(un)reason
Legend
Dragon Issue 105: January 1986
part 3/3
Profiles: Kim Mohan is our first interviewee. He would like to reiterate once again that he is NOT a girl. This is one of our least interesting profiles yet, mostly because we saw most of this stuff recently in issue 100. Apart from the revelation that he isn't really much of a gamer, and some stuff on his most recent projects, this all feels very familiar. Patrick Lucien Price, on the other hand is one of those names that you see on the credits, but knew nothing about. He helps to edit all TSR's magazines, and takes his job seriously. He encourages you to learn your trade properly and do likewise. After all, the better your submissions, the less work he has to do.
Fiction: On the rocks at slab's by John Gregory Betancourt. Oooh. It's the start of this series. Another one I remember seeing a sequel to when I was reading first time round. How interesting. Uleander the barkeep is trapped between a rock and a hard place, having to deal with the impossible demands of the people in charge of the city, and the equally impossible mischief of Slab, the ghostly former owner, and all his ghostly friends. A lot of the time, it seems all he can do is try and hang on for the ride. Entertaining, but fairly inconsequential in it's own right, I already get the impression that this gets more amusing as it goes along, and the little bits of mythology gradually get built up. See you around then.
Rites of passage: Hee. Initiation rites. An excuse to force the newbies to dress stupidly and humiliate themselves to prove they're the right stuff for your little club. They come in many forms, particularly in gamma world, where the people themselves come in pretty diverse shapes. This gives you plenty of amusing advice on this matter, interspersing a load of nanofiction with the OOC stuff. Expect unfairness on their part while you still have to play by the rules. It's almost enough to make you say these guys, I'm starting my own club. But given the harsh conditions, you may have to swallow your pride and take what allies you can get. Oh, compromises, compromises. The thing good dramatic conflict is made of. So a quite decent article, overall.
The marvel-phile: An unusually high number of characters in this month's marvel-phile, as Jeff adds 5 new characters to the Serpent Society. (as shown on the cover of this month's Ares section. ) Cottonmouth. Asp. Bushmaster. ( Is he also a cunning linguist ) Diamondback. Rattler. They really ought to sue Quentin Tarantino. Anyway, this is an easy and iconic theme, that you can add more and more members too. They work as a villains union, allowing bigger masterminds to hire groups of villains more easily, and also providing protection from said masterminds inevitable betrayal, making sure they get properly paid, etc etc. That is a remarkably clever and realistic idea for a superheroic world. I rather approve.
We also get told that after much demand, Advanced Marvel Superheroes is on it's way. So that's what they were hinting about last month. Jeff will be teasering us extensively before it's release. All rather pleasing stuff here. I'm looking forward to reporting on this. Over and out for now.
Villains and variants: Villains and Vigilantes gets a bunch of optional rules here. Essentially the writers personal house-rules, this is pretty pure crunch that leaves me unable to comment on it, other than to say that it seems designed to make things slightly more lethal for mooks, and slightly less so for PC's. Which is certainly an understandable preference. Guess I'll have to leave an open verdict on this one.
The big guns: Guess superhero stuff really is taking over from harder sci-fi in here. And we have another attempt at increasing the realism here. In comics, whenever the army tries to go up against supervillains or giant monsters, they normally get chewed up with comical ease. This is not the case here, as the writer gives us pretty realistic stats for tanks, fighter jets, warships and submarines. If you want your monsters to be able to trounce them, you'll have to do it the expensive way, and you'd better make sure your heroes are up to the task of beating them, because otherwise, there's going to be a lot of civilian casualties. Ah, reconciling simulationist and narrativist play. Such a tricky business, sometimes. I'm pretty ambivilant on this one. It's not a bad article on it's own terms, but doesn't really mesh with the way I would prefer to handle a game like this.
Expanding the frontier: Back to the sci-fi with a star frontiers article. Exploring new planets might be part of the name of the game, but that doesn't mean it should be easy. Here's a couple of pages talking about the process, methods and obstacles. Which doesn't really say anything new to me. This is the kind of topic that could fill an entire sourcebook, and here feels like it was just tacked on to make up space. Once again, my overfamiliarity with the tropes makes this less enjoyable for me than it would for a newcomer to the magazine.
Wormy demonstrates Irvings, er, charisma. Yeah, that's the ticket. Snarf returns to sanity. Dragonmirth is as trope-aware as ever.
West end games takers out a nice full page colour ad with all of their big games in it.
Hmm. Overall, not a great issue. Starting off with a downer that heavy meant it never really picked up much momentum. Although it does still have some cool articles, their overall quality control still seems to be sliding, with lots of bits that are just way too predictable to sustain my interest. The Ares section continues to drift away from it's original remit as well. It's pretty clear it's days are numbered. Another shift in style is needed, before the magazine gets stuck in a rut.
part 3/3
Profiles: Kim Mohan is our first interviewee. He would like to reiterate once again that he is NOT a girl. This is one of our least interesting profiles yet, mostly because we saw most of this stuff recently in issue 100. Apart from the revelation that he isn't really much of a gamer, and some stuff on his most recent projects, this all feels very familiar. Patrick Lucien Price, on the other hand is one of those names that you see on the credits, but knew nothing about. He helps to edit all TSR's magazines, and takes his job seriously. He encourages you to learn your trade properly and do likewise. After all, the better your submissions, the less work he has to do.
Fiction: On the rocks at slab's by John Gregory Betancourt. Oooh. It's the start of this series. Another one I remember seeing a sequel to when I was reading first time round. How interesting. Uleander the barkeep is trapped between a rock and a hard place, having to deal with the impossible demands of the people in charge of the city, and the equally impossible mischief of Slab, the ghostly former owner, and all his ghostly friends. A lot of the time, it seems all he can do is try and hang on for the ride. Entertaining, but fairly inconsequential in it's own right, I already get the impression that this gets more amusing as it goes along, and the little bits of mythology gradually get built up. See you around then.
Rites of passage: Hee. Initiation rites. An excuse to force the newbies to dress stupidly and humiliate themselves to prove they're the right stuff for your little club. They come in many forms, particularly in gamma world, where the people themselves come in pretty diverse shapes. This gives you plenty of amusing advice on this matter, interspersing a load of nanofiction with the OOC stuff. Expect unfairness on their part while you still have to play by the rules. It's almost enough to make you say
these guys, I'm starting my own club. But given the harsh conditions, you may have to swallow your pride and take what allies you can get. Oh, compromises, compromises. The thing good dramatic conflict is made of. So a quite decent article, overall. The marvel-phile: An unusually high number of characters in this month's marvel-phile, as Jeff adds 5 new characters to the Serpent Society. (as shown on the cover of this month's Ares section. ) Cottonmouth. Asp. Bushmaster. ( Is he also a cunning linguist
) Diamondback. Rattler. They really ought to sue Quentin Tarantino. Anyway, this is an easy and iconic theme, that you can add more and more members too. They work as a villains union, allowing bigger masterminds to hire groups of villains more easily, and also providing protection from said masterminds inevitable betrayal, making sure they get properly paid, etc etc. That is a remarkably clever and realistic idea for a superheroic world. I rather approve. We also get told that after much demand, Advanced Marvel Superheroes is on it's way. So that's what they were hinting about last month. Jeff will be teasering us extensively before it's release. All rather pleasing stuff here. I'm looking forward to reporting on this. Over and out for now.
Villains and variants: Villains and Vigilantes gets a bunch of optional rules here. Essentially the writers personal house-rules, this is pretty pure crunch that leaves me unable to comment on it, other than to say that it seems designed to make things slightly more lethal for mooks, and slightly less so for PC's. Which is certainly an understandable preference. Guess I'll have to leave an open verdict on this one.
The big guns: Guess superhero stuff really is taking over from harder sci-fi in here. And we have another attempt at increasing the realism here. In comics, whenever the army tries to go up against supervillains or giant monsters, they normally get chewed up with comical ease. This is not the case here, as the writer gives us pretty realistic stats for tanks, fighter jets, warships and submarines. If you want your monsters to be able to trounce them, you'll have to do it the expensive way, and you'd better make sure your heroes are up to the task of beating them, because otherwise, there's going to be a lot of civilian casualties. Ah, reconciling simulationist and narrativist play. Such a tricky business, sometimes. I'm pretty ambivilant on this one. It's not a bad article on it's own terms, but doesn't really mesh with the way I would prefer to handle a game like this.
Expanding the frontier: Back to the sci-fi with a star frontiers article. Exploring new planets might be part of the name of the game, but that doesn't mean it should be easy. Here's a couple of pages talking about the process, methods and obstacles. Which doesn't really say anything new to me. This is the kind of topic that could fill an entire sourcebook, and here feels like it was just tacked on to make up space. Once again, my overfamiliarity with the tropes makes this less enjoyable for me than it would for a newcomer to the magazine.
Wormy demonstrates Irvings, er, charisma. Yeah, that's the ticket. Snarf returns to sanity. Dragonmirth is as trope-aware as ever.
West end games takers out a nice full page colour ad with all of their big games in it.
Hmm. Overall, not a great issue. Starting off with a downer that heavy meant it never really picked up much momentum. Although it does still have some cool articles, their overall quality control still seems to be sliding, with lots of bits that are just way too predictable to sustain my interest. The Ares section continues to drift away from it's original remit as well. It's pretty clear it's days are numbered. Another shift in style is needed, before the magazine gets stuck in a rut.
