Let's read the entire run
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(un)reason
Legend
Dragon Magazine Issue 169: May 1991
part 2/6
Learn something new every day: More new nonweapon proficiencies. Even more than spells, they're easy to think up, as you just look around and draw direct from reality, little adaption needed. Although as mentioned before, you don't have nearly enough slots to buy even the ones essential to your concept if you have a complex job. Still, here's 10 more skills, that will eat up a total of 17 slots. Alchemy, Astronomy, Botany, Calligraphy, Cartography, Diplomacy, Geology, Orienteering, Street Fighting, and Street Sense. Not particularly bad on their own (apart from street fighting, which really should be a weapon proficiency, putting it in nonweapon stuff causes the same issue as Palladium's boxing skill in terms of giving advantages to people who powergame for combat potential over everything else. ) they once again rub in the fact that you just don't have enough skills in AD&D. Which means unlike new spells and items, who's appearance is frequently treated with glee, these will be far less likely to come in handy in your own games. Slightly dispiriting, really.
The strategy of tactics: Ahh, now this is one that is pretty influential, and becomes standard next edition, as well as having equivalents in tons of other games. Unlike two previous articles that have introduced a bunch of special tricks that you need to buy to use well, this gives 4 basic tactics anyone can use. Fighting defensively, forgoing attack entirely for full defense, and attacking with two degrees of extra recklessness that increase your chances of hitting and being hit. A small addition that adds quite a bit to your feeling of choice in combat, without unbalancing things in particular, and lets player skill play a slightly larger part in determining the outcome of battles. This is one I strongly approve of. Every game where combat is a major part should involve a decent degree of valid choices in your combat options. Just trading blows back and forth until someone falls gets old all too soon. Incorporating something like this into your games is definitely one I recommend.
TSR previews: The tome of magic! New spheres, Quest spells, Wild mages and elementalists. And shitloads of magic items and spells. Just the thing to have all your spellcasters salivating over the cool new stuff they can do. Future products reference this one a lot, so like Legends and Lore, get ready to have to buy it and treat it as a de facto corebook to keep up with the joneses.
Far less essential are the TSR collectors cards. Buy tons of packs and trade the duplicates with your friends to get a full set. Gotta catch 'em all! Bleah. Keep it away.
For those of you who couldn't be bothered with getting every novel and module last year, FR12: Horde campaign gives you the big picture, plus more info on their lifestyles and environment in general. You probably want the boxed set first to make sense of this though.
Spelljammer has an interesting premise this month. SJ4: Under the dark fist. An entire crystal sphere has fallen to the forces of evil, and they're planing to do some major exporting of their primary produce. High level adventurers are needed to foil them before they flood the universe with cut price mass produced evil overlords driving the home grown ones out of business. Or something.
Marvel Superheroes are still in an X-menish mood with MSL1: X-terminate. It's those stupid great death robot squads, isn't it. Never build intelligent death robots. It's just asking for trouble.
And finally, Buck Rogers gives us his third module. 25CS3: A matter of Gravitol. Well, artificial gravity is pretty critical to every sci-fi series, simply due to the prohibitive cost of filming zero gee regularly. So in a logical universe, controlling the resources responsible for it would be a very profitable business. This doesn't sound too bad, actually. I must be getting used to these guys.
The voyage of the princess ark: Haldemar starts to realize the more awkward side of his awesome new ship. Now she has a personality, and isn't afraid to show it, often being stroppy and gainsaying his commands. On the other hand, this probably also saves his life. When he winds up being captured again, this time by the Rajah of Jaibul, she senses this and homes in on him even though the crew don't know what do do.
Seems like we have an obvious india analogue in this month's travelogue section. Sind has a jungle section, some deserty badlands, and mountains in the north. This is next to the eastern europe analogue, for no apparent reason. Ahh, Mystara, where Immortal meddling means nations are just placed on the map like Sims houses, with weather and sociopolitics forced into unnatural shapes by the constant meddling from above. It's still considerably more realistic than ravenloft, where the things in charge barely even pretend there's an underlying world beyond the psychodrama prisons made for their amusement. Still, as long as it's a fun adventure, what does it matter if the world-building's a little sketchy.
part 2/6
Learn something new every day: More new nonweapon proficiencies. Even more than spells, they're easy to think up, as you just look around and draw direct from reality, little adaption needed. Although as mentioned before, you don't have nearly enough slots to buy even the ones essential to your concept if you have a complex job. Still, here's 10 more skills, that will eat up a total of 17 slots. Alchemy, Astronomy, Botany, Calligraphy, Cartography, Diplomacy, Geology, Orienteering, Street Fighting, and Street Sense. Not particularly bad on their own (apart from street fighting, which really should be a weapon proficiency, putting it in nonweapon stuff causes the same issue as Palladium's boxing skill in terms of giving advantages to people who powergame for combat potential over everything else. ) they once again rub in the fact that you just don't have enough skills in AD&D. Which means unlike new spells and items, who's appearance is frequently treated with glee, these will be far less likely to come in handy in your own games. Slightly dispiriting, really.
The strategy of tactics: Ahh, now this is one that is pretty influential, and becomes standard next edition, as well as having equivalents in tons of other games. Unlike two previous articles that have introduced a bunch of special tricks that you need to buy to use well, this gives 4 basic tactics anyone can use. Fighting defensively, forgoing attack entirely for full defense, and attacking with two degrees of extra recklessness that increase your chances of hitting and being hit. A small addition that adds quite a bit to your feeling of choice in combat, without unbalancing things in particular, and lets player skill play a slightly larger part in determining the outcome of battles. This is one I strongly approve of. Every game where combat is a major part should involve a decent degree of valid choices in your combat options. Just trading blows back and forth until someone falls gets old all too soon. Incorporating something like this into your games is definitely one I recommend.
TSR previews: The tome of magic! New spheres, Quest spells, Wild mages and elementalists. And shitloads of magic items and spells. Just the thing to have all your spellcasters salivating over the cool new stuff they can do. Future products reference this one a lot, so like Legends and Lore, get ready to have to buy it and treat it as a de facto corebook to keep up with the joneses.
Far less essential are the TSR collectors cards. Buy tons of packs and trade the duplicates with your friends to get a full set. Gotta catch 'em all! Bleah. Keep it away.
For those of you who couldn't be bothered with getting every novel and module last year, FR12: Horde campaign gives you the big picture, plus more info on their lifestyles and environment in general. You probably want the boxed set first to make sense of this though.
Spelljammer has an interesting premise this month. SJ4: Under the dark fist. An entire crystal sphere has fallen to the forces of evil, and they're planing to do some major exporting of their primary produce. High level adventurers are needed to foil them before they flood the universe with cut price mass produced evil overlords driving the home grown ones out of business. Or something.
Marvel Superheroes are still in an X-menish mood with MSL1: X-terminate. It's those stupid great death robot squads, isn't it. Never build intelligent death robots. It's just asking for trouble.
And finally, Buck Rogers gives us his third module. 25CS3: A matter of Gravitol. Well, artificial gravity is pretty critical to every sci-fi series, simply due to the prohibitive cost of filming zero gee regularly. So in a logical universe, controlling the resources responsible for it would be a very profitable business. This doesn't sound too bad, actually. I must be getting used to these guys.
The voyage of the princess ark: Haldemar starts to realize the more awkward side of his awesome new ship. Now she has a personality, and isn't afraid to show it, often being stroppy and gainsaying his commands. On the other hand, this probably also saves his life. When he winds up being captured again, this time by the Rajah of Jaibul, she senses this and homes in on him even though the crew don't know what do do.
Seems like we have an obvious india analogue in this month's travelogue section. Sind has a jungle section, some deserty badlands, and mountains in the north. This is next to the eastern europe analogue, for no apparent reason. Ahh, Mystara, where Immortal meddling means nations are just placed on the map like Sims houses, with weather and sociopolitics forced into unnatural shapes by the constant meddling from above. It's still considerably more realistic than ravenloft, where the things in charge barely even pretend there's an underlying world beyond the psychodrama prisons made for their amusement. Still, as long as it's a fun adventure, what does it matter if the world-building's a little sketchy.
Last edited:
Orius
Legend
The Tome of Magic was more or less worth it though, lots of good stuff in there to play with. Some of it even became 3e core.
Yeah, the placement of Mystara's cultures make little sense, when you're doing analogues, it's probably best to try to arrange them in a pattern that vaguely resembles the real world, because the cultures don't pop out of a vacuum. In spite of it's faults, the Realms are a bit better in this regard, though they still manage to ridiculously scatter three Middle Eastern analogues all over the map, particularly that goofiness with the Anauroch (al-Qadim OTOH, is excellent).
(un)reason
Legend
Dragon Magazine Issue 169: May 1991
part 3/6
The role of books: D'shai by Joel Rosenberg creates a world where everyone has some form of magic, except of course the unfortunate protagonist. This would be cause for enough angst in itself, but he also has to deal with being accused of murder as well. As with his previous books, it's real elements are well researched, and the fantasy elements are quite distinctive. He's as popular as ever around here.
The adept by Katherine Kurtz and Deborah Turner Harris gets a rather negative review, apparently lacking the best qualities of both writers. Might as well have not collaborated at all then.
Goblin moon by Teresa Edgerton is a very theatrically written swashbuckling tale. With highly dramatic, easily visualised scenes, and highly active characters, it sounds like a fun one.
Indiana jones and the peril at delphi by Rob MacGregor is another one that fails to take advantage of it's potential, as the writer seems to consciously reject pulp tropes without putting anything better in their place. Formulas are formulas for a reason, even if you personally don't like them.
The dagger and the cross by Judith Tarr manages to combine a whole bunch of elements without them getting short shrift. Set in Jerusalem during the crusades, it shows the other side of the conflicts covered in her previous book, while still managing to work as a standalone novel.
A book dragon by Donn Kushner is a pretty illustrated book about a dragon who has a book written about him, and then guards that book. Meta, eh? The illustrations demonstrate a similar sense of humour. It's probably a bit too slight a story to stand without the illustrations, but hopefully that won't become an issue.
The last unicorn by Peter S Beagle has also recently got an illustrated edition. This is not such a success, however, with the style of the drawings actively clashing with that of the writing. Not that it ruins the story, which is good enough on it's own, but it certainly doesn't add to it the way the previous one does.
The marvel-phile: Ghost Rider is back, with a new host! The cycle of life (and IP maintenance) continues. This of course means we get to go through the whole fun of doing the introductory and discovery stories again, only differently, as befits the personality of the new rider. They also introduce a new character who's never going to stick as a proprietary name, simply called Ghost. (which frankly, is right down there with Shadow as a supervillain name. And at least a hedgehog is better company than Patrick Suayzee) It's stuff like this that makes me appreciate the article about supers name in Aberrant more.
Also of note here are two issues that Dale raises. The first is a mechanical one. What exactly does being more invisible or intangible mean anyway? Actually a fairly simple and elegant solution to this. It only matters when it comes to conflicting powers rolling off against each other. Another small but significant bit of design technology that'll come into common use over the next decade. The other is a philosophical one on the nature of heroism, when applied to badass antiheroes who are almost as much a monster as the things they fight. Which is rather spoiled by a little editing error which means he says the opposite of what he intends to say. Still, the overall point is valid, and is very applicable to the media of the decade, as we see the rise of grimdark and everything that goes with it. So this might not be as funny as some of Jeff's old installments, but it is quite thought provoking. You can definitely use these as pointers to shape your own game.
The role of computers: The Lord of the Rings, vol 1 sees another game company pull out the stops to take advantage of the potential megasales. It makes sure that while the areas are familiar from the map, you get plenty of freedom to visit them out of order and find your own solution to the dangers besetting you. It may in fact be a little too big and slow, with lots of walking needed to get places, but it does capture the hobbit style of adventuring nicely.
Elvira is also an adventure game, albeit rather different. Explore a massive mansion and clear out all the monsters for our expansively cleavaged host. Combat, exploration, and lots of figuring out what items need to be combined with other ones to make potions & stuff to solve puzzles. Oh, and blood and guts. Yay for avoiding bowdlerisation.
Eye of Horus gets a rather poor review, as they simply found it boring. That's no good at all for a game.
Archipelegos fares somewhat better, even if it does have a plot that seems rather captain planet. Save the world by destroying the toxic obelisks and the viral trees and necromancers protecting them. Oh, if only it were that easy. POLLUTION DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY!!!
The Secret missions expansion disc for Wing Commander does rather nicely for itself, building on the original with harder new missions and a nice storyline linking them together. Nothing like a bit of continuity to hold things together.
Shadow of the beast I & II both get 5 stars. The first is a well done action game, while the second builds on that to add adventure game elements like cutscenes, talking to people and buying stuff.
Blazing Lazers is another arcade shoot-em-up where you fly a ship through space, kill aliens, and collect power-ups. They think it's a pretty good example of it's type.
Command H.Q. gets our buggies award this time, for it's badly designed copy protection. Once again, they make cheating seem the more attractive option, thus hurting their own cause.
part 3/6
The role of books: D'shai by Joel Rosenberg creates a world where everyone has some form of magic, except of course the unfortunate protagonist. This would be cause for enough angst in itself, but he also has to deal with being accused of murder as well. As with his previous books, it's real elements are well researched, and the fantasy elements are quite distinctive. He's as popular as ever around here.
The adept by Katherine Kurtz and Deborah Turner Harris gets a rather negative review, apparently lacking the best qualities of both writers. Might as well have not collaborated at all then.
Goblin moon by Teresa Edgerton is a very theatrically written swashbuckling tale. With highly dramatic, easily visualised scenes, and highly active characters, it sounds like a fun one.
Indiana jones and the peril at delphi by Rob MacGregor is another one that fails to take advantage of it's potential, as the writer seems to consciously reject pulp tropes without putting anything better in their place. Formulas are formulas for a reason, even if you personally don't like them.
The dagger and the cross by Judith Tarr manages to combine a whole bunch of elements without them getting short shrift. Set in Jerusalem during the crusades, it shows the other side of the conflicts covered in her previous book, while still managing to work as a standalone novel.
A book dragon by Donn Kushner is a pretty illustrated book about a dragon who has a book written about him, and then guards that book. Meta, eh? The illustrations demonstrate a similar sense of humour. It's probably a bit too slight a story to stand without the illustrations, but hopefully that won't become an issue.
The last unicorn by Peter S Beagle has also recently got an illustrated edition. This is not such a success, however, with the style of the drawings actively clashing with that of the writing. Not that it ruins the story, which is good enough on it's own, but it certainly doesn't add to it the way the previous one does.
The marvel-phile: Ghost Rider is back, with a new host! The cycle of life (and IP maintenance) continues. This of course means we get to go through the whole fun of doing the introductory and discovery stories again, only differently, as befits the personality of the new rider. They also introduce a new character who's never going to stick as a proprietary name, simply called Ghost. (which frankly, is right down there with Shadow as a supervillain name. And at least a hedgehog is better company than Patrick Suayzee) It's stuff like this that makes me appreciate the article about supers name in Aberrant more.
Also of note here are two issues that Dale raises. The first is a mechanical one. What exactly does being more invisible or intangible mean anyway? Actually a fairly simple and elegant solution to this. It only matters when it comes to conflicting powers rolling off against each other. Another small but significant bit of design technology that'll come into common use over the next decade. The other is a philosophical one on the nature of heroism, when applied to badass antiheroes who are almost as much a monster as the things they fight. Which is rather spoiled by a little editing error which means he says the opposite of what he intends to say. Still, the overall point is valid, and is very applicable to the media of the decade, as we see the rise of grimdark and everything that goes with it. So this might not be as funny as some of Jeff's old installments, but it is quite thought provoking. You can definitely use these as pointers to shape your own game.
The role of computers: The Lord of the Rings, vol 1 sees another game company pull out the stops to take advantage of the potential megasales. It makes sure that while the areas are familiar from the map, you get plenty of freedom to visit them out of order and find your own solution to the dangers besetting you. It may in fact be a little too big and slow, with lots of walking needed to get places, but it does capture the hobbit style of adventuring nicely.
Elvira is also an adventure game, albeit rather different. Explore a massive mansion and clear out all the monsters for our expansively cleavaged host. Combat, exploration, and lots of figuring out what items need to be combined with other ones to make potions & stuff to solve puzzles. Oh, and blood and guts. Yay for avoiding bowdlerisation.
Eye of Horus gets a rather poor review, as they simply found it boring. That's no good at all for a game.
Archipelegos fares somewhat better, even if it does have a plot that seems rather captain planet. Save the world by destroying the toxic obelisks and the viral trees and necromancers protecting them. Oh, if only it were that easy. POLLUTION DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY!!!
The Secret missions expansion disc for Wing Commander does rather nicely for itself, building on the original with harder new missions and a nice storyline linking them together. Nothing like a bit of continuity to hold things together.
Shadow of the beast I & II both get 5 stars. The first is a well done action game, while the second builds on that to add adventure game elements like cutscenes, talking to people and buying stuff.
Blazing Lazers is another arcade shoot-em-up where you fly a ship through space, kill aliens, and collect power-ups. They think it's a pretty good example of it's type.
Command H.Q. gets our buggies award this time, for it's badly designed copy protection. Once again, they make cheating seem the more attractive option, thus hurting their own cause.
(un)reason
Legend
Dragon Magazine Issue 169: May 1991
part 4/6
Fiction: Swordfish and saucery by Deborah Millitello. One of our occasional contributors manages to get another piece published. It's a rather clever little story too, both in terms of the IC plotting and the deliberate expectation shifting wordplay. Rereading it, you can see all kinds of little details which are actually significant. One to draw upon if you want to write mysteries where the answer is in plain sight, but the players still probably won't get it until it's too late. Looks like the fiction department here is as strong and varied as ever.
Role-playing reviews decides to have another round of covering various game's magic systems. Ever popular, and often quite complex, it's no surprise that supplements creating new ones and expanding on existing ones continue to come thick and fast. As with last time, before starting on the reviews, Ken talks a bit about the magic systems in various games. They have a history as long as roleplaying itself, and they continue to evolve. What interesting ideas have they come up with in the last couple of years?
Elemental companion is a Rolemaster supplement. Unsurprisingly, this creates a variant upon the D&D elemental plane principle, and then details the spellcasters who draw their powers direct from the various elemental planes. Since they have lots of overarching effects that are applied to each element, this makes the spell system quite flexible and good for applying creatively. They also detail a whole bunch of monsters, and rules for creating hybrids of terrestrial and elemental creatures. Seems likely 3e was influenced by ideas like this. Unsurprisingly, the rules are rather more complex and table heavy than D&D, with their distinct approach to horrible ironic deaths fully present. Good luck playing one character long enough to get those awesome 50th level spells.
The complete wizards handbook gets a fairly positive review. The new crunch is great, just what the doctor ordered. The roleplaying advice is less praised, with ken finding it a bit wishy-washy, and some bits feel like filler to pad out the page count. No great disagreements with you there. It's the crunch we remember and keep coming back too, because it's the stuff our characters are actually using again and again.
Aysle is a worldbook for TORG, and it's associated magic system. The high fantasy genre region, it's a torus shaped world which has it's day/night cycle controlled by the sun bobbing up and down in the middle. This makes mapping pretty interesting. Everyone has at least basic spellcasting capabilities, which their economy revolves around. There is objective good and evil, and big chunks of advanced tech don't work. As with all the other realities in TORG, it's got people from it who are trying to take over the world, and impose their axioms of reality on ours, which makes for extra fun culture clashes. This makes for a great backdrop for spectacular plane spanning battles, but the worldbuilding rarely goes beyond that backdrop level. If you want to tone down the cinematicness and delve into the logical ramifications of their magic system on the development of societies there, you'll have to do it yourself.
Dark Conspiracy. More modern day horror gaming coming out at around the same time as the WoD and Chill. Must have been something in the water.
In harms way - at home!: A second superheroic article this month presents a rather interesting idea. Danger Rooms. A place where you can hone your skills against the most inventive traps and hazards your buds can come up with, with little danger of permanent death. Not an uncommon idea in the superheroic realm, and martial arts and fantasy stuff are also known to feature them, so it's a pretty widely applicable idea. This is one that will take a bit of design effort, but you can have tons of fun with it, involving the whole party in it's construction and testing. The way this article encourages you to do it is to have each tile on the floor with a separate hazard, which does look like it'll take quite a bit of work thinking up ideas (or stealing them from the comics. ) Fortunately, there are some random generation tables here, which should help you with the filler. So this is a very useful article if you're playing FASERIP, and mildly so if you aren't. Not a bad result, really.
part 4/6
Fiction: Swordfish and saucery by Deborah Millitello. One of our occasional contributors manages to get another piece published. It's a rather clever little story too, both in terms of the IC plotting and the deliberate expectation shifting wordplay. Rereading it, you can see all kinds of little details which are actually significant. One to draw upon if you want to write mysteries where the answer is in plain sight, but the players still probably won't get it until it's too late. Looks like the fiction department here is as strong and varied as ever.
Role-playing reviews decides to have another round of covering various game's magic systems. Ever popular, and often quite complex, it's no surprise that supplements creating new ones and expanding on existing ones continue to come thick and fast. As with last time, before starting on the reviews, Ken talks a bit about the magic systems in various games. They have a history as long as roleplaying itself, and they continue to evolve. What interesting ideas have they come up with in the last couple of years?
Elemental companion is a Rolemaster supplement. Unsurprisingly, this creates a variant upon the D&D elemental plane principle, and then details the spellcasters who draw their powers direct from the various elemental planes. Since they have lots of overarching effects that are applied to each element, this makes the spell system quite flexible and good for applying creatively. They also detail a whole bunch of monsters, and rules for creating hybrids of terrestrial and elemental creatures. Seems likely 3e was influenced by ideas like this. Unsurprisingly, the rules are rather more complex and table heavy than D&D, with their distinct approach to horrible ironic deaths fully present. Good luck playing one character long enough to get those awesome 50th level spells.
The complete wizards handbook gets a fairly positive review. The new crunch is great, just what the doctor ordered. The roleplaying advice is less praised, with ken finding it a bit wishy-washy, and some bits feel like filler to pad out the page count. No great disagreements with you there. It's the crunch we remember and keep coming back too, because it's the stuff our characters are actually using again and again.
Aysle is a worldbook for TORG, and it's associated magic system. The high fantasy genre region, it's a torus shaped world which has it's day/night cycle controlled by the sun bobbing up and down in the middle. This makes mapping pretty interesting. Everyone has at least basic spellcasting capabilities, which their economy revolves around. There is objective good and evil, and big chunks of advanced tech don't work. As with all the other realities in TORG, it's got people from it who are trying to take over the world, and impose their axioms of reality on ours, which makes for extra fun culture clashes. This makes for a great backdrop for spectacular plane spanning battles, but the worldbuilding rarely goes beyond that backdrop level. If you want to tone down the cinematicness and delve into the logical ramifications of their magic system on the development of societies there, you'll have to do it yourself.
Dark Conspiracy. More modern day horror gaming coming out at around the same time as the WoD and Chill. Must have been something in the water.
In harms way - at home!: A second superheroic article this month presents a rather interesting idea. Danger Rooms. A place where you can hone your skills against the most inventive traps and hazards your buds can come up with, with little danger of permanent death. Not an uncommon idea in the superheroic realm, and martial arts and fantasy stuff are also known to feature them, so it's a pretty widely applicable idea. This is one that will take a bit of design effort, but you can have tons of fun with it, involving the whole party in it's construction and testing. The way this article encourages you to do it is to have each tile on the floor with a separate hazard, which does look like it'll take quite a bit of work thinking up ideas (or stealing them from the comics. ) Fortunately, there are some random generation tables here, which should help you with the filler. So this is a very useful article if you're playing FASERIP, and mildly so if you aren't. Not a bad result, really.
(un)reason
Legend
Dragon Magazine Issue 169: May 1991
part 5/6
Bazaar of the Bizarre: Ed Greenwood turns his mind to ends more useful than last month, with another collection of quirky magical items. Back in issue 74 he gave us seven swords, now he gives us a dozen daggers. (so what we need are nine clubs with nails in, eight bohemian ear spoons, six spears a-stabbing, FIVE FAUCHARD-FORKS! Four flails lashing, three tridents twirling, and possibly a partridge in a pear tree. Can you guess when I wrote this bit) Since these collections from him are generally pretty good, I'm quite optimistic about this. Let's see what cool tricks he's come up with this time.
Blades of banishing dispel wards by cutting through them. Just the thing for a fighter who distrusts most magic and doesn't have a wizard on the team.
Chill Blades not only hurt, they make you frostbitten and appropriately clumsy. This'll make fighting enemies with tons of hit points and big damage outputs a lot easier, as you can really wear them down.
Dagger of defiance make it near impossible to get rid of you magically. Another good antiscrewage one for a fighter expecting trouble.
Daggers of doomwarding give you a second chance in a pinch. Another thing that could be just what the doctor ordered. After all, what price your life in a world where save or die effects aren't uncommon.
Dragonfangs let you shoot (not very impressive) lightning bolts and kill dragons more easily. These ones are probably more appropriate for wizards who'd like an extra blasty effect for if they run out.
Fang Daggers have snakes heads and are poisonous. They're still not as nasty as most save-or-die monsters, but certainly not terrible. Once again we're seeing that new powers and creatures introduced here are actually frequently less terrifying than the old ones.
Grimwald's Dagger is another sadistic creation from the mage who brought you the healing screwing greymantle. (see issue 92) It makes horrible noises and causes you to suffer from uncontrollable laughter. I think we're definitely getting a good idea of his personality and approach to combat.
Invisible blades are pretty self explanatory. They're completely silent too. Just the thing for an assassin. Watch you don't cut yourself trying to find it again.
Jump Daggers let you go all wuxia, adding an awesome cinematic edge to your combat. They have another special use that's even cooler, and would never be allowed in later editions. Someone taking proper advantage of this would be very good at winning fights without anyone getting hurt.
Rust blades are made from rust monster antennae, and their special effect should be pretty obvious. Now anyone can screw you over and ruin all your stuff in combat. Muahahahaha!!!!!!
Speaking Daggers allow you to incorporate the worst aspects of mobile phones into your combat, repeating a prerecorded message every time they hit something. They can be both incredibly irritating, and used inventively as a secret way to deliver messages. Just the thing to give a villain with a fondness for Xanatos Gambits. Deedoloo dedoloo deduldumdedee. Genius.
Spider fangs let you generate webs, and pass through other people's. Another one that's good for dealing with people without directly fighting them.
So this is a fun collection, full of items that aren't generally obscenely powerful (People obviously prefer their unique named weapons a bit bigger and more impressive looking), but strongly useful, and which reward clever thinking and encourage playful action scenes. Looks like he's very much back on form.
Forum is interestingly multicultural this month.
Scott A Steinmetz talks about his convention experiences, and gives some advice on picking con games to join in on. Generally, the more choice, the better your chance of finding something you like, so big conventions have an edge. Don't be afraid to haggle, it's direct dealing, not a shop. And remember, it's not actually that hard to get involved as a GM or other volunteer either. The harder you go for it, the more fun you're likely to have.
Fabio Luis De Paoli speaks out in favour of letting evil characters indulge the full range of villainy if you allow them in your game. Otherwise it's just a bit wishy-washy. People need to remember it's only a game, and doing vile things to each other within it shouldn't spoil RL friendships.
Dan Howarth rebutts Toby Myers on the computer debate thing. They seem to be talking past one-another. Perils of written communication.
Kristian Teglbjaerg encourages you to build your character as an individual, with a proper backstory and such, rather than just part of a party to fill a role. Solo play can be a fun way of getting to really know your character. Ahh yes, another thing that has risen and then fallen again in D&D land, with 4e in particular encouraging you to build and play your characters as a team.
part 5/6
Bazaar of the Bizarre: Ed Greenwood turns his mind to ends more useful than last month, with another collection of quirky magical items. Back in issue 74 he gave us seven swords, now he gives us a dozen daggers. (so what we need are nine clubs with nails in, eight bohemian ear spoons, six spears a-stabbing, FIVE FAUCHARD-FORKS! Four flails lashing, three tridents twirling, and possibly a partridge in a pear tree. Can you guess when I wrote this bit
) Since these collections from him are generally pretty good, I'm quite optimistic about this. Let's see what cool tricks he's come up with this time. Blades of banishing dispel wards by cutting through them. Just the thing for a fighter who distrusts most magic and doesn't have a wizard on the team.
Chill Blades not only hurt, they make you frostbitten and appropriately clumsy. This'll make fighting enemies with tons of hit points and big damage outputs a lot easier, as you can really wear them down.
Dagger of defiance make it near impossible to get rid of you magically. Another good antiscrewage one for a fighter expecting trouble.
Daggers of doomwarding give you a second chance in a pinch. Another thing that could be just what the doctor ordered. After all, what price your life in a world where save or die effects aren't uncommon.
Dragonfangs let you shoot (not very impressive) lightning bolts and kill dragons more easily. These ones are probably more appropriate for wizards who'd like an extra blasty effect for if they run out.
Fang Daggers have snakes heads and are poisonous. They're still not as nasty as most save-or-die monsters, but certainly not terrible. Once again we're seeing that new powers and creatures introduced here are actually frequently less terrifying than the old ones.
Grimwald's Dagger is another sadistic creation from the mage who brought you the healing screwing greymantle. (see issue 92) It makes horrible noises and causes you to suffer from uncontrollable laughter. I think we're definitely getting a good idea of his personality and approach to combat.
Invisible blades are pretty self explanatory. They're completely silent too. Just the thing for an assassin. Watch you don't cut yourself trying to find it again.
Jump Daggers let you go all wuxia, adding an awesome cinematic edge to your combat. They have another special use that's even cooler, and would never be allowed in later editions. Someone taking proper advantage of this would be very good at winning fights without anyone getting hurt.
Rust blades are made from rust monster antennae, and their special effect should be pretty obvious. Now anyone can screw you over and ruin all your stuff in combat. Muahahahaha!!!!!!
Speaking Daggers allow you to incorporate the worst aspects of mobile phones into your combat, repeating a prerecorded message every time they hit something. They can be both incredibly irritating, and used inventively as a secret way to deliver messages. Just the thing to give a villain with a fondness for Xanatos Gambits. Deedoloo dedoloo deduldumdedee. Genius.
Spider fangs let you generate webs, and pass through other people's. Another one that's good for dealing with people without directly fighting them.
So this is a fun collection, full of items that aren't generally obscenely powerful (People obviously prefer their unique named weapons a bit bigger and more impressive looking), but strongly useful, and which reward clever thinking and encourage playful action scenes. Looks like he's very much back on form.
Forum is interestingly multicultural this month.
Scott A Steinmetz talks about his convention experiences, and gives some advice on picking con games to join in on. Generally, the more choice, the better your chance of finding something you like, so big conventions have an edge. Don't be afraid to haggle, it's direct dealing, not a shop. And remember, it's not actually that hard to get involved as a GM or other volunteer either. The harder you go for it, the more fun you're likely to have.
Fabio Luis De Paoli speaks out in favour of letting evil characters indulge the full range of villainy if you allow them in your game. Otherwise it's just a bit wishy-washy. People need to remember it's only a game, and doing vile things to each other within it shouldn't spoil RL friendships.
Dan Howarth rebutts Toby Myers on the computer debate thing. They seem to be talking past one-another. Perils of written communication.
Kristian Teglbjaerg encourages you to build your character as an individual, with a proper backstory and such, rather than just part of a party to fill a role. Solo play can be a fun way of getting to really know your character. Ahh yes, another thing that has risen and then fallen again in D&D land, with 4e in particular encouraging you to build and play your characters as a team.
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(un)reason
Legend
Dragon Magazine Issue 169: May 1991
part 6/6
Sage advice is back to 2 1/2 pages. Nice to see Skip benefiting from the extra page count.
What climates is Survival appropriate for (Any terrestrial ones. For underwater or extraplanar, you'll need something else)
Do you need to spend a slot to be literate (yes. Note that magical notation is not a part of standard writing, and comes free with class training. Wizards can still be generally illiterate.)
How much does a kayak cost. Do you need a proficiency to use it (Hee. You said Kayak. Hyuk hyuk Ryuk ZOMG death note people! )
Do you need a skill for everything? You don't get enough slots! ( Yeah, these rules don't hold up without a decent degree of fiat and common sense to keep them lubricated. This is a strength, not a weakness! Anyone who says otherwise is a filthy rules lawyer, more interested in breaking the game than making it work! We don't want your kind around here. )
Can I backstab and apply specialization bonuses. (No. You can't combine abilities from different classes in the same action. It's one or the other. You aren't some filthy 0 level piecemeal character. You're a proud follower in the line of an archetypical skill set and you ought to act like it! )
Can you stack mirror image spells (sure, as long as they're additive, not multiplacative, why not. )
I still have questions about magic jar ( We shall have to do something about that spell. Whatever Skip says, it never seems to satisfy them. Why are they so damn attached to their souls and interested in what happens to them if you do various stuff anyway? )
How do you use flame arrow (All at once, with great brutality. But really, did you ever take this in place of the standard fireball? )
What happens to submerged creatures when you cast mud to rock ( Trappage. You'd better scramble fast, try and get out while it solidifies)
Do walls of iron fall over ( Quite easily, apparently. You may want to look at a more eco (and by eco we mean people, for being crushed to death is a very definite environmental hazard) friendly building option. )
Are undead, constructs and other technically nonalive monsters affected by polymorphing (yes, unless their descriptions say otherwise)
Do bags of holding generate air when closed (nope. It'll get stuffy soon if you try hiding there. )
Why do potions of heroism only work on warriors and 0 level characters (because otherwise they'd be multi-classed, and the calculations would be too bloody complicated. )
What are ranger's prime requisites ( Rather a lot. You ain't getting that XP bonus on method I matey)
How do | do ability checks for monsters (don't. Just roll a die and apply common sense. )
How high is a wall of sand (Ridiculously, skyscrapingly high. Um. Has Skip got the length and height mixed up? )
Doesn't 12+12=24 (only when there's nothing else in the equation. Pay attention. )
Dragonmirth offers an interesting solution to D&D economic problems. Yamara has to try and keep her husband under control, and not the other way around. Twilight empire finds an excuse to get the male characters in /skirts/ Kilts.
Through the looking glass: Like Ken before him, Robert opens up his reviewing techniques to us, for the sake of transparency and dealing with attempts at corruption. It's a small community, and it's amazing how petty people can be. Still, this shows it's easier to judge minis for objective technical quality and usefulness than it is books, where the value is in the ideas more than it is the object. A model either has flash lines and indistinct details or it doesn't. (although I know that you can get bad batches of a decent figure, just as I've sometimes got books with chunks of pages duplicated or upside down.) And if assembly is required, everyone appreciates instructions that don't look like they were translated from japanese to english by someone from india. Basically, the whole thing reads like a big "back off, buster!" to whichever company was trying to corrupt him into giving them higher marks, pointing out that no amount of bluster will change the fact that their minis have a certain degree of shoddy construction, and the rest of the magazine will back him up on this stance. Which is pretty cool, really. Anyone know which company that actually was? We certainly don't see this stuff in the magazine the way we did in the 70's.
After all that drama, the minis reviews are a bit of a letdown really. A bunch of battleships celebrating the 50th anniversary of the sinking of the Bismark. It had a lifespan greater than the Titanic, but it too went down without really fulfilling it's potential. (which is probably a good thing in this case. ) Now you can get models of the various participants in these battles and reenact them. A wizard, an elf knight, and a bunch of cyberpunk samurai return us to fantasy terrains, with barbarians and dwarves providing the muscle for a fairly complete party. Business as usual, with everything getting between 4 and 5 stars. Can't see any companies complaining about that, ironically.
Another issue with quite a bit of stuff that's fun, quite a bit of stuff that's useful, and several things that are thought-provoking too. The tension and controversy that marked last year's output seems to be diminishing again, or at least becoming more manageable for them, which leaves them free to actually produce stuff that we both can and want to apply practically. The result is certainly quite nice for me, even if the themed sections are still very hit and miss. If they keep this showing up, their 15th birthday is going to be a good one. I hope they've got some nice presents for this big number.
part 6/6
Sage advice is back to 2 1/2 pages. Nice to see Skip benefiting from the extra page count.
What climates is Survival appropriate for (Any terrestrial ones. For underwater or extraplanar, you'll need something else)
Do you need to spend a slot to be literate (yes. Note that magical notation is not a part of standard writing, and comes free with class training. Wizards can still be generally illiterate.)
How much does a kayak cost. Do you need a proficiency to use it (Hee. You said Kayak. Hyuk hyuk Ryuk ZOMG death note people! )
Do you need a skill for everything? You don't get enough slots! ( Yeah, these rules don't hold up without a decent degree of fiat and common sense to keep them lubricated. This is a strength, not a weakness! Anyone who says otherwise is a filthy rules lawyer, more interested in breaking the game than making it work! We don't want your kind around here. )
Can I backstab and apply specialization bonuses. (No. You can't combine abilities from different classes in the same action. It's one or the other. You aren't some filthy 0 level piecemeal character. You're a proud follower in the line of an archetypical skill set and you ought to act like it! )
Can you stack mirror image spells (sure, as long as they're additive, not multiplacative, why not. )
I still have questions about magic jar ( We shall have to do something about that spell. Whatever Skip says, it never seems to satisfy them. Why are they so damn attached to their souls and interested in what happens to them if you do various stuff anyway? )
How do you use flame arrow (All at once, with great brutality. But really, did you ever take this in place of the standard fireball? )
What happens to submerged creatures when you cast mud to rock ( Trappage. You'd better scramble fast, try and get out while it solidifies)
Do walls of iron fall over ( Quite easily, apparently. You may want to look at a more eco (and by eco we mean people, for being crushed to death is a very definite environmental hazard) friendly building option. )
Are undead, constructs and other technically nonalive monsters affected by polymorphing (yes, unless their descriptions say otherwise)
Do bags of holding generate air when closed (nope. It'll get stuffy soon if you try hiding there. )
Why do potions of heroism only work on warriors and 0 level characters (because otherwise they'd be multi-classed, and the calculations would be too bloody complicated. )
What are ranger's prime requisites ( Rather a lot. You ain't getting that XP bonus on method I matey)
How do | do ability checks for monsters (don't. Just roll a die and apply common sense. )
How high is a wall of sand (Ridiculously, skyscrapingly high. Um. Has Skip got the length and height mixed up? )
Doesn't 12+12=24 (only when there's nothing else in the equation. Pay attention. )
Dragonmirth offers an interesting solution to D&D economic problems. Yamara has to try and keep her husband under control, and not the other way around. Twilight empire finds an excuse to get the male characters in /skirts/ Kilts.
Through the looking glass: Like Ken before him, Robert opens up his reviewing techniques to us, for the sake of transparency and dealing with attempts at corruption. It's a small community, and it's amazing how petty people can be. Still, this shows it's easier to judge minis for objective technical quality and usefulness than it is books, where the value is in the ideas more than it is the object. A model either has flash lines and indistinct details or it doesn't. (although I know that you can get bad batches of a decent figure, just as I've sometimes got books with chunks of pages duplicated or upside down.) And if assembly is required, everyone appreciates instructions that don't look like they were translated from japanese to english by someone from india. Basically, the whole thing reads like a big "back off, buster!" to whichever company was trying to corrupt him into giving them higher marks, pointing out that no amount of bluster will change the fact that their minis have a certain degree of shoddy construction, and the rest of the magazine will back him up on this stance. Which is pretty cool, really. Anyone know which company that actually was? We certainly don't see this stuff in the magazine the way we did in the 70's.
After all that drama, the minis reviews are a bit of a letdown really. A bunch of battleships celebrating the 50th anniversary of the sinking of the Bismark. It had a lifespan greater than the Titanic, but it too went down without really fulfilling it's potential. (which is probably a good thing in this case. ) Now you can get models of the various participants in these battles and reenact them. A wizard, an elf knight, and a bunch of cyberpunk samurai return us to fantasy terrains, with barbarians and dwarves providing the muscle for a fairly complete party. Business as usual, with everything getting between 4 and 5 stars. Can't see any companies complaining about that, ironically.
Another issue with quite a bit of stuff that's fun, quite a bit of stuff that's useful, and several things that are thought-provoking too. The tension and controversy that marked last year's output seems to be diminishing again, or at least becoming more manageable for them, which leaves them free to actually produce stuff that we both can and want to apply practically. The result is certainly quite nice for me, even if the themed sections are still very hit and miss. If they keep this showing up, their 15th birthday is going to be a good one. I hope they've got some nice presents for this big number.
Last edited:
Deuce Traveler
Adventurer
You asked two questions last month, and I just got caught up and feel I can answer them.
1.) I've played Torg once and own the boxed set, while I also played Rifts once but never owned the product. I have to say I prefer Torg's storyline when it comes to creating a kitchen sink kind of setting. In fact, I'd say Torg's explanation is probably the best I've heard in an RPG when trying to explain a world where dinosaurs roam on one part of the planet and cyber-ninjas on another. The invasion of manipulative alien beings who warp reality felt like a cross between Dr. Who and Stargate, and I wish I had time to play Torg more often.
2.) Wing Commander I was an excellent space simulator, but I wouldn't call it an RPG. More of a space sim with RPG elements. You play as a rookie pilot fighting the Kilrathi. The excellent RPG elements are a strategic story flowchart whose ending depends on how many successful missions you complete, very rich character dialogue both inside the carrier's bar and out in the fight through the intercoms of various cockpits, and a kill board to show how your doing compared to your shipmates. Other nice touches, such as how the maintenance crews feel about the condition of the ship you bring back after each mission adds to the immersive experience. When I played that game, I felt as if I was a part of a crew or even an odd family, and each of your potential wingmates were given biographies on how they ended up.
- Iceman, the ace veteran and clean-cut professional who was always helpful and patient with your rookie PC. He dies after the events of the first game in an incident where the PC was blamed.
- Spirit, your first wingman and the Japanese member of the crew who you probably bond with the most. She dies in a botched rescue attempt of her fiancee, but she ends up taking some Kilrathi out at the same time.
- Angel is your superior officer, is French in background and your love interest in WC2. She gets disembowled in WC3.
- Doomsday sees the war as lost and talks about there being no hope left. Of course he survives the war and lives to a ripe old age.
- Maniac goes slowly crazy as the war worsens during WC1 and 2, and his eyes evermore bloodshot.
- So many more, but I spoiled the game enough.
1.) I've played Torg once and own the boxed set, while I also played Rifts once but never owned the product. I have to say I prefer Torg's storyline when it comes to creating a kitchen sink kind of setting. In fact, I'd say Torg's explanation is probably the best I've heard in an RPG when trying to explain a world where dinosaurs roam on one part of the planet and cyber-ninjas on another. The invasion of manipulative alien beings who warp reality felt like a cross between Dr. Who and Stargate, and I wish I had time to play Torg more often.
2.) Wing Commander I was an excellent space simulator, but I wouldn't call it an RPG. More of a space sim with RPG elements. You play as a rookie pilot fighting the Kilrathi. The excellent RPG elements are a strategic story flowchart whose ending depends on how many successful missions you complete, very rich character dialogue both inside the carrier's bar and out in the fight through the intercoms of various cockpits, and a kill board to show how your doing compared to your shipmates. Other nice touches, such as how the maintenance crews feel about the condition of the ship you bring back after each mission adds to the immersive experience. When I played that game, I felt as if I was a part of a crew or even an odd family, and each of your potential wingmates were given biographies on how they ended up.
- Iceman, the ace veteran and clean-cut professional who was always helpful and patient with your rookie PC. He dies after the events of the first game in an incident where the PC was blamed.
- Spirit, your first wingman and the Japanese member of the crew who you probably bond with the most. She dies in a botched rescue attempt of her fiancee, but she ends up taking some Kilrathi out at the same time.
- Angel is your superior officer, is French in background and your love interest in WC2. She gets disembowled in WC3.
- Doomsday sees the war as lost and talks about there being no hope left. Of course he survives the war and lives to a ripe old age.
- Maniac goes slowly crazy as the war worsens during WC1 and 2, and his eyes evermore bloodshot.
- So many more, but I spoiled the game enough.
WC was nice, but what really got me hooked was its spin-off: Privateer.
You had a lot more freedom in that game. It was more like elite: you could trade, go bounty-hunting, pirating, upgrade your ship (or even buy new models) etc. Apart from an unlimited number of random missions it also had an interesting 'metaplot' i.e. a series of fixed missions that advanced the story that you could follow at your own time.
I wouldn't call it an rpg, either, though.
(un)reason
Legend
Dragon Magazine Issue 170: June 1991
part 1/6
124 pages. Hel-lo funky fifteen!!! How DO you feel?! Looks like they feel pretty good about themselves actually. A spectacular battle of good vs evil on the cover, a ribbon proclaiming it's their 15th anniversary, and that there's a game inside. It might not be quite as big a number as 5, 10, 20, or 25, but they seem to be making just as much effort. Get ready for power, finesse, and possibly barrel-scraping if we're unlucky. On your marks, get set, LET'S UNWRAP THOSE PRESENTS!
In this issue:
Letters: A letter from Allen Varney about the nonexistance of his game company. He's quite happy being a freelancer, although thank you very much whoever organised this prank, because it's given his profile a nice little boost. Do I smell the twisty hand of reverse psychology at work here?
A letter giving some more info about Dwight L. Moody. How very fascinating.
A letter pointing out that they reused a Dragonmirth gag in issues 149 and 165. It's a hard life, being an editor. If you don't spot the problem, your readership probably will.
Another letter pointing a whole bunch of interesting things about the history of D&D and the magazine. Like Roger has said before, independent invention happens, and the game is big enough that it's near impossible for one mortal to keep track of it.
Another letter from someone craving some sweet AD&D style intarweb gaming on their mac. Roger is only mildly helpful this time. It's still an unstable realm out there, plus there are copyright issues to consider. We can't go giving publicity to unlicenced games, even if they aren't for profit.
Editorial: Another 5 years have passed since they gave the magazine it's last big shake-up, and only slightly less since Roger became chief editor. This means that once again, it's time to look around, see what needs changing around to keep as much of the audience satisfied as possible. As with last time, it looks like a frustrating business, with the fanbase pulling in all directions. More AD&D stuff. More stuff for other games. More/less humour. More/less official rules and new crunch. And if you go all the way in the direction that has the majority, then you lose up to half your readership, and oh boy are you in trouble if that happens a few times on different axes. Plus the content of the magazine is still heavily influenced by what the freelancers send in. So once again, he's in a no-win situation, and has chosen to try and please all of the people enough of the time that they keep buying the magazine. Send in Stuff! The more you do, the greater the proportion of you we can reject, thus ensuring higher quality material in the magazine and greater choice of subjects! This all seems pretty familiar, although getting to find out Roger's personal preferences (many of which aren't surprising considering what he contributed in his writing days. ) is nice. Carry on as you are. That'll do you nicely for a good few years yet.
From hatchling to immortal guardian: Bruce Heard once again tries to push regular D&D to a more prominent place in the magazine singlehandedly. And in the process illustrates just how odd his ideas can be. It's not all anthropomorphic animals and direct rip-offs of real world cultures in the Known World. It's also cosmic beings who are intimately tied to the land and impact on the lives of everything there in blatant, large-scale ways that people don't realise the cause of, because we simply aren't conditioned to think in that way. So this creates a fairly complex life cycle and system for advancing through the size categories that looks like it'd be an almightily headache to play through, and which probably won't integrate with the known world's existing history. It all seems like the kind of stuff that'd be rather tricky to use in actual play, unless you were actually playing the dragons as PC's. Aside from the dragon souls and pocket dragons, which are adaptable to other ends, this does feel like a bit of a white elephant, pretty, detailed, lovingly crafted and not very useful to me. :sigh:
part 1/6
124 pages. Hel-lo funky fifteen!!! How DO you feel?! Looks like they feel pretty good about themselves actually. A spectacular battle of good vs evil on the cover, a ribbon proclaiming it's their 15th anniversary, and that there's a game inside. It might not be quite as big a number as 5, 10, 20, or 25, but they seem to be making just as much effort. Get ready for power, finesse, and possibly barrel-scraping if we're unlucky. On your marks, get set, LET'S UNWRAP THOSE PRESENTS!
In this issue:
Letters: A letter from Allen Varney about the nonexistance of his game company. He's quite happy being a freelancer, although thank you very much whoever organised this prank, because it's given his profile a nice little boost. Do I smell the twisty hand of reverse psychology at work here?
A letter giving some more info about Dwight L. Moody. How very fascinating.
A letter pointing out that they reused a Dragonmirth gag in issues 149 and 165. It's a hard life, being an editor. If you don't spot the problem, your readership probably will.
Another letter pointing a whole bunch of interesting things about the history of D&D and the magazine. Like Roger has said before, independent invention happens, and the game is big enough that it's near impossible for one mortal to keep track of it.
Another letter from someone craving some sweet AD&D style intarweb gaming on their mac. Roger is only mildly helpful this time. It's still an unstable realm out there, plus there are copyright issues to consider. We can't go giving publicity to unlicenced games, even if they aren't for profit.
Editorial: Another 5 years have passed since they gave the magazine it's last big shake-up, and only slightly less since Roger became chief editor. This means that once again, it's time to look around, see what needs changing around to keep as much of the audience satisfied as possible. As with last time, it looks like a frustrating business, with the fanbase pulling in all directions. More AD&D stuff. More stuff for other games. More/less humour. More/less official rules and new crunch. And if you go all the way in the direction that has the majority, then you lose up to half your readership, and oh boy are you in trouble if that happens a few times on different axes. Plus the content of the magazine is still heavily influenced by what the freelancers send in. So once again, he's in a no-win situation, and has chosen to try and please all of the people enough of the time that they keep buying the magazine. Send in Stuff! The more you do, the greater the proportion of you we can reject, thus ensuring higher quality material in the magazine and greater choice of subjects!
This all seems pretty familiar, although getting to find out Roger's personal preferences (many of which aren't surprising considering what he contributed in his writing days. ) is nice. Carry on as you are. That'll do you nicely for a good few years yet. From hatchling to immortal guardian: Bruce Heard once again tries to push regular D&D to a more prominent place in the magazine singlehandedly. And in the process illustrates just how odd his ideas can be. It's not all anthropomorphic animals and direct rip-offs of real world cultures in the Known World. It's also cosmic beings who are intimately tied to the land and impact on the lives of everything there in blatant, large-scale ways that people don't realise the cause of, because we simply aren't conditioned to think in that way. So this creates a fairly complex life cycle and system for advancing through the size categories that looks like it'd be an almightily headache to play through, and which probably won't integrate with the known world's existing history. It all seems like the kind of stuff that'd be rather tricky to use in actual play, unless you were actually playing the dragons as PC's. Aside from the dragon souls and pocket dragons, which are adaptable to other ends, this does feel like a bit of a white elephant, pretty, detailed, lovingly crafted and not very useful to me. :sigh:
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