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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.
I suppose it helps to repeat this every so often for the benefits of the noobs who missed earlier articles. Also, even experienced player could benefit I suppose, as the game matures and the balances shift around.
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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 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.
I've read some of Heard's stuff, and he wrote some very good world-building stuff later on. It's a shame, unlike Ed, he stopped contributing by the time I got into print issues of Dragon, but I was able to read some .txt files of his articles WotC had on their website about 10 years ago, until they took them down.
__________________ "Y'know, I think my favorite thing about being a hero of destiny is that it gives you all kinds of narrative justification to just slay any ol' jerk who gets in your way." -- 8-bit Theater
"i did not serve with napolean in his artillery. but i did play wargames with him and his men." -- diaglo
84 pages. Looks like 1984 is going to be a busy year full of changes. Having swallowed Little Wars, a long time ago, they're now eating up ARES magazine. Their attempt to relaunch SPI products must have bombed pretty badly for it to have died this quickly. This means they intend to increase their page count by at least 16 pages per issue, and fill that with more sci-fi stuff. Having seen how wargaming faded away after 1982 or so, I wonder how long this little incorporation'll last before being digested and forgotten about. Oh well, at least it means there'll be a reliable amount of non D&D stuff for me to read for the next year or two, even if it is being ghettoised. It's hardly a terrible development.
In this issue:
Out on a limb is rather short this issue: We have yet more psionics nitpicking from Robert M Schroek. Damn those unclear rules!
Lance J Purple (! Oh, long johnson, oh rodimus prime. Whyeyeyeyeyey?) asks for reprints. This time, they grant mercy, albeit of an expensive kind. Call Penny Petticord (Where do these people get their names from? I blame the parents. Do they not realize the consequences of what they are doing.) and she'll photocopy articles from out of print issues and send them to you. Well, it's certainly progress. I suppose that is to be lauded.
And finally, we get some questions about the 100 hour marathon D&D session, the procedures for the guinness records, and who to contact if you want to try and beat it. Toilet breaks are permitted, thankfully.
The forum is similarly undersize. Must not be a very debatable time: Scott D Hoffrage picks apart David Hutton's belief that dual classed fighter 1/whatevers are overpowered carefully and mercilessly. You've got tons of annoying restrictions to apply. Of course the character will seem overpowered if you forget them.
John Lester Jr nitpicks about the nature of contact poison. Ho hum.
The many facets of gems: Hmm. Starting off our features this month is a 10 page article about various types of gemstone. One of those things, like herbalism, ecology or fantasy languages, that's fascinating if you're into it, and interminably tedious if you're not. And on this particular subject, I'm afraid I must confess I fall into the not camp. Not to disparage the quality, or game-usefulness for those of you who want to challenge your PC's by setting them specific requirements for building their magical items. Or the rather good bibliography which shows that the author must have put a lot of work into this. But frankly, putting it as the leading article? If I were editor, there is no way that would have happened. Oh well, can't please all the people all of the time.
The ecology of the stirge: Ed contributes another ecology this month. Once again, he's stolen liberally from the biology of real life creatures, (love the bee reference in particular) and then remixed the details to make the stirge actually seem pretty plausible as a creature that could really exist, even without the aid of a mad wizard/genetic engineer to create it. He provides his usual selection of fascinating footnotes, and we have an increasing amount of game information which can be used to make encounters with the little bastards even more annoying. Which is definitely another positive development, as it encourages you to reuse the article, instead of just enjoying the fiction once, and then forgetting about it. See the benefits of actively thinking about what you've done and how to improve upon it. I very much approve, and hope our other contributors take note.
Palladium prints praise from various magazines (and kevin's mom ) in it's latest advert, The arms of nargash tor. Also, we have naked faeries. That'll boost sales a bit more. He sure does know how to hustle. And lets face it, that's as important (if not more so, annoyingly) to a company as actually producing decent product.
Fiction: the test of the twins by Margaret Weis. Looks like another member of the gang is here now. Welcome to the very beginning of the Dragonlance saga. Say hello to Raistlin and Caramon, and see the dramatic tension that holds them together, and will ultimately drive them apart. All together now! All you need is AAAaaangst! (do do dodo do) Once again we see the beginning of a new style of D&D adventures, with a greater emphasis on drama, personalities and epic overarching struggles that define the fate of worlds and universes. Sure, it'll generate it's own crimes against common sense and literature soon enough, but for now, it's a breath of fresh air contasted against D&D's current flavour of swords and sorcery which alternates between didactic simulationism and gonzo crossovers. Lets enjoy it while we can, before the kender show up and ruin everything.
The ecology of the stirge: Ed contributes another ecology this month. Once again, he's stolen liberally from the biology of real life creatures, (love the bee reference in particular) and then remixed the details to make the stirge actually seem pretty plausible as a creature that could really exist, even without the aid of a mad wizard/genetic engineer to create it. He provides his usual selection of fascinating footnotes, and we have an increasing amount of game information which can be used to make encounters with the little bastards even more annoying. Which is definitely another positive development, as it encourages you to reuse the article, instead of just enjoying the fiction once, and then forgetting about it. See the benefits of actively thinking about what you've done and how to improve upon it. I very much approve, and hope our other contributors take note.
Huh, I know I read another ecology of the stirge much, much later in the magazine's run. Well, I can't be shocked if they re-used some of the popular monsters in some 300+ issues. You should track to see the first time it happens, though.
Huh, I know I read another ecology of the stirge much, much later in the magazine's run. Well, I can't be shocked if they re-used some of the popular monsters in some 300+ issues. You should track to see the first time it happens, though.
I'm sure at least one of us regular readers will notice at the very least.
I can think of at least two. And that's not even counting the early 3rd ed issues where they bumped off the ecologies and replaced them with VS whatever creature articles for a few years. (if ever there was a clear sign of their change in priorities, that's it.) That allowed them to turn the spotlight on the same things again without it seeming quite so egregious.
The dancing hut: Baba Yaga! Talking of gonzo crossovers! Now this is a classic module. Breaking the usual 16 page limit, and featuring contributions from lots of TSR regulars, this is one of the most impressive, and also most annoying modules they ever produced. Enter the hut of baba yaga. It may seem small from the outside, but inside is an enormous extradimensional mansion that defies logic, and has enough weird stuff inside it to baffle and challenge the most hardened adventurers. Hack and slashers will have a hard time even into the upper teens, while smart lower level characters will be able to negotiate with the inhabitants and possibly come out ahead. This is the kind of adventure that could become the centrepiece of an entire campaign, especially if the PC's wind up working for Baba Yaga for whatever reason. (cue all kinds of fairy tale weirdness in the quests set.) Not only could you explore it for ages and still get lost easily, it can connect to various other dimensions, and introduce all sorts of interesting crossovers. This is definitely one of Dragon magazine's high points, that they obviously had huge amounts of fun designing and running. While not suitable for every campaign, I'm sure many of you have had scarring experiences with this one as well. As ever, actual play experiences are welcome.
How to finish fights faster: Roger gives another contribution in quick succession. Gary admits he's never been satisfied with the unarmed combat rules as presented in the DMG. So here's a quicker and easier version, which goes some way to making unarmed attacks more accessable, without sacrificing too many options. It's still pretty useless when up against anyone with real weapons and armour, but that's to be expected, really. At least now you can get into a bar brawl without it taking longer to resolve and involving more page flipping than a climactic boss battle. They are definitely producing more stuff that I could see myself using lately. Yet more evidence that properly patched AD&D v1.5 was quite a different beast to running the core rulebooks as written, and probably more fun, given the number of arcane oddities you needed to cut around.
A look at AOK's, old and new: Our token non-D&D article this month is another teaser for the Top Secret companion. And once again, they haven't chosen a very interesting way to present it. Five new areas of knowledge are introduced, bringing the total up to 42 (!) That's rather a lot of skills. Many designers these days actively avoid massive lists like that, as experience has shown that they are frequently actively detrimental to the fun factor of a game. And here they are engaging in lengthy pontification on exactly what you can do with each of them at different levels of skill as if that's something that will stoke people's enthusiasm for the game. Given the benefit of hindsight, I am forced to sigh and shake my head at this. Poor naive game designers, thinking that more is always better. Roger's realized this, but it'll take a while to catch on, and some people'll never get it. Ho hum.
Reviews: The James Bond, 007 rpg and it's current supplements get the spotlight on them this issue. The basic book swiftly explains how the game works in the first few pages, and then gives you plenty of specifics. It seems we have an early occurance of a universal resolution mechanic, as virtually everything is done by determining the difficulty, and then rolling on the same table to see how well you did. This of course makes it much easier to learn than D&D with it's tons of exceptions. On the negative side, that does mean you have to narratively define exactly what your degree of success or failure in an action means, which may take some getting used too. Still, given the fairly freewheeling nature of the source material, that seems entirely appropriate. It certainly contrasts pleasantly with the high crunch approach taken by Top Secret in the preceding article.
The Q manual is of course the gadget supplement. It keeps up the fairly rules light approach of the corebook, but describes the various devices with a level of dry wit that not only makes for good reading, but should help spark your imagination for the unorthodox uses each can be adapted to. After all, you can't carry everything without spoiling the line of your suit, so sometimes you'll just have to use your laser pen to clean out a clogged drain. And of course, you can steal and adapt these gadgets to other games as "magical items" So it's all good.
The gamesmaster pack gives you a chunky chart full GM screen and lots of other little tactile aids which should help you represent action sequences and stuff. The kind of thing that you can take or leave, but certainly doesn't hurt.
And on top of that we already have several modules, with more supplements to come. Looks like they're doing pretty well at the moment.
Dragonmirth is a bit lopsided. Talanalan has a computer in his car. This is not as easy or useful as it would be these days. Wormy is wary of long-jawed mudsuckers, with good reason. What's new doesn't do sex in D&D because Phil wants to sleep. Typical. Snarfquest gets the treasure and the girl. Don't worry, things'll get complicated again for him soon.
A tricky issue to comment upon. One one hand, most of the articles in this issue are of very high quality, even the ones that aren't particularly to my taste. On the other hand, they seem to be going through one of their periods of advertising expansion, so the ratio of articles to adverts is not great, and I feel a bit unfulfilled, as if it was over too quickly. Then again, I still have hundreds of issues to go, so I guess I should be grateful that some of them are easy ones. And since from next month the average size will be increasing quite a bit, I expect there'll be quite a few ones that are a struggle to get through before we finish. So lets press onwards, see what strange new worlds ARES will bring to my attention. Once again 1984 is proving to be a very interesting and varied year for the people of TSR.
100 pages. No april fools stuff this year. They are slacking rather. But then, with the serious changes they're making to the magazine, they just don't have the right mood, or the energy. The death of one of your sister magazines is not the kind of thing you laugh at. You never know when your own fortunes could decline suddenly and before you know it you're the next on the chopping block.
In this issue:
Out on a limb: A letter pointing out that the peryton in the MM is described as having claws, while the one in the Ecology article has hooves. They reply that they did that diliberately just to annoy pedants like him. They've learned from the gem dragon debacle. So canon be damned. Having hooves makes them even weirder, so why not.
A letter asking if the stuff from the dragonquest article could be adapted to D&D. They reply sure, you can convert anything from any system to another. Fundamental ideas generally retain their strength (or weakness) no matter what you do with them.
Some errata on sleep gas. It's still nasty, but less so now the error is removed.
A letter grumbling about how out on a limb ain't what it used ta be. Why make the forum? Things were fine before. grumble mutter grumble darn kids getoffa ma lawn.
Two letters pointing out errors in recent modules. Here we go again. An editors job is a thankless task. Ignored when you do things right, and yelled at when you do things wrong.
The forum: Edward R Masters pontificates about the nonsensibility of the various elemental planes. Oh, don't be such a pessimist. Yeah, if you change one bit of the physics, you have to keep changing other bits, until things all add up again. But that does not make them inherently unsolvable or unadventurable. Put a can do face on! And sing a happy song! You'll get nowhere if you never start because you think it'll always go wrong!
Peter Bregoli thinks the forum as it stands is all together too focused on grumbling about things that are wrong. We ought to talk about our cool ideas more. That's the spirit lad.
Ken Hughes thinks that the combat charts are unneccacary. We ought to just figure out what bonuses a character has, and roll against the enemy AC. Maybe we should even flip around the AC system so higher is always better, and the whole thing becomes more intuitive. Radical ideas man! They'll never catch on.
Bill Cavalier thinks Dragon ought to do more articles on the various conventions. They're the lifeblood of the hobby, after all. Yes, I do recall when they had extensive articles on the introduction of the giant modules to the conventions. Obviously, you can't innovate like that every year, but that doesn't stop you from talking about what it was like, the cool stuff you saw, and so forth. They've made interesting articles about that in the past, and they could do so again.
Jeff Naiman has some commentary and suggestions on the poison article from issue 81. What benefit is neutralize poison when the victim is dead straight away.
A cast of strange familiars: Yup, It's time for wizard's oft-neglected animal companions to get an article examining them. What creatures are suitable, how should they be statted out, what special powers and limitations should they have. We get a reiteration of the deadliness of housecats and other small animals in D&D, and an attempt to fix this. We also get a look at the problem of falling damage
for big and small creatures, and an attempt to fix that as well. In short this is an intelligent and considered article that would be dull if not for this wry eye toward the absurdities of the D&D system making it likable. It could definitely have done more to expand on the system, rather than just examining it, though. A rather mixed way to start off the issue.
The ecology of the trapper: Hmm, said Edward Greenwood. What shall I send in to Dragon this month? Time is a-passing, and Elminster hasn't shown up to disrupt things for a while. I know! Another ecology. That's always good for a sale, and I can whip them up in my sleep by now. Don't I just have the coolest job in the world. And so another of the strange creatures inhabiting D&D dungeons had it's lifecycle intimately probed in the name of Science! This of course involves questioning unsavory and cantankerous characters, as such monsters do not sit still to be investigated. But if he can wheedle usable information out of Elminster, everyone else should be child's play by comparison. ( I wonder if we will see an ecology of the doll golem at some point? ) This is another well-written article from the master of worldbuilding, with plenty of detail in both the flavour and the game information sections. The amount of footnotes continues to grow, this time they actually cover more space than the fiction itself. This always happens, doesn't it. When someone has a good idea, it expands rapidly until it outgrows it's welcome, and then has to be shrunk back down again until it reaches a good balance with everything else again. Funny to think the series has only been around for a year, and is in some ways still finding it's feet like that. It already seems like one of the indispensable parts of the magazine. Now we just have to worry about running out of monsters to cover.
Figure feature: This month's featured models are a bunch of atlantean guards, a sultan on a magic carpet, a naga, a bunch of orcs, Bast, a centaur, A knight riding a boar, a wizard riding a dragon, and some weird alien creatures. Nothing too out of the ordinary then.
Off the shelf: The sleeping dragon by Joel Rosenberg transports ordinary students into their own RPG game, where they have to master the skills of their characters if they want to survive. Not the most original idea, but executed well in this case.
The Aquiliad by Somtow Sucharitkul is another of his alternate history books. What would happen if rome conquered America? It probably wouldn't turn out quite like this, but it's still a punfully entertaining romp through all manner of fantastical occurrances. Caught between mad emperors, and an equally mad reality, the protagonist has to try and survive and carry out his mad orders, with a little help from his friends.
The war for eternity by Christopher Rowley is another "immortality drug is discovered, ugly resource wars happen" book. Moral issues are raised, humanity behaves in inhumane ways to itself and others, and the aliens get plenty of interesting characterization (which is probably more sympathetic than the humans get) as well.
The man in the tree by Damon Knight is a story of a man with the power to transport things from other dimensions, and how he reluctantly grows into the messiah he really doesn't want to be. Religion and social responsibility are funny things, and this looks at both of them with an insightful eye.
Escape Velocity by Christopher Stasheff is a prequel to his Warlock books. His tongue is firmly in cheek as his protagonists bounce from dimension to dimension, experiencing increasingly insane adventures.
The mirror of helen by Richard Purtill is a book about Helen of Troy. Sure, she might have been the most beautiful woman in ancient history, but what was the person behind the face like? This tells her story from the viewpoint of the people around her, throwing new angles on the myth in a way similar to Marion Zimmer Bradley's retelling of arthurian legend. Which is neither a bad idea, or badly done.
Alanna: the first adventure by Tamora Pierce is a kid friendly fantasy adventure obviously aimed at hooking younger readers (get 'em young, and they're yours for life, as the smoking companies say. ) In that role, it serves perfectly well, with a fast paced plot, and simple but well defined characters. Give it to your kids for christmas or something.
The dragon waiting by John M Ford gets our token slating this month. A retelling of the story of Richard III from different perspectives, it jumps between it's characters in an abrupt manner, and the pretty descriptions don't really add up to much plotwise. You've gotta have a purpose beyond just writing for writings sake.
The wild shore by Kim Stanley Robinson is a story of postapocalypic america. They managed to piss of the rest of the world enough that they got bombed into the dark ages, and are now watched and prevented from developing new infrastructure. My, how topical that would have seemed a few months ago. And it will probably seem so again sometime, since these things tend to come in cycles.
We also get a look at the problem of falling damage for big and small creatures, and an attempt to fix that as well.
I saw a quote once, regarding a fall from 50 feet. "A mouse is unharmed, a man is broken, and a horse splashes."
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Originally Posted by (un)reason
Off the shelf: The sleeping dragon by Joel Rosenberg transports ordinary students into their own RPG game, where they have to master the skills of their characters if they want to survive. Not the most original idea, but executed well in this case.
To be fair, in 1984 this was a reasonably original idea. As far as I can remember anyway, being more a SF guy than a fantasy guy. I suppose if the criticism is from the article itself then the book-dude in 1984 would know more about what was original in 1984 than I do lol.
I saw a quote once, regarding a fall from 50 feet. "A mouse is unharmed, a man is broken, and a horse splashes."
I do believe that's a Pratchett one. He does have a way of making the facts funny, particularly when delivered by psychotic gnomes.
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To be fair, in 1984 this was a reasonably original idea. As far as I can remember anyway, being more a SF guy than a fantasy guy. I suppose if the criticism is from the article itself then the book-dude in 1984 would know more about what was original in 1984 than I do lol.
Not really, given all the sucked into the book/tv/computer game/etc stories out there. (curse you, holodeck! :shakes fist: ) It's an old trope, easily adaptable to every new entertainment medium.
Never the same thing twice: Rakshasas. One of the scariest and most flavourfull monsters in the game, thanks to their brutal resistances and highly customisable powers. Scott Bennie looks at them, and their mythical inspirations. Obviously, D&D couldn't fit them all into a single monster, but it actually hasn't done too bad a job this time at converting them to a coherent gameable form. Like Lunars, their reputation as illusionists somewhat exceeds the reality, and is based largely on their ability to disguise themselves. Still, if you enjoyed deceiving people, that kind of misrepresentation and manipulation is exactly what you'd do as well. We also get a load of new crunch in the form of two variant high power rakshasas, and their god, Ravanna. Another of those cases where the game, and it's foibles are illuminated, while still providing some useful and interesting stuff. And more evidence of their ability to better balance fluff and crunch. Which is cool.
And then there were three: At last, the companion set. Frank Mentzer gives us a teaser for the players book of the high level. We also get the first mention of the fifth set to cover play beyond 36th level. Immortal level is on its way. Nice to see someone likes the idea of really high level play. Funny how BD&D ended up catering to that style so much better than AD&D. Anyway, he talks about settling down and building strongholds for the various classes, the new variant classes such as druids and paladins, and the interesting workaround demihumans get so they still improve after reaching maximum level, unarmed combat, and demihuman magic items. We see the odd mix of simplification, and putting his own spin on things from AD&D that these sets would contain. Like the top secret teasers, they definitely need to work on their selling technique. They're still a far cry from the well presented and paced reveals that the 3rd and 4th edition runups had.
The twofold talisman: Another extra long adventure is detailed in these pages. However, as they just did a big one and doing that two issues in a row would probably result in complaints, they split it into two parts, putting 12 pages here, with the conclusion coming next month. This is very much a tournament module, with pregenerated characters, annoying fakeouts designed specifically to screw with player expectations, stupid jokes, (damn you monty python :shakes fist and no sense of realism to the environment at all. You should expect to die repeatedly and in very infuriating ways. Use with caution, for running it with your regular characters may result in very pissed off players.
Fiction: Master of the winds by Sharon Lee. Another of those tales of testing the apprentice wizard, psychodrama stylee. We had one of those just last issue. Guess they're like busses. Don't see them for years, and suddenly a whole bunch of them come along at once. Thankfully the protagonist is a rather more pleasant character than Raistlin. Although her rival is not, and actually has quite a lot of parallels with him, which I find very amusing. This time, the good guys win, and the future looks fairly positive. Which is more than we can say for Krynn, with it's endless litany of narrowly averted world destroying disasters ahead. But enough about that. On it's own merits, this is another likable but unexceptional piece of fiction to read, enjoy and then use as inspiration for your own magical seekings, or just forget about, as you choose.
Reviews: Secrets of the labyrinth is part two of the thieves guild stuff on the free city of haven. Annoyingly, they've dropped the loose-leaf format in the middle of the series, so you can no longer assemble the books into one bigger one when they're all out. It also requires quite a bit of buy-in to the gameline in general, due to lots of references to rules from other supplements. If you already like the gameline though, it's another solid addition to it, with plenty of setting details and adventure ideas.
Chivalry & sorcery's new edition attempts to be more accessable than before. It may be an improvement, but it's certainly not enough of one, and their editing process leaves quite a bit to be desired. It's still a game with tremendous depth, possibly even more so than before. If you're an expert gamer who wants a better treatment of the medieval mileu than D&D can provide, try this.
The mentzer ed D&D basic & expert sets also get a sycophanticly positive "review" This really does feel like a pure shill piece, with all the comments positive, and great attention paid on how friendly they are to new gamers. As much as I do like those same sets, I'm still pretty suspicious of this review. I understand that you want to sell your game, but you could at least pretend to be objective a bit better.
Are's section.
Are's log: So sci-fi is back in Dragon. This is pleasing, even if the method by which it returned isn't. Then again, they didn't have to do this. They could have just let the magazine die entirely. And at least this time they're transferring the subscriptions properly. Similarly, it looks like at least a few of the staff from the magazine have been transferred over as well. It's almost like a separate mini magazine. Which also means Roger gets to hone his editorial skills before he gets to take on a whole magazine on his own. So what have they got to offer. They've only got 16 pages to play with. Will they make the most of them? Lets take a look and see.
The lunar high republic: Well, it looks like they haven't abandoned their ambitions, in any case. They're planning on doing a series of pieces on the moon in various game universes and future histories. Just how many ways can an airless lump of white rock be developed? I'm betting quite a few. First up is the moon of the Space Opera game. Having been repressed by earth in it's early year, it rebelled, and is now fiercely independent, despite the infrastructure needed for survival. Dueling is an entirely de rigeur means of settling disagreements, and the generally pretty liberal laws are enforced fast and without ceremony. It all seems a bit of a mary sue writeup, really, as the author goes to pains to make it clear how much better things are than on earth in almost every respect. If this was an in-game perspective, this would be forgivable, but as a supposedly objective write-up, this makes me suspicious. Is this typical of the game's attitude in general, or a flaw of this writer in particular?
The zethra: Oh no! said Edward Greenwood. They have cancelled Ares magazine. Whatever shall I do now?! I can't write nothing but D&D stuff all the time, I'd go quite mad. And what's going to happen to the article I sent in just last month? Don't say it's just going to be lost forever. Don't worry, said Roger Moore. We wouldn't let you down like that. We've saved it, and we'll publish it in Dragon Magazine. Hooray! said Edward Greenwood. You guys are the best friends ever. And so everyone was happy again, and they all went and had pancakes with maple syrup for tea.
Anyway, where was I. The zethra are weird tentacled blob things. Seems like one of the standard sci-fi things people come up with when trying to get away from the standard humanoid body model. These ones come from the Xagyg ( ) cluster, and shoot energy bolts. I'm really not enthralled, as they have an air of self-concious wackiness about them. When told to say something random, the average person will say Fish! Bad taste is represented by combining purple and green, and the random number is usually 7. So decorate the amorphous blob's room with 7 little flying fish models painted green with purple spots, and you have the wackiest setup ever. Malkav would be proud.
Starfire, gaming x3: Oh, now this is more like it. 3 quick sets of optional rules to include or not, as you see fit. Rules to speed up the movement process, and allow for simultaneous actions. That'll certainly ramp up the drama. Rules for facing and the advantage you get for catching someone from the rear. Hee. And if you want something a little more complicated, you can introduce 3d positioning, including the pythagorean mathematics needed to determine diagonal distances. Ai carumba. I think I'll pass on that one. Still this is a useful little set of ideas, and it's nice to see non RPG's get some small amount of coverage again. I've found this the most likable of the articles in the section. It's the only one that doesn't seem to be trying too hard. Lets hope they settle in soon. It might be a bit cramped, but at least it's homey and the companies good.
Snarfquest does some shapeshifting. What's new gets fired. Well, at least they go out with a bang, very literally, as that means it's time for sex in D&D. We also get a proper postscript. Talanan goes monty haul. Wormy reveals the dark side of wargaming with real figures and long postage times. They really oughta get proper life insurance for this. What are raise spells for, otherwise.
A nice full colour advert for D1: Dragons of dispair. Looks like they're going to push this one hard. They already have the flashy logo for the world done.
And once again dragon magazine goes through some substantial changes this issue, mostly for the better. The ares section might have got off to a shaky start, but it's still a very interesting development, and I look forward to seeing what they have to offer over the next couple of years. Hopefully things'll settle down for a bit after the madness of the last few months. If the format changed every month, it could hardly be called a format. I guess it's more interesting than things being essentially the same for years though.
Dragon Issue 84: April 1984
The lunar high republic: Well, it looks like they haven't abandoned their ambitions, in any case. They're planning on doing a series of pieces on the moon in various game universes and future histories. Just how many ways can an airless lump of white rock be developed? I'm betting quite a few. First up is the moon of the Space Opera game. Having been repressed by earth in it's early year, it rebelled, and is now fiercely independent, despite the infrastructure needed for survival. Dueling is an entirely de rigeur means of settling disagreements, and the generally pretty liberal laws are enforced fast and without ceremony. It all seems a bit of a mary sue writeup, really, as the author goes to pains to make it clear how much better things are than on earth in almost every respect. If this was an in-game perspective, this would be forgivable, but as a supposedly objective write-up, this makes me suspicious. Is this typical of the game's attitude in general, or a flaw of this writer in particular?
This sounds a lot like RAH's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress' moon colony.
__________________ Scrag 'em all and let the gods sort 'em out!
100 pages Looks like it's another cleric special. I guess the whole merry-go round of class and race specials will start up again in the following months. They can't leave a topic like that as a one-off. Speaking of one-offs, once again we run into the nothing new in the world problem. They publish reviews of things billed as unique, and next thing you know, other people write-in to say they've been doing that for years. Suitably chastened, they say they won't do that again. Meanwhile, Ken Rolston and Katherine Kerr get jobs as contributing editors. Once again, the quality and quantity of their top writer's outputs have been recognized and rewarded. Which means we get to see even more of them. Hopefully there'll still be room for untried freelancers to get a foot in the door. After all, they've got a big magazine to fill every month. So lets get going. Even with Ken around, the magazine won't review itself.
In this issue:
Out on a limb: A letter asking about copyright, and what exactly they can do with the material in Dragon. They are in magnanimous mood today and reply that as long as you don't sell it, they don't have a problem.
Two letters about the new unarmed combat rules and monks. Again, duly answered.
A question about pineal glands, and their use as spell components.
Some questions about baba yaga's hut.
A letter pointing out that one of the pregen characters in the twofold talisman is illegal. Honestly. Ordinary players get this right more often than RPG writers. It's quite shocking.
Two letters on the familiars article last month. My, their response time is pretty prompt these days. I remember when it took 3 months to start getting any feedback on an article.
A question on how international peeps are supposed to provide a usable SASE, when their stamps aren't legal tender in america. They reply that you need an international reply coupon, whatever the hell that is. Ahh, the arcane details of international commerce.
The forum: Jon Paulson complains at Ken Rolston for putting spoilers in his CoC review. Now he can't run it for his players. Ken apologizes and says he'll try and tread the line better next time. Yet another case of nothing new in the world.
Katherine Kerr rebutts Nikki Purdues statement that life for serfs didn't suck. While adventurers are off slaying dragons, they have to grub in the dirt on the edge of starvation. Woe! Woe! Give generously to the people still starving in africa today. Let them know it's christmas time. Oh wait. A bit early for that, isn't it.
Jeffrey Carey makes contributions to the playability of the elemental planes, pointing out that the genie races live there, so there must be parts which have coherent spacial structures and little bits of other elements. Someone with the right magical tricks really ought to be able to survive and get around there, and there can be all kinds of weird variations on a theme in an infinite universe.
Finally, Flex Williams points out how some nasty things, like nitric acid, can cause huge amounts of damage on contact and not be noticed immediately. Fantasy contact poisons could do even more unpleasant stuff without it hurting verisimilitude.
Here's to your health: Ahh, healbotting. One of the primary uses of clerics. If you don't have one, you had to spend weeks or months recuperating at higher levels back then. Which is a lot more realistic than 3rd or 4th edition, weirdly enough. I have to say that I never approached it like that back then. Partially it was that you didn't get spells until second level anyway, and we never memorized more than one copy of the same spell for reasons of versatility. So while we'd generally have a spell ready for when someone was about to die, that was the cue to get into defensive formation, and we certainly didn't expect to face each battle at full strength. But enough about my experiences. They're at the centre of the D&D experience. Of course they're going to have been hothoused into the mechanically optimal path more than the rest of us.
In this article, Kim tackles the nature of healing magic, how it works, what it's limitations are, and yes indeed, the question of if clerics should double dip on healing spells and focus on healbotting at the expense of all the other cool tricks they can pull. Should you reveal exactly how much damage is healed by each spell, and allow for metagaming. Should the deity served dictate or influence their clerics spell selection. Would any player be prepared to pay the extortionate prices that NPC clerics charge for healing. Like his examination of psionics, this is a fairly dull article that doesn't have that much that is useful in actual play either. But he's the chief editor, so it gets to be in pole position anyway. Mehness.
Special skills, special thrills: Our other editor makes the second contribution. Talk about keeping it in-house. Anyway, Roger gives us a rather more useful piece of work, talking about making clerics of different deities different. He refers back to the greyhawk god articles in issues 67-71, and then expands upon and rebalances them, so they don't just get special powers for nothing, and some gods end up way better choices than others. This is a very useful article indeed, and an obvious precursor to the sphere systems of subsequent editions. It should provide more than enough examples to allow you to do the same for your own gods, and if used, allows clerics a lot more customisability. An all cleric party would still probably be a bit of a stretch, but less so than keeping an all fighter team interesting and effective. Plus you get plenty of amusing role-playing opportunities. I very much approve
Clerics must be deity-bound: Talking of roleplaying clerics of different gods appropriately. Here's a load of advice on just that. They are predictable. Thankfully this is a quick one that doesn't outstay it's welcome, and has plenty of important points. Gods of the same alignments can have very different portfolios, and gods with similar portfolios can be bitter rivals and enemies. Clerics can have various degrees of devotion to their gods ideals, ranging from fanatical devotion, to propitiation out of fear or self interest. Deity drama is another one of those bits of worldbuilding that's often left out, but adds quite a bit to your game if you include it. After all, legends like that can be turned into instant plot hooks. A nice way to finish of the themed section.
Figure feature is only a single page long this time. This month, we get the elfquest characters made into mini's, plus some various lizardy monsters and weird things. Rather a filler article really.
A new edition of starfire? Interesting. That's been one of their regular games to review. I wonder what they'll think about it this time.
Problems by mail: Scammers, flakes, neurotics, asshat twink players, rapid and expensive edition changes. Just a few of the ways that your PbM experience can be ruined, and you can wind up wasting substantial sums of money. Not that it's easy on the other end either. Processing all the info from hundreds of letters takes quite a bit of work. But that does not excuse unprofessionalism. You ought to do the research and get the resources before you get in the kitchen. So Rick Loomis is setting up an organization that will examine PBM companies, and make sure they're up to scratch in terms of professionalism. If you're scammed, complain to them, and they'll make sure word gets around. That way, the good can flourish, the bad can perish, and capitalism can continue on it's merry way. Hooray! Well, that's good to know, anyway. Hard to argue with the idea, although I know that the implementation of these things can become unpleasantly bureaucratic. Another interesting footnote in the history of gaming as a whole that I wonder if we'll hear any more about.
1/3? That sounds ominous. Are you thinking of spacing the issues out more?
Shame that's already all What's New got to do. I'm sure we'll never hear from them again! Wasn't there a comic about them running around in the TSR's headquarters? I saw that on their website, which includes all the old Dragons at this point, but I don't remember you mentioning it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ed_Laprade
This sounds a lot like RAH's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress' moon colony.
Heh! I was thinking the same thing; it helps that I only just read that one recently. I'm guessing this version didn't include Heinlein's somewhat...unsettling take on the moon's gender issues.
The ecology of the ixitachitl (I hope I spelled that right): Ed gives us another ecology, tackling the demogorgon worshipping manta rays. While intelligent, they do not think remotely like humanoids, given their drastically different environment, lifestyle, and physiology. And despite not having hands, their magical abilities and vampiric rulers make them quite capable of being allmighty pains in the ass to other undersea creatures. For a second time, the amount of footnotes exceeds the amount of actual description, and contains extensive rules clarifications and suggestions. And of course, a guide on how to pronounce their dreadfully annoying name. While the game information is exemplary, the fiction on this one is a bit dull, as if Ed was on cruise control when he wrote it. Still, even an average Ed article is well above the general average in terms of overall quality.
Fiction: Valkyrie settlement by Susan Shwartz. Honor and valor come in many forms. And as important as knowing when and how to fight is knowing when not to fight. Sometimes oaths have to be broken. Sometimes losing with style can be better for you in the long run than winning at any cost. In short, things aren't always black and white, even in a proud warrior culture. This is a pretty cool bit of fiction, that manages to incorporate historical and supernatural stuff, cool fight scenes, and gender politics. Amazing how much depth some people can fit into these little stories.
Three cheers for beowulf: Like they did for bounty hunters, they make another attempt at reminding us the D&D isn't all one true way by presenting us with three different versions of his stats. While always a fighter with ridiculously high strength, his level and other stats vary in their twinkedness between incarnations. As ever, he has powers PC's can't match, and may overshadow them if included in a game. As a thought exercise, and a demonstration of how different writers can interpret the same material, this is quite interesting. As something that's useful for an actual game, not so much. Like so much of the GitE material, this winds up leaving a bad taste in my mouth.
The twofold talisman part two: Another 10 pages finish off this module. The dreadful humour becomes even broader and more irritating in this installment. The screwage also continues, with quite a few annoying tricks that automatically work with no chance to resist. And a poorly done wizard of oz ending. Ugh. Once again, I reiterate, do not put this into a regular campaign. Most players will hate you for it. Definitely not one of the magazines high points.
Ooh. New module submission guidelines. As with their general guidelines, these are a combination of the obvious, such as type it up properly, keep a copy for yourself, Spelling, punctuation, grammar are critical, stay in theme, don't rip off currently existing modules wholesale, and the specific, like don't send a module in to multiple companies at once, avoid railroading and deus ex machina (A rule you guys really ought to remember to stick to yourselves), keep the size between 8 and 16 pages, and stay out of Greyhawk. As ever, the details change, but the basic principles remain the same. Interesting that they are currently trying to avoid "unrealistic" and nonsensical dungeons. Also interesting is the avoidance of "family unfriendly" topics. They don't want to engage in any social commentary at all. Honestly, being controversial got you one of the biggest publicity boosts in your existence. Why would you want to avoid that? Still, I guess it leaves a big hole in the market open for White Wolf to exploit. And listening to media misrepresentation does get deeply tiresome.
Fiction: A stone's throw away by Roger Moore. Part two of our dragonlance teasers. Say hello to Tasslehoff Burrfoot. Bloody kender. If anything causes more irritation to both their friends and their enemies, I don't want to know about it. Especially when they have narrative protection as well as plenty of skill, so things always turn out all right for them. I mean, Demogorgon likes him. Admiral Crankypants himself. What chance do we have? As ever, Roger's writing is pretty good, even when it's subject matter and the implications it has for the game might not be. For now, they can keep their optimism.
Reviews: Warhammer FRP gets a fairly positive review from Ken. It is quite a bit better at presenting large scale fights than most RPG's on the market, and while the human scale stuff is rather simplistic, at least it's fast and easy to make new characters. They already have a supplement mill up and ready. It provides a nice middle ground between wargaming and full RPG's.
Reaper is the warhammer system's predecessor. Like OD&D, it requires substantial GM extrapolation and houseruling to make work. While it still has plenty of interesting elements, these days, it would probably be preferable to salvage the ideas and transplant them into a more robust system.
Lost worlds is a cleverly detailed combat system based around selecting maneuvers and going to the appropriate page on a little booklet. This does rather limit the range of character and creature types you can play within the system, and buying a booklet for each type will get expensive. This is the problem with that level of tactical detail. Every addition multiplies out the overall permutations and resulting complexity. But it does allow for an exceptional amount of transparency, ease of use and realism for the amount of detail covered.
Cry havoc is a fantasy wargame. Well presented, easy to learn, with plenty of interesting scenarios, it gets easily the most unreserved praise of the reviews here. Another of those cases where what gets good reviews at the time, and what survives longest bear little relation.
WHFRP also gets a second review by Katharine Kerr. This is rather less enthusiastic than the first one, calling out the absolutely terrible typing and editing. While the mass combat stuff may be a good game under the poor presentation, the human level stuff is lacking in basic abilities, and the random generation produces ridiculous results. In short, in her opinion it needs to seriously clean up it's act next edition if it wants to be a usable game on the individual scale. Like the fiend folio and call of cthulhu reviews, these varying perspectives are very interesting in hindsight. The different reviewers place different amounts of weight on the flaws of the product, and have different priorities in their gaming. Who's side are you on?
Are's section:
The federation guide to luna: Part two of our lunar series, and they turn their eye on the star trek universe. As this is pre TNG, (another instance where things seem very dated) this may not be compatible with future canon. As it's now pretty easy to get too and from (the waiting time at either end is way longer than the traveling time. ) and well settled, this is definitely not a place you boldly go where no man has gone before. More a place where you can engage in research and politicking without feeling in too much danger (at least, until someone accidentally destroys the universe again. ) Better than last issue's attempt (we already know the federation is a happy utopian culture, so there's no need to make a point of rubbing it in) this is still more than a little dull. Could you try and put some more adventure hooks in next time please.
1/3? That sounds ominous. Are you thinking of spacing the issues out more?
We've almost caught up with where I'm at, so yeah, I'm slowing things down a bit. Remember, I was doing this for 5 months on rpg.net before I decided to do it here as well, so you've been getting stuff at a faster pace. I found that the average length of my reviews went up quite a bit once the Ares section started and they started doing lots of little articles, so this seemed a good point to go from halves to thirds.
Quote:
Heh! I was thinking the same thing; it helps that I only just read that one recently. I'm guessing this version didn't include Heinlein's somewhat...unsettling take on the moon's gender issues.
Perish the thought This is a family friendly magazine.
Gamma hazards: Three new weird and disturbing monsters for gamma world here. Fungimals are rather creepy. They take the form of a harmless little herbivore, and then when eaten, infect the eater and transform them into a giant puffball which then releases more little harmless tasty looking creatures. And the circle of life continues. Not a good way to go.
Humbugs are one of those creatures based off a bad pun. They transform into mundane objects, and create illusions to make people think that they work. Much irritation ensues.
Jungle lurkers are psychic insects that disguise themselvesas plants, and drain life energy while creating illusions as a decoy. The closest to a straight up combat encounter here, they're still gonna be a pain in the ass to catch and defeat.
All in all, an imaginative and entertaining set of creatures. Unlike the last set, back in issue 75, the humour doesn't get in the way of their usefulness. And their core ideas could be adapted for other games with great relish. I can see myself deriving quite a bit of sadistic use from these.
Preventing complacency in Traveler gaming: Another fairly unexceptional "the stats don't tell you everything about a thing article. We've had them for alignment. We've had them for class. We've had them for sex and race. Now we have them for planets. Flesh out your planets beyond the basic infoblock, include ideas that you can't get by simply rolling, remember that what the galactic guidebook says may not be accurate for whatever reason. We've read articles like this before. We'll probably read many more of them in the future, for all kinds of games. The basic principles remain the same, and are as valid as ever. Doesn't stop this one from feeling like filler material.
Coming soon, the marvel super heroes RPG by TSR. Which means that it'll get plenty of representation in this magazine if it's popular.
Lions, tigers and superheroes: Ahh, animal stats. If a game doesn't include them, people'll complain until they get them (and if they do, chances are, they'll complain about them being unrealistic, but hey ho. ) This tackles that little topic in the Champions system. Which means lots of crunch packed into a small article. Given the effect based build, these are pretty logical and easy to understand. Dunno why people couldn't just build their own. Still, it's just the kind of thing this section should be providing, crunchwise. It could be more impressive, but it could also be a lot worse. Roger Raupp contributes some rather poorly proportioned art. I guess that's genre appropriate
Starquestions: Or Sage advice goes Sci-fi. This month, they're tackling Star frontiers, but they also intend to cover their other sci-fi properties such as Gamma world. (guess Boot hill and Gangbusters' rules questions will go unresolved though. ) As ever, lets see what inanity people present Penny & co.
Who created star frontiers (Dave Cook & Lawrence Schick. Read the credits in the books. )
Will we ever get to see the prepublication version of the game. (Nah. We rewrote it because it sucked. You wouldn't enjoy it anyway. )
What's the difference between regular Star Frontiers and Alpha Dawn (Marketing. It makes you do crazy things sometimes.)
Can you play star frontiers with D&D (No. Our friendliness to crossovers is currently declining. We'd never approve something like expedition to the barrier peaks these days.)
Can we use the new aliens from the modules as PC's (We do not recommend it, as they are not balanced in the slightest. )
Can a dralasite split in two. (no)
Can a dralasite ooze under a door (no)
Can a dralasite roll (yes, but it isn't the most efficient way of moving)
Can a Vrusk carry someone on their back (Yes, but with lots of complaining)
Can the PC races interbreed (Ick. No. Not even by artificial insemination )
Can you create a genetic superman. (Only as an NPC. Again, game balance, yah boo. )
Why isn't psionics in Star Frontiers (We didn't feel it fit in properly. Not every game needs a magic equivalent. )
How much do skills cost (new level x3, each level bought up individually. It's a bit more complicated than a level system, but you'll get used to it.)
Can I make a jack of all trades PSA ( :sigh: There's always one. Don't the current ones have enough versatility for you. )
Which cost is correct for the standard equipment pack (The cheaper one)
How do gas masks work for aliens (they need to have them specially made. This is particularly problematic for dralasites)
How much tornadium do you get for 50 credits (50 grams. The rest of the weight is protection. You don't want an explosive that unstable exposed to the air. )
Why don't grenades have masses. (because they're too light. You can carry as many as common sense dictates. Don't tell me you still haven't got some of that, when we've said you need it so many times.)
How do you handle vehicle mounted weapons ( Mechanically, fairly leniently. In terms of in game laws, expect trouble. )
What new modules are coming out (Not telling. Go to your local shop regularly, see what's in.)
Huh. TSR and GAMA have kissed and made up. What heart warming news. Now the whole hobby can work together to make better conventions. Whatever happened to GAMA, anyway. You never hear people talk about it anymore. Does it exist? Do the various companies still bother to pay dues. Or has it joined the great dustbin of history.
Wormy goes off on a random tangent again. Talanalan has some railroady GM'ing. Snarfquest blows stuff up and gets away.
Although they've had longer issues in terms of page count, this is possibly their biggest yet in terms of actual game content. Or at least, due to the proliferation of small articles, it's resulted in my longest review yet. I have to wonder just how I'll deal with their peak size 90's issues. My writing style's already changed quite a bit. Just what will several hundred more issues do to it? But I shouldn't digress. This is certainly not a bad issue overall, but it does have some annoying bits. At least the Ares section is a definite improvement on the first one, and it's not overloaded with adverts. But it doesn't have any real classic standout articles either. I guess we'll have to file this one under average.
100 pages. Welcome to their 8th birthday. Too old for every one to feel significant, but not a big round number like 10 yet. They're still trying something special, with a full-on cut-out cardboard castle for you to construct yourself. Which is pretty ambitious, really. Plenty of other stuff too. They certainly won't run out of ideas any time soon. But the important question is, is it good? Very good question. As ever, gentle readers, I shall attempt to inform and entertain you.
In this issue:
Out on a limb: A letter asking if familiars can be raised (not easily)
A letter asking if lycanthropy caused by magical items is contagious (not normally ) These two feel more like sage advice questions than letter ones. What's up with that.
Now this is more like it. Eric Field points out a mistake in the poison article in issue 81, and then asks if they ever plan to do a listing of gamers again. They reply that with circulation in the hundreds of thousands, if they tried that these days it'd take up a whole issue. Not feasable or desirable.
A letter engaging in generalized complaints about how the magazine has gone downhill in the past year. Too many cartoons, too many adverts, not enough stuff from Gary & Len, etc etc. Kim replies, but doesn't seem very enthusiastic about it.
Some nitpicking on the nature of gemstones.
A letter asking how you get special rates for conventions. This of course varies considerably from convention to convention.
The forum: Mike Beeman has great difficulty comprehending the concept of multidimensional space. A universe can be unlimited in size in multiple dimensions, but still bounded in the others. And via the miracle of four dimensional folding, it can be infinite, but still have sections which border on other infinities. Is that so hard to comprehend. All it takes is a little advanced geometry knowledge. That you're finding it hard to understand does not make it inherently incomprehensible, merely that you haven't built the right mental model yet.
Jennifer Walker offers a possible rebuttal as to why Dragon doesn't promote Gen Con more.
Russell Thorp has some optional rules from keeping players from combining every herb at once to make a super-healing poltice. Can't have the nonmagical options overtaking the magical ones.
Jeff de Remer has some thoughts on alignment and the nature of paladinhood. Because the 9 alignments are equal, it ought to be no harder to follow any one than the others. But exemplars of an alignment still need to be held to higher standards than anyone else.
And finally, Kirk Everist thinks that the forum is a good idea, and the two types of letters sent to the magazine should stay separated. Well, of course you'd print one of those.
The ecology of the slithering tracker: It was born in the strategic review. Now it's back in the magazine, courtesy of Ed Greenwood. It may not seem like the most threatening of creatures, but then, the really nasty ones rarely do. Before you know it you're turning into a giant puffball, being sucked dry of all your moisture, desperately trying to get that little squirming thing out of your urethra, or having your brain eaten from the inside because you listened at a door without using protection. The slithering tracker is unusual among oozes because it's really rather clever. Which is good for it, because otherwise it'd be doomed, as it doesn't have effective combat attacks, or proper manipulators. In a way, it's so helpless in the face of most other dungeon inhabitants that like kobolds, you're almost rooting for it to succeed despite the odds. As it is, it's the kind of monster that kills silently and unexpectedly, which rarely makes players happy. Because they're intelligent, you can invent all manner of tricks to lure the players into a false sense of security. Ed is his usual loquacious self in matters of their physiology and behavioral habits, inventing a whole bunch of cool little details beyond the basic monster description, most of which will be relevant in actual play. So it's just another masterful contribution from the king of setting depth then.
Familiars with a special use: Stephen Inniss returns to the topic he covered in issue 84, albeit with a different slant. Last time, he examined the natural animals. This time he focusses on the magical creatures wizards can persuade to bond with them. Firstly, he asks why should lawful and chaotic evil wizards get the cool extraplanar servants, and provides analogous creatures for the other 7 alignments. Then he adds three more little magical beasties for those of you who would prefer more options in the pseudodragon mould. Obviously, there's a lot more new crunch in here than the last one, which means you're more likely to want to refer back to it in play. As with imps and quasits, these guys are substantially more powerful than their masters at low levels, and should be treated accordingly. Exercise caution with letting a 1st level PC get one. But they're no more broken than the existing examples (yeah, everyone loves instadeath poison), so I don't have a problem with them in the larger sense, and can happily add them to my list of cool things I'd like to use in a game sometime.
The warrior alternative: Dragonquest gets another article. They may have virtually stopped coverage on non-rpg's, but somehow this little fella has slipped through the cracks. At the moment, not taking a magical course makes you a strictly sub-optimal character, as there's nothing else for you to spend that time on. It's a persistent problem, wizards being more badass than everyone else. So why not allow the characters to train in nonmagical skills with that time and money. It still probably won't make you quite as scary as a high power wizard, but at least it's something. And bringing a game closer to being balanced is usually to be lauded. I quite approve.
Five new enchanted objects: One of those articles that does exactly what it says on the tin.
The staff of the coatl lets you summon one of the aforementioned goody goody snakey snakes, and gives you a bunch of their other powers if you're of an appropriate alignment.
The scepter of defense gives you L337 parrying skillz. This is of course only useful against the kind of attacks you can parry. So pick your enemies wisely. Or give it to a Duelist, and watch them win battles like no-ones business.
Rust dust also does what it says on the tin, affecting anything sprinkled with it as if it'd been hit by a rust monster. Which means you can ruin enemy stuff without having to constantly worry about the thing turning on you and trying to eat yours, barring sudden gusts of wind. Muahahahahaha, etc.
The necklace of alteration is one of those weird items that offers a random amount of benefit each time you activate it. This can be rather amusing, particularly if you're turned into salt.
And finally, Dragonhelms give you a load of dragon related bonuses, at the cost of starting to think like a dragon, and sucking up to them if you actually meet one. A clever example of an item with both benefits and drawbacks, where you'll have to make a genuine choice if it's worth it or not. A strong selection of items all round.
The suel pantheon: Len Lakofka gives us more greyhawk stuff, officially sanctioned by Gary. Lendor, god of time (and tedium, oh my sides are splitting) and Norebo, god of gambling. (and Wee Jas' lover, at that time. An episode of her history I suspect she'd rather retcon.) More to come in future months. I'd say I'd missed you, but unfortunately I haven't. There's still something about Len's writing style that I find rather unappealing. They're still refining the rules to distinguish speciality clerics while keeping them balanced overall though, which is good.
Dragons and their deities: Another godly article by another regular writer. Alan Zumwalt. How do you make dragons even scarier? By letting them gain clerical levels from worshipping their gods. Muahaha and all that. Well, they had to have something dragon related for their birthday as usual. Since they can't get that high a level as clerics, and dragons are already pretty scary combat wise, it's best to channel these extra spells into increasing their versatility, healing and utility powers. Another option for when you have players who are starting to take things for granted and need surprising by putting a different slant on a familiar creature. Secondary options are useful, even when they might be suboptimal, simply because you can confound people who plan around the tactically optimum path all the bloody time. You can't do that when you only have 2 or 3 power options.
Great stoney: This month's centrepiece is certainly an interesting departure from their usual servings. A full-on cardboard castle, this must have added quite a bit to the production costs of this issue. (I wouldn't be surprised if they actually made a loss on this one, like they did with some of the later boxed sets) At 8 storeys tall, it would certainly make an impressive adventuring ground, which you could fill with all kinds of challenges. Like most of the more physical extras, this is of course a bit of a nuisance in .pdf format, but still, I can see what they were doing here, and I'm quite impressed by their ambition. If TSR was run by bean counters and lawyers, this would never have been approved. Yes, it may have got them into trouble, and eventually killed them, but that's the risk an adventurer takes. At least they're living with style and producing extravagant stuff like this along the way.
Chill! Another classic game is about to be released, and gets advertised here. Neat.
Fiction: Mzee by Charles R Saunders. Life is hard for a young orphan. Bullied by other kids, looked down upon by the adults, getting the last share of any stuff the tribe has, and generally having a pretty sucky life. The question is, will that adversity break you, or make you strong? Everyone loves a good coming of age drama. Seems like half the stories (all of them if you believe Joseph Campbell ) are based around that theme. (and the others are romances.) Another likable but not particularly exceptional or original bit of fiction to fill out the pages with.
Reviews: Battlesuit is a wargame set in the same world as the OGRE game, focussing on infantry battles. This is only slightly more revealing about it's ruleset than saying that Mario Kart and Paper Mario are set in the same universe. It's more a marketing decision. But that doesn't stop it from being a fun game, as long as you like wargaming that has no pretensions towards realism, you should get along fine with it.
Phantasy Conclave is almost the definition of a fantasy heartbreaker, (only with a ph, which like using vampyre, faerie, deamon, or khaiyne, automatically marks it as pretentious as well as insipid) essentially a bunch of someone's AD&D houserules turned into a game of it's own. And it is very badly done indeed. The writing is badly done, there's tons or errata, the illustrations even worse, and there are huge amounts of basic detail like character sheets, weapon ranges, movement rates, and general worldbuilding just missing. If you don't want your heart broken and your money wasted, avoid it like the plague.
Know your enemy: An article on constructing supervillain groups. Why they exist, how they survive, and what you do with them. A topic that could be a lot of fun in the right hands. Unfortunately, this particular attempt misses the mark, being too concerned with realistic worldbuilding, and not enough with the creation of a fun story. Trying to force superheroic worlds to be consistent is even harder than trying to get fantasy worlds to be coherent, well-structured and have decent continuity. You'll have to try a hell of a lot harder than this to marry the two goals of worldbuilding and fun gaming, with all the genre conventions keeping them apart. Plus the article feels way too short. Once again we see the problems inherent with only having 16 pages to play with. You just don't have the room to create the depth a topic like this needs.
A world gone mad: This month's examination of the moon goes to the Gamma World universe. The lunar outposts have been taken over by mutant plants, and gigantic single celled organisms. (gross) Now it's a jungle up there. Can the PC's reclaim it and get hold of some kickass technology on the way? Or will they find this a leap too big for mankind. In just a couple of pages, Jim opens up a whole new avenue for adventure that could become the basis of an entire campaign. Just like going extraplanar in D&D, once you have space travel, it's never going to be quite the same game again. Unfortunately, like the planar stuff, it's still pretty sketchy, with vast areas given the most superficial of examination. Better get to work then. Those moonbases aren't going to draw themselves.
Fast and deadly: A short but sweet article introducing a bunch of new ships to the star frontiers game, and then giving us three new sample scenarios employing them so you can get the hang of them before developing your own. See, this is how you make a short article worthwhile. You've got to cut out all the extraneous bits and get right to the point. With proper editing, you can fit in far more than you'd expect. It's a skill that any creative medium, be it movies, books, music or whatever, can benefit from.
Interstellar athletes: Ahh joy, another traveler variant. We used to get quite a few of those before they got rid of sci-fi stuff in here. Good to see them return. Don't want to have a past in the military? Be a professional athlete instead. There's probably more money in it, and less chance of being horribly killed before you retire. Unless your chosen sport is slaughtersphere. And given the age most professional athletes retire, a second career as an adventurer is a pretty decent option. So this is a handy little article that you can easily slot into your game. They're definitely getting the hang of this.
Starquestions is handled by Jim Ward on his own this month. Well, he did invent Gamma world, so of course he's the ultimate authority on it's rules. He doesn't need the help of Penny or Will or Jean this time round.
Can cyborgs be mutated. (their organic parts certainly can)
It should be obvious how a gun works, you shouldn't have to work it out (Ha. Try shooting a bow or lighting a fire with a pair of rocks while we watch you and laugh (from a safe distance) for a few hours. Then say that all modern appliances are utterly self-explanatory in their use.)
Why do you get automatically hit when surprised (to encourage you to be more cautious.)
My ref isn't checking for reactions, but just making the NPC's act the way she chooses (That is entirely within her perogative. The dice do not rule personality.)
I want stats for more weapons (Kill kill kill. That's all you people ever think about. Look, bikini's! That'll distract 'em. Or maybe not. Great. Now they're homicidal, fetishistic, and have dreadful taste in music. )
I haz 10 questions on mutations. Pls ansewer them. (longlist is looooooong. Jim hopes people don't get into the habit of doing this. )
Aren't swords and arrows a bit weak. (well, we had to make modern weapons more badass, or what was all that technological advancement for.)
When is gamma world set. (1st edition is in 2471, 2nd is in 2450. Not sure why we went backwards. New editions usually advance the timeline of a game. )
What happens to characters caught by cyber-netters (use the most sick and twisted part of your imagination. )
Can you crossover Gamma world and Metamorphosis alpha ( Effortlessly, my dear Watson. They use pretty similar rules and themes. They could be part of the same universe without either being compromised in the slightest. )
Wormy goes fishing. Watch out, because the fish'll eat you. Talanalan faces sudden death from the skies. Snarfquest has wishes go wrong, as usual.
Bug eyed monsters. The new game of alien abduction from greg costikyan. Looks like fun.
A fairly strong issue, with plenty of gameable material. (although I'd prefer more birthday stuff) The ares section in particular is definitely a substantial improvement on the first two, as they get the hang of the format, and figure out how to get the most into it. Looks like the turmoil of the first few months is over, and we can look forward to another year or so of the format staying stable before the next revamp. And that's not a bad thing, as they seem to have a pretty sweet gig going on here. It's risky to mess with a working formula.
Oh, long johnson, oh rodimus prime. Whyeyeyeyeyey?) asks for reprints. This time, they grant mercy, albeit of an expensive kind. Call Penny Petticord (Where do these people get their names from? I blame the parents. Do they not realize the consequences of what they are doing.) and she'll photocopy articles from out of print issues and send them to you. Well, it's certainly progress. I suppose that is to be lauded. 
) in it's latest advert, The arms of nargash tor. Also, we have naked faeries. That'll boost sales a bit more. He sure does know how to hustle. And lets face it, that's as important (if not more so, annoyingly) to a company as actually producing decent product. 
Once again we see the beginning of a new style of D&D adventures, with a greater emphasis on drama, personalities and epic overarching struggles that define the fate of worlds and universes. Sure, it'll generate it's own crimes against common sense and literature soon enough, but for now, it's a breath of fresh air contasted against D&D's current flavour of swords and sorcery which alternates between didactic simulationism and gonzo crossovers. Lets enjoy it while we can, before the kender show up and ruin everything.
They've learned from the gem dragon debacle. So canon be damned. Having hooves makes them even weirder, so why not. 
This is a family friendly magazine. 
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