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.
And now, the psionicist: Hmm. Now this is very interesting. We now have a class specifically devoted to psionics. And it has the same name that the 2nd ed version would. That automatically makes this a pretty influential article. Lets see what they changed in the meantime. These do have quite a few weird 1st editionisms, such as different hit dice at different levels, level titles (which overlap with other classes thanks to insufficiently sized theasauri) and basic details such as armor/weapons/money are different. Despite adding a bunch of extra powers, they still have a rather limited selection compared to the spellcasting classes. If the ability to access the ones they know in any order as long as they have the points to spend will balance that out I'm not sure. Given that even 2nd edition psionics was horribly breakable, I suspect that these guys may also be if you select your powers right. (Yes, I am aware of the contradictions there. Could they be simultaneously under and overpowered? Possibly. ) Still, even if it needs a few rounds of playtesting and fine-tuning, this is a pretty neat article, that opens up new character avenues nicely. And since AD&D classes were never that well balanced anyway, what does it matter if they're unbalanced as long as they have niche protection. Another cool thing to add to the massive list of things I want to try out.
The Deryni: Ooh, a conversion with official author sanction. It's been rather too long since we saw one of those. And since we got a FUDGE deryni game recently, that probably means she's actually a gamer herself and not just licensing it out for the money. Anyway, lets look at the actual merits of the article. As you might expect, they do run into the problem of trying to fit them into the D&D rules framework, but they take away options as much as they grant them, which means they aren't as annoying as some other contributions we've seen :cough:gypsies:cough: Overall, this is a pretty decent article, and they don't have to mutilate them too much to get them to work with D&D. I wonder if we'll see them again in here.
Heroes and villains of the deryni: Arthur Collins' final contribution this month allows him to put all the ingredients he's introduced so far into a nice package as he details characters from the books. Which is nice, as normally, you don't get to see the optional rules in these issues actually applied. We get 8 characters, most of which are multiclass psionicists. There is the usual tendency towards massive attribute bloat that we see in most of these articles. You ought to know by now I disapprove of that unless it really does accurately reflect the characters all-round capabilities as shown in the novel (in which case it's the author who'll get the mild disapproval if their writing isn't good enough to justify the characters all-round brilliance ) so I shall simply shrug and sigh at this. Giants in the earth may be gone, but it's influence is still seen, making people think creating characters with stats like this is normal behaviour. So I have decidedly mixed feelings about the final results.
Citadel by the sea: A 16 page module for low level characters. It does have some fairly specific character requirements, due to the mission and setting, and requires quite a bit of roleplaying. But once you get past that it's a regular, if pretty large dungeoncrawl. Like keep on the borderlands, this is one you can approach in a number of ways, and if you fail to clear it out first time (likely, unless you have a big, well henched party) they should react and adapt to your encroachment. So another useful little piece of kit that you can drop in easily enough to your games. They strike a decent balance between putting roleplaying stuff in and allowing the players plenty of freedom in how to solve the problem.
Figure feature: Lots of different monsters this month. Mermen, demons, trolls, hydra, dragons, plus a couple of mounted humans. But at least they're evil humans, so you can kill them without feeling guilty as well.
Be thy die ill-wrought?: Standard deviation. One of the more useful pieces of statistical math. In this case it's used to test if a die really is loaded, or your mind is just seeing patterns where there are none. For those of you who can't wrap your brains around the math involved, they also include a BASIC program which can do the heavy lifting for you. Its always nice when they put in something that'll expand people's general knowledge. I haven't done these kind of maths since I left school, and it's nice to be reminded of them.
The ecology of the mind flayer: Looks like they're getting in on the psionic theme as well, with the story of the ilithids, as told by a githyanki. And as they should know, you don't with them unprepared, and you don't rely on magic to get them. Use psionics liberally, watch your companions for signs of being taken over, and generally make sure you have lots of failsafes and backup plans. Because they'll definitely learn from your mistakes and get revenge if you fail. The drama is strong in this one, as the protagonists learn just how scary it is dealing with someone who's reading your mind the whole time. Still, better they learn that now than in pitched battle where the enemy counters their every tactic and then eats their brains. Also interesting to note is that mind flayers don't have a god yet. Illsenine and whats-his-name who got killed by Orcus are still just motes in some writers mind. Also missing is the whole implantation schtick. In fact, details on their reproductive cycle are completely missing. On the other hand, they do get plenty of info which would be useful in actual encounters, such as the type of creatures that they associate with, and how they build their cities. Not a perfect article, but still an exceedingly entertaining one. Monsters like this are why you should treat dungeoneering as a carefully planned military mission. When you're going into a city filled with thousands of high power monsters, you've got to be prepared.
Spells can be psionic too: Kim finishes off the psionic stuff with some dull comparison between spells and powers that do roughly the same thing. While it does reveal some little details about the D&D universe metaphysics, this definitely has the feel of a filler article. I'm really not in the mood for this kind of piece by piece examination at the moment, and I think we can safely skip this one. The last of 8 articles in a theme is rarely that good.
Pop the clutch and roll: Chases! A situation full of drama that the vast majority of RPG's handle very badly indeed, with their flat movement rates, and awkward integration of attack and movement options. Vehicle chases are particularly problematic. Lets see what this set of rules for Top Secret is like, and if they work.
Hmm. Recording maneuvers for each turn in secret, then revealing them simultaneously. That's a pretty good way of going about it, as it allows both luck and skill to play a part in catching or losing your opponent. Obviously, there is a certain amount of crunch involved as you compare options, but at only 5 pages, I think you can handle it. And it's good that they're not neglecting their other games as well.
The thrill of the hunt: Dragonquest also gets an article this month. Rules for hunting food. Now there's a good idea. Unless you're in another plane of existance or something similarly problematic, you shouldn't have to rely entirely on food you packed beforehand. A simple and effective little table is provided allowing you to determine your odds of success in various environments. Obviously this does increase the power of the characters a little, but as it also takes up plenty of time and XP to develop and use, I think it balances out. Time spent hunting is not spent completing your primary quest. But if you die of starvation, you're not going to complete anything. I quite approve. It adds realism without getting in the way.
What's new sets us some puzzles. Wormy engages in some recounting. Snarfquest solves the predicament by mad luck.
Well, that was a rather harder issue to get through than I expected. Goes to show. First impressions from looking at the table of contents are not always accurate. Not that it's a bad one in terms of writing or design, but the degree of hard-to-digest crunch is definitely quite high in this one, making it less enjoyable that the last few. I guess it's good exercise for my brain, reading this much this fast. No pain, no gain. I wonder how much'll actually have been retained once it's all over. Maybe | should take a test. Eh. Long way to go. No time for angst. We can save that for the 90's.
And now, the psionicist: Hmm. Now this is very interesting. We now have a class specifically devoted to psionics. And it has the same name that the 2nd ed version would. That automatically makes this a pretty influential article.
It was influential for me. I imagine if this class had never come about, I would have filed psionics along with the 1e barbarian, cavalier, and drow in the "too munchkin to allow" department. Instead, it evolved its own place in our games, a class with a unique feel. The Deryni article helped give the class some context (I had never read the Deryni books at this point.)
Funny thing, if you look at the letters columns over the next year or two, there's a debate about whether or not the psionicist article is "doing it right", which seems alot like a thread you'd see on gaming forums today.
__________________ "This game requires no gameboard because the action takes place in your imagination..." - Cover of Dungeons & Dragons Basic Rules Set 1.
84 pages Another step towards computers being integral to their operations is made here. On the plus side, this means nicer layout. On the negative side, as they've only just adopted it, only part of this magazine uses the changes so far. You don't get breaks to retool when the dreaded deadline beast needs regular feeding. I'm so glad at this point that I'm posting stuff considerably slower than I can do it, so I do get time to buffer and take breaks. Lets see if they can finish this year off in style.
In this issue:
Out on a limb: A fairly long letter criticizing Len's anti evil characters stuff in issue 76. Kim rebutts this, saying that as ever, you can use this stuff the way you want, but we strongly recommend you do it our way. After all, we're the professionals. We know what makes a fun game better than you do. We particularly know what makes up AD&D. By real world standards, a bunch of heavily armed guys independent of and political body who went around killing things and taking their stuff would be regarded as dangerous criminals. But that's irrelevant. There are standards of Good and Evil in D&D, and you should play characters that fit those of Good.
A short letter supporting Len, saying they're sick of evil characters ruining their games.
A letter pointing out they screwed up yet another computer program. Never let literary editors do a technical editors job.
Praise for the nine hells article and asking for more planar ones. They reply that they're certainly open to the idea as long as someone sends them high quality manuscripts. They'll need to be pretty damn good to measure up to Ed's example though.
A letter asking if the combat computer is available separately. They reply that no, you'll have to buy another issue. Yah boo, razzle, etc etc.
A letter commenting on the skills that make up a good GM. Quite an interesting one, too. Well done, Jonathan Helles, if you're still out there.
The ecology of the treant: An ecology for one of the more ecologically minded monsters. This is why monsters from dungeons don't overrun the forests and rip them down. They have their own horrors that are quite capable of taking care of themselves. And if you're only facing treants, you should count yourself lucky. Better that than being schooled by some kind of trickster fae. The fiction on this one isn't particularly great, as it's rather lacking in drama. However, it does have an appendix that actually has useful game information. And a robert heinlein reference Overall, probably a slightly below average entry, but not terrible.
The best of the dragon, part three! They really are churning those out. I don't know. Any excuse for some easy money.
Fiction: The ordeal by Atanielle Annyn Noel. Ooh. Fiction about gaming group drama. Makes a change from the straight fantasy stuff. You see surprisingly little crossover between the fiction writers and the gaming article producers. Anyway. Pretentious twit gets a little mischievious justice, learns from the experience, everyone winds up happier at the end. There's a definite moral to this story. Plus it shows that this kind of gamer existed long before white wolf started writing games specifically targeted at the florid melodramatic prose crowd. A pretty entertaining story that quite a few people could learn from.
Sage advice has an amusing nanofic at the start this time. Ahh, the perils of having more questions than you can possibly print. Anyway, back to the questions.
Do you get Xp per gold piece or silver piece ( Gold. If it was silver, Hoo boy. It'd the game assumptions right up. Merchants would kick adventurers asses no trouble. Hmm. Maybe that might be a good thing.)
Do landragons have claw attacks? Can they swim? ( no on both counts. They're LANDragons, aren't they?)
Can you use the combat computer in actual AD&D games. (That's what it was designed for.)
What is the min wis & cha to be a duelist. ( None in particular, other than the general 5 or lower rule, which would prevent them from joining it. )
Why can't duelists use flails ( No matter what you say, we can't find any reference to dueling with flails. No precision. Someone could get hurt.)
The ecology of the catoblepas contradicts the monster manual. Which one is correct. ( The MM is still the official answer. Your DM may change this for his game, as is his perogative. We are not responsible for any annoyance caused if you metagame and then find that things aren't what you expect them to be. )
Can the water creating pill in issue 73 be used as a poison. ( It'd certainly hurt if you swallowed it. But that doesn't make it a poison. )
Can ogres use magical boots or not? ( Um, maybe. We'll leave that up to your DM)
How do you find the new gemstones detailed in issue 72 (The DM will have to make custom treasure tables including the expansions, same as for any of the new items detailed here. Or they could place treasure as they see fit, instead of leaving it to the dice. Nahh, that's a stupid idea. It'll never catch on. )
Can lycanthropes who can change shape conciously do so on the astral plane. (Hmm. Since it totally cripples them as combat encounters to be unable to, I think we'll change our previous ruling and say yes.)
What special powers to githyanki knights have? Why aren't there more of them in Fedifensor? ( None, they're just complete bastards. Because Fedifensor is just a little outpost, not a full-blown fortress.)
How can you have assassins in an ice age setting ( Oh, you innocent little man. Assasination is like prostitution. As long as there is some form of valued item to create an economy, some people will for it, while others will kill for it. There have always been assassins, and there always will (at least, until 2nd edition bans them))
How do you make animal skeletons ( You need to make a variant on animate dead. If you know the basic one, it's easy enough to adapt.)
Doesn't tiamat spawn all evil dragons? How does that jive with the colour wheel theory mon? ( Even if she did originally create dragons (A rather specious claim) they're still biological entities that mate and lay eggs. Both statements can be true simultaneously. Oh, and the color wheel theory is complete bollocks. I wouldn't say so in the magazine that published it, but you can tell I'm thinking it.)
How can deities be druids above 14th level. (They're deities. They scoff at your puny mortal rules. )
Why do the AC's for dragon armour suck so much. Can you enchant them. ( because we don't want to break the game, and yes. )
Jesters break the rules! They let dwarves and halflings cast wizard spells, and break their limits on languages known (Yes. And your point is? They are a joke class, you know. As ever, you can houserule things. )
What is a cantrip ( see issues 59-61)
Do boodle wizards hit on a 1-3 or a 1-4 (Oops. We made a boo-boo. 1-4 is the right answer)
Why are locomotives so slow (Game balance. You can move way more than 12 inches a minute. They needed to be scaled down likewise. )
You messed up the section on undersea magical items in issue 48 (aw, come on, that was two and a half years ago. Don't keep bringing it up)
What is a balrog, and what are it's stats. ( You've read Lord of the rings, right? You can find it in the OD&D books. Unfortunately we can't print it any more, or the tolkien estate will suesess uss, my preciouss. )
Can the shield spell stop lasers (no)
Can lasers hurt things that can only be hit by magical weapons (yes. Shows you which side we want to have an edge in a crossover)
I can't engage in even the most basic reskinning activities ( no, you're a moron. We shall have to give you remedial answers.)
Do barbarians eat quiche? ( Barbarians stomp wussy quiche! RAAAAAAAAARG!!! Apart from Rogar of Mooria. He like his quiche a little too much. We worry about him sometimes. )
Magic resistance: Yes, it's time for some more rules clarifications. Magic resistance is an additional bonus chance to completely avoid effects that some creatures get on top of their usual saving throw. When it takes effect, what it does, what items bypass it, if it can be switched off volantarily, you probably encountered these questions if you were playing at the time. This makes it a useful but dry little article that feels rather dated, as the rules and how to phrase them have since been refined. Oh well, you've gotta put the work in to make the improvements. And it's a good thing someone did.
Gen con miniature open '83: Oooh. Pretty photos. Properly scanned ones this time. Their record on that has been spotty at best in the past. People, units, monsters and dioramas. Who's done the best job of painting and displaying their stuff this year? Shout outs to Julie Guthrie (four times, she really swept the boards this year), Jim Zylka (twice), Gene Elsner, John S Goff, Alan Patton, Judy Brown, and Mike Jaecks. (that's a weirdly high proportion of people who's names begin with J. What's with that?) I'll bet this brings up fond memories, if you're reading this.
Blame it on the gremlins: Oh, this is amusing. A monster from real world earth gets transplanted to D&D land. That's a bit wonky. Anyway. Annoying little trickster monster from modern legend. Be very afraid, for humiliation is worse than death, you know the drill. One of those articles that gives a rather large amount of tactical, ecological and sociological detail. It's just a vague irritation that it's being applied to such a silly subject. Really not sure if I like this or not, as it's going a long way for a joke, but wouldn't really fit in a serious D&D game. I think I'll leave it.
Setting saintly standards: Hello again Scott. You were dissatisfied by the fudgy answer to the question of sainthood, so you've decided to fill in some details of your own accord. While this still doesn't reveal how to become one (and given the criteria is essentially "convince some god they like you enough to grant sainthood" that puts hard and fast rules out anyway) this gives us a decent powerset and bunch of examples for different alignments. While that won't help you with the philosphical issues, at least it's a few more combat encounters to throw your players way, and lets them become godkillers lite before going on to the real thing. So it's useful in actual play, anyway. Another so-so article.
Wacko World: Another top secret module. Although 16 pages long, it actually isn't that big, because two pages are blank, while others have adverts on part of them. Still plenty of stuff going on, as it combines location based wandering with a timeline dependent plot. Something sinister is going down at the funfair, and you'd better figure it out before lots of people die. Despite the comical exterior, this actually looks like it could be rather tricky to solve. It's certainly not a bad module, and the site could be easily transplanted for other uses. As ever, actual play experiences are welcome.
Page advice II: Once again, they give advice to all you aspiring freelancers out there on how to get your stuff up to scratch and into print. This time, they're a little more specific than before, along with the usual stuff about producing work consistently, not getting discouraged, learning from feedback and trying again, they give more info about handy reference materials. The elements of style gets it's usual hearty recommendation, and research in general is played up as a very good thing. After all, you can't conciously hone and adapt your style unless you can analyze other people's styles and figure out what's good about them. Looks like they're refining their knowledge of how to spot a good freelancer as well as their personal writing skills. Well, with a bigger player base to draw on, they can afford to be more selective. This of course makes it harder for the ordinary person to get their big break. Oh well, so it goes. This is why getting in on the ground floor if you can spot a trend coming is a good idea.
The fights of fantasy: Lew Pulsipher considers how magic would logically affect D&D warfare. A very good topic to cover indeed. Once again, his tastes and thoughts mesh seamlessly with mine, as he examines the impact scrying, mind reading, and general use of wizards as artillery and strategy pieces has on the flow of war. Pay attention to this stuff, because it's easy to adapt to regular party situations as well. Good battlefield control enables you to take on far larger forces and come out on top than piling in with straight attacks. Buffs (actually get neglected somewhat in Lews consideration, which is interesting to note.) and strategic spells have far greater impact than straight damage dealers. While it is a bit dated by the ruleset, and hampered by 4e's brutal nerfing of strategic noncombat spells, the principles are still sound. Apply them, and your ability to take on large opposition and come out on top will be massively increased, whatever system you're using. I very much approve, and hope some of you had your playstyle shaped by this back in the day.
Be aware and take care: (You'd better watch out if you've got long black hair ) Lew gets a second article published in quick succession. This is quite a long one, spanning 8 pages. (albeit sharing them with lots of adverts) It covers much the same themes as the previous one, but from a different angle. This is focussed around avoiding the obvious mistakes an adventuring party can make, and tactics for good dungeoneering in general. The lessons from dealing with years of antagonistic DM'ing are writ large here, as well as lessons on adapting your play to the fudging, make it as they go along style GM. This is indeed very focussed on the kind of play where the team is trying to win, and the victories are more important than the journey. But as we know Lew doesn't neglect the role side, and this focus on the objective is merely for this article, that's not too bad. Once again, this is filled with inventive touches such as putting explosive runes on paper planes and polymorphing charmed creatures to make them more useful. He's pretty much got the whole package sorted. Rules mastery, imagination, and social contract stuff. I am indeed envious.
Off the shelf: The art of Al Williamson by James van Hise is a biography of the man and his artwork, showing how he has developed over the years, the people who have influenced and collaborated with him. It could be easy to get sloppy and produce scrappy work when you have to create stuff daily for the newspapers, but he has always retained proper anatomy and shadow play. This has won him much respect from his peers and readers.
Code of the life maker by James P Hogan is science fiction with a strong emphasis on both the science and the social commentary. Let us not forget, humanity has done many dumb things in it's time. What better way to teach than by mockery.
The unteleported man by Philip K Dick is another of his classics of convoluted plot and shifting viewpoint. Now in a new extended edition, with the original ending retained. What do these publishers know about commercial success?
Dinosaur tales by Ray Bradbury is an illustrated collection of his works. Great for anyone who loves dinosaurs, bradbury, or good artwork. That's a pretty broad net cast there. Methinks a little hyperbole is involved. Still, it's not as though dinosaurs don't hold a deep fascination for some people. I'm sure plenty would enjoy it.
The generals wife by Peter Straub is exceedingly expensive. Not sure why, when it seems from the decsription to be quite short. I guess the illustrations and packaging make up the deluxe cost. An interesting little curio.
The worthing Chronicle by Orson Scott Card is as preachy as we have come to expect from the man, the mormon, the legend that is Scott Card. Thankfully this is pre-brain eater days, when he could still tell a riveting sci-fi story to back his ideology. Or at least, this reviewer likes it. Ahh, more innocent days.
The man who used the universe by Alan Dean Foster is another tale of intrigue and ambition. The reviewer didn't like him before, but for some reason, does now. What changed?
Wormy goes to a werebar. Hybrid form is the preferred dress around there. Dixie gets bodyswapped in What's new. Say growf to me, bitch. Growf Growf! GROWF! Oh yeah, that's right baby. What, we're still not going to do sex in D&D. Then what....... oh no.
An odd mix of the dry and silly in this issue. Seems like they decided to use up a lot of april's leftovers before they went off, but also put in a load of gaming advice. This is a bit incongrous, and overall adds up to a slightly sub par issue. You really ought to get back to the spectacular special features. At least they're interesting even when they fail technically. At least all the rules stuff is pretty solid this time, unlike with a lot of joke articles. Come on, you've done some good stuff recently. Don't start letting things slide and get flabby again.
84 pages. Another iconic cover from Clyde Caldwell that would be reprinted quite a few times here. We also find out that their circulation has now exceeded 100,000. Not long now until they hit their peak. Enjoy it while it lasts.
In this issue:
Out on a limb: A letter praising the psionic articles, and asking if the new powers in there are available to non psionicists. They decide to leave that question open to individual GM's. It's all optional, dahlink. Ewerythink's Optional! :grandiose hand gesture:
A letter from Arthur Collins giving minor corrections to the aforementioned psionics stuff. Curse you, Kim! :shakes fist:
A letter pointing out that their dice probability program is flawed. They say they already admitted that last issue. Don't keep on.
A question about king of the tabletop, which they answer efficiently.
A letter pointing out corrections in the index, and asking how long it'll be before the next one. They really don't know.
A letter about testing dice with the same number twice with the chi-square formula. The best way is to treat each side as a single result.
A letter pointing a mistake in citadel by the sea. Thankfully, it's an invisible error, so it doesn't ruin the module anyway.
A letter pointing out that they've been ending articles with the zodiac symbols for each month recently, and wondering about the significance. They reply that it's just for fun, y,know.
The psychology of the doppleganger: An ecology by another name would still smell just as, well, pretty rank actually, for most of the creatures they tackle. But these guys can smell how they like. (unless you decide that that isn't the case, as a way to catch them out) This decides that dopplegangers are like cuckoos. They imitate humanity, breed with them, and think that they are human when they are young. Which as you should know, is a portrayal that sticks, simply because of the cool plots it offers. But like illithids (another race that would later become parasitic off the bodies of others,) they are far from human in their mentality, with mind reading and sheer intellectual power causing them to regard most races as mere cattle to be played with as they choose. How can you have an equal relationship with someone when you can read their every thought, probe their memories freely, and anticipate their every move. You'd come to think yourself superior as well and justly so. There's a world of darkness game in there, and I'm vaguely surprised they haven't made one about dopplegangers yet. All in all, this is a pretty good ecology, both in terms of fiction and interesting appendix detail. The creepiest things are those that hit closest to home. And dopplegangers can certainly do that in spades.
How many coins in a coffer: Oh great. Another article picking apart the holes in D&D's physics. Don't you think it's strange that all the coins in D&D have the same weight and fill the same volume regardless of what material makes them up. This is incredibly unrealistic. So lets crunch the numbers, see what they really are. Much basic but weighty statistical stuff ensues, revealing several interesting real world factoids along the way. Remember, encumbrance is a far bigger issue in reality than it's made out to be in the game, and you have to take shape into account far more as well. A certain degree of fudging would probably be better for keeping the game fun and fast flowing. But it could be amusing to extrapolate outwards to build a universe where the universal constant is coin weight and volume, rather than the speed of light. So this is another valuable article in terms of showing us how to deconstruct game reality, and remodel it in our own post-modern image. I must remember to refer back to it when this kind of stuff comes up again.
Amazing magazine has back issues! Get them now, before they're sold out!
Five keys to DM'ing success: Huh. only 5? Lew gave us twenty, just a few issues ago. This seems a little redundant, not to mention uninspired, when you consider that. I have to wonder why they published it. I guess like class and race expansions, GM'ing advice is always both produced, and in demand. Taken on it's own, it's not a bad article. But in comparison to Lew's one, it really doesn't measure up. What was Kim thinking letting this through when they could have covered something new instead. Was the freelance article slush pile really that lacking in interesting stuff?
Dungeon master's Familiar: Another computer program for speeding your game along. In theory, anyway. As ever, I'm sure we'll see complaints that it doesn't work for them. They really are surprisingly persistent given the number of failures they've had in this area. Eh. Better to play it too risky than to play it too safe.
Who lives in that castle: Katharine Kerr gives us more worldbuilding stuff, with a system free, but high detail essay on historical castles, and how they were inhabited, managed and supported. Useful but dry stuff, I found myself zoning out when I tried to read this one. I think I'll save it for when I actually want to build my own one. Come on, you need top make this setting building stuff sound exciting, otherwise people won't want to try it.
Treasures rare and wondous: Another list of a hundred interesting items for treasure, mostly nonmagical, but some with minor special abilities. Ed once again manages to make even the normal ones interesting and flavourful. See, it's not all about the specul powerz. Also interesting is his observation that increasingly, DM's are starting to place treasure rather than roll for it, as this results in more story specific and balanced (at least, if you're Ed, and a game design genius) long term games. Once again, we see how the old skool methods are already fading away, to be replaced by more story based methods of gaming. And he's playing an important part in making this the case. One of those articles that's more interesting as a plotting of historical trends than for its own sake, as I can only stay interested in the nuances of gems and jewelery for a little while.
Man, car wars has quite a few supplements now. Seems a bit much for a one joke game. I guess that like paranoia, it's a pretty good joke.
Barnacus, city in peril: is a 12 page low level AD&D module. This is rather a retro feeling one. treating the city as just another dungeon, with a map, lotsa random encounters, and a site based final encounter. You'll have to do quite a bit of your own world-building to make this place feel real, because it's still pretty sketchy. You'll also face challenges considerably above your own level, and probably have to do some retreating as well. Definitely not one of their high points of design. Still, cities are always more reusable than dungeons, so even once the adventure is solved, the map could still be of use. File under slightly subpar.
Dragon Issue 66: October 1982
. . .
Sage advice seems to be stuck in the past this month, focussing on demihumans:
. . .
Why can't elves be rangers, when they're so nature oriented. (because the gods say so. They gave humans ranger abilities as a direct way to deal with giants and other wilderness threats. For whatever reason, elven deities aren't so generous, despite the fact that they have ranger abilities themselves. Maybe if you pray enough, they'll change their minds someday. )
This Sage Advice reply is one of the best descriptions of what a D&D ranger is in the original conception, and thus in settings like the World of Greyhawk. The civilization/borderlands/wilderness dynamic is one of many old D&D ideas that was always assumed but never spelled out all in one place.
Quote:
Originally Posted by (un)reason
Dragon Issue 80: December 1983
. . .
Treasures rare and wondous: . . . Also interesting is his observation that increasingly, DM's are starting to place treasure rather than roll for it, as this results in more story specific and balanced (at least, if you're Ed, and a game design genius) long term games. Once again, we see how the old skool methods are already fading away, to be replaced by more story based methods of gaming. And he's playing an important part in making this the case.
Methods, plural, indeed. I think this thread is a timely reminder of how great Ed's Dragon articles are and of his influence on D&D, but it's not something that can be easily characterized as 'old school' or 'new school'. See this entry in James Maliszewski's blog.
Last edited by Faraer; 9th January 2009 at 07:54 PM..
This Sage Advice reply is one of the best descriptions of what a D&D ranger is in the original conception, and thus in settings like the World of Greyhawk. The civilization/borderlands/wilderness dynamic is one of many old D&D ideas that was always assumed but never spelled out all in one place.
Unstated assumptions strike again. Its amazing how much weirdness that causes.
Quote:
Methods, plural, indeed. I think this thread is a timely reminder of how great Ed's Dragon articles are and of his influence on D&D, but it's not something that can be easily characterized as 'old school' or 'new school'. See this entry in James Maliszewski's blog.
Indeed, particularly as what was new at that point has since been superceded by several more generations of writing and design trends. Calling ed's work new school at this point would be like calling Duran Duran or U2 fresh young things. Maybe compared to the rolling stones, but, er, yeah.
Leomund's tiny hut: Len gives us another of his officialy sanctioned yet not quite official rules revisions. Having characters remain static in their attack rolls and saving throws for several levels, and then do one big jump lacks realism, and makes advancement too granular. So let's smooth out the curve, so they progress 5% at a time. Now that's an improvement that they should have put in second edition, not waited until 3rd and a complete rewrite of the saving throw rules to implement. This time, he's really ahead of the curve. I approve of this development. Did anyone implement it? How did it work out in actual play?
These guys really took their time: Gaming group plays for a hundred hours non-stop, sets record, raises money for muscular dystophy. Not much to say about this article, as it's only a short one. I also approve of this. Has the record been broken by then, and if so, by how much?
A set of rules for game reviews: Ken Rolston imparts his wisdom upon the rest of us, so we may also make good submissions on this topic. Types of reviews, the way to approach them, solid criterea by which you can judge quality, aiming them at an audience, general style advice. Nothing hugely surprising here, but another decent checklist to go to if you're feeling lacking in confidence. Remember though, all the theory and study in the world means nothing if you don't try and do something with it.
Interesting to note here is how the internet has changed the time deadlines for reviews. In periodicals, if something's a few months old, it's dead news, but on websites where everything is saved and indexed, and reviews are often submitted by ordinary users (many of who really should read something like this) you can put them in years after release and still get some activity in the comments. Long tails are good, both in assessment and buying. You get a better picture of quality and informed demand that way.
Reviews: Timeship is a light hearted, easy to learn game of time-travel adventure, with a distinct tendency towards gonzoness. Save the city of Gommorrah. Kill Hitler. Yeah, they're not afraid of puncturing the big topics. Sounds like the kind of game which would be good for introducing younger kids to roleplaying. If you want strict realism, give this a miss, but for some fast furious, crossover friendly fun, this might be worth giving a whirl.
Illuminati is the classic Steve Jackson card game of conspiritorial wheels within wheels to the point of ludicrity. You've had plenty of opportunities to play it in the past few decades, and it's still in production. And this reviewer accurately calls it as a potential classic as well, with a detailed and enthusiastic review. Well done, Michael Lowery. Have a smug in hindsight point.
Privateers and gentlemen is a roleplaying game of high sea combat. Unfortunately, it fails to live up to it's swashbuckling premise, having poor organization, brutal hand to hand rules, and no introductory adventure to showcase the game and get you playing quickly. It is full of flavour though, and the author obviously knows their source material. You may want to steal the ship level combat rules, which seem to be the best developed part of the game, and keep using your usual one for human level interactions.
Man, myth & magic, on the other hand, does not seem to be salvageable. Ken viciously slates it, calling it the worst roleplaying system he's ever read. (and he's read a lot) Both system and presentation are teh suxxor. It doesn't even have the decency to be hilariously bad either. Avoid it. Ouch. Harsh man. Can I get a second opinion?
Coming soon: Ooooh. Another format change that moves things closer to the magazine that I remember. What better way to encourage strong sales than to always let people know what's coming out in the next month or two. Smart move. We don't want to just pop down to the shops, see what's in at random. Who knows how much we'd miss that way. Anyway, lets see what they've got to offer.
For gamma world, we have The cleansing war of Garik Blackhand. Gee, racial supremacists in a world full of mutants. Whoda thought it.
For star frontiers, Sundown at starmist, and Dramune run. Two more adventures to challenge your players with. (and I know nothing about beyond the teasers here. )
For AD&D, World of greyhawk, the new version of Gary's classic campaign setting.
For D&D, B5: Horror on the hill. Oooh, horror. Boogie boogie boogie.(Aiiee, the dread chant of Kool and the gang! Flee ) And we just had Ravenloft as well. People will keep trying to do horror in D&D, despite it not being particularly suited to it. But then, they don't have the competition in that area yet. And it helps fill in Mystara as well.
Off the shelf: The anubis gates by Tim Powers is a time travel story. Historical and fantastical details are mixed with considerable skill, and the whole thing has a pretty epic plot.
The house of the wolf by Basil Copper also takes a bunch of common tropes, but combines them in an interesting way. Is there really a werewolf out there? Who is it, what exactly can it do, and how do we stop it? You won't be sure till the final credits roll.
The right stuff by Tom Wolfe is a history of the space program, and the elements that go into making up a true hero. How do you get to be the kind of person who can pursue an epic dream and pull it off. An excellent question. We still have quite a few frontiers to penetrate as a species, and it's a shame that our exploration of the universe seems to have stalled since then. And as modern culture shows, if you don't have people doing genuinely amazing things, then people will idolize any old crap that's remotely interesting. But I digress.
Where the evil dwells by Clifford D Simak is a story set in an alternate universe roman empire. A group of heroes venture out into the monster infested wilderness for their own various reasons. The quest turns out to not be so simple and they have to examine themselves and grow personally throughout the adventure. You know the drill by now.
The zen gun by Barrington J Bayley gets plenty of praise from both the reviewer, and Michael Moorcock, of all people. A thought-provoking slice of sci-fi, it does the usual trick of mixing drama with social commentary, including a thoroughly hatable villain. Can get a bit meta, but that's not neccecarily a bad thing.
Bug jack Barron by Norman Spinrad is an amusingly relevant tale of a gadfly tv presenter a la Mark Thomas or Michael Moore. People phone in, he does his best to fix things. But has he taken on a target too big for him to handle this time? Media and politics are uneasy bedfellows, and can often be turned against one-another. This makes for excellent stories.
Lest darkness fall by L Sprague de Camp is another alternate rome story. This time, a guy from the modern world gets transported back in time, and the innovations he introduces end up saving the empire. History is completely changed, but hey, at least he gets a happy ending instead of dying unlamented in squalor in a distant era.
The sea of the ravens by Harold Lamb takes Sir Hugh and Durandal out to the middle east, where he joins forces with Ghengis Khan. I assume it's more tastefully done than that synopsis indicates, because the historical realism gets praised. Along with the rich descriptions, there are some equally lavish illustrations, particularly in the deluxe edition.
Palladium still haven't fixed the spelling mistake in their advert. Tch tch.
What's new covers shopping for monsters. Wormy has monsters getting drunk. The size differential once again raises it's ugly head. Snarfquest is just embarassing. The anachronisms are painful, and going to be integral.
Another mixed bag of good, bad and mediocre stuff. Just like real christmas presents, there's a few things here that you'll wind up using again and again, and a load of stuff you'll play with for a few minutes before forgetting about it and wind up just sticking in the attic to moulder. Overall, a fairly average issue, not too good, not too bad, not too short, not too long. Just a reliable average issue. They seem to be chugging along smoothly again after the lows of last year and the highs of this year. So lets see which way 1984 will take them.
100 pages. Your module design sucks. You always go over the limit, even the good entries. We're sick of the colossal editing and rewriting jobs needed to squeeze them into our self-imposed 16 page limit. So we're not going to publish any more of your amateur attempts. Sorry about that. Now try and avoid splurging over next time. I know it's hard, but you gotta stick closer to the format. Or go to judges guild. Oh, wait. Anyway, happy new year. Hope you enjoy the mid 80's as much or more than you did the early part. Lets get cracking.
In this issue:
Out on a limb: A letter complaining at them for putting the Wacko world module off-centre, and with adverts in it. They apologize and say they hope they won't have to do it again. Commercial considerations, last minute changes, excuses excuses.
Two more letters asking for out of stock or unreleased stuff. As ever, they have to politely turn them down, for the sake of their own sanities.
A correction to the psionic stuff in issue 78, that on further examination, is wrong in itself. (as far as we can tell, given how badly written the original psionics rules were. ) Sorry reader, you're the one in error this time.
A letter snarking in a rather pretentious manner at those people niggling about realism, quoting Moorcock extensively. Frankly, you're making yourself look dumb, Mr Douglas. Even if we choose not to make our games realistic, it's important to know how they deviate from reality. Awareness is the first step to being able to manipulate things in an informed and predictable way.
A letter complaining about the crappy new paper the last few issues were printed on, as well as the general downslide in quality. Kim gets fairly heated in his rebuttal to this. He certainly doesn't think the magazine is poor quality, or bad value for money. But then, he would say that, even if he didn't really feel it.
A letter asking why most of the articles are for AD&D rather than basic D&D. They reply that OD&D is out of print, so of course they aren't publishing stuff for that, and the new basic sets are being ignored because they want to keep that game simple and not rigidly defined. They may seem like the same game, but they aren't, and we don't reccomend you mix them.
Some rules questions for king of the tabletop.
A letter on psionics, xanth, and more reprint stuff. This gets a very lengthy and considered reply, in which the company line is trotted out again for another lap round the block.
A (possibly joke ) letter from a DM who refuses to let his players read the magazine. They give him a reproving reply, saying any DM who nicks all their ideas from the magazine and modules without any adaption doesn't deserve to be called such. So stop cutting into our profits, dagnammit.
Taking the sting out of poison: Another nerfing article? Noooooo! Oh, I speak too soon. This is actually an attempt to de-nerf things after the last one on this topic went way too far that direction, in the opinion of the writer. A high detail article from someone who has obviously read all the previous articles on the subject, and then did quite a lot of thinking about how to fix the issue. Costs, onset times, social issues, harvesting from monsters, antidotes, all get looked at. If you're running a high crunch game, this looks like a pretty solid expansion to keep poisons useful, but not overpowered, and if you want to run a poison-centric game (Playing a group of adventurer who make harvesting poisons from monsters and selling them one of their primary goals would be an interesting game. ) should be pretty helpful. The level of dryness keeps this from being a classic article, but It's still a solid above average, and if I get the chance I intend to apply the lessons learned here.
Fiction: In the cleft of queens by Esther M Lieper. A quite distinctively written little tale of outwitting a dragon. Sometimes, the tongue is indeed mightier than the sword. But remember, they've been around longer than you, and they're possibly smarter than you as well. That does not mean losing is inevitable. You've just gotta have style. As they say in Nobilis. The smart man and the strong man may never match up to the god, but the passionate man may impress them. Same principle here.
Eh oop. Looks like the flow of letters has reached a point where they feel the need to split them up. So they're introducing the forum, where the longer debates can take place without direct editorial interference while the straight questioning letters stay at the front. Once again the magazine takes a step towards the format I remember. So lets see what the first batch of comments and complaints are.
Mike Mrozek disapproves of Lew's level of gaming paranoia in issue 79. Ahhh, the military wargamer vs people who prefer freewheeling dramatic fun argument. Already in force as new people stream into the hobby.
David Hutton talks about the horrors of characters who take a single level in fighter, and then dual-class to another one straight away. Er, did you not read the sage advices which made it abundantly clear that you suffer the restrictions of both classes and lose the benefits of exceptional Str and Con if you change classes. Silly person. While the rules are breakable, this isn't one of those cases. And you'd need to be using one of the twinky ability generation methods to do that reliably, anyway. You can easily restrict that.
William L Collins, Ed Zmitravich, Rodney L Barnes, Joseph Wilkinson and Andrew Briggs have pontification about the psionics system, and how to fix it to be more balanced and sensible. These are not all in agreement, of course.
David Carl Argall talks about the beholder ecology, picking holes in their presented hunting strategy and how it interacts with their powers. Remember, beholders are deadly, but slow. Open air environments where their enemies can keep their distance and wear them down are a bad idea. You wanna use disintegrate and telekinesis to build yourself a good dungeon to trap your prey in. Stupid mating habits are a little more excusable, because we know how many dumb and impractical things humans will do in pursuit of sex despite supposedly being intelligent creatures. But we can play around with those as well in our own games.
And finally, Elizabeth Parry weighs in on the sexism found in the magazine. The automatic assumption of masculinity in some articles galls rather to her. Unless there is good reason, the articles should be written from an unbiased perspective.
So there we have it. In a few months, they'll start to get letters diliberately aimed at getting in the forum, and then it'll start building it's own conventions. What debates will we see in future years. Who will become a regular in these pages. How long before the internet makes this feature redundant. Keep tuning in to find out.
The ecology of the basilisk: Ed Greenwood ploughs onward through the monster manual. Nictating membranes. Such a wonderful phrase. Nictating membranes. Aint no passing craze. It means no eye grit, for the rest of your days. Anyway. Let's not filk that again, no matter how easy it is. Before you know it, we'll have vagina dentata, and then we really won't be able to talk about this stuff in front of the kids.
So, Basilisks. Thankfully, like hedgehogs, their exceedingly effective natural defenses mean they have no need for intelligence, and are rather stupid and sluggish as a result. We get plenty of detail on their mating and social habits (like the catoblepas, they need to be rather careful around each other if they don't want to die accidentally. ) personality traits, and of course, how much you can get for selling one. So plenty of stuff that's exploitable in actual play, as well as fluffy stuff. Also notable it the first mention of baldurs gate that I've spotted. We'll be seeing a lot more of that in the future. Overall, another strong article from the master of worldbuilding.
The british are coming! Games workshop starts a big push to make an impact on the international market. Buy their stuff, blah blah blah.
A couple of years ago I got a whole bunch of old Dragon magazines. My collection starts with issue 80, so it's good to see you reaching that point. Of course, we'll have to wait until the late 90's before we get to issues I've actually read...
__________________ The Ten-Minute Background When you want a good character background but don't want to spend pages telling it. Based off of the Minimus RPG engine, copyright 2008 Ad Astra Games, used with permission. Minimus is donation-ware, if you like TMB, please consider donating for a copy of Minimus, as per the instructions in the file.
Figure feature: Castle creations give us a Mercenaries, spies and private eyes line of figures. A whole bunch of contemporary models for your action based modern situations
Grenadier models offer us a 13 piece set of elf models. Archers, wizards, scouts, and a unicorn rider. You could make a whole army outta that.
RAFM gives us the reptiliad line. Lizard men and their equally reptilian mounts. They get a whole load of fluff too, but you can easily cut that away.
Dark horse designs gives us some more elves, this time concentrating on the wilder side of them, with scanty clothing, mohawks and really big ears. That's an interesting culture clash.
Tag industries gives us a fighter/mage, and a suitably towering messenger of the gods. Scale, you can play with it.
Chariots for characters: Another fun little bit of ancient technology that would be eminently suitable to the D&D game, but gets surprisingly little use in games I've seen, gets the spotlight put on it. So we get costs, rules for using them in combat (which they are rather good for) and historical bumpf. A quite simple but effective article that gives us more cool options to play with for both PC's and monsters.
Cu Chulainn: Giants in the earth may be gone, but it's spirit lives on, in yet another super powerful NPC statblock. You know the drill. A quick regurgitation of the myths involving the character, plus some roleplaying advice. Seen it all before, will probably see it again, still not very keen on the format. Nuff said.
The ruins of Andril: They billed this as an adventure for high level characters. 8-11 still counts as high level for you people? No ambition. I guess once teleporting and resurrection come in, site based adventures don't work very well. Lets give it a shot anyway. Another 16 pager, this is the kind of tournament adventure that does not play fair, and is filled with clever ways to screw the players over and keep their powers from working as expected. It also has an amusing anachronism, plenty of evidence of previous failed adventurers, a time limit, and a nasty sting in the tail just when you think it's over. Contrary to my initial skepticism, I find myself rather liking this, as it's a good example of no mercy old skool design, without being a no hints deathtrap like the tomb of horrors or doomkeep. I could see myself having a lot of fun with this one. Two thumbs up.
Living in a material world: More stuff on equipment. Just because material components have a price doesn't mean they should be easily available. Some of that's rather weird stuff, and you'll have to go hunting for it yourself. (note that this is an important part of keeping spellcasters from overpowering other characters. Even if you don't make them play out all their shopping, deducting costs appropriately to the spells cast will help keep them from blowing powerful spells on every encounter and hogging all the limelight) Like the poison article earlier, this is very useful if you want to play a high detail game where proper resource management is critical.
Off the shelf: Master of the five magics by Lyndon Hardy is a personal favorite of mine, with it's high concept examination of the metaphysics of magic and swift paced clever plotting being a definite influence on my own worldbuilding style. The reviewer is a little less enthusiastic, pointing out that the characters aren't the most deeply developed, and the naming conventions suck. (also flaws I can see in my own work, amusingly enough. ) I can see why someone less scientifically minded wouldn't enjoy it as much as I did.
Soul-singer of Tyrnos by Ardath Mayhar gets almost as scathing a review as her previous books. (see issues 64 and 76) Depth, character development, plot, predictability. This book is weighed, and found very much wanting. One wonders why the reviewer keeps on reading her stuff if he hated the previous ones so much. One to skip without regrets.
The swordswoman by Jessica Amanda Salmonson, on the other hand, does get a quite positive review. While it does feature the same basic plot as her previous novels, as a female warrior is drawn into a fantasy world with very strong japanese tendencies, their characters are still easily as different as say, Conan and Kull. The main point of criticism is the cover, which seems to have been commissioned by people in marketing who haven't read the book. We do not need gratuitous cheesecake.
The role of books: Lew gives us some more good sources for our worldbuilding. This time, he wants to encourage us to stop using medieval stuff so much, and opens our eyes to the possibilities of Greek, Roman and Egyptian based cultures. There were lots of things that they did which differed massively from modern day life, including some which fall under the truth is stranger than fiction umbrella. While of course I cannot recommend wholesale stealing, picking and matching cultural elements will allow you to create a near infinite number of interesting nations to populate your world with. Don't get stuck in a rut.
Reviews: Shadows of yog-sothoth is the classic Call of Cthulhu adventure where you have to try and save the world from the big C himself. Comprised of seven interlinked scenarios, it should provide for months of adventuring. It gets plenty of praise, but is noted as taking quite a bit of effort to run, due to the open-endedness of some sections.
Ravenloft is of course another soon to be classic, that would go on to become the biggest selling standalone module ever, and spawn an entire campaign world around it. The conflict between D&D rules and tropes and those of the horror genre are immediately obvious, and the reviewer judges it as a failure as a horror adventure, especially in contrast to the previous CoC adventure. (he also thinks that gargoyles and golems are not suitable monsters for a horror game, which is a bit dumb. Statues and everyday objects coming to life unexpectedly is a classic horror trope.) However, taken as a challenging D&D adventure with horror trappings, it succeeds just fine, with a strong sense of atmosphere and good visual layout, and an easy to play setup which allows for multiple reruns which still surprise the players, due to the clever fortune reading mechanic. It's certainly a step up from most D&D adventures of this era.
Brotherhood of the bolt is a system free adventure. It has a slight horror slant, but is mostly your standard adventure fare of infiltration tomb-robbing, intrigue, and suchlike. As it is system free, it gets to put a lot of effort into creating good maps, descriptions and characterizations instead. Despite being obviously an amateur production, it does a lot of things that still don't appear in most adventures today, such as timelines and relationship details. Still, competing against two classic products, it struggles to stand out from the crowd.
Dragonmirth is particularly sadistic this month. What's new sees dixie going undercover in draconic society. Wormy is still wanted for wargaming. Snarfquest involves two dramas colliding.
Isengard module for MERP now available. Sounds interesting.
Seems like this issue has a relatively small number of extra long articles. This is not a bad thing, as it means they get to tackle their respective topics in more depth than usual, which is always a problem in episodic periodicals. It's articles also have an unusually high quantity of stuff directly applicable to actual play, in the form of rules expansions and setting building advice. This is definitely a good thing, as they do so without neglecting the fluff, unlike so many later of this type. Add in the start of the forum, and reviews of quite a few classic products as well, and you have one of their strongest issues ever. Looks like they've got this year off to a strong start. Lets hope they keep it up.
Wow, Xanth. Man, does that take me back to when I was a fan of the series and not so much embarrassed by it. Was that the first reference so far? I wonder if it wil be the last. Similarly, I noticed that Discworld hasn't entered the magazine's interest yet. Of course, at this point, only the first book is out, and the series needed some time to find its legs. Plus, I don't know when it was first printed in the US.
Loremaster. Yet another rolemaster product line is starting up. Tanara, yog mur, the iron wind. More stuff I've never heard of, and would be interested to know more about.
Out on a limb: A letter picking apart the stats in issue 80's module. You forgot a rule. Now correct it.
Another letter pointing out that halflings cannot be druids. Kim reponds with the PC's are different maxim. NPC's can break the rules PC's are bound too any time the writer wants, so there.
Five more letters pointing out errors that they admit were valid, for various reasons. Kim apologizes. Making a magazine on time every month is incredibly hard work, and tis no surprise that some stuff slips through the net.
A letter asking for clarification on the combat computer as it pertains to monsters. Many of them don't map properly to PC armor types, so you'll have to just leave them out or spend ages on case by case adjustments.
Dr No. The official James bond supplement. You saw the Top Secret imitation, now you can buy the real thing. And there was much rejoicing, particularly amonsgst the people who had to go through the hassle of clearing the licensed products with the film company.
The forum: Nikki Purdue thinks that serfs in medieval times had things better than Katharine Kerr said. Really, it was a period of centuries over an entire continent. I'm sure these things varied widely.
S D Anderson pontificates on the planar cosmology, and how to make it work. He is of the opinion that there should be more than one plane per alignment, and this would solve overcrowding and turf war problems. But there only being one interesting thing in each infinite universe would make the planes feel even emptier. As it stands, creatures of the same alignment competing, or living on planes that don't match their morals because they got kicked around or chose to move (orcs and yugoloths, respectively) produces more interesting stories. I vaguely disagree with your thoughts.
Ralph Sizer thinks that the reason there shouldn't be official anti-paladins is because being good is harder than being evil, so it requires active sacrifices to maintain, while evil is the path of what I was going to do anyway. Ha. Have you ever tried being consistently evil? It's just as hard as being consistently good, because people keep trying to stop you. Someone else has experienced rather different life lessons to me.
Eric Odgaard thinks that the current multiclassing rules are balanced, actually. Hee. If it's working in your game, that's cool, I guess.
Laurel Golding doesn't think that dragon magazine and D&D in general is nearly as sexist as, say, chivalry and sorcery. I'll guess you weren't around for issue 3. Well it's nice to see some people aren't hypersensitive to every implied slight.
The ecology of the peryton: Nigel findley!!! One of gaming's most missed writers. And it looks like this is his first appearance in the magazine. Hopefully we'll be seeing more of him in the future. One of legend's stranger creatures gets a nicely creepy writeup, taking a weird, but relatively straightforward monster in actual play, and making it really rather disconcerting to deal with. I suppose you can do that even with monsters that familiarity has made prosaic, like goblins and tigers. He also introduces legends of lost glories for the creatures, and fleshes out the characters of the people doing the telling and their personal dynamics quite interestingly. One of those cases where the writer immediately stands out from the crowd, thanks to their already well developed personal voice. I look forward to seeing what else he gets published in here.
Wounds and weeds: Herbalism! Another excuse to heal and buff your characters when out in the woods away from easy shopping, and reduce an adventuring parties need for clerics. In fact, there's a little too much focus in this article on healing damage, at the expense of the other effects various herbs can have upon your health and state of mind. But I guess that's a problem with the underlying system, as well. It's certainly interestingly presented though, with decent fiction and nice illustrations of the various plants detailed. Despite it's limitations of scope, this is still a likable article, that punctures D&D's tropes in amusing fashion, and is very useful in actual play. One of those things I would have no hesitation about incorporating, as it is neither useless, nor overpowering. Just what the doctor ordered.
Enhancing the enchanter: Another dragonquest article. How pleasing. Quite a substantial one, too. The author takes a look at what is in his opinion the weakest of the schools of magic, and gives it a whole bunch of new things to do. Of course, I can't judge whether they bring things up to par, or overbalance them. So it goes. For all that I like them covering other systems in here for the variety, It still means I have to deal with bits I can't properly assess on a mechanical level.
Rings that do weird things: A bazaar of the bizarre by any other name would still still be just as sweet to shop at. 13 new types of magical ring, including two Ed Greenwood contributions. They're a pretty varied and useful bunch, with both combat and noncombat abilities well catered for. Only problem is, you don't have enough fingers to wear them all. Guess you'll have to share them amongst the party. Another collection of stuff that is both entertaining to read and instantly useful for an actual game. Just what the magazine should have.
New avenues for agents: Another non D&D article here, as they give us teasers for the top secret companion. Two new classes, a load of specialities, and some more informal roles that cross classes like becoming a rogue or double agent. Not sure about the presentation here, I mean, putting the XP tables first isn't the best way of saying Cool new stuff! Come and get it! But it's nice to see games other than D&D getting decent amounts of expansion material. And while you could play the informal roles anyway, spelling them out like this makes GM's more likely to allow players to do stuff like this, rather than being trapped in the "do mission, report back, get new mission" cycle. And expanding the scope of a game is usually good. They're still nowhere near the point of diluting the theme and overcomplicating the game by adding too many options. After all, going renegade or double agent is an established convention of the genre. It can cause problems in troupe based play, but that doesn't mean it should be forbidden outright.
Ooo, one more and we hit where I got my very first Dragon subscription. With the more than excellent chess board cover I might add. Waves of nostalgia are gently washing over me as I type.
One a side note, I actually played through that Dr. No module. Did you know that 00 agents sometimes carry elephant guns because they autokill anything you hit in the game system? Gack.
__________________ 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.
Man, car wars has quite a few supplements now. Seems a bit much for a one joke game. I guess that like paranoia, it's a pretty good joke.
Car Wars was a pretty solid and easy to play game despite the seeming complexity. It supported one-shot and campaign style play with a little bit-o-roleplaying thrown in.
The baton races of yaz: Hee. That cover could so be taken the wrong way. Not right at all. Anyway. C C Stoll gets another game published as this month's centerpiece. Celebrate the liberation of the planet Yaz with a game of cross-country tag-team racing. One of those deceptively simple looking strategy games that actually supports some clever tactics, particularly in the build stage. This means it'll probably take a few games to get the hang of, as you learn how to operate the landscape. Like most games detailed here, they include a bunch of optional rules, which should add a few more replays before you get bored with the game and move onto something else. Another solid addition to their ever growing set of mini-games.
Curing the monty haul malady: Ahh, the joys of advancing too fast, and getting incredibly silly in the process. Something the vast majority of us did at some point, and there's nothing wrong with that. A short article in which Roger reminds us that when things have got too gonzo and overloaded, the best thing to do is start a new game, and learn from your mistakes, playing it differently this time. Very much a "we've got a couple of pages to fill, so lets whip up a half-assed reiteration of things we've said plenty of times before" piece. You can safely skip this and not feel you're missing anything.
Reviews: Battlemats and Megamats are useful devices for anyone who likes representing their game environments. Draw on them, then wipe them clean when you're done and start over again. Just another useful way of aiding the process of organizing your game, albeit at the cost of making your setup bulkier and more inconvenient to transport.
The dragonbone electronic dice wand is a mechanical substitute for dice. Set the type and hit roll for a random number. Unfortunately it fails to really take advantage of that and allow rolls like d13's. Still, if you want to play while walking around or something, it does have definite advantages over standard dice.
The fair shake dice device is another little device to prevent cheating from players. Drop it into the little gate tower, and it'll come out the drawbridge suitably randomized. Even d4's dropped from the same start position are dealt with reliably. Cute.
The d4 that rolls is an amusingly horror movie-esque title for what is essentially a D8 numbered from 1 to 4 twice. One of those cases where there's not much more to say apart from about time too.
Pavis: threshold to danger is a Runequest supplement. It details the city of new pavis, it's layout and history, and then gives us a bunch of adventures set in it. There is a certain amount of railroading in the scenarios, but apart from that, it's a high quality set that provides plenty of useful stuff without getting bogged down in extraneous padding.
Big Rubble is another runequest supplement, complementing the previous one. While Pavis described the new city, this covers the ruins surrounding it. Filled with both humanoids and monsters, it makes a great adventuring environment, with tons of things to do, people to meet, and stuff to loot. It includes 7 sample scenarios, many of which are quite RP heavy. So whether you like dungeoncrawling or plotted adventures, these two modules have enough to keep you busy for months of play.
City states of Arklyrell is a fantasy wargame. It gets a decidedly meh review, failing to distinguish itself from the many competitors. The wargaming equivalent of a fantasy heartbreaker, really.
Spells between the covers: Another author who would go onto become one of this magazine's most prolific contributors debuts here. Bruce Heard, author of the princess ark series and tons of other mystaran stuff, has now joined the freelancer pool. Here, he elaborates on the spell research process. Costs and odds of success, and how to modify them, and huge amounts of sample spellbooks. A topic that could be dull very easily. But thankfully isn't. Like Ed, he instantly stands out for his enormous knowledge of the existing D&D canon, and ability to fit new stuff into it seamlessly. Buying and selling magical books, the black market for spellbooks, two fisted research, the kind of stuff which makes the life of a working wizard rather more interesting than sitting at home rolling dice once a week or so. See, this is how you balance the demands of making a fun game in general with that of keeping things tricky for the researcher, so they can't just spend months holed away and then come out with a game breaking new spell. And it's all topped off with a sprinkling of new literary magical items. It's not the most entertainingly written article ever, but it's a huge improvement over all the previous attempts at this topic, particularly from an actual play perspective. Hopefully he'll soon iron out the little kinks in his writing style and produce plenty more awesome articles in the next few years.
Ohh. Dragonlance coming soon. One of those little teasers that's easy to miss at the time, but says a lot in retrospect. D&D's settings continue to build. How long before we see stuff appearing in the magazine on this? Not long, I'll bet.
Fiction: Windwolf by Earl S Wajenberg. Another of those stories that takes on an odd perspective, this time of a newly formed spirit who would grow to be a god. His birth, his early trials, spirit politics, and the inhumanity of man to nature in general. Some interesting thoughts, both in terms of plot and cosmology, are raised. Not quite a classic piece, but another enjoyable addition to what is turning out to be a pretty cool issue in general.
Dragonmirth continues to get things wrong.
Talanan: Another little comic. Say hello to the geekiest DM evar. See the size of his world. It'd take years to play through that. Another great example of how inconvenient having too much built up stuff to keep track of can be.
Snarfquest has a dragon that thinks it's a duck. Dixie stops being a dragon. Wormy talks about how to hunt a dragon. And makes some criminal puns in the process.
One of those issues that's not particularly significant in it's own right, but more for the things it heralds. Two significant writers, plus a gameline, there's definitely some stuff that was important with hindsight. Course, that doesn't really help us predict who's going to go on to greater things in the present, and who'll just sink into obscurity. Also interesting is just how much of this stuff is quickly and easily insertable into existing games. Seems they're really getting the hang of balancing the fluff details with the actual statistical information, without neglecting or messing up either. And we're still miles away from the point where they would start to concentrate on crunch to the detriment of setting details. For the moment, things look pretty bright.
Man, car wars has quite a few supplements now. Seems a bit much for a one joke game. I guess that like paranoia, it's a pretty good joke.
Huh? Car Wars isn't a "joke" game at all. . . It also isn't an RPG (I think you need to go GURPS Autoduel for that) - I have played a great amount in my life time and have even played in national tournaments (didn't place )
I was just vaguely surprised that the premise had enough depth and popularity to support that many supplements. I guess anything that is based around building and customizing your own units will always have demand for more crunch.
) Still, even if it needs a few rounds of playtesting and fine-tuning, this is a pretty neat article, that opens up new character avenues nicely. And since AD&D classes were never that well balanced anyway, what does it matter if they're unbalanced as long as they have niche protection. Another cool thing to add to the massive list of things I want to try out. 
Anyway, happy new year. Hope you enjoy the mid 80's as much or more than you did the early part. Lets get cracking. 
I guess anything that is based around building and customizing your own units will always have demand for more crunch.
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