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.
Dragon Rumbles: Oh dear oh dear. We have our second RPG controversy making the news. Someone LARPing was shot by the police, who believed their fake gun was real. This is why you should use cards if playing around non-participants who don't know what's going on. And once again Jake seems more concerned with the damage by association that this could do to tabletop gaming than extending any sympathy to the LARP community. There is a definite air of "I told you so" to this entry, which I find a bit disturbing. This would be a very different editorial if Tim was still in charge. It is a shame that the TT and LARP communities got so separated, and I wonder how much of that is the fault of the people in charge of TSR in these early days. White wolf might have done quite a bit to bring them back together, but the damage was already done. It's silly to over fragment in an already niche market.
Out on a limb: A letter spotting the editing errors in Mad Merc 2 issues ago, which they admit too, and add further corrections of their own.
A letter telling them that they are too scathing in their rebuttals to many of the letters they get. They reply that they aren't half as scathing as some of the ones they get in. And at least they don't swear or use bad spelling and grammar.
A letter asking them how the hell to handle premonitions of death when you don't know what's going to happen in game. They tell him just to fudge it and use your own guesswork. Sigh.
Another letter weighing in on the high level character debate, in support, and wishing they'd post more support for high level games. Which gets a strangely scathing reply in response. Kim obviously isn't a fan of high level games.
A letter asking for more house-rules and clarifications to the official rules, as for all its claims of mechanical rigour, there are still substantial amounts of vagueness and incompleteness. Next thing you know, people'll be asking for a new edition
Leomund's tiny hut: Len gives us a bunch of new cleric spells, as he and gary felt they were still a little lacking in some respects. As this is done by official sanction, most of these made it into future books, such as water walking, dust devil, meld into stone and negative energy protection (at last, we have a counter to energy drainers). Yeah, this is a needed add-on. And it's nice enough to add a bunch of spells that are primarily useful for non-adventuring clerics, and an early synergistic metamagic spell, Combine. This is a definite step forward in terms of spell technology. Of course, that means wizards are likely to get a load of extra spells too soon. (Actually, I'm surprised they haven't thought of publishing those as regular articles before. It's certainly the kind of thing there's always demand for.) How are they going to keep fighters and thieves up? (oh, yeah, they aren't )
Dragon's bestiary: Sull are another floating jellyfish creature. A surprisingly popular D&D ecological niche, really. These ones are psionic, and fight by ramming rather than stinging. Interesting.
Beguilers are kyoot little magical mammals. Which I guess is the point. They're also pretty magically powerful, and their parts are useful in making magical items. But how could you be so cruel as to hunt something this adorable down. You'd get far more benefit keeping one as a familiar.
Magenta's cats are another wizard creation. Yay. Intelligent psionic cats. Now there's a rare and original idea :rolleyes: You can have one as a familiar too. It'd probably be more useful than another party member at low level as well.
Blood of medusa: Nice. One of the more intricate pieces of greek mythology gets another look at. When the original medusa was killed, pegasus and chrysaor sprang from her blood. And descended from them in various ways are the hydra, chimera, sphinx, and quite a few monsters that don't have D&D versions such as echidna and cerberus. This gives stats for quite a few of them, and is in general a good sparker of imagination on how to create your own set of unique monsters for your own campaign. Which is a pretty good thing, as it makes monsters more mythic, and not just another faceless challenge to kill for XP and loot. Bringing family into it always makes things more interesting, as Grazzt, Igggwilv and Iuz demonstrate. I very much approve.
Four myths from greece: The greek theme continues, and they give us stats for Atalanta, Daedalus, Deiphobe the sybil, and Chiron the centaur. Despite not being under any of the regular columns devoted to this kind of thing, they are all as disgustingly high in every stat as ever, even the ones not connected to their legendary accomplishments.
The dwarven point of view: Looks like it's that time again. They've been doing themed issues for the classes recently. Now they're starting on the various races as well. This is an official article by Roger Moore, and goes quite a way towards filling in D&D's implied setting. Yes, dwarven females do have beards. But there's a whole lot more to them as a race than just that. Why do dwarves become thieves? Why are they so obsessed with craftmanship? Why can't they become wizards? All these and more answered here.
Bazaar of the Bizarre continues the dwarven theme. The high anvil of the dwarves is a general craftmanship booster, as if they needed it. Still, you've gotta have dwarven made magical items, and they need help for that. The helm of subterranean sagacity does the same for their mining abilities. Pretty dull pair really. Don't you have anything more inventive?
Sage advice also gets in on the act with the short bearded folk.
Why don't ettins suffer a penalty to hit dwarves (they have two heads)
Can an ioun stone increase your stats above 18. Would this allow a demihuman to exceed their maximum level. (no and no)
Do dwarves have alignment restrictions (no, just tendencies)
What are the chances of my character being a sub-race. (If your DM allows it, you can be. Your race is one thing you don't have to roll to determine.
What's the maximum level dwarf clerics can be? (8th with wis 18, 7th with less)
How come dwarves can be psionic when their god isn't. (Good question. Perhaps the psionic ones have some human blood)
What does Moradin's worhipper alignment entry Lawful good (dwarves) mean? ( he might prefer his worshippers good, but he's a magnaminous deity who will tolerate dwarves of other alignments. )
Can dwarves use long or bastard swords one-handed? ( That's your DM's decision. I'm not going to give a ruling on this (how odd))
The dwarven point of view: Looks like it's that time again. They've been doing themed issues for the classes recently. Now they're starting on the various races as well. This is an official article by Roger Moore, and goes quite a way towards filling in D&D's implied setting. Yes, dwarven females do have beards. But there's a whole lot more to them as a race than just that. Why do dwarves become thieves? Why are they so obsessed with craftmanship? Why can't they become wizards? All these and more answered here.
This series is one of my favorite set of articles from Dragon ever! I never had the actual issues, but they were re-printed in one of the Best of. . . compilations.
They did a lot inform my take on the races for my homebrew (see link to wiki in sig).
The gods of the dwarves: Ahh. Now this is a bit of canon that sticks for ages. Clangeddin, Dumathoin, Vergadain, Berronar, Abbathor! (unite and form!) The rest of the dwarven pantheon. Plus minor dwarven deities, and a new monster connected with them. Nice. If they keep this up for all the other races, 1982 is going to be a very big year in terms of building D&D's setting up. And we'll get to see tons of it first right here in the magazine. This makes me very happy.
Fiction: In the bag by John Holmes. Boinger's back! Boingers Back! So lame I had to exclaim it twice. What's he up to this time? Having fun with a bag of holding. Some very creative application of D&D rules quirks here that I quite approve of. Wouldn't be surprised if this was another converted actual play, as it feels very much like a D&D adventure.
Spellminders: This months special feature. A nice little set of cut-out playing aids. When you cast a spell, just flip it over. Saves you scribbling on your sheet every time. Plus, by putting them in piles and picking them out, you can generate spell lists for NPC's quickly. But they are rather easy to lose. I guess that's not a problem for me though, as I can just print more.
Aiming for realism in archery: Oh, not this one again. Yes, the D&D to hit probabilities and weapon ranges aren't realistic. Will it help to introduce new longer ranges if you have to measure the chances to hit with d% and completely rejig the combat system. Frankly, at that point, you're better off writing your own system. You're never going to be satisfied with D&D's rules.
Bowmanship made more meaningfull: More of this as well? This is focussed on strength limits. A topic only Homer could make interesting. It seems like the original crowd of writers who knew D&D wasn't supposed to be realistic are getting crowded out by annoying newcomers. This is the problem with having to fill 80+ pages every month. Anyone with decent writing skills and persistence can get in.
Slicing into a sharp topic: An article on the history of swords to go with the one on shields last issue. And like that, it's pretty comprehensive, going from BC to the modern day, with plenty of details on how their construction evolved. But no bibliography this time. Oh well. It's still more interesting than the last two weaponry articles.
Being a bad knight: Glenn Rahman turns his eyes upon Knights of Camelot. Maybe you don't want to join the ranks of the round table. Maybe you want to play one of the dastards who laughs at honour and chivalry, and instead loots and kidnaps. This of course isn't supported by the current rules, so you need a new scoring system and victory conditions. This completely changes the game in a way that looks like fun, particularly if some players are good guys, and others aren't.
Anything but human: Can you guess what this is? Yup, it's a second set of charts for generating alien creatures in Traveller. Like the last one, this results in a wide selection of different body shapes, limb configurations, senses, and various special abilities. Which means in terms of actual power, races rolled will vary considerably, and many will need serious help fitting in on a spaceship. Just hope you get shapeshifting, because that covers up a multitude of problems Pretty much what I expected.
The dragons augury: Griffin mountain is a huge runequest supplement with tons of adventure ideas and setting detail contained within. Clearly written and well integrated, it's pretty handy, overall.
Star patrol is another sci-fi RPG. (there do seem to have been rather more of them around those days. ) It fails to be particularly standout, with several noticable flaws in the rules.
Trillion credit squadron is a traveller supplement that has rather a larger scale than most of their adventures. It provides rules for being at the head of your own muthaing star navy! Plus mass combat rules, and more prosaic large scale details such as supply line stuff, taxation, maintenance and upkeep costs. Essentially, it's the traveler equivalent of the D&D Companion set domain management stuff. Which is something I strongly approve of.
Beyond and Vanguard Reaches are two more traveller supplements. Seems like traveller is getting more products than D&D is at this point. It's certainly getting more reviews. What went wrong?
Off the shelf has lots of short reviews this issue: The pride of chanur by C.J.Cherryh sees her back and firing on all cylinders.
Guardsman of Gor by John Norman is, er, no better or worse than any of the other books in the series. You'll like it or you won't, and the reviewer definitely doesn't.
The death of a legend by Robert Adams is another book in the Horseclan series. Once again the reviewer seems pretty fond of his output.
The dark between the stars by Poul Anderson is a compilation of his short stories. Full of shocks and twists, it gets plenty of praise.
Whispers III (edited) by Stuard David Schiff is a compliation of the best stories from the magazine. Like the last 2 editions, it has a pretty good selection to choose from, so quality is not an issue.
Fantasy annual IV by Terry Carr is another compilation of various writer's work, from both the high, and horrific side of the fantasy genre.
Scarlet Dream by C.L Moore is another compilation. Focussing on her Northwood Smith stories, it takes what she considers to be the 10 best ones, and gives them some illustrations as well.
What's new tackles Love in D&D (but is saving sex in D&D until next month) for valentines day. Wormy picks up a plot thread that's lain dormant for quite a while.
Looks like we're starting another significant phase in the development of the D&D game. The official staff members are putting much more emphasis on building up a proper setting for everyone to play in, taking the sketchy descriptions in the rulebooks and giving them full-on motivations and histories, plus serious thoughts on their physiology and ecology. They've also realised that the AD&D corebooks they put so much effort into a couple of years ago aren't complete, there are plenty of things that the rules still need. I expect in a few years and supplements time, the game will have a quite different flavour if this goes on. 2nd edition's changes didn't come out of nowhere, and I expect we'll see many of them foreshadowed in the magazine quite some time before they go into common use.
Spellminders: This months special feature. A nice little set of cut-out playing aids. When you cast a spell, just flip it over. Saves you scribbling on your sheet every time. Plus, by putting them in piles and picking them out, you can generate spell lists for NPC's quickly. But they are rather easy to lose. I guess that's not a problem for me though, as I can just print more.
Oh noes! D&D is becoming a card game My hat of 4e knoes no limit!
Oh noes! D&D is becoming a card game My hat of 4e knoes no limit!
Phaezen
Heh. You had that thought too?
__________________ Currently running: Sufficiently Advanced over Maptool. Soon to change. If you'd like to join in a short 3-8 session campaign for various systems, drop by our forums.
I double-dog-dare you to make your game sound super cool without comparing it to other editions. - paraphrased from Umbran.
84 pages. Another traveller heavy issue here, with a new adventure and more articles and reviews. It is easily taking second place in terms of coverage at the moment. Was this reflected in it's general sales at that point?
In this issue:
Out on a limb: Another letter on the overpowered characters debate. While not overly in favor of that kind of ridiculous twinkery, the sender does think that getting XP for being hit isn't such a bad idea. After all, you learn as much from failure as success in real life.
A letter rebutting Brian Blume's soapbox piece about the undesirability of evil. Go you. We can't leave stupid statements like that unchallenged.
A letter in favour of weapon specialization. Proficiency shouldn't just be a binary thing.
A letter saying that dragon isn't overpriced for what it delivers. Have you compared the page count to cost ratio with actual modules and stuff?
Another letter asking for reprints, preferably in themed anthology form, collecting say, monsters, NPC's new classes, optional rules, etc in groups. They say they might consider that if there seems to be enough demand.
From the sorcerors scroll: Cantrips! Gary introduces 0th level spells to the game. These are exceedingly useful little effects, very open to creative use. Which is symptomatic of how powerful even 1st level spells can be, compared to magic of literature, but there you go. Another cool thing that would have a strong influence on later editions, making low level wizards more than just one shot and they're empty spellcasters. He also includes a new spell, Advanced illusion, and a new magic item, the philosophers stone, as they have been referenced in the fiend folio, but not printed yet. Man, this game really was stuck together randomly in some ways. An article that is both enjoyable, usefull, and influential. You can't have much better than that as a lead in.
Giants in the earth: This month's rather highly statted characters are Poul Anderson's Sir Roger de Tourneville, L Sprague de Camp's Harold Shea, Alexei Panshin's Anthony Villiers and Torve the Trog; and Clifford D Simak's Mark Cornwall and Sniveley. That's quite a large turnout.
Gypsies! Looks like someone was separating them from normal humans and giving them a whole slew of special powers long before the world of darkness did. (well, D&D had an entire campaign setting revolving around the buggers, I guess.) Fortunately, their powers here are vague enough that you can't make them into a PC race without a bit more work. Which just makes me sigh. If you're going to be tasteless, you could at least do so with a little discipline and consistency. Like the nazi's I do not approve.
Dragon's bestiary: The bleeder, a bloodsucking beholder variant that would make it into future monster manuals, gets introduced here. Frankly, most players would rather face this that a real beholder, as 10 straight attacks are far less dangerous than a host of instakills and subverters.
Stymphalian birds are another greek mythical monster. Vicious, with flight, hideous stench and disease spreading effects, they're the kind of creature that'll continue to be a problem even if you kill them.
Spriggans are odious little gnomes which can enlarge themselves. Another monster that makes into future official books, they are probably derrived from the same mythological source as duergar. Anyway, they make both nasty combatants and good tricksters, so watch your stuff around them.
The great kingdom and the knights of doom: Rob Kuntz gives us more official Greyhawk setting stuff. The demonic Knights of Dooooooom!, elite servants of Irvid (sic) the undying. Beware. The state has been taken over by evil of the worst sort. Anyone speaking out is a traitor. and must be eliminated, post-haste. Send help, urgently. No chance. There have to be evil states, otherwise what would the PC's have to kill? This is another plot thread that's going to developed further in the future. Are the demons and undead really neccecary though? Humans are quite capable of being complete bastards on their own.
Skitterbugging: Fiction by Gene O'Neill about a group of planetary surveyers. Aka those who go boldly where no-one has gone before, exploring new worlds, cataloguing new forms of life, etc. A rich seam of plots for adventurers, in other words. You never know what challenges you'll face each time. And they can be pretty weird, as in this case. They then put traveller stats for the characters and creatures in the story. A pretty good setup really. I quite enjoyed this one.
Exonidas spaceport: This month's module is a 16 page traveller one. This is less an adventure than a setting, giving you a location, and populating it with NPC's, but leaving it up to the GM to put an actual adventure in. Which is a bit annoying if you're used to using fully ready to go dungeons, but I suppose its another example of how they're trying to present different types of adventure. Whether it becomes just a slightly better fleshed out stop off point on route to somewhere else, or a new home base depends on your GM.
The halfling point of view: Part two of our demi-human series. Halflings at this point are pretty similar to the original Tolkien hobbits, with three subraces, and a strong love of security and comfort. Adventurers are very much a minority amongst them, but as they are tougher than they seem, they're hardly unsuccessful. Very little is added to their characterization by this article. I'm not very impressed.
The gods of the halflings: Halfling gods have never been as interesting as the dwarven ones. Blame Roger Moore for being short of ideas. Or blame the original source for not having as much depth and variety as the many myths of dwarves. Anyway, Sheela Peroyal, Arvoreen, Cyrollalee and Brandobaris all get their first airing here. One big happy family, even if some of them do wander off once in a while. Pass the pillow and wake me up when dinner's ready. There's no danger here.
The toxins of Cerilion: Larry DiTillio takes a leaf from Ed Greenwood's book, and gives us stuff on what he's done in his own world. By giving poisons descriptions, onset times, and more inventive effects, things get a lot more interesting than just save or die, and players have a chance to recognize them by description without having to roll some kind of knowledge check. Which is good, because there aren't any in 1st edition. This is a pretty useful and entertaining article,
Make monsters, not monstrosities: From one regular writer to another. Lew Pulsipher gives us another article on ecology. Monsters ought to make sense in light of the rest of the world. So here's another basic primer on concepts such as the food chain, reproductive rates, and designing creatures powers to suit their tactics. And he does a pretty good job of it, not sticking too closely to real world stuff, and recognizing there are tons of fun different ways the ecology could work when magic is brought into the equation. Plus an adorable new monster, the starkhorn. Whosa tubby little telekinetic bloodsucker then. A pretty good article all round.
Figuratively speaking's photo's are rather larger this month, which is nice. We have a griffon, a paladin, a monk, some spies, warriors and wizards. Business as usual then.
The dragon's augury: Starfire III is another game in a returning franchise (if you want to look them up, starfire 1 was reviewed in issue 29, while starfire 2 was reviewed in issue 47, ) It builds upon the previous two to allow you to handle larger matters of economics and political maneuvering. This makes for quite an extended, open-ended game, which can go on for a long time, as you discover new worlds, face new challenges and deal with other players. Are you prepared to put that time and effort in?
Demonlord is a wargame of magic and conquest. It gets high praise for the quality of it's visuals, and generally seems fairly good.
Off the shelf: The best of Randall Garrett, edited by Robert Silverberg, is another compilation that does exactly what it says on the tin. 12 stories, each introduced by another famous author who likes his work (including issac asimov and philip jose farmer), should give you a good idea if you like him or not.
Fuzzy bones by William Tuning is a continuation of H. Beam Piper's fuzzy series. Posthumous pastiches can go oh so very wrong, but this one seems to be respectful and interesting enough to please this reviewer.
The essential guide to home computers by Frank Herbet (yeah, that one) is a how too guide on buying, setting up, and starting to program them. He predicts that by the end of the decade, virtually everyone will have one. Pretty visionary, really.
In iron years by Gordon Dickinson is a compliation of short stories from throughout his career. While individualy entertaining, they don't seem to have any particular common setting or theme. This keeps it from being a brilliant collection.
The art of Leo and Diane Dillon is given a full page colour spread of art from the book. Not just a load of pretty pictures, it also includes a history of the artists, and plenty of behind the scenes details on how they were made. It gets pretty high praise for this.
What's new is the only comic present this month, and is focussing on mini's. And I don't think we want those in our sex in D&D, do we. Dragonmirth is also rather small. What's up with that?
Another fascinating issue full of stuff that would make it into future books. There is a slight caveat in that an increasing amount of the articles are being done by house staff rather than freelancers. But I guess that's the way you maintain theme and editorial consistency. It's easier to work with people you know and can contact easily than strangers.
Dragon's bestiary: The bleeder, a bloodsucking beholder variant that would make it into future monster manuals, gets introduced here. Frankly, most players would rather face this that a real beholder, as 10 straight attacks are far less dangerous than a host of instakills and subverters.
87 pages. They did dwarves and halflings, now elves get their turn at having a special all about them. Surprised they weren't first really. Anyway, they have several other treats for us. It's april, and that means another april fools mini-issue. Plus we're served with another complete game. Amazing just how much they fit into these things. However will I get through it all? Same way I get through every issue. One page at a time.
In this issue:
Out on a limb: We start with a rather long and impassioned letter from Lew Pulsipher that was originally intended as an appendix to last issues article. In it, he rebutts the statement (from issue 54) that pelins are useless for a campaign. Damn well right. Just because they don't fit in a dungeon, does not make them useless as monsters. They have all manner of uses another generic humanoid can't compete with.
A letter from Gary sneering at recent attempts to make archery more "realistic", as that stuff does not improve the game's actual fun quotient.
A letter from Roger Moore pointing out a bunch of errors in recent issues.
A letter complaining about the publishing of multiple monsters with the same name, and repeating fictional characters with different stat's, as this prevents players from knowing what they're dealing with. Silly person. Players shouldn't know the stats and motivations of every monster anyway. That way lies excessive gamism and rules lawyering.
The elven point of view: Ahh, D&D's longest lived PC race. How they contrast with the second longest lived one. The usual tropes such as seeming aloof and whimsical because they are aware of impermanence of other things, connection to nature, magical skill, you know the drill. I have no desire to regurgitate it again.
The gods of the elves: Say hello to the rest of the seldarine. One of the largest and most complex nonhuman pantheons. Hanali Celanil, Aedrie Faenya, Erevan Ilesere, Labelas Enorath, Solonor Thelandria. All have pretty well defined portfolios beyond simply being elven, and showcase the wide range of concepts and associations the race can accomodate. They're as strong as I remember them being.
Sage advice continues its own contributions to the themed series.
What spells are considered charm spells? (spells with charm in their name, plus bards power of the same name, plus magic items with the same effects.)
Why are elven thieves always children?(That's errata. We've fixed it in later printings of the DMG)
Is Shield cumulative with mundane armour, or do you take the best.(you take the best of the two. You can't get AC-5 that easily)
If I'm reincarnated, can I keep my current class abilities. (Not if they're illegal for the new race.)
The half-elven point of view: Half-elves get a (rather half-assed) personality of their own. Given that they're more varied than even humans, due to their split heritage, this is rather a pointless task. Notable, however, at this point is the emphasis on half-elves as thieves, (what was with giving them unlimited advancement in this class?) and the floating of the concept of quarter, eighth and more diluted elven bloodlines. But Roger can't be bothered to write those up at this time. This article feels like wasted potential in general. They could have given half-elves a much stronger identity.
From the sorcerors scroll: Gary continues his extensive list of cantrips from last issue. He manages to finish off the list of wizard ones, but its still not over. Illusionists will get their turn next month. And then will we be seeing clerics get orisons, or is that a 3rd ed thing only? I guess we'll find out soon enough. As amusing as the last article.
Firearms: Ed Greenwood gives us more conversions of modern stuff to D&D rules, plus a history of firearms throughout the ages. Guns may be more powerful than swords and stuff, but for a long time they were rather unreliable. If you enforce that, It should keep things from getting out of hand. Plus it makes wizards less crucial to a party, when other people can supply the artillery. I think ed managed to strike the right balance here on an often tricky subject to integrate into the game.
Fiction: Wearwolf by David Rosenberg. A very funny little short story that sets up the premise of a world where loup-garouesque animal suits are commercially available, introduces a twist, and then knocks it down again, all within 2 pages. Quite the classic.
A quiz about the nature of D&D science. This takes the D&D rules and assumes that apart from that, real world physics applies. Amusing resultant effects happen. Actually, they aren't very amusing, because they're generally pretty dull. This is not a world of cinematics, it's a world where meticulous resource management is rewarded. Do we really want that? I certainly don't.
Gaming magazine. This years april fool is presented as a generic alternative to Dragon. It's rather more sensible than the previous couple, with most of the content still useful for a game despite its flavour. No filking, either. Maybe next year.
Flight of the boodles: Another complete little game. While humorous in its visuals, this is a perfectly playable little game for one or two players. Yet another fun thing to try out if I get the chance.
The jester: Oh dear god no. Not another version of this class. Be very very afraid, because these ones are statistically legal, and really rather scary. I guess they have to be to survive, given the suboptimal tactics they have to use. Use one as the big bad if you want your players to enjoy beating them way too much.
Darmuids last jest: Heard the saying I died laughing. Well, now you can make it happen, with this optional special bard power. Not recommended for use in actual play.
Midgets in the earth: Ha. This month's generic parody characters, not based on real people or tv shows at all, no siree bob; are Idi Snitmin the kobold commando, Eubeen Hadd the halfling thief guildmaster, and Morc the orc. These guys are far less twinked than their serious offerings, which I find very ironic. Idi in particular is a good example of how even kobolds can be pretty terrifying if they have the right equipment and tactics. We'll be seeing that topic again several times, only taken seriously.
Artist of the month: Phil Foglio gets fulsome praise from Kim. Which is then immediately undermined. Nice to see they can still poke fun at their own reputations.
Dragon's bestiary: More cartoon creatures to give your players nightmares. The green giant, (who could be absolutely horrifying if played straight) Donald duck, Taz, Marvin the Martian, Baseball Bugbears, and the dreaded Werebeaver (with Wally) Most are just about statistically usable, as long as you can stand the things your players'll throw at you for inflicting them upon their characters.
Outfitting the new agent: Back to the serious stuff. Or is it? I can't be sure with Gary's writing. This could almost be a parody of the standard questions list you ask about your character, such as eye colour, hair, date of birth, etc. It is rather dry. This is the kind of stuff people should do automatically if they like roleplaying. And if they just play to kill stuff, they don't need to go to all the effort of thinking up details like this. Meh.
The trojan war: Glenn Rahman gives us a slew of variants for his new game. He is a busy bunny lately. More flexibility is often a good thing, and this is as well thought out as most of his offerings.
Pooka: Oh god. Speaking of bunnies. Not another unkillable pain in the ass trickster monster. If you're gonna give us these, you could at least stat them out fairly, not make them more powerful than most gods. And they bring time travel into it as well, which is also a massive pain in games. Make it go away.
Figuratively speaking gives us three dragons, plus a set of elementals, Orcs, lizard men, dwarves, and buildings. Nothing scores below 5 as usual, but they are generous enough to give out one 9 this month.
A view of the nine philosophies: Is it that time again? Yes, it is. What time is it? It's chico:bang!: You die now! :sound of record player being smashed, crickets chirping:
Sorry. Where was I? Oh yeah. It's alignment debate time. This is the one that delineates the Good-evil axis as the moral one, and the law-chaos one as the ethical one. Which I guess is fairly significant. This is a fairly non controversial article as they go. It's most controversial point is probably that specific laws are not neccacarily Lawful, (and indeed, a badly designed legal system can actively result in a chaotic society) and breaking external laws is therefore not neccacarily chaotic. It also subscribes more toward the neutral as balance seeking rather than neutral as disinterest in moral matters or self-interest. But it does not view alignment as a straightjacket, and actively promotes the idea that most people are not going to perfectly fit into one. It's a measurement of the sum of their actions, not a set of sides people actively choose. I don't have a problem with this.
The dragon's augury: Spawn of fashan! Oh boy, this is a doozy of a review that I remember seeing reprinted elsewhere. The reviewer winds up concluding that this game is a diliberate parody of RPG's, as that's the only way it could make any sense. Reading the actual play is far more fun than actually trying to play the game. Comedy gold, if not in the same league as F.A.T.A.L. (but then again, Darren's review would eat up a whole issue. I don't think they'd allow that.)
Wormy once again goes off on a completely insane tangent. What's new summons cthulhu. Dragonmirth is missing, but not missed as they have more than enough jokes in the rest of the magazine, thank you very much.
A slightly understated issue compared to some april fools ones. But it does have some genuinely funny stuff, such as the fiction and the review. Plus more official stuff that would continue to be used in many books to come. It's certainly not a bad one for the period.
A letter from Gary sneering at recent attempts to make archery more "realistic", as that stuff does not improve the game's actual fun quotient.
Interesting, especially if contrasted to "the tyranny of fun" debates that have been raging on and off fairly recently.
Does anyone remember if Gygax's comment about what is fun and what is not fun sparked a controversy back in the days? I remember that the level of realism was hotly debated among the gamers I know, and that most of us were on the "realism" bandwagon (although I now feel that what we believed to be realism was more a question of more detailed rules reflecting popular myths about history).
But at least at the time, I wouldn't have agreed with Gygax's assessment of the quality of fun in relation to realism. On a general level I'm not sure I agree even today, although my own style veers towards less realism. To each his own and all that.
/M
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Interesting, especially if contrasted to "the tyranny of fun" debates that have been raging on and off fairly recently.
Does anyone remember if Gygax's comment about what is fun and what is not fun sparked a controversy back in the days? I remember that the level of realism was hotly debated among the gamers I know, and that most of us were on the "realism" bandwagon (although I now feel that what we believed to be realism was more a question of more detailed rules reflecting popular myths about history).
It does get a few replies in the next few issues, but it certainly isn't a full-grown flame war on the level of the dwarven beards debate, or gary's rants attacking other companies. The battles on how realistic the game should be, of course, never go away. In a way, every article introducing new rules is a sortie in that war.
Dragon Rumbles: Oh dear. SPI is in trouble. TSR is buying them out. Jake also comments on the purchase of AMAZING magazine. Looks like they're expanding their properties in more ways than one. But can they make any profit out of these, or will it just be throwing good money after bad? I'm sure we'll get more news on this as it happens.
Out on a limb: A letter on Spellbinders by a rival manufacturer, refuting both their originality and their profitability. Which sucks a little. Not every experiment can be a success.
A letter commenting on Jake's KILLER editorials. Yeah. People ought to try and avoid doing things that give roleplaying a bad name, particularly when they involve bystanders. Avoiding the worried parent brigade is a good idea.
Another letter engaging in archery quibbles, and asking for a full book devoted to weapons and optional weapon rules. Eeek. Well, I suppose it'll make some people happy.
A letter asking all those people who dislike high level play, if the game wasn't intended for it, why did they give rules for it in the first place? What's wrong with playing the game until you become a god?
A letter of generalized praise, apart from a few more stupid archery quibbles.
A letter griping about the new cleric spells len gave us in issue 58, saying that many of them are useless to adventurers. Len quite rightly rebutts this. Not all clerics are adventurers, and even the ones that are won't neccacarily want to memorize all combat spells, all the time. Some players have in-game romances between characters and stuff, y'know, actual roleplaying.
From the sorcerors scroll: Gary moves on to illusionist cantrips. This is considerably shorter than the wizard one, as illusionist spells are more versatile, but less useful in a lot of ways. This is pretty much as you'd expect it to be. I think we've exhausted this avenue of expansion for now.
Giants in the earth: This month's characters with percentile ability scores where they shouldn't be are C.J Cutliffe Hyne's Deucalion, John Norman's Tarl Cabot, and Charles R Saunders' Dossouye. Nothing unusual here either.
Without any weapons: Ha. Someone's unhappy with the way unarmed combat is so much more complex than armed, for less effect. So they're trying to streamline it. But it's still way more complex, especially if you don't precalculate all these modifiers. Most adventurers'll still just go for the kill, even if it might be more advantageous to subdue the enemy. That wasn't much help.
Or with a weird one: And here's the other side of the coin. Funny foreign weaponry. Tiger claws, Boomerangs, bullwhips (which paladins are forbidden to use ), caltrops. The mancatcher! ( now that's a far more efficient way of subduing an enemy than unarmed combat.) We'll be seeing quite a few of these again in official supplements. There is a certain amount of special effects creep here, but thankfully damage creep has been avoided. It would be bad for verisimilitude if all the indigenous cultures had better weaponry than the european analogues. (although if you're playing D&D, that should be the least of your worries) I'm sure some of you had lots of fun with these little babies.
The gnomish point of view: And so we reach the last of the common PC races. Quite a bit of attention is put on their tendency to be practical jokers. This may not have been the wisest decision, in hindsight. They also hate kobolds. Apart from that, they do seem to struggle to find a strong identity, having a bit of elves nature love, dwarves skill at crafting and underground stuff, and halflings sneakiness and love of community and food. They are pretty adaptable little creatures. But that's not good enough to get them in the A list, is it. You need a proper archetype. They should have given this to Ed instead of Roger. He'd (make a plan and he'd follow through, that's what Edward Greenwood would do) have figured something out.
The gods of the gnomes: And after the racial description, come the extra gods. Baervan wildwanderer, Sejolan earthcaller, Flandal Steelskin, All faced up against the crawler below, Urdlen. Well, the gnome deities are considerably more interesting than the halfling ones anyway, with their spread of portfolios, companions, and rather distinctive evil god. They certainly serve to flesh out what gnomes are and the ingredients that go into making them better than the previous article did. But will people take in that implied setting stuff? Hard to say. Probably not enough, considering the way they've been treated in 3rd and 4th edition. Which is a shame, really.
Dragon Issue 60: April 1982...
Flight of the boodles: Another complete little game. While humorous in its visuals, this is a perfectly playable little game for one or two players. Yet another fun thing to try out if I get the chance.
I think this is the first issue I remember reading. A friend of mine bought it. I remember the name of that game, but, I cannot for the life of me remember what it was about.
Wow. I would have been 10 years old. Good gawd I feel old now.
__________________ Currently running: Sufficiently Advanced over Maptool. Soon to change. If you'd like to join in a short 3-8 session campaign for various systems, drop by our forums.
I double-dog-dare you to make your game sound super cool without comparing it to other editions. - paraphrased from Umbran.
Quest for the midas orb: The third place module in the IDDC competition is only a 10 pager. Another location based adventure, this is actually fairly nice as adventures from that period go, with only a couple of arbitrary screwage attacks and boss monsters way above the average challenge rating. And the screwage is predictable enough that you could probably work out how to avoid it. In any case, the writing style is quite good. All in all, I quite enjoyed reading it, and wouldn't mind using it.
Dragon's bestiary: Firetails are unpredictable little snaky things from the elemental plane. They could be friendly, or they could curse you and burn your stuff up. Best to banish them home to be sure.
Umbrae are shadows that attack your shadow. To beat them, you'll have to get used to the idea of attacking them with your own shadow. Or just turn the lights out, so you don't have a shadow for them to attack. Just don't mistake them for undead shadows.
Light worms take the hypnotic legends of snakes and take them literally, as they generate glowing mesmerizing patterns of light.
Tybor are exeedingly badass magical birds that have quite a bit in common with ki-rin, of all things. You probably don't want to provoke them.
Monster cards: Another innovation that'll show up quite a few times through the years. Condense monster stats onto little cards, and it can speed up play quite a bit. Buy them now! Get all the sets! Speed up the time when collectible card games will become a genre in their own right, and play a big part in RPG's mid-90's decline. Or something. I don't really have much of an opinion on this one.
Rules for aging in Ringside: My god, an article for this after all this time. And not by the original author either. I'm vaguely surprised. As you might expect from rules for aging, this is pretty brutal stuff, that'll take all but the best fighters out son after they hit 30. Which is realistic, I guess, but depressing. Hey, it's only a game. At least you can start a new character, which is more than you can say for real life.
Jo-ga-oh: Ooh. Native american myths. Fae/ nature spirit analogues get everywhere, don't they. Only the names and specific powers and taboos change. These are some of the more benevolent examples of this group, and will only be a problem if you provoke them. Of course if your adventurers are foreigners who just blunder in killing things and taking stuff, they deserve what they get.
Special knowledge and a bureau for infiltrators: Gary gives us a new class and skills for Top Secret. Do you want to go into deep cover and spend months or years trying to get close to your enemies so they can be taken. This is the bureau for you then. They might not play well with a regular group, unless they're actually an agent from another country in deep cover amongst them. Pretty solid stuff ruleswise. Whether it's actually good for making the game more fun, I'm not so sure.
The dragon's augury: Call of Cthulhu gets a pretty negative review. There are substantial flaws and holes in the rules, and the setting book just sucks. Interesting. While not quite an outright slating, this is definitely a lot harsher than most reviews in this magazine. I get the impression the reviewer is big lovecraft fan, and is judging things on that basis. They definitely don't know the game'll go on far longer than most of the things appearing here.
Hitlers war is, you've guessed it, another WWII wargame. The reviewer compares it quite heavily to third reich. But it is a somewhat shorter and more tactically zoomed out game than that one. Still, it seems to be worth it's price, with several different levels of complexity to choose from, depending on how long you want to play.
Off the shelf has a particularly high quotient of genuinely famous authors this month: Fall into darkness by Nicholas Yermakov Berkley puts a russian spin on the humans in space trope, which puts both american and russian tropes and politics into relief.
The deadliest show in town by Mike McQuay is another futuristic detective novel.
The claw of the conciliator by Gene Wolfe is another time and space spanning epic in the new sun series.
The restaraunt at the end of the universe by Douglas Adams is immediately recognized as an absolute classic, even more entertaining than the first book in this reviewers opinion. But I think most of you already have your own opinions on Mr Adams' work, so you don't need telling that.
The book of philip jose farmer is a well done compilation of his stories, with introductions to the stories, plus several new ones, and a great cover. Snap it up before it goes out of print.
Durandal by Harold lamb is a pseudohistorical epic, telling the story of what happened to Roland's sword after he died. Much bloodyness and intrigue happens.
Beneath an opal moon by Eric van Lustbader is as predictably unpredictable and full of depth as most of his work.
What's new is contracturaly obliged to put off sex in D&D for another month while they tackle actual new games. Incidentally, did Ed Greenwood and Bryce Knorr really look anything like that? Wormy gets three whole pages, plus a cameo in what's new. Pretty decent.
One of the less interesting issues of this period. Apart from the gnomes and the reviews, not much has stuck in my mind. They can definitely do better than this.
84 pages Another birthday issue, more stuff on dragons old and new. Plus regular features, new games, and a certain amount of recycled ideas. Hey, Originality aint easy. They need something to go between the big ideas.
In this issue:
Dragon rumbles: Ooh. We have the results from their recent survey in. 95% male, average age of 16 and a half, no great surprises there. What is more interesting is how small the proportion of games are that play using the rules as written. They really ought to do something about that.
Out on a limb: A letter praising the second best of, and asking for more classes, as they're getting bored with playing the same old bunch. Kim responds by saying that the current game is not imbalanced, and so doesn't need any more classes, (ha) so they want to keep any further ones they introduce strictly optional.
A letter engaging in some eyerolling at the science article in issue 60, saying such over literal application of real world physics shouldn't be used in a game.
As ever in anniversary issues, they put dragon related stuff in. This time, that is three new dragon types. Faerie dragons are the same type that made it into future editions, with euphoria gas, and quite considerable spell-casting abilities. Grey and steel dragons, on the other hand, are not. A unique named pair of twins, they are opposites in terms of behaviour in nearly every way. But curiously enough, they're not hugely powerful. Interesting. They'd certainly make a good mid-level plot for your players to deal with.
Bazaar of the bizarre: Dragonscale armour. Harvesting body parts for magical components. What a lucrative trade. And dragons are one of the biggest monsters so of course they get special attention here. You'd think the results would be more powerful, given how hard it is to get hold of. And indeed, later versions of it would be. I'm curious as to why roger made it so weak and hard to make. Rather disappointing, really.
Gangbusters: Designers notes on one of the less well remembered games of that era. The pulp crimehunting game which takes the cops and robbers analogy so often used to describe RPG's to its logical conclusion, with rules for public opinion, finance, investigation, and fast and furious action. Or so they say. Did it flop deservedly, or simply because both the pulp era and non-supernatural games tend not to sell very well? I wonder if we'll see any more articles on it in here?
From the sorceror's scroll: Spell books! An important item for every wizard (they'd be impotent without it ) Gary fills in a load more of D&D's implied setting. What they look like, (chunky) how much they cost (loads) How much spell casters charge to cast spells for hire (again, loads). Becoming a wizard is not cheap or easy, and with these costs, they could never be common. You'd have to do quite a bit of monkeying around to get a genuinely high fantasy game out of D&D as written at this point.
Pages from the mages: Well well. Looks like the start of another classic series, one of those that went a long way towards cementing Elminsters place in the D&D mythology. We get several new spells, including nulathoes ninimen, (which I'm sure some people have been wondering about for a good 2 and a half years now) but that's not as important as the tons of weird little details he puts in, from histories of the wizards that made the spellbooks, to the ingredients used to make the ink that inscribes the spells. This really is rather fascinating, as no-one else is writing anything like this stuff. He seems to be capturing the tolkienesque spirit of putting details on everything from languages to cooking as part of his worldbuilding, far batter than fantasy certain novels that just imitate the obvious tropes of the LotR and completely miss the point. This is indeed the kind of article that would change a young person's perspective on gaming and I look forward to seeing more in the series.
Scribes? Again?! Jesus H, what is with these people? Scribes are not interesting. Oh well, I guess even Ed has his off articles. We really do not need to know exactly how noncombatant NPC classes earn their xp in this much detail. It does not make our world richer, as the players will never get to see it.
Sage advice is also focussing upon spellcasting this month. The answers are exceedingly verbose as well. Hopefully I can compress them without losing too much:
Can clone restore you to life. How many times can a character be cloned. (As long as the tissue sample was taken while you were alive. Remember, the clone only has the memories from when the sample was taken. Whether it's actually you or not is a complicated debate for metaphysicians. You can make lots of clones, but bad things tend to happen, as they go insane and try to kill you and each other. Someone ought to work on an upgraded version of the spell. )
Why can you teleport into gas or liquid but not solids. Can you teleport your weapon into another creature (because gasses and liquids can displace easily. Solids cant, so kablooey stuff happens. No, you can't dilliberately teleport items into others, because the spell isn't that precise. )
Affect normal fires doesn't seem to make sense if you use it to try and increase blazes brighter than a torch. (nope, you can't. It just isn't strong enough to make them brighter than that. )
What happens if you bring an object enchanted with continual light into an area of magical darkness? ( they cancel each other out as long as they are in the same area, then both come into play again after moving out. You need to cast the opposing spell directly at the other one to cancel it permanently.
Can you talk while Held (no. )
If you're energy drained and get back the experience, can restoration restore you to an even higher level (no)
Dragon rumbles: Ooh. We have the results from their recent survey in. 95% male, average age of 16 and a half, no great surprises there. What is more interesting is how small the proportion of games are that play using the rules as written. They really ought to do something about that.
Well heh.
Quote:
Gangbusters: Designers notes on one of the less well remembered games of that era. The pulp crimehunting game which takes the cops and robbers analogy so often used to describe RPG's to its logical conclusion, with rules for public opinion, finance, investigation, and fast and furious action. Or so they say. Did it flop deservedly, or simply because both the pulp era and non-supernatural games tend not to sell very well? I wonder if we'll see any more articles on it in here?
Played this and absolutely loved it. Kept playing a reporter. Had loads of fun with it.
__________________ Currently running: Sufficiently Advanced over Maptool. Soon to change. If you'd like to join in a short 3-8 session campaign for various systems, drop by our forums.
I double-dog-dare you to make your game sound super cool without comparing it to other editions. - paraphrased from Umbran.
Pages from the mages: Well well. Looks like the start of another classic series, one of those that went a long way towards cementing Elminsters place in the D&D mythology. We get several new spells, including nulathoes ninimen, (which I'm sure some people have been wondering about for a good 2 and a half years now) but that's not as important as the tons of weird little details he puts in, from histories of the wizards that made the spellbooks, to the ingredients used to make the ink that inscribes the spells. This really is rather fascinating, as no-one else is writing anything like this stuff.
Yeah, Greenwood really has a flair for writing the game-related stuff. I have the 2e splat Pages from the Mages (which probably got it's start from the material in this article), and his descriptions and histories of the various spellbooks is very good. I know later 2e submissions for Dragon copied this style, some doing it better than others, and some people trying to flesh out Greyhawk with unique spellbooks. One of these days, I want to go back to the stuff on the ink, and use it as a basis for scroll-writing components.
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My hat of 4e knoes no limit!
), caltrops. The mancatcher! ( now that's a far more efficient way of subduing an enemy than unarmed combat.) We'll be seeing quite a few of these again in official supplements. There is a certain amount of special effects creep here, but thankfully damage creep has been avoided. It would be bad for verisimilitude if all the indigenous cultures had better weaponry than the european analogues. (although if you're playing D&D, that should be the least of your worries) I'm sure some of you had lots of fun with these little babies. 
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