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.
Good hits and bad misses: Ahh, critical hits. How many attempts at putting you in D&D will we see before 3rd edition makes them stick in a form most people were happy with? This is one of those ones that involves several extra dice rolls, and then consulting a table for the specific effect the crit has. Increased complexity for decreased fun, in other words. Meh, meh ah say.
Increased fun, of course!
As with others here, for us this was the most-used article out of any magazine, ever.
Good mechanics, huh? That might have helped establish the class's popularity. Oh who am I kidding....
Given the preexisting demand, any antipaladin article that wasn't glaringly flawed or underpowered would have been taken up enthusiasticly. Sometimes it's easy to spot a niche which it would profit you to fill. More often, people don't know they're missing something untill you make them want it. One of those things.
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Hah, you think? The antipaladin is one of the oldest "screw with the other players" build. Which probably made it popular. I don't think any D&D campaign is complete until it's had a kender antipaladin to totally up party dynamics.
Ahh, yes, kender. I have an extra special rant in store for them, and their partners in comic relief the tinker gnomes and gully dwarves.
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Perhaps, but this article probably got tons of useback in the day. I think it also was one of the sources of inspiration behind the Player's Option system back (err, later) in 2e.
Hated that version as well. Milage may vary, and all that. If you had fun with it, that's all that really counts.
86 pages. Convention season is upon them again, and that means we'll be seeing articles about them, and how they went in the next few issues. The convention circuit continues its rapid expansion in venue size and professionalism, mirroring the rise in the hobby in general. What new releases will be making the big buzz in the rumor mill this year? We shall see.
In this issue:
Out on a limb: We have one letter bitching about all the modules they print, asking for less filler and more fiction. One mans cheese is another mans rancid milk m'dear. They can't please everyone.
A letter complaining about the price increases, and also about the joke article on taxes in issue 36. Someone needs to learn to laugh at their problems. Yes, that particular article wasn't very funny, but that doesn't mean the principle behind it is wrong.
A letter complaining about the inconsistency between restricting PC's levels and the presenting super-powerfull characters in GitE. Yeah, I'm in agreement with you on that one.
A letter complaining that the dragon accompanying the gem dragon article in issue 37 has only 2 legs. To which they quite rightly reply don't be such a pedant.
And finally, a letter saying that people shouldn't complain about high level characters so much, and there ought to be more adventurers catering to them. Go you, I quite agree.
Sage advice is missing. Booo.
The dueling room: Sometimes you don't want the sembelance of plot. Sometimes you just want a one-one arena fight to determine who is the superior character. Another one of those anachronisms of D&D like alchemists and scribe monopolies, where it is assumed that there are high level NPC's there readily available just to maintain conventions like this, yet the main setting remains pseudo medieval. If you want a white room fight, just make it happen out of continuity. A silly but fun article, and it's good to see PvP get a little love instead of being roundly discouraged.
Fantasy has reality: Douglas Bachman expands on his piece in up on a soapbox last issue. He goes into a complex explanation of his vision of the fantasy realm, the moral quests and questions it ought to pose, the difference between the realms of adventure and the places where people actually live. This includes such tricky subjects as characters gaining incredible power in the magical realms, but then becoming regular people again on returning home; dooms and destinies, and the world becoming unbalanced because of the sins of the heroes. This is the kind of article which if used, would completely alter the character of the game, slanting it towards a very particular type of Campbellian high fantasy. I'm really not sure if I like this or not. It has some ambitious ideas, but implements them in a heavy handed way, and would only be fun if the players actively bought into the principles espoused.
Funerals and other deathly ideas: Looting the bodies of the things you've just killed, and then leaving them to rot really isn't a very nice thing to do, particularly for supposedly heroic adventurers. Similarly, just divvying all your own fallen comrades stuff with no regard for supporting their family shows rather a disregard for societial mores. Your players may complain when you introduce the ideas from this article, but they do help make the world seem more like a real place, not just a game where you kill with no reprecussions. One of those ideas you shouldn't overuse, as too much realism spoils the fun.
Wham's revenge - his games: A history and profile of the Gratefull Dead of RPG artists, Tom Wham. An unpredictable and eccentric designer, with a tendency to get sidetracked, he seems like the kind of person who is fun to be around, but a nightmare to employ. Still, this is another interesting insight into TSR's inner workings and the people who make it up. Hopefully we'll be seeing more profiles soon.
Don't drink this cocktail - Throw it!: Many people had realized that using flaming oil was considerably more tactically advantageous than fighting with conventional weapons. This article examines this more closely, including figuring out ways to keep players who overuse it under control. One of those cases where emergent rules turn out to be far more deadly than a fair fight, and another thing that would never work in 4th edition (do they even give stats and costs for flaming oil in 4th ed?) File this under muahahaha.
The wolf in your paint pot: Advice on painting wolf and werewolf miniatures. A fairly detailed article that does exactly what is says it does.
The fatal flaws of Crane: A bored player drops out of a play by mail game because the cost to fun ratio was rather too low. This article describes how the game was skewed towards people willing to spend more money on their characters and empires, the cost for playing each turn went up, odd social conventions grew up as people learned to exploit the rules of the game, and the gamemasters failed to provide new material for higher level characters. Which shows how many parallels old play by post games have with modern MMORPGS, in the problems they have to deal with. And that is very interesting indeed. One case of there's nothing new under the sun I wasn't expecting to see. A very thought provoking article.
Artifacts of Dragon pass: I guess someone's finally paid attention to the repeated requests for Runequest stuff. This is a big load of magic items, each with their own big chunk of history, and full integration into the setting in a way that contrasts sharply with D&D's vague hints of ancient wizards and curses. Like tekumel, Glorantha seems to attract people with a greater love of worldbuilding than D&D at the moment. Its nice to see it arrive in Dragon at last, and I'm guessing there'll be plenty more articles on this game in the future.
The other were? Right here!: 10 new types of lycanthropes for your game. Some of which are rather silly, such as weresloths and bison. As is the norm for this period of D&D, they seem to present an implied setting where after being infected, people lose interest in mortal society, and wander off into the wilderness and form little tribes of lycanthropes, spending most of their time in hybrid form. What's all that about then and where did it come from?
Hated that version as well. Milage may vary, and all that. If you had fun with it, that's all that really counts.
It was ok, but a little too dependant on charts, and the whole "crit on 18-20, but only when it's 5 or more above your to hit roll" was a tad cumbersome. Good for some semblance of balance (thus you don't get a crit when you can only hit on a 20), but still cumbersome. Still, I might at some point try to work them into the 3e crit system, who knows?
__________________ "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
Squad leader: Scenarios 3 and 4, the battle for warsaw. I've figured out what I like about these. The articles for this game really do feel like a throwback to the strategic review days, given how compact yet full of interesting little details they are. Which as the issues and articles around them bloat in size, makes them feel like a little breath of fresh air.
Giving the undead an even break: A revised undead turning table based on hit dice rather than just undead type. Which of course makes scaling encounters easier and more sensical. While it wouldn't be used directly in future editions, its a good example of an early attempt to put more joined up thinking into D&D. Which is pleasing, in a way.
The Rasmussen files: More writing from Merle Rasmussen on the design process of top secret. As is often the case, the name was derived from an offhand comment during design that stuck. And there were vast amounts of things that were cut from the rules (some of which may reappear in future supplements, if you ask nicely, hint hint )
And from Sprechenhaltestelle to?: Getting away from the introductory setting and going globetrotting in Top Secret. Includes a random table to determine what city the next clue to your mission will be found in. A fun concept, but rather dully handled in this article. A good GM should already have realised that to make top secret more james bondesque, you need more globetrotting, cinematics and explosions. Now, did the rules support such behaviour, or would that have been a losing battle anyway?
The miniature spotlight: Filling in holes in your miniatures. One of those jobs you gotta learn sometime,and this ought to help.
Bazaar of the Bizarre: A bunch of oriental themed magic items, several magic helms, plus two wands by Ed Greenwood, in which he sneaks in yet more little realmsian setting tidbits. How long before it is first mentioned officially, instead of snuck into ostiensably generic creature and item entries? Having just seen the runequest entries, the limitations of this format are thrown into stark relief.
The electric eye: Basic programming in BASIC Now this is a real nostalgia trip. All these PRINT and IF THEN GOTO commands. Now that's how you construct a computer program. If you have the time. Ahh, the days where you could understand the workings of a program without years of training and edit it for yourself without breaking everything.
Simulation Corner: This month the spotlight falls upon West End Games, a plucky new arrival in the wargaming arena starting to make waves. We'll be hearing more about them in the future. Another article that gives me historical perspective, and shows how much more in touch with the rest of the gaming scene the magazine was back then.
An advert for real life clergy of various religions to give their opinions on D&D. I suppose they covered women last issue, so they feel like tackling another big society defining topic soon.
Reviews: Annihilator, a mini board game, gets a rather negative review.
High guard, a supplement for Traveller, expands on making big ships, and gets a particularly clever review, with lots of comparisions to other games that tackle similar topics.
Sword quest, a boardgame, shamelessly rips of the plot of LotR, but reasonably well.
The drawing of the dark, a novel, fails to realistically represent the period it is supposed to be set in, but still manages to be an entertaining tale anyway.
The reviews this issue seem to have taken a huge leap upwards, in both opinionatedness, and sense of perspective. Which is a good thing, because the old dry descriptive reviews were rather tedious. Long may it continue.
Dragons bestiary gets 4 monsters this time. The fire eyed lizard, the Flitte, the Wingless wonder, and the Huntsmen. All are pretty interesting, with setting details and quirks that make them more than just another creature to kill and take the stuff of. Ok, so two of them boil down to a wizard did it, (clerics get no love in the monster creation leagues) but that just means players can learn how to do it as well (muahahaha) And isn't having spells named after you and/or monsters made by you make it into common circulation one of the highest things a wizard can aspire to.
Jasmine recaps already. The voyages of the exploration ship znutar gets another comic.
A 7 page index of all the articles from Issues 1-40. Nice to see them taking stock of what they've done so far. How long before they do it again. And how long before it becomes impossible to do.
And two more pieces of Tom Wham foolery. Outside the znutar, an expansion for Awful green things from outer space, and runngus' game, a whole new little board game based upon dropping your pieces on a board and seeing where they land. I guess that'll provide another few hours of diversion before you get bored of it and play something else.
Another strong issue in general, as while it hasn't innovated as much as recent issues, the overall quality and diversity of articles is particularly high. They seem to have an increasing base of enthusiastic freelancers to draw from, and aren't afraid to try new things and explore controversial topics. And they will be rewarded for this.
Bazaar of the Bizarre: A bunch of oriental themed magic items, several magic helms, plus two wands by Ed Greenwood, in which he sneaks in yet more little realmsian setting tidbits. How long before it is first mentioned officially, instead of snuck into ostiensably generic creature and item entries?
According to a conversation I had with Ernie Gygax last June, they all were amazed by how much Ed had going on in his homebrew, but since they were focused on Greyhawk at the time and didn't have much face-to-face interaction with him they had no idea how large and detailed his world was. Supposedly, Ed wanted to be a fiction writer and created his world for that pursuit, while at the same time having friends play DnD to help flush out the details. When Gary was pushed out and they were looking for a new setting the folks that took over TSR instinctively called Ed and asked how many notes he had. He sent them a file cabinet or two packed with notes and maps, which they immediately offered to buy, and the rest is Forgotten Realms history...
__________________ My Involvement:
Spoiler:
Player of Doral Kinsman the Beguiler in Who Wants to Be a Wayfinder IC
Yes, Paizo has scans of the covers. I'm going through those as I read the posts. Note also that some of the early issues and articles from them are on line.
The tekumel site has some issues. Starting with 4 I think. Full issues I think.
The metamorphosis alpha site has the ma1e articles from the early issues.
The only thing I don't know, is where can I buy the pdfs? Drivethru doesn't seem to have them.
Yes, Paizo has scans of the covers. I'm going through those as I read the posts. Note also that some of the early issues and articles from them are on line.
The tekumel site has some issues. Starting with 4 I think. Full issues I think.
The metamorphosis alpha site has the ma1e articles from the early issues.
The only thing I don't know, is where can I buy the pdfs? Drivethru doesn't seem to have them.
The big problem here is that most of the articles were bought for a single use run only. This means that TSR technically never had the right to reprint them, and even the Dragon magazine archive was in breach of that. Understandably, quite a few of their old writers kicked up a fuss, and that means that not only is the archive now out of print and hard to get hold of, but a lot of the back issues will never be available for sale legally. (obviously, since some of them are at paizo's site, they have been trying to get clearance, but of course they'd need to get all the articles above board to be able to sell a particular issue. ) In short, this is one of those cases where it's actually easier to get hold of these things illegaly for free. Which is vaguely annoying, but that's life.
80 pages. A particularly amusing cover this issue, as lizard boy goes to school. This issue, they focus on the fantasy trip, with 4 articles for melee and wizard. Computers also get an increasing amount of coverage, reflecting their new popularity at the moment.
In this issue:
Out on a limb: Two more letters from the opposing sides of the fence of the dwarven beard debate. Gary once again chips in to provide evidence for his rightness. This one just won't die, will it?
Another letter on the age debate, from a 15 year old boy who feels himself more than mature enough to play and run D&D in a responsible fashion.
A letter of support for giants in the earth, offering lots of suggestions for future issues.
A letter in support of including angels in the game and against too much realism.
A letter from Gary with some rather snarky opinions on many recent articles in the magazine. This stuff is not official and never will be (as long as I'm in charge) As amusing as ever.
And finally, a very long letter about the weapon and armor restrictions faced by clerics and magic-users, with lots of real world references. Yeah, this stuff was really easy to pick apart when you started using real world logic rather than game balance considerations. But the designers have said many a time that realism was not one of their design goals. Take that in mind.
Reflections of a real life cleric: Another of our "issues" articles, this examines the power creativity and fantasy has to enrich our lives, as well as the obvious matters that everyone needs entertainment and outlets of some kind, and that being good is supposed to be fun. (the biggest trick evil pulled is making people think that being bad was more fun than being good, when it very much is not, once the concequences are factored in) Of course, like any tool, it can be used for evil, or you can get too caught up in the means, and forget the proper ends, and you need to be wary of that. But you can't spot that stuff unless you're part of the community. Once again, this is a far cry from the hysteria that would later engulf the game several times.
Playing the numbers: Talk of combat optimization for The Fantasy Trip, with detailed analysis of hit probabilities multiplied by average damage capacity, and the corresponding expected output. Ahh, twinking. I guess any game with tactical decisions will attract mathematicians who pore over stuff like this. And that will be continue to be the case as the fantasy trip becomes GURPS and goes through 4 editions. How does steve jackson deal with it? (publishing munchkin, perhaps )
All fighters are not created equal: More Fantasy trip stuff, as they discuss the unfairness of recieving the same amount of XP, no matter how powerful each combatant is. You know what we need? A challenge rating system, whereby you get more by beating stronger foes, and less from beating weaker ones. Now that's what you call progress. Now, how long will it take for other games to pick up on this?
Dueling dragons: Adapting Melee to model combat between dragons, rather than human fighters. This obviously involves changing the tactics weapons, and stat ranges quite a bit. Because after all, dragons are absolutely brutal. I quite approve of this, as it pushes the games envelope, yet the game adapts fairly well too it. I guess the system was already fairly robust, even back then.
Ready, aim, firearm: Rules for firearms in Melee. Which are out of date already, as official rules for them were released just recently enough that they could mention it, but not cancel the article. Oh well. As is often the case when they have a themed issue, they put the worst article furthest in, so as to hook you into the magazine. But that's a common trick in any media. Put the best bits at the beginning and end, where people'll remember them, and squash the filler in the middle. And it must work, otherwise we wouldn't do it. Cut the page count instead you say? Nahh. We couldn't possibly do that
Giants in the earth: This months exceedingly powerful fictional characters (with atrocious artwork by Roger Raupp that doesn't fit the descriptions and makes them all look the same) are C.L. Moores Jirel of Joiry, H Rider Haggard's Ayesha, and Robert E Howards Valeria. Oh, and sigurd fafnirsbane and Starkad from norse myth, who get slightly better treatment.
Dragon's blood: The norse theme continues in this pair of articles on the benefits of being exposed to dragons blood, again mentioning Sigurd and Fafnir. One of those things that they admit has the ability to unbalance the game, given the importance of AC to combat, and the way it is tuned in general. You'd think that getting a dragon's treasure hoard would be enough. Nah, We won't stop until we've made swords from it's talons, clubs from it's teeth, armor from it's scales, and heaven knows what magical gubbins with it's internal organs. Honestly, it's worse than buffalo. No wonder dragons are extinct in the modern day.
For appearance's sake: The appearances of the various demihuman races are expanded upon, with guess what? Random tables to roll for eye, hair, skin color, unusual features, etc etc. :rolleyes: Truly this is for the uninspired gamer. Still, it does contain quite a bit of implied setting stuff. File under rather average.
Minarian legends: The creation legends of Divine Right Trolls. They do fall a little into the noble savage cliche, but are still given enough of a spin to avoid human in funny suits, thanks to they way their society adapts to their regenerative properties. The general quality of this series continues.
Up on a soap box: Good generalship involves tactics. In real life, the best way to win is to not fight, or let nature do your fighting for you, hitting them in the supply lines, as demonstrated by the russians. Of course, doing that in a wargame would make the game not fun, but you still need to consider tactics and psychology, as well as winning through unconventional means. As ever, the most common sense things are the easiest to overlook, like plan your tactics to account for the terrain and weather.
A particularly amusing cover this issue, as lizard boy goes to school.
So, how do wedgies affect lizard boys? Cause you know he's just not going to fit in....
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Dragon's blood: The norse theme continues in this pair of articles on the benefits of being exposed to dragons blood, again mentioning Sigurd and Fafnir. One of those things that they admit has the ability to unbalance the game, given the importance of AC to combat, and the way it is tuned in general.
You could go the other way, take a(nother) page from Tolkien instead, and make the dragon blood highly caustic instead. I'm surprised they didn't mention that given the DM vs. players attitude of the time, you know having the dragon blood eat away at the PC's +5 vorpal sword causing it to lose it's enchantment...
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You'd think that getting a dragon's treasure hoard would be enough. Nah, We won't stop until we've made swords from it's talons, clubs from it's teeth, armor from it's scales, and heaven knows what magical gubbins with it's internal organs. Honestly, it's worse than buffalo. No wonder dragons are extinct in the modern day.
As well as everything else that got the ol' "Greyhawk" treatment.
__________________ "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
So, how do wedgies affect lizard boys? Cause you know he's just not going to fit in....
Depends if he's derived from the kind of lizard that sheds and regrows it's tail fairly easily as a way to distract and get away from predators.
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Originally Posted by amysrevenge
"Hey, DM, how many bedrolls did you say those bandits had? And how much are they worth?"
lol
Hmm. Has anyone ever pulled the "this dungeon was recently cleared by another band of adventurers that got there first" trick in their games. It'd be both creepy and annoying to this kind of player if the other party were the kind that only took the treasure, and left all the mundane loot like that behind.
Bazaar of the Bizarre: Magical doors for your amusement and the players frustration (particularly the intelligent talking ones, which are always a pain in the ass.) plus three interesting (and rather powerful) multipurpose Ed Greenwood items.
Simulation corner: The spotlight again turns upon Avalon Hill, and their past, present and future business plans. Which seem to be pretty solid and well organized, if this article is to be believed. They may have found that the things that sell most were not their personal favourites as products, and had to adapt to the changing market. But they have done so, (although it's interesting to note that they are still supporting those less popular lines, which may or may not be a good thing in the long run.) and things seem to be going pretty well. Of course, they would say that, particularly in an official interview, because they want to make more money. Forgive me if maintain my sense of skepticism.
AH meets the computer: Tom Wham comments on the processes of computer gaming, and it's ability to augment regular gaming. (with an optimism that has proved rather unfounded in hindsight, particularly in the speed and degree with which computers would become able to handle complex stuff like RPG's. Even now, the DDI is just about managing it, in the face of considerable amounts of apathy. ) We also get 4 reviews, B1 Nuclear Bombers, Planet Miners, Midway campaign, and Nukewar. These get considerably better quanititative evaluations than the regular reviews, with ratings out of 10 in a range of categories, plus solid info on what computer and memory size is required, loading time, etc. Which is a very good thing, in my opinion. Solid charted info is much quicker to evaluate, compare and digest than stuff put throughout the review as the author sees fit. It's now fairly standard in computer gaming magazines, but never caught on here. Which is a shame.
Yet more reviews: Having done the computer reviews, they now move on to the physical products. Perilous encounters, a mini's gaming system, gets a pretty positive review. Dark nebula, a boardgame gets a slightly more ambivalent one. The company TA-HR gets generalized praise for the quality of their miniatures, and hope that more stores will stock them (and a wink from a magazine's worth a good few sales in the field, isn't it.) And The Golden Horde, a wargame modeling Gengis Khan's sweep across the known world, also gets a mostly positive review. Nothing hugely noteworthy here.
Having talked about women and roleplaying, and clergy and roleplaying, they now want teachers to talk about roleplaying, particularly if they have used it in a positive manner as part of their lessons. Who next? (betcha "gamers of color" for 10 dollars) How long before this line of topics starts scraping the bottom of the barrel? As ever, time shall tell.
Dastardly Deeds and Devious Devices: Transformation, drowning, one way doors. More fun ways to screw your party over, two impossible to avoid except by very paranoid players, and one literally impossible to deal with, except by luck. And where's the fun in that? I suppose it depends.
The electric eye: Three awesome little programs to calculate stuff that would be rather lengthy to do manually. That is, if they work, and you don't spend more time trying to adapt it to your own system than you would making the stuff in the first place. Unfortunately, this is another area where I can't test these things out see how well they work. Still, good to see them supporting weird peripheral stuff like this anyway.
Eye of the Dragon: Lots of new miniatures for sale this month. On top of that, there is a silver dragon hidden somewhere in america with a $10,000 prize for finding it. Oh, and Tim Kask is selling an issue of dragon no 1. Read into that what you will. Did he just have a spare? Nothing hugely classic coming soon this time.
Guerilla warfare, Napoleonic style: A complete minigame, including an actual play scenario, in just 4 pages. Whoa. Obviously pretty simple, given the size, and very lethal indeed, so games won't last too long. Still, I must say I'm pretty impressed at the writer for managing to condense an entire game in this fashion. It looks like it should handle large scale battles in decent amounts of time. I thoroughly laud this article.
Yay! another snits comic.
Dragons bestiary: The silkie (more fruit tigra? Muahahahaha! I think you meant selkie) The classic skin shedding seal shapeshifter gets a D&D writeup that does pretty much what you'd expect, albeit with very ...... elaborate implied setting stuff that reminds us that even good faerie creatures aren't always very nice by human standards, as well as being insufferable munchkins. And the Tomb Tapper, another intriguingly alien Ed Greenwood monster, which has a believable set of motivations and proper integration with its ecological neighbours. With a bit of adaption, they would be entirely PCable.
Jasmine continues, guess what, the heroine is the chosen one. Fineous fingers starts building up again. 10,000 Chinese peasants! What will he think of next?
And finally, we have another full 16 page module, The halls of Beol-Dur. Another instance of ad hoc ability based saving throws appears here. We see a certain amount of plot, adaptive time responsive monsters, and unfortunately, a certain amount of railroading. Which is certainly a development from the first few modules. There's also quite a bit of stuff which'll permanently boost your attributes, which is quite progressive of them. Pretty intriguing.
Another jam packed issue full of quality product, plus a certain amount of dross. No huge changes here, but fashion continue to turn, and the encroachment of computers onto every aspect of our life continues. The 70's already seem like a distant memory, as they produce issues both faster and larger. And the decade has still barely started. Oh well, onward we go.
Depends if he's derived from the kind of lizard that sheds and regrows it's tail fairly easily as a way to distract and get away from predators.
Oooh, I didn't think about that. Though I bet the bullies would just try to smack him aroun d with the tail or something.
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Hmm. Has anyone ever pulled the "this dungeon was recently cleared by another band of adventurers that got there first" trick in their games. It'd be both creepy and annoying to this kind of player if the other party were the kind that only took the treasure, and left all the mundane loot like that behind.
Hmmm, I got to try that sometime. And sometimes those 1e PCs would take damn near everything that wasn't nailed down. I played a game once where one guy wanted to take along a bunch of big heavy chains that we found, and that annoyed the DM. I think either these guys were just greedy for the XP (what with that 1 gp = 1 XP rule and encounters being dangerous), or they thought "If the DM put it in, it MUST be important!"
Or both.
__________________ "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
I will take that bet. I have never seen a gaming article address race and gaming (not counting messageboard threads and blogs).
Unfortunately, a winnar is you*. I've done quite a bit of reading ahead for indexing purposes since writing that, and AFAIKT they never do do an article or editorial on it. (although it does get a few mentions in the Forum once that's up) Which is rather an obvious topic to miss, considering how many ones they recycle dozens of times over the run. I guess no-one (or at least none of the editors ) wanted to risk the flame wars that you know would ensue from it.
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Originally Posted by Orius
Hmmm, I got to try that sometime. And sometimes those 1e PCs would take damn near everything that wasn't nailed down. I played a game once where one guy wanted to take along a bunch of big heavy chains that we found, and that annoyed the DM. I think either these guys were just greedy for the XP (what with that 1 gp = 1 XP rule and encounters being dangerous), or they thought "If the DM put it in, it MUST be important!"
Or both.
This is why we have encumbrance rules. If they tried to carry too much back then, they'd be staggering along at quarter speed, easy prey for any bunch of kobolds with slingshots. Either you drop some stuff, at least temporarily, or you get slowly whittled down at their leisure.
*Winnings redeemable in the form of meal and beverages of your choice should you encounter me at any convention.
80 pages. This is where Dragon completely shakes itself free of its The. How does it feel, being liberated? Not that different, really. No one's even remarked upon it yet. I wonder if they will. Lets look inside and see, shall we.
In this issue:
Out on a limb: A letter complimenting them on the women in fantasy article in issue 39, with particular emphasis on the cheescake is annoying ad should be stopped aspect, and also expressing bafflement with the cover of issue 38 (yeah, I quite agree with that one, that's some equal opportunites WTFery there. )
A letter expressing discomfort with dragon putting a sports game (ringside) in a magazine primarily devoted to fantasy and sci-fi. To which they reply that roleplaying doesn't always have to have supernatural elements, and they'd like to see RPG's that tackle other mileu as well.
A letter complaining about the existance of gem dragons, calling them unneccecary. Its a game dear, the whole thing is unneccecary.
And a letter complaining at the rules for "equalizing" the sexes in issue 39, saying they now grossly unbalance the game in favour of female characters. 1: it was tongue in cheek, and 2: does the word optional mean anything to you people? Once again the editorial staff sigh, and wonder how to get out of this pile of flaming letters. After all, they can't simply ban people from the board yet.
Demons, devils and spirits: It's halloween. And that means scary stuff. This year, they seem to have decided to focus more on the fiendish side of things than the undead. Our first article introduces 4 quirky new extraplanar monsters, the saraph, apollyon, asperim, and Orcus' horse, the Hacamuli. (be very afraid of this last one in particular, as it has triple energy draining, aging and disease as a result of its various attacks.) An interesting set of monsters, none of which I've seen before, and which will probably be just as surprising to the characters when faced with them.
The posessors: An attempt to model the mileu of The Exorcist in a D&D monster. This really really doesn't work, as the success of the creatures hinges on the PC's behaving in a genre appropriate way, which is very unlikely indeed. Nice idea, but sorry, you'll need some other game to properly take advantage of it.
Patron demons: Mmmm, demonic pacts. A risky business, as demons are not particularly reliable at keeping long-term bargains. But as long as you keep a steady stream of sacrifices coming their way, most demon princes'll be pretty happy to send some monsters back the other way who'll (probably) do your bidding, or at least go off and kill your enemies, and not you. It may bite you in the ass sometime, but your odds of avoiding an eternity of slavery and torture are probably better than if you signed a deal with devils. (as long as you're willing to become the one doing the torturing once you die) Lots of random rolls are involved in this article, as you'd expect. I quite approve, as it plays up the differences between having a lawful evil and chaotic evil patron, while not making it a just plain worse option.
Restless dead: A follow up on the funerals article a couple of months ago. Bury your enemies and companions properly, and don't nick all their stuff. Or they'll be back, going woogie woogie woogie, and getting ectoplasm all over your nice new armour. Which does not make you popular with women, children or animals, and may be hazardous to your hairline. Yet another thing that's cool if used occasionally, but'll really get tiresome if overdone, unless you're playing in Ravenloft, where stuff like this is to be expected. Oh, but Ravenloft hasn't been invented yet. Another bit of history that's still miles ahead. Look forward to it. :evil grin:
From the sorcerer's scroll: Gary encourages you to play monsters intelligently, so they don't get walked over by sneaky players, do stuff between encounters, and have properly thought out relationships with other groups of monsters in the same area. They should not simply sit in their room, waiting for PC's to turn up, then attack until they die. Which he would of course explore again in Keep on the borderlands. All good stuff, if still presented somewhat antagonistically. And two spells that were cut from the PHB because they didn't have an appropriate dice type Crystalbrittle and Energy Drain. Which would both make it into the 2nd edition corebook, when they stopped trying to make spell lists geometrically pleasing in the number of spells each level had.
Minarian Legends: The lands of Pon are the pat of the game that gets an extensive historical write-up this issue. I must say, I'm starting to get a bit bored of these. Just how many different countries and cultures are there to cover in Divine Right?
Sage advice returns after a couple of months absence with new people answering the questions, Jim Ward and Will Niebling. Jean Wells may help out, but she has other jobs as well, and these will be occupying more of her time. And as Jim and Jean have the same initials, and that's all they sign the answers with, you can't tell who did which. Anyway, back to the questions.
Can telekinesis shift a blade barrier (no)
Is the holy water sprinkler a gun (WTF? No, it's a big ball with spikes. Your research is seriously erroneous.)
Can a cleric attack while turning undead (no, it uses up his attack action for the round, like casting a spell. However, unlike spellcasting, it isn't disrupted if you are hit)
What is the "life force" drained by a 9 lives stealer sword. (character levels, just like undead. Do we have to spell everything out for you?)
Can you use an amulet of the planes as much as you like?(yes, but you never know where on the plane you'll end up, and you may appear somewhere that pisses off something powerfull. )
Can an evil cleric turn holy lawful good monsters like paladins and lammasu (er, maybe. I know we made an offhand mention of that, but the rules were never fleshed out, cos we are dumb. If you do allow it, use the same probabilities as an undead of the same hit dice.)
I don't understand the surprise procedure (read the goddamn rules again. Step by step, it's not that hard)
You said a few issues ago that elves can't have psionics, but it says they can in the monster manual. Do I have to remove them from my character? (that depends on your GM, but we strongly reccomend it. Otherwise, you are not an Official AD&D Character. So there. Yes, we changed our minds. Suck it up. )
Why is the gauntlet of ogre strength worth so much more than the various girdles of giant strength? (Because it gives you the proper protection and leverage to really take advantage of that strength. If you try superman crap with the girdles, you'll rip your flesh and break your bones. (and look stupid, because lets face it, you're wearing a girdle. Nothing can make that cool) Yes, this is bloody stupid, particularly in light of our previous statements that D&D isn't supposed to be realistic, and I'm probably pulling excuses out of my ass. Once again, suck it up.)
If a spell has a range of touch, does that touch need to be with your hands? (Yes. No feet, no headbutts, no goddamn prehensile penii. And before you ask, no, you can't play a deepspawn magic-user. Just no )
Leomunds tiny hut: Woo!! An extensive article on the workings of the inner planes, and traveling too and from them. I've been looking forward to this. As is often the case, Len's conception of the subject differs substantially from Gary's on several points. (and interestingly, while Gary's vision would take precedence in AD&D, and on to the planescape setting, this version would be a substantial influence upon the one in the Companion set of BD&D) Most notable is that the positive and negative planes are referred to as material ones, not energy ones, and both they and the plane of fire can be entered without an immediate horrible death. Plus each plane has planetary systems that roughly correspond to those on the prime material, and if a plane is missing a corresponding planet, then the planet on the prime material parallel to that position will lack that element. To go with this, it also includes a basic system for interplanetary travel in D&D, so it's the first hint towards the spelljammer setting as well. A very interesting article, that despite being light on smaller scale details, goes a long way towards making the inner planes playable. Like the alignment article way back in SR6, this provides hints at the other ways the game could have gone, and makes me rather want to explore those alternatives.
Giants in the earth: This months characters are Poul Anderson's Tauno Kraken's-Bane, Robert Adams' Sir Geros Lahvohettos, and Gordon R Dickenson's James Eckert, plus two more Norse heroes I've never heard of, Orvar-Odd, and Heidrek. I really should do some more research into scandinavian mythology, since Tolkien apparently drew on it heavily, and it seems to one of the closer ancestors to the fantasy gaming mileu.
Readers react to Ringside: Brian Blume talks about the reaction to his game, with rules clarifications, justifications and possible improvements to the game. It all seems pretty reasonable. From this showing, I can't see why he's the one who gets painted as the villain in the Gary leaving TSR conflict, when it's Gary who showed the tendencies towards hyperbole, one true-wayery and unpleasant rants towards things that displeased him. Oh well. I guess that's still to come, and I shouldn't make that decision based on the few articles I've seen from him.
Simulation corner: This time, they talk about the concept of "state of the art" as it pertains to wargaming, that it, the new innovations and refinements that are made in the field of game design, and filter outwards to most future games, as their utility is recognized. Games can be objectively better designed, and these guys believe they have become so in recent years. I am skeptical of this. Whether that makes them more fun to play is another matter altogether, as is demonstrated in many modern computer games.
The electric eye: Oh, god. Text command based adventure games. I remember those with horror. ing limited vocabularies and grammatical nitpicking that made getting anything done a nightmare. May they remain in the past where they belong.
Dragons bestiary:gets 5 monsters this issue, the Quatsch, Necroton, Well Spirits, plus sand and swamp bats. As with the articles, these may not be what is immediately thought of when horror is mentioned, but these guys are pretty freaky. The respective creators certainly have twisted imaginations (or have read books by twisted authors, as many of the ideas behind the monsters are familiar to me)
Barsoom in a box: A big review of John Carter, Warlord of mars, a game based upon the books. Considerably more than a wargame, with dueling, scouting, and some social stuff involved, but not quite a full RPG (although like the old Heroquest board game you could probably use this as the framework for combat, and roleplay the events) this sits between firm classifications in an interesting way. It has its flaws, but many of those are simply because it emulates the source material a little too well. Which is interesting, and something to keep in mind when designing your own games. Sometimes perfection makes things less true.
Reviews: The other reviews this month are Swashbuckler, another sorta wargame that works on an individual level and could be adapted to roleplaying. Time tripper, a wargame in the Quantum Leap/Sliders mould, where you play a soldier randomly bouncing through time with an experimental device trying to get home, facing enemies in each period. And Starmaster, a computer based play by mail game (my head hurts, these people need several thousand cc's of internet, Stat) that costs $2.50 per turn. Jesus. I think I'll skip that one, thank you very much. Not that it's still available anyway, as like anything that needs an external infrastructure to play, once the company stops supporting it, you're screwed.
The day of the Dwarf: Fiction (possibly based off an actual play) by Roger Moore in the monty haul tradition. Mad crossovers happen, and Asmodeus gets shown up in a rather amusing fashion. Which is pretty cool, particularly as the whole thing is quite well written. But you probably wouldn't want to actually play in a game that featured this much GM favouratism.
Jasmine and Wormy continue.
And the modulicious fun continues with another halloween flavoured goodie, The Mansion of Mad Professor Ludlow. A decidedly odd module that is technically a D&D one, but does not fit in D&D at all, being designed for the players to be a bunch of modern day children, and making huge adaptions to the rules and tone to more properly emulate that kind of boys own/famous five style. Another ambitious piece of work that really throws the horrible limitations in the D&D ruleset into stark relief. I'm slightly surprised that this never got converted to ravenloft, since they drew on many old modules when making it. I guess they wanted to forget about the failed experiments, and concentrate on the ones that worked.
Another issue that really felt bulky to mentally digest. But it has had more significant stuff that would go on to be developed later than most recent issues, and it's nice to see them do a halloween episode that doesn't focus on the undead. That kind of switching things around is neccecary to keep things interesting.
This is why we have encumbrance rules. If they tried to carry too much back then, they'd be staggering along at quarter speed, easy prey for any bunch of kobolds with slingshots. Either you drop some stuff, at least temporarily, or you get slowly whittled down at their leisure.
True enough, but what would D&D be without DMs ignoring some rules and then complaining about the consequences?
Of course a lot of these things are due to the antagonistic mindset of the early game, which probably is understandable given the wargaming roots.
__________________ "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
The electric eye: Oh, god. Text command based adventure games. I remember those with horror. ing limited vocabularies and grammatical nitpicking that made getting anything done a nightmare. May they remain in the past where they belong.
Dear God they were an exercise in tedium! They were a cruel torturous joke unleashed by savage proto-techno-programmers hell bent on grammatically twisting a certain 12 year old boys fragile mind at the time.
__________________ The surest sign that there is intelligent life in the Universe is that none have visited Earth.
The antipaladin is one of the oldest "screw with the other players" build. Which probably made it popular. I don't think any D&D campaign is complete until it's had a kender antipaladin to totally 
Milage may vary, and all that. If you had fun with it, that's all that really counts.
) 
Hmm. Has anyone ever pulled the "this dungeon was recently cleared by another band of adventurers that got there first" trick in their games. It'd be both creepy and annoying to this kind of player if the other party were the kind that only took the treasure, and left all the mundane loot like that behind.
Crystalbrittle and Energy Drain. Which would both make it into the 2nd edition corebook, when they stopped trying to make spell lists geometrically pleasing in the number of spells each level had. 
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