Let's read the entire run

Dragon Magazine Issue 174: October 1991

part 4/6


Dark Sun occupies the centre pages with a full colour photographed advert, including a fake weird creature skull. Any idea what monster that's supposed to belong too?


The possibilities are endless: Oooh. A TORG article. Spike Y Jones suggests changing around a few of the default setting assumptions and seeing the potential for fun adventures that result. All it takes is for the initial blitzkrieg of the probability wars to have gone a little better or worse and the political landscape will look rather different. Similarly, giving the characters roles other than Storm Knights who awakened to their power in a recent crisis will alter the way the game goes quite a bit. This makes me think of Exalted quite a bit, where the default character choice is both the most powerful, and the least integrated into the world, and subsequent splats introduced very different ways of playing in the same world, each with their own distinctive social structures. It also makes me wonder about the choice of making a game have multiple settings, or one default one that it takes quite a bit of work to convert away from. Is the ultimate victory of the AD&D line over the BD&D one because it had a whole bunch of settings and encouraged you to make your own, while the BD&D one became increasingly locked into the known world as the line went on? Is that also part of the reason why games such as Exalted, TORG and Rifts never managed to unseat D&D in overall popularity and versatility? Was the introduction of the Infinite Worlds meta-setting tying everything together part of the reason why GURPS 4th ed has only had a tiny fraction of the books 3rd ed managed? Was the increasing degrees of crossover between the various AD&D settings part of what caused TSR's downfall? Now there's a big intractable question for us to chew over. So I guess this is a pretty good article, both giving coverage to a new game, and providing me with plenty of thoughts on how to change play that are applicable to other games. Spike is proving to be one of the better contributors of this era.


Forum: Martyn Agass thinks that characters need a decent amount of customisability so their skills can accurately reflect their personality and goals. Spellcasters are decently provided for, as a rogues these days, but warriors still suck in this respect. Kits just don't seem to be enough for him.

Jason Dunn has a fairly lengthy contribution, covering several topics, and mentioning quite a few previous writers. The result feels like whislestop tour through his GM'ing philosophy. Anything is possible. Don't kill too often, but don't let players believe they're invulnerable.

Robert W. Heym is annoyed that TSR are devoting so much time and page count to their own game worlds, rather than giving more generic advice. Just go back a decade or forward a couple and your wish will be granted.

Salvadore Giraldi, on the other hand, finds preprepared campaign worlds a huge help. Even the big ones hardly cover every bit of the world, and it does make it easier for players to become attached to the world and impressed by the famous NPC's. So many people don't have the time to make complete games. The trick is to design campaign worlds so they assist your own creativity rather than stifle it.

Shawn A. Chesak holds an opinion somewhere between the previous two forumites. Yes, the proportion of generic stuff to specific worlds is probably too low at the moment, but that doesn't mean they should cut out the campaigns entirely. They do serve a valuable role for novice players.

Sandy Green speaks up in support of young people gaming, and Paladins and Demons playing a part in the game. Learning about morality in a non-preachy manner is important.


Amber! By Erik Wujik. The first big diceless system! Once again with the progress.


Defeating more with less: Or return of the Tuckers Kobolds part 3, Endor holocaust. Greg Detwiler shows us once again how enemies played smart are far more likely to live long and prosper. Basic tactics like taking cover and using missile fire massively increase your effectiveness, as real world armies demonstrate on a daily basis. Stealth, traps, hit-and-run attacks, stealing stuff, clever use of spellcasters, this all seems pretty familiar, albeit presented pretty well, and with plenty of detail. Still, it doesn't have enough new ideas to really stoke my interest. Seen this stuff before, will likely see it again. One for the new readers then.

LordVyreth said:

Are you mad? It was the cast of supporting character that eventually killed Sonic. Tails was fine and maaaaaybe Knuckles, but even saying the name "Big the Cat" is enough to make most gamers experience pain. That being said, "Sonic 3" is my favorite, too.

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I think my lack of sanity is not in question this far in. And yes, not only did I love the vast array of playable characters in SA1+2, but I was masochistic enough to complete every single one of the 326 possible paths of Shadow the Hedgehog, just to see if you got anything cool for doing so. (you don't)

Dragon Magazine Issue 174: October 1991

part 5/6


TSR Previews: D&D continues it's revamp with the rules cyclopedia. The new basic set may not have made much impact, but this certainly did, even amongst people who have all the old boxed sets. (after all, if you've been playing regularly for 6 years, they're probably getting a bit ratty. ) Even now, it has enough devotees to jack the ebay prices up quite substantially. It also continues to fill out the hollow world, in HWR2: Kingdom of Nithia. Another once great culture preserved from the surface world. What strange stuff do they have for the salvaging?

The Forgotten realms is still concerned with Maztica in FMA2: Endless armies. Foil a horde of giant ants using the battlesystem rules? That's a new one for the system. Let's hope it handles it and produces a fun adventure, because that definitely seems like a cool change of pace. Back in the Realms themselves. R. A. Salvadore tries to escape the endless Drizzt trilogies with um, a quintet about a cleric instead. Who's idea was that, and did they come up with the plot and realize it would take 5 books to tell, or decided to do a quintet first, and then churn out crap until the page count was filled? Meet Cadderly in Canticle. Times are about to get very interesting for him.

Dragonlance isn't so diverse, with elves elves elves taking centre stage in both modules and novels. DLS4: Wild elves does what it says on the tin. Scott Bennie tries to make their trials and travails interesting to adventurers. Meanwhile, Paul Thompson and Tonya Carter complete The Qualinesti, the final book in the elven nations trilogy. They do like their boy/girl teams for writing Dragonlance stuff, don't they. I guess they're trying to replicate the magic formula of the original series or something.

Ravenloft takes us to a blasted fantasy egypt, to face the deadly touch of the mummy darklord in RA3: Touch of death. Water shortages, mirages, jackals, vultures and undead. Thoroughly miserable place.

And finally, on the generic side, the complete series kicks off again with PHBR6: The complete dwarves handbook. An arsenal of cool kits and other stuff to really fill them out. Certain players will be rubbing their hands together.


Bazaar of the Bizarre: Ioun Stones! Another thing introduced in the earliest days of the magazine gets revisited in greater depth, with lots of new variants. Like Mind flayers, this is a very welcome returning topic. Like the card deck one from issue 148, this is essentially an ecology article, giving us some ideas of where they could come from, and how they got made. Be it the middle of a star, or the border between the plane of earth & positive energy, it takes quite substantial amounts of energy and pressure. A smart wizard might be able to custom make them, but they also show up naturally, which is pretty awesome really. And not only is this a decent enough ecology, but it also casually throws in 28 new varieties of stone to put in your treasure piles. So it's both good reading and damn useful in actual play, providing you with treasure and plot hooks aplenty to keep your game well fuelled with adventure.


The dragon's bestiary continues directly on from the previous article, introducing a whole load of new creatures for the Quasielemental plane of Mineral. As with the paraelemental plane of ice (see issue 129) these guys have a strong crystaline theme, mostly being formed out of sharp geometric shapes, and aren't very keen on gross fleshy interlopers. (which will now be even more frequent since they now know there's not just vast quantities of gems, but Ioun stones to be mined round these parts) This looks pretty spiffy.

Glomus float around and use their many spikes to deal with anyone who disrupts their inscrutable cogitation. They reform if you don't smash them thoroughly enough, so be wary.

Shard also demonstrate that even weak planar monsters are pretty scary for mid level adventurers. They might be only flying crystals, but they're both sharp and dazzling. And they often appear in large numbers. They can certainly turn an invading party into bloody ribbons.

Spined shards are even more unpleasant than their single crystaled relations. With multiple attacks, blasty effects and an anti-magic field, they have a bit in common with beholders actually, even if they look quite different. Well, Tasmanian devils aren't less scary because they're very different from wolves.

Chamerol are enormous tentacled rock-tree things that grow right on the positive energy border. This means they have no shortage of fuel to grow to truly ridiculous sizes and spread their roots through the tough rock beneath them. Wonder what the things that parasitise their innards look like?

Energy pods look like more substantial relatives of xag-ya, feeding of both energy and minerals. Watch out for the explosive effects when you damage them.

Trilling chrysmal look like those biology textbook pictures of viruses, with a hexagonal body and spidery legs on one end. They're pretty cute, but have powerful offence and spell reflection abilities. Be glad they won't be laying their eggs in you.

Crystalle is a nicely old skool elemental ruler, with plenty of magic abilities, and a haul of ioun stones that'll make even archmages jealous. He's certainly not unbeatable, but with all his equipment, money and servants, it'll be a big ugly adventure to get to take his stuff.

Combined with the previous article, this adds up to a rather idiosyncratic special feature that does quite a bit to fill in another obscure corner of the planes. Something they don't do nearly enough of, and that I'm pretty fond of, so I'm definitely giving this set high marks. It's a big strange universe out there, and if our game can reflect at least a small fraction of those environments and the theoretical creatures adapted to them, it'll be a lot more interesting than another delve into our own tedious minds.

(un)reason said:

And finally, on the generic side, the complete series kicks off again with PHBR6: The complete dwarves handbook. An arsenal of cool kits and other stuff to really fill them out. Certain players will be rubbing their hands together.

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Oooh!

I played the crap out of this one. Probably the best of the Complete X series in my view. I especially liked the Battlerager kit. I made one, and rebuilt him 3-4 times over various editions.

Dragon Magazine Issue 174: October 1991

part 6/6


Dragonmirth makes several social faux-pas. Yamara tries to help joe with romance advice. Twilight empire finishes the fight, and wonders if they can fit in some more fanservice before getting back to the plot.


Through the looking glass: A different set of current events are focussed upon her this month. The Gulf War is pretty much over, and now people are looking for minis to recreate the fun of blowing Saddam's up on their own table. Hmm. Very interesting, if in slightly poor taste. I guess it's not disrespecting the memory of those who died if hardly anyone (on our side ) did. But more on that next month, as it looks like this bit of potential controversy is merely a teaser.

The rest of the column scrupulously avoids this topic and concentrates on fantastical & sci-fi stuff. A cheesecake female warrior with some proportional deficiencies. A sea elf dressed in stuff that also looks a bit impractical for swimming in. A doomgarde unit. (somehow it seems less scary with a french accent. ) Something which is either a mutated snake, or a very big reptile that we're only seeing the head and upper arms of. A whole bunch of adorable tiny mechs with even tinier pieces that will be a bit tricky to assemble and easily broken. A rather large-beaked owlbear. A rather eyeless looking displacer beast. A mangy, short-legged catoblepas. A whole bunch of minis from sculpting doyen Julie Guthrie. And a nuyen & scoop hungry news team from shadowrun. Quite a few of these get scathing remarks about their quality. Looks like he's got his groove back after that nasty ratings fixing business. Long may he continue his semi-detached reporting.


Synibarr gets an advert! Awesome! The advert does a perfect job of revealing what happened in it, and the gonzo characters you can play. Are you sold on it? \m/


Another issue that really drives home some of the many ways the hobby is spreading out around this time. Conventions are still growing in attendance and popularity, existing settings are developing nicely, and people are trying out a whole bunch of cool new ideas that'll go on to make their own mark in the next few years. Of course, on a longer scale, there's also some more signs of their eventual downfall, as they diversify to the point of overextension and strangle games with metaplot, but every sperm holds within it an old person dying from flaws that were present all along. The important thing is that they survive long enough to inspire creative offspring of their own, with different quirks and flaws, to live and die in different memetic environments. Or something. I think we're getting into torturous metaphor territory here, so I'll move on before I tie my own tongue in knots.

(un)reason said:

And finally, on the generic side, the complete series kicks off again with PHBR6: The complete dwarves handbook. An arsenal of cool kits and other stuff to really fill them out. Certain players will be rubbing their hands together.

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One of the best race splats from 2e. Good stuff for players, and stuff to help the DM flesh out a campaign world.

Bazaar of the Bizarre: Ioun Stones! Another thing introduced in the earliest days of the magazine gets revisited in greater depth, with lots of new variants. Like Mind flayers, this is a very welcome returning topic.

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The ended up in the Encyclopedia Magica of course, so I ended up using a few of them here and there. They do add some variety to the selection of magic items.

Dragon Magazine Issue 175: November 1991

part 1/6


124 pages. As hinted a while ago in the letters page, some people want more stuff showing us how to create and run our own campaigns. Looks like the freelancers were listening, for such is this month's topic. Power to the people, and all that. Keep that approach up, and you'll rarely want for the topics you desire, and can reduce rehash quite considerably. That gives us a positive beginning to this issue. Let's kick the proceedings off then.

In this issue:


Letters: A letter advertising the beginning of the Sci-fi channel. High hopes. We've got hiiigh hopes. You mean the one that recently renamed itself Syfy, to much derision, while also cutting down on the amount of actual sci-fi it shows, just like MTV, and has churned out more than it's fair share of crap TV movies. Oops there goes another crappy cable tv channel.

A letter about setting up pen-pal stuff. They stopped doing that ages ago because they had too many people writing in to handle. It's all a bit of a pain, but they'll do what they can.

Another person asking about the record for longest continuous gaming session. Roger gives the same slightly exasperated reply he made last time. Can't recommend it mate. 'Elf an' safety regulations, innit. Sigh.

Another very rehashed question. What does TSR stand for. These days, not a lot.


Editorial: Giant Space Hamsters! Oh Roger, what have you wrought? Forever now will spelljammer be inextricably linked with them. 20 years later, people will still snigger when you mention their name. But they do have plenty of supporters, as this outpouring of reader responses shows. In prose, in bullet points, even in verse, they show their love and the many things they use them for. It's enough to make me want to grow more heads and limbs just so I can perform multiple simultaneous facepalms. They just can't resist putting big globs of goofy into their products these days. When exactly will it end? Guess I'll just have to hold on a few years more.


Inventing the "instant" Adventure: So they want to give us more help constructing our own campaigns. Hrmm. How do we go about that? Let's ask one of our experienced freelancers, like, oh, :draws name out of a hat: Arthur Collins. Arthur, how do you create adventures on the fly when your players go in an unexpected direction.
Well, Roger, I'm glad you asked. The easiest way is to have lots of ideas prepared that you can easily insert. And the best way to do that is to Kismif.
Kismif? What's that. Is it some king of acronym, or are you just making up words?
Why yes Roger. It stands for Keep It Simple, Make It Fun. A very important maxim you should all take to heart. I've written a little song to help you remember it.

Keep it simple, make it fun
Then it works for everyone
Keep it simple, make it fun
That's the way games should be run

You can have a million things
going on at once
The subtleties get lost
and people wander off

Keep it simple, make it fun
give the people what they want
Keep it simple, make it fun
Then it works for everyone!

Um, Thank you Arthur. Is there anything else you'd like to add?
Why yes Roger. I've got six easy lessons and 24 ideas that are just spiffing at getting things moving again quickly and easily. And they can be yours for the small small price of $3.50! Would you like a preview?
I believe so, Arthur, since I'm the one who'll actually be selling it as part of the magazine.
Well, of course. Don't roll on a table, just pick stuff off a menu. Don't tell them why, when their speculations will be more fun than what you come up with. Don't rush, use the time one encounter takes up to think of the next one. And there's tons of ideas you can steal from other media, as ever. Would you like to know more?
I think that's enough to get their interest, Arthur. Looks like you've done a great job. Here's your pay.
Thank you, Roger. Until next time then.
Yes, until next time.

Oooh, I'm following along in my very own copy of this one!!!!!!!!

Dragon Magazine Issue 175: November 1991

part 2/6


The perils of prehistory: Back to dinosaur land again. Now there's a pretty well covered topic. Another area where they have to struggle to find new things to say. Still, once again, they manage it, eschewing the statistics, which are already well provided for if you own issues from a few years ago, instead talking about the problems integrating time-travel into fantasy campaigns. Here we run into a very interesting issue. The assumption that evolution works in a way remotely similar to reality, and the gods and planes are created by human belief, rather than the other way around is a rather large one to make, and opens up a lot of cosmological questions that you can have fun answering, which may well then open up more questions. So this is one that gives you tools to radically reshape your campaign via going back and changing things, and the different ways things could go if you try it. Your imagination may be the limit, but a few pointers are definitely helpful in an arena this big. So it looks like Greg Detwiler is once again proving his worth as one of our regular freelancers. This is one area where each action can have consequences, and you can just let the players drive the story, getting into more and more tangles until they don't know what to do. Fun business. I quite approve.


Creative campaigns, a new recipe: Last month they made it very clear how Dark Sun differs from normal fantasy campaigns. Now they encourage you to make similarly radical changes to your own D&D games. Be it adding unusual new elements, or removing common ones, both can be neat ideas. Change the magic system. Integrate magic into people's everyday lives. Invent wacky new pseudophysics explanations for magic. Wait, we've seen these before. As is often the case, the last article in their themed section is the least interesting and groundbreaking. Guess they needed some filler to make up the numbers. Business as usual then.


The marvel-phile: 3-D man? Oh dear god, someone actually created a character based on those crappy red and green glasses. Once again, the cheese factor is burning out my brain. Needs. more. grimdark. : pants: It's not your fault, I know, it's the material you have to work with. But it does make me wonder how much crap there is in the bottom of the barrel for them to dig out and cover here. Dear oh dear.

They also cover another colour themed character: Blue Shield. This is considerably less silly, with the interesting way he started off as a gadget based hero, and then became able to use his powers without it. Heroic osmosis does seem to to be quite common in comic book universes, particularly where martial artists are involved. But once again, this doesn't have much new to offer me. Filler filler filler.


TSR Previews: Greyhawk has always been a war torn world in it's backstory. Now, get ready for this to really intrude on the metaplot in the Greyhawk Wars boxed set. You get a complete board game to play this out yourself, but of course, there is an official outcome of this war, and all the future supplements will reflect these changes and timeline advancement. Will you follow along their railroad, or branch off into alternate history?

The forgotten realms gets a game book and a novel this month, as seems to be standard for them by now. FR13: Anauroch takes you to the great northern desert, and the many destroyed empires and other adventure opportunities that lie within. Make sure you bring a cleric with food creating powers if you want to tackle these adventures. The red wizards are also being pains in the ass in Red Magic by Jean Rabe, the final book in the harpers trilogy. Guess who has to foil their actions. Go on, you'll never get it.

Spelljammer sees SJS1: Goblins return. You failed to take them seriously? Oh boy. They're a lot scarier when they have tons of cobbled together spaceships with various deranged weaponry. Another war situation that's too big for a single group to solve, but you can still play your part, and be annoyed at any metaplot mucking around.

Ravenloft also mucks around with other people's creations, as Lord Soth gets drawn into there without his original writer's consent in Knight of the Black rose. Will James Lowder manage to remain faithful to his original voice and characterization?

D&D is still splitting it's time between reaffirming the basics, and exploring the hollow world. This time, DDA4: The Dymrak dread attempts to show newbies a little more of the known world. Blah.

Marvel superheroes gets a double helping this time round. MU7: the Gamers handbook gives us our third yearly update to the vast roster of characters we have to choose from. And MSL4: Stygian knight sees the cosmic control rod used in an attempt to, well, once again the name says it all. Foiling time! You know, if you'd just listened to Annihlus and given him his rod back, this whole mess would have been short circuited. How hard would it be to get off the railroad and do this one differently?

(un)reason said:

Dragon Magazine Issue 175: November 1991
The marvel-phile: 3-D man? Oh dear god, someone actually created a character based on those crappy red and green glasses. Once again, the cheese factor is burning out my brain. Needs. more. grimdark. : pants: It's not your fault, I know, it's the material you have to work with. But it does make me wonder how much crap there is in the bottom of the barrel for them to dig out and cover here. Dear oh dear.

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Yes, they did, and strange as it seems he also had a crucial role in last year's Secret Invasion saga.

Seems at Marvel's they never throw anything in the bin.