seems like the general quality of the issues is increasing.
This is what I get for posting just before going to bed, and all sorts of odd hours when I have a free moment.
Should be amusing. 
Man, these things are pains in the ass. One of those monsters which grabs onto you, meaning any attacks against it have a good chance of hitting the victim instead. And there are few things more annoying than being accidentally killed by another PC. One of those monsters designed to annoy players as much as they are to fight characters. 
Linear Mode
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