LordVyreth
First Post
Wow, I'm shocked "nerf" was already an accepted term in the gaming industry.
Let's read the entire run
Orius
Legend
Huh? I thought you hated kender.
I think (un)reason is using Nerf as a blanket term here for various fixes that have been suggested over Dragon's run up to this point.
(un)reason
Legend
Dragon Issue 112: August 1986
part 4/4
Q is for Quasi-elemental planes. One of the very interesting things for me has been seeing how the planes have gradually evolved and built up over the years in the magazine. Along with alignment, this is where the normally fairly vague pseudomedieval setting of AD&D becomes very specific and unique. And while huge swathes of the multiverse still only have a few pages on them, this continues to change and evolve as the years pass. They've already produced several classic articles on the planes, and I look forward to seeing what future issues bring on this matter.
R is for Rehash. We've already had several takes on quite a few topics, and it seems likely that the proportion of reappearing ideas will only increase. So it goes. All stories are from around 7 plots and a dozen character archetypes. Most music is made up of just 12 notes. It's all in how you combine them, and in what order. Boredom is in the mind of the beholder.
S is for Sage advice. While it has yet to reach it's glory days when Skip will reign for what seemed like an eternity, it's already been pretty entertaining reading. I've missed it since it went on hiatus in issue 79. When will it be back? Good question. I'm certainly awaiting that eagerly, so I can get my snark on again.
T is for Traveller. The non TSR owned RPG that's somehow managed to get the most coverage in the magazine, including a couple of specials focussed on it. Interesting how much it pioneered both rules technology, and things like splatbooks that are common products these days. Another game that richly deserves more credit in the history of the magazine, and gaming in general.
U is for Unearthed Arcana. Another case where we got to see a book gradually built up in pieces in the magazine. (and then erratad afterwards in it as well.) A commercial success, but critically very divisive. I suspect we may see further repercussions from it's release in the magazine.
V is for Vampires. They get everywhere, and D&D is no exception, with the biggest selling module ever being a vampire one, and plenty of weird vampire variants showing up in the magazine. Since ravenloft will go on to become a full setting campaign, and making october issues horror focussed becomes more common later, I expect we'll see plenty more. Honorable mention also goes to Valley elves. Of all Gary's more ill-thought out creations, these are probably the most effortlessly mockable, as the filk showed.
W is for witch. Born from a mysterious article that is still uncredited as far as I know, it has since undergone a couple of revisions in the magazine plus appearing in a best of, thanks to demand. It's the closest they've come to putting a different slant on spellcasting. It's also for Wargaming, and it's checkered history in the magazine. Originally, the magazine was formed as part of their efforts to deliberately separate RPG's and wargames, then after Little Wars was merged, they made regular appearances from 79-81, before disappearing again. They tried to get them back in with the Battlesystem, but that failed. Will they try again before giving up for good? Guess there's only one way to find out.
X is for Xochiyaoyotl. This is devoted to all the unpronounceable and ridiculous names that people have come up with over the years. Be they from other cultures, based off bad puns, or simply made up by stringing random syllables together, there's been no shortage of these in the magazine. Much amusement can be derived by mocking them. As I've said before, this may not be entirely a bad thing. It keeps people thinking about your work more than if all the facts were there, understood and accepted without comment.
Y is for Yefar's Magic Mirrors. This is really an opportunity for me to praise all the wonderfully quirky magic items that they've put in the magazine over the years. It's also a commentary on the way certain writers slip stuff from their own personal campaigns into general articles. Ed Greenwood is once again the biggest offender, but plenty of other people have tried it with varying levels of success. As with monsters and modules, there are probably enough to outfit an entire party over a campaign, but it would be a rather odd D&D campaign.
Z is for Zethra. Notable primarily for being one of Ed's few misteps so far, they've obviously stuck in my mind for precisely that reason. This is another case where we don't really have much to choose from, so that's the best I can come up with for this letter.
Dire invasion: Enough reminiscing. Onward. As Kim promised, though the Ares section is gone, they're still putting the stuff that would have gone in it in about the same place. Jeff is busy this month, so he cedes the Marvel contribution to William Tracey, who has decided to tackle Rom and the spaceknights of Galador. Earth was being infiltrated by yet another shapeshifting alien race, and it fell to him to deal with them, having been sworn to combat them wherever they may rear their ugly heads. (as if the skrulls weren't bad enough. What happens when the Dire wraiths try and infiltrate the Skrulls and vice versa. Nothing would ever get done with all the quadruple crosses and scooby doo reveals. Anyway, we get stats for Rom, Both Starshines, Cindy Adams, The Dire wraiths, Rocketeers, Hell hounds, and Hybrid. We also get character generation alterations for those of you who want to play a spaceknight yourself. Which is rather more player-useful material than Jeff usually gives us. Nice to see different people putting their own spin on this gameline. One person doing everything is not the way to make a well-rounded universe.
For a fistful of credits: Our final article this month is a star frontiers one. It suffers from the problem of being incompatible with their latest supplement, which is a bit embarrassing. Still, as with UA, not everyone wants to update their campaigns to take account of every new supplement, and they still want crunch. So here's a whole bunch of new equipment to upgrade your characters with, if you have the money. This is pretty useful stuff, so there may be a certain amount of power creep involved. As ever, I am faced with the problem that I can't judge the precise details of the crunch for games I don't have, only steal the underlying ideas. Still, they are pretty good ideas,so that elevates this article from the dull, to the realms of so-so. Still not the best way to finish off the issue, though.
Dragonmirth has plenty of actual dragons in it. Snarf gets to meet a spaceman, and humorous misunderstandings are had yet again. Wormy reveals the dark side of wargaming, and just why it is illegal.
Now this is an amazing issue. As both a closer to the old era, and an introduction to a new one, it succeeds spectacularly, with a real change of tone, overall, from recent issues. It has a whole load of classic articles, and reminds me of lots of the old ones as well. I'm not entirely convinced by their new goals as stated, but if they can keep this up, then they should continue to entertain until their next editorial shift. Lets hope they can get the good articles they need to power the machine with.
part 4/4
Q is for Quasi-elemental planes. One of the very interesting things for me has been seeing how the planes have gradually evolved and built up over the years in the magazine. Along with alignment, this is where the normally fairly vague pseudomedieval setting of AD&D becomes very specific and unique. And while huge swathes of the multiverse still only have a few pages on them, this continues to change and evolve as the years pass. They've already produced several classic articles on the planes, and I look forward to seeing what future issues bring on this matter.
R is for Rehash. We've already had several takes on quite a few topics, and it seems likely that the proportion of reappearing ideas will only increase. So it goes. All stories are from around 7 plots and a dozen character archetypes. Most music is made up of just 12 notes. It's all in how you combine them, and in what order. Boredom is in the mind of the beholder.
S is for Sage advice. While it has yet to reach it's glory days when Skip will reign for what seemed like an eternity, it's already been pretty entertaining reading. I've missed it since it went on hiatus in issue 79. When will it be back? Good question. I'm certainly awaiting that eagerly, so I can get my snark on again.
T is for Traveller. The non TSR owned RPG that's somehow managed to get the most coverage in the magazine, including a couple of specials focussed on it. Interesting how much it pioneered both rules technology, and things like splatbooks that are common products these days. Another game that richly deserves more credit in the history of the magazine, and gaming in general.
U is for Unearthed Arcana. Another case where we got to see a book gradually built up in pieces in the magazine. (and then erratad afterwards in it as well.) A commercial success, but critically very divisive. I suspect we may see further repercussions from it's release in the magazine.
V is for Vampires. They get everywhere, and D&D is no exception, with the biggest selling module ever being a vampire one, and plenty of weird vampire variants showing up in the magazine. Since ravenloft will go on to become a full setting campaign, and making october issues horror focussed becomes more common later, I expect we'll see plenty more. Honorable mention also goes to Valley elves. Of all Gary's more ill-thought out creations, these are probably the most effortlessly mockable, as the filk showed.
W is for witch. Born from a mysterious article that is still uncredited as far as I know, it has since undergone a couple of revisions in the magazine plus appearing in a best of, thanks to demand. It's the closest they've come to putting a different slant on spellcasting. It's also for Wargaming, and it's checkered history in the magazine. Originally, the magazine was formed as part of their efforts to deliberately separate RPG's and wargames, then after Little Wars was merged, they made regular appearances from 79-81, before disappearing again. They tried to get them back in with the Battlesystem, but that failed. Will they try again before giving up for good? Guess there's only one way to find out.
X is for Xochiyaoyotl. This is devoted to all the unpronounceable and ridiculous names that people have come up with over the years. Be they from other cultures, based off bad puns, or simply made up by stringing random syllables together, there's been no shortage of these in the magazine. Much amusement can be derived by mocking them. As I've said before, this may not be entirely a bad thing. It keeps people thinking about your work more than if all the facts were there, understood and accepted without comment.
Y is for Yefar's Magic Mirrors. This is really an opportunity for me to praise all the wonderfully quirky magic items that they've put in the magazine over the years. It's also a commentary on the way certain writers slip stuff from their own personal campaigns into general articles. Ed Greenwood is once again the biggest offender, but plenty of other people have tried it with varying levels of success. As with monsters and modules, there are probably enough to outfit an entire party over a campaign, but it would be a rather odd D&D campaign.
Z is for Zethra. Notable primarily for being one of Ed's few misteps so far, they've obviously stuck in my mind for precisely that reason. This is another case where we don't really have much to choose from, so that's the best I can come up with for this letter.
Dire invasion: Enough reminiscing. Onward. As Kim promised, though the Ares section is gone, they're still putting the stuff that would have gone in it in about the same place. Jeff is busy this month, so he cedes the Marvel contribution to William Tracey, who has decided to tackle Rom and the spaceknights of Galador. Earth was being infiltrated by yet another shapeshifting alien race, and it fell to him to deal with them, having been sworn to combat them wherever they may rear their ugly heads. (as if the skrulls weren't bad enough. What happens when the Dire wraiths try and infiltrate the Skrulls and vice versa. Nothing would ever get done with all the quadruple crosses and scooby doo reveals. Anyway, we get stats for Rom, Both Starshines, Cindy Adams, The Dire wraiths, Rocketeers, Hell hounds, and Hybrid. We also get character generation alterations for those of you who want to play a spaceknight yourself. Which is rather more player-useful material than Jeff usually gives us. Nice to see different people putting their own spin on this gameline. One person doing everything is not the way to make a well-rounded universe.
For a fistful of credits: Our final article this month is a star frontiers one. It suffers from the problem of being incompatible with their latest supplement, which is a bit embarrassing. Still, as with UA, not everyone wants to update their campaigns to take account of every new supplement, and they still want crunch. So here's a whole bunch of new equipment to upgrade your characters with, if you have the money. This is pretty useful stuff, so there may be a certain amount of power creep involved. As ever, I am faced with the problem that I can't judge the precise details of the crunch for games I don't have, only steal the underlying ideas. Still, they are pretty good ideas,so that elevates this article from the dull, to the realms of so-so. Still not the best way to finish off the issue, though.
Dragonmirth has plenty of actual dragons in it. Snarf gets to meet a spaceman, and humorous misunderstandings are had yet again. Wormy reveals the dark side of wargaming, and just why it is illegal.
Now this is an amazing issue. As both a closer to the old era, and an introduction to a new one, it succeeds spectacularly, with a real change of tone, overall, from recent issues. It has a whole load of classic articles, and reminds me of lots of the old ones as well. I'm not entirely convinced by their new goals as stated, but if they can keep this up, then they should continue to entertain until their next editorial shift. Lets hope they can get the good articles they need to power the machine with.
(un)reason
Legend
Actually, it doesn't appear once in all 250 searchable issues. Ironic, really.
It's more complicated than that. My experience of Krynn in general is somewhat analogous those sweets with a shell of sugar, and then something vile like marzipan or licorice inside. You buy it because it looks nice, enjoy it at first, then hit the horrible mix of sickly sweet and bitter inside and wind up spitting it out. If anything, the fact that there are some cool bits there makes the fact that you don't enjoy the overall product all the more annoying.
LordVyreth
First Post
Orius
Legend
Xochiyaoyotl looks pronouncable to me. ZAH-chee-yow-yotl. It's got enough vowels. For unpronounceable you needs lots and lots of consonants, preferably a big string of hard stops.
(un)reason
Legend
Dragon Issue 113: September 1986
part 1/4
111 pages. Kim would like to apologize for any slipshod editing in recent, and the next few issues. He has a good excuse this time, as he's been splitting his attention, to do his first proper hardback book for AD&D. The wilderness survival guide. He's learned more about the open air while sitting in front of a computer screen than any man should. You ought to watch out. You'll burn yourself out, doing double shifts like that. Anyway, back to the new Dragon. Lets see if they can maintain the momentum of their reboot.
In this issue:
Letters: Only one letter this month, asking about the viability of Ranger/thieves when they have conflicting alignment requirements. Roger Moore takes the role of justifier this issue, with a very long answer. One of the pleasures of being editor is being able to actively alter the articles sent in, not just fixing up things like spelling and cutting for size, but also changing the rules and adding new bits based upon what he would like to see in the magazine. Yes, this may sometimes annoy the original author, but that's something he's willing to live with. Strong editorial control is good for a gameline. Otherwise, we end up with an inconsistent kitchen sink. And those spill all over the place when you try and do the washing in them
Another interesting, and possibly controversial look at the mindset of the people behind the scenes.
The forum gets it's rules and code of conduct revised this month. Please try and keep entries to 250 words or less, you must remember to include your name and address, stick to one topic per letter, no personal attacks, be polite, we reserve the right to edit letters. How very tiresome. Guess they were getting too many people sending in vitriol unprintable in a family friendly magazine. Once again, I am very glad for the rise of the internet. There, you don't usually get censored until after people have had a chance to see what you have to say. Anyway, back to the pontification.
Bruce Lowekamp thinks that Len Lakofka's system for animal aging doesn't really add up. The idea isn't bad, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired. Isn't that what I've been saying quite regularly?
Ralph Sizer returns to further clarify Locals aren't all yokels, and discredit the strawman attacks against him. Given the nature of the D&D system, there have to be a decent amount of high level characters around for the society to work as it does. If you don't include that level of realism and internal consistency, you're just creating problems for yourself along the line.
Mike Johnson gives us a load of clarifications about how underwater diving works. Seems like that happens whenever they cover a real world topic in anything less than exhaustive detail. Yawn.
Danny Kretzer is very much in support of Unearthed Arcana. It's not just new races and classes, it's tons of spells, weapons and items as well. There's something for everyone. Even if you already have most of this stuff from the magazine, it's more than worth it so you don't have to drag all those issues to the group and find the right pages in the right one all the time. You ought to reconsider about not buying it, Scott Maykrantz.
Jeff Klein thinks that the limitations on the D&D spellcasting system are perfectly sensical in terms of what the various attributes represent in the world. People should stop trying to pick them apart and just get on with enjoying the game.
Thomas Kane is not in favour of a world where magic is commonly used in a technological fashion to transform society. If things are too comfortable, where's the motivation to adventure? Every solution creates new problems, my dear. There are plot hooks aplenty to be found in magitech worlds.
Corey Ehmke is suffering from a dreadful case of badwrongfun. His players are playing monty haul games and enjoying them more than they are his. You've got to help me, before I lose them all and can't GM at all! See, this is the problem. Fun is the most important aspect of a game, not depth, craft, consistency or fairness. If it's not fun, all the effort you put into the other aspects is pointless. Harsh truth of the entertainment industry, as homemade youtube videos so aptly demonstrate.
Welcome to hades: Yay! Another bumper sized planar article. It's been way too long since we had one of those. This presents a quite different view of the place to that used in planescape, focussing almost entirely on the greek portion of the plane. It is a pretty miserable place, full of suffering souls and fiendish creatures on their own inscrutable and often pointless tasks. But is certainly isn't the grey, all crushing nightmare of depression that it would later turn into. Anthraxus is still in charge of the daemons, who still live here full time. Healing magic simply doesn't work. Once again, a huge chunk of the article is devoted to spell by spell listings of their changes (they really have got to change that, they just don't have the space, especially now UA is out.) All in all, the place is both less playable, and less distinctive than it would later become. While not as annoying to me as the Gladsheim article ( because there's not as much crap railroading DM admonitions), this once again suffers from the problem of making an entire universe seem tiny and focussed around just a few characters and locations. This is another definite disappointment compared to the great ideas of the earlier ones on the astral, elemental and hells. What is up with that? This is no good at all.
part 1/4
111 pages. Kim would like to apologize for any slipshod editing in recent, and the next few issues. He has a good excuse this time, as he's been splitting his attention, to do his first proper hardback book for AD&D. The wilderness survival guide. He's learned more about the open air while sitting in front of a computer screen than any man should. You ought to watch out. You'll burn yourself out, doing double shifts like that. Anyway, back to the new Dragon. Lets see if they can maintain the momentum of their reboot.
In this issue:
Letters: Only one letter this month, asking about the viability of Ranger/thieves when they have conflicting alignment requirements. Roger Moore takes the role of justifier this issue, with a very long answer. One of the pleasures of being editor is being able to actively alter the articles sent in, not just fixing up things like spelling and cutting for size, but also changing the rules and adding new bits based upon what he would like to see in the magazine. Yes, this may sometimes annoy the original author, but that's something he's willing to live with. Strong editorial control is good for a gameline. Otherwise, we end up with an inconsistent kitchen sink. And those spill all over the place when you try and do the washing in them
Another interesting, and possibly controversial look at the mindset of the people behind the scenes. The forum gets it's rules and code of conduct revised this month. Please try and keep entries to 250 words or less, you must remember to include your name and address, stick to one topic per letter, no personal attacks, be polite, we reserve the right to edit letters. How very tiresome. Guess they were getting too many people sending in vitriol unprintable in a family friendly magazine. Once again, I am very glad for the rise of the internet. There, you don't usually get censored until after people have had a chance to see what you have to say. Anyway, back to the pontification.
Bruce Lowekamp thinks that Len Lakofka's system for animal aging doesn't really add up. The idea isn't bad, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired. Isn't that what I've been saying quite regularly?
Ralph Sizer returns to further clarify Locals aren't all yokels, and discredit the strawman attacks against him. Given the nature of the D&D system, there have to be a decent amount of high level characters around for the society to work as it does. If you don't include that level of realism and internal consistency, you're just creating problems for yourself along the line.
Mike Johnson gives us a load of clarifications about how underwater diving works. Seems like that happens whenever they cover a real world topic in anything less than exhaustive detail. Yawn.
Danny Kretzer is very much in support of Unearthed Arcana. It's not just new races and classes, it's tons of spells, weapons and items as well. There's something for everyone. Even if you already have most of this stuff from the magazine, it's more than worth it so you don't have to drag all those issues to the group and find the right pages in the right one all the time. You ought to reconsider about not buying it, Scott Maykrantz.
Jeff Klein thinks that the limitations on the D&D spellcasting system are perfectly sensical in terms of what the various attributes represent in the world. People should stop trying to pick them apart and just get on with enjoying the game.
Thomas Kane is not in favour of a world where magic is commonly used in a technological fashion to transform society. If things are too comfortable, where's the motivation to adventure? Every solution creates new problems, my dear. There are plot hooks aplenty to be found in magitech worlds.
Corey Ehmke is suffering from a dreadful case of badwrongfun. His players are playing monty haul games and enjoying them more than they are his. You've got to help me, before I lose them all and can't GM at all! See, this is the problem. Fun is the most important aspect of a game, not depth, craft, consistency or fairness. If it's not fun, all the effort you put into the other aspects is pointless. Harsh truth of the entertainment industry, as homemade youtube videos so aptly demonstrate.
Welcome to hades: Yay! Another bumper sized planar article. It's been way too long since we had one of those. This presents a quite different view of the place to that used in planescape, focussing almost entirely on the greek portion of the plane. It is a pretty miserable place, full of suffering souls and fiendish creatures on their own inscrutable and often pointless tasks. But is certainly isn't the grey, all crushing nightmare of depression that it would later turn into. Anthraxus is still in charge of the daemons, who still live here full time. Healing magic simply doesn't work. Once again, a huge chunk of the article is devoted to spell by spell listings of their changes (they really have got to change that, they just don't have the space, especially now UA is out.) All in all, the place is both less playable, and less distinctive than it would later become. While not as annoying to me as the Gladsheim article ( because there's not as much crap railroading DM admonitions), this once again suffers from the problem of making an entire universe seem tiny and focussed around just a few characters and locations. This is another definite disappointment compared to the great ideas of the earlier ones on the astral, elemental and hells. What is up with that? This is no good at all.
(un)reason
Legend
Yeah, like I said, for those last 3 I was reaching a bit. Trying to come up with something vaguely appropriate to those index entries to say took quite a bit of thought.
(un)reason
Legend
Dragon Issue 113: September 1986
part 2/4
A capital idea: Setting up a business. Not the most obvious route for an adventurer. There are several ways you can keep this fun. You can treat this as something they do between adventures, leaving the day to day operations in the hands of someone else, and letting a few rolls determine how it grows or shrinks. You can handle it like domain management, and the systems probably ought to be compatible, as they are doing similar things over similar timescales. Or you can handle it the two-fisted way, hunting down contracts and big scoops personally, going out and prospecting for new sources of revenue, and generally doing for your profession what indiana jones does for archaeology. Any of those can be fun. What probably will not be fun is determining expenditures and income on a day to day basis by calculating the population of the neighboring region, and what proportion are likely to be interested in your product, cost of buying wholesale, pay for workers, optimum price for selling to get profit without driving them away to cheaper rivals, etc etc. And unfortunately, this article suggests doing exactly that. Epic fail. Not the kind of thing I want anywhere near my escapism, thank you very much.
The role of books: The norby chronicles by Janet and Isaac Asimov is a set of tales about a very special robot, and the troubles he gets himself into. It puts a lighter slant on Asimovs famous robot stories, oriented towards younger readers, without sacrificing the underlying philosophical points his other books make. Hopefully it'll havedrawn in some new readers who go on to sample the rest of his marvelous canon.
The curse of the giant hogweed by Charlotte MacLeod takes a character more used to mundane mysteries into a fantasy world, and trying to maintain his logical attitude in the face of witches, shapeshifted creatures, and of course, giant hogweed. It maintains a sense of humour without making the characters seem ridiculous.
Dreadnought! by Diane Carey is a star trek novel about the aforementioned class of ships, hinted at in the technical manuals, but never shown on screen. It shows a general strong respect for the canon of the series, and tying everything together, while maintaining a fast paced plot. In general, the reviewer is pretty positive about it.
Heroes in hell by Janet Morris et all is an attempt to jump on the shared world bandwagon that currently seems to be on the up. However, without a strong setting bible and editorial control, it fails to create a consistent world between the stories. And without that, what really is the point? Even big name writers produce less than the sum of their parts if not properly co-ordinated.
The duchess of kneedeep by Atanielle Annyn Noel is a playful and punful tale of marital strife that manages to put plenty of depth and drama into the plot without resorting to violence every other chapter. She even manages to slip in reference to another Dragon alumnus. I find myself rather tempted.
The hounds of the morrigan by Pat O'Shea is a book I loved as a kid. It steals liberally from celtic myth to create an incredibly detailed and surprisingly contemporary book that you don't need to have read the original legends to enjoy. Like Tolkien's opus, this was produced over a huge timescale, and comes strongly recommended.
The dream palace by Brynne Stephens tries to push the amount of depth in the choose your own adventure genre. Of course, you have to make sacrifices, and rather than making the book huge, they decided to reduce the number of viable paths you can take to get to the end. The level of commercialism in the competition at the end is also a bit galling.
The tales people tell: Y'know, the real world manages to have weird enough folklore without any proven supernatural stuff. Why shouldn't fantasy worlds have outlandish legends that aren't true. It might irritate players when they've trekked through the wilderness for months seeking a plot hook, and they find out
but it'll make the world more real. An excellent idea, but of course one that requires lots of prep time, or the willingness to steal and adapt from existing sources. Guess you'll have to choose if you're willing to put that kind of effort in for something that would cause player walkouts with the wrong group. And make sure that the journey is a fun part of the game as much achieving as the objectives. So this is an article I'm divided on, liking the idea, but knowing many people wouldn't. Oh well. Can't please everyone.
Magic and Morality: Mike Gray contributes this month's computer feature, an exceedingly positive review of Ultima IV. Like Rogue, this comes far closer to simulating the D&D experience than most CRPG's, allowing you a good deal of freedom, both in the objectives you pursue and order in which you do them, and also in your moral position. While you are supposed to be good if you want to win the game, you can choose to be a bad guy instead and the game won't railroad you away from it. You have to experiment with mixing up ingredients to produce spells, make real moral choices, talk to everyone, and explore everywhere. It also includes some nice little extras, like a proper cloth map and lots of booklets that it really will help you to read before playing. Another great reminder that there were plenty of cool games back then, quite a few that did things that most games now don't do, because it was so much easier and cheaper to develop games and so designers had more leeway to experiment with them. And now you can get most of them for free via emulators and roms. (not that I endorse illegal downloading, of course) Indulge your nostalgia. Go play.
Clout for clerics: Like they've done with fighters and rangers recently, it's now cleric's turn to get their follower tables examined and expanded. This article takes a slightly different tack to the previous two, eschewing tables to instead embed the rules stuff directly into the prose. They are slightly more generous than the core rules, but as much of the followers are embedded into the community around your temple, and none are more than half your level, this isn't going to be adventure breaking. This does tack on a bunch of new rules which aren't related to the general domain management system, which may be problematic if you try and use them both at once. Such is the problem with inventing new subsystems. You'll have to pick and stick with one.
part 2/4
A capital idea: Setting up a business. Not the most obvious route for an adventurer. There are several ways you can keep this fun. You can treat this as something they do between adventures, leaving the day to day operations in the hands of someone else, and letting a few rolls determine how it grows or shrinks. You can handle it like domain management, and the systems probably ought to be compatible, as they are doing similar things over similar timescales. Or you can handle it the two-fisted way, hunting down contracts and big scoops personally, going out and prospecting for new sources of revenue, and generally doing for your profession what indiana jones does for archaeology. Any of those can be fun. What probably will not be fun is determining expenditures and income on a day to day basis by calculating the population of the neighboring region, and what proportion are likely to be interested in your product, cost of buying wholesale, pay for workers, optimum price for selling to get profit without driving them away to cheaper rivals, etc etc. And unfortunately, this article suggests doing exactly that. Epic fail. Not the kind of thing I want anywhere near my escapism, thank you very much.
The role of books: The norby chronicles by Janet and Isaac Asimov is a set of tales about a very special robot, and the troubles he gets himself into. It puts a lighter slant on Asimovs famous robot stories, oriented towards younger readers, without sacrificing the underlying philosophical points his other books make. Hopefully it'll havedrawn in some new readers who go on to sample the rest of his marvelous canon.
The curse of the giant hogweed by Charlotte MacLeod takes a character more used to mundane mysteries into a fantasy world, and trying to maintain his logical attitude in the face of witches, shapeshifted creatures, and of course, giant hogweed. It maintains a sense of humour without making the characters seem ridiculous.
Dreadnought! by Diane Carey is a star trek novel about the aforementioned class of ships, hinted at in the technical manuals, but never shown on screen. It shows a general strong respect for the canon of the series, and tying everything together, while maintaining a fast paced plot. In general, the reviewer is pretty positive about it.
Heroes in hell by Janet Morris et all is an attempt to jump on the shared world bandwagon that currently seems to be on the up. However, without a strong setting bible and editorial control, it fails to create a consistent world between the stories. And without that, what really is the point? Even big name writers produce less than the sum of their parts if not properly co-ordinated.
The duchess of kneedeep by Atanielle Annyn Noel is a playful and punful tale of marital strife that manages to put plenty of depth and drama into the plot without resorting to violence every other chapter. She even manages to slip in reference to another Dragon alumnus. I find myself rather tempted.
The hounds of the morrigan by Pat O'Shea is a book I loved as a kid. It steals liberally from celtic myth to create an incredibly detailed and surprisingly contemporary book that you don't need to have read the original legends to enjoy. Like Tolkien's opus, this was produced over a huge timescale, and comes strongly recommended.
The dream palace by Brynne Stephens tries to push the amount of depth in the choose your own adventure genre. Of course, you have to make sacrifices, and rather than making the book huge, they decided to reduce the number of viable paths you can take to get to the end. The level of commercialism in the competition at the end is also a bit galling.
The tales people tell: Y'know, the real world manages to have weird enough folklore without any proven supernatural stuff. Why shouldn't fantasy worlds have outlandish legends that aren't true. It might irritate players when they've trekked through the wilderness for months seeking a plot hook, and they find out
the black pearl is just a big pearl, no magic powers at all
Magic and Morality: Mike Gray contributes this month's computer feature, an exceedingly positive review of Ultima IV. Like Rogue, this comes far closer to simulating the D&D experience than most CRPG's, allowing you a good deal of freedom, both in the objectives you pursue and order in which you do them, and also in your moral position. While you are supposed to be good if you want to win the game, you can choose to be a bad guy instead and the game won't railroad you away from it. You have to experiment with mixing up ingredients to produce spells, make real moral choices, talk to everyone, and explore everywhere. It also includes some nice little extras, like a proper cloth map and lots of booklets that it really will help you to read before playing. Another great reminder that there were plenty of cool games back then, quite a few that did things that most games now don't do, because it was so much easier and cheaper to develop games and so designers had more leeway to experiment with them. And now you can get most of them for free via emulators and roms. (not that I endorse illegal downloading, of course) Indulge your nostalgia. Go play.
Clout for clerics: Like they've done with fighters and rangers recently, it's now cleric's turn to get their follower tables examined and expanded. This article takes a slightly different tack to the previous two, eschewing tables to instead embed the rules stuff directly into the prose. They are slightly more generous than the core rules, but as much of the followers are embedded into the community around your temple, and none are more than half your level, this isn't going to be adventure breaking. This does tack on a bunch of new rules which aren't related to the general domain management system, which may be problematic if you try and use them both at once. Such is the problem with inventing new subsystems. You'll have to pick and stick with one.
(un)reason
Legend
Dragon Issue 113: September 1986
part 3/4
A saddle isn't enough: Hmm. For want of a shoe, a horse was lost. For want of a horse, a messenger was lost. For want of a messenger, an army wasn't ready when the enemies came knocking on the king's castle and the country was lost. Or in this case, the stirrup. Funny how such an innocuous looking device can prove so important. That annoying elves like Legolas can ride bareback and still kick much ass on the field of battle without falling off becomes a good deal more impressive when you actually know a little about the technical side of riding. It's minutinae, but minutinae I didn't know about before, so this manages to hold my interest this time around. If you're playing a gritty game, you would do well to heed it, and thereby frustrate your players when caught improperly prepared. Muahahaha.
Combat complexity: An article for the Conan rpg. Another case where it's been out for a few years, yet the magazine has paid no attention to it before. Guess even though the Ares section is gone, they still want to give non D&D games decent coverage, so a little more general fantasy doesn't go amiss. Anyway, this introduces one of our perennial topics. Hit locations. Seems if a game doesn't include them (and many don't, as they can introduce a lot of extra complexity.) someone'll create optional rules for them. Thankfully, they manage to keep things fairly simple, and curiously enough, the system seems more friendly to the idea than D&D anyway. It also seems pretty brutal, but thems the breaks. Nothing particularly ground-breaking here.
Cardboard dragon: Another interesting experiment is this month's centerpiece. We saw an example of Dennis Kaufman's excellent origami work on the cover of issue 100. Now, he brings you your own cardboard dragon assembly kit. Cut out the various bits and pieces, fold them up and glue them together, and hey presto, an embarrassing mess that doesn't look anything like as good as the photos in the magazine Joking aside, this is another pretty cool idea. Hopefully at least a few of you managed to put it together and keep it intact for a few years. What toys will they come up next? Lets hope that with modules gone we'll be seeing a few more of those fun little complete games Tom Wham and C C Stoll used to give us.
Bubba the barbarian says "Don't eat Quiche!" Subscribe to Dungeon before it's even out! How nice of them. Now you can make sure you get every issue, right from the ground floor. Lets hope there are some more people who took them up on that, because our dungeon magazine reviews stalled ages ago, and I really would like it if someone would pick them up again and try and keep pace with me, now I've reached that era.
TSR Previews is once again the wrong way around. D&D gets DA1: Adventures in Blackmoor. Dave Arneson is back, and he's bad! (man, it sucks, posting this bit just after he died ) How did that work? Gary's embroiled in mad political crap, and the other founder is allowed to return. Hmm. I would rather like to know more about the behind the scenes maneuvering that led to this.
AD&D gets I10 Ravenloft II: Gryphon Hill. What is Strahd doing in faraway Mordentshire, working with Azalin the lich? And just as importantly, who's going to foil his plans? Will it be the same adventurers that attacked him last time? This thread of history definitely thickens.
Our 10th AD&D adventure gamebook is a Dragonlance one, Lords of Doom. Penetrate the evil city of sanction. What do you there? The synopsis doesn't say. Would it be too much to hope that you kill them all? Nah. If good won forever, they wouldn't be able to keep milking the gameline.
Marvel gets MH9: Gates of what if? Seems like a standard opposite universe romp.
Finally, Agent 13 get's his 3rd book, Agent 13 and the acolytes of darkness. Once again the description is pretty sketchy, but I guess this is pulp. You're probably getting exactly what it says on the tin. Fight evil cult, get captured, cliffhanger chapter end, listen to insane monologue, escape deathtrap, win, hooray!
Profiles: Keith Parkinson is another of our well known artists. He used to be a drummer, but decided to become an artist instead because you get more creative control. He was introduced to D&D by a friend, realized that he could do better than their early crop of artists, and went and offered his services. And so he became one of their second wave artists, along with Elmore and Easley. As usual, we see that you've got to be a hard worker to succeed as an artist, and striking a balance between not being put off by criticism, but still learning from the constructive points of it is tricky but useful.
Bruce Heard is our acquisitions coordinator, which means he's another of the poor sods who has to read through hundreds of manuscripts and find the gems amongst the dross. ( Once again we see that as the company has expanded, they raise the bar for allowing new people onboard. ) Born in france to a US soldier and a french woman, he is exceedingly multi-lingual. He first got a job as a translator of D&D stuff, but soon moved on to bigger and better things, and is turning out to be a pretty good writer in his own right as well. He seems to be one of the people who really pushed Mystara in a more high magic direction, which is a good thing in my book. I'm really looking forward to seeing his future contributions to the line.
part 3/4
A saddle isn't enough: Hmm. For want of a shoe, a horse was lost. For want of a horse, a messenger was lost. For want of a messenger, an army wasn't ready when the enemies came knocking on the king's castle and the country was lost. Or in this case, the stirrup. Funny how such an innocuous looking device can prove so important. That annoying elves like Legolas can ride bareback and still kick much ass on the field of battle without falling off becomes a good deal more impressive when you actually know a little about the technical side of riding. It's minutinae, but minutinae I didn't know about before, so this manages to hold my interest this time around. If you're playing a gritty game, you would do well to heed it, and thereby frustrate your players when caught improperly prepared. Muahahaha.
Combat complexity: An article for the Conan rpg. Another case where it's been out for a few years, yet the magazine has paid no attention to it before. Guess even though the Ares section is gone, they still want to give non D&D games decent coverage, so a little more general fantasy doesn't go amiss. Anyway, this introduces one of our perennial topics. Hit locations. Seems if a game doesn't include them (and many don't, as they can introduce a lot of extra complexity.) someone'll create optional rules for them. Thankfully, they manage to keep things fairly simple, and curiously enough, the system seems more friendly to the idea than D&D anyway. It also seems pretty brutal, but thems the breaks. Nothing particularly ground-breaking here.
Cardboard dragon: Another interesting experiment is this month's centerpiece. We saw an example of Dennis Kaufman's excellent origami work on the cover of issue 100. Now, he brings you your own cardboard dragon assembly kit. Cut out the various bits and pieces, fold them up and glue them together, and hey presto, an embarrassing mess that doesn't look anything like as good as the photos in the magazine
Joking aside, this is another pretty cool idea. Hopefully at least a few of you managed to put it together and keep it intact for a few years. What toys will they come up next? Lets hope that with modules gone we'll be seeing a few more of those fun little complete games Tom Wham and C C Stoll used to give us. Bubba the barbarian says "Don't eat Quiche!" Subscribe to Dungeon before it's even out! How nice of them. Now you can make sure you get every issue, right from the ground floor. Lets hope there are some more people who took them up on that, because our dungeon magazine reviews stalled ages ago, and I really would like it if someone would pick them up again and try and keep pace with me, now I've reached that era.
TSR Previews is once again the wrong way around. D&D gets DA1: Adventures in Blackmoor. Dave Arneson is back, and he's bad! (man, it sucks, posting this bit just after he died
) How did that work? Gary's embroiled in mad political crap, and the other founder is allowed to return. Hmm. I would rather like to know more about the behind the scenes maneuvering that led to this. AD&D gets I10 Ravenloft II: Gryphon Hill. What is Strahd doing in faraway Mordentshire, working with Azalin the lich? And just as importantly, who's going to foil his plans? Will it be the same adventurers that attacked him last time? This thread of history definitely thickens.
Our 10th AD&D adventure gamebook is a Dragonlance one, Lords of Doom. Penetrate the evil city of sanction. What do you there? The synopsis doesn't say. Would it be too much to hope that you kill them all? Nah. If good won forever, they wouldn't be able to keep milking the gameline.
Marvel gets MH9: Gates of what if? Seems like a standard opposite universe romp.
Finally, Agent 13 get's his 3rd book, Agent 13 and the acolytes of darkness. Once again the description is pretty sketchy, but I guess this is pulp. You're probably getting exactly what it says on the tin. Fight evil cult, get captured, cliffhanger chapter end, listen to insane monologue, escape deathtrap, win, hooray!
Profiles: Keith Parkinson is another of our well known artists. He used to be a drummer, but decided to become an artist instead because you get more creative control. He was introduced to D&D by a friend, realized that he could do better than their early crop of artists, and went and offered his services. And so he became one of their second wave artists, along with Elmore and Easley. As usual, we see that you've got to be a hard worker to succeed as an artist, and striking a balance between not being put off by criticism, but still learning from the constructive points of it is tricky but useful.
Bruce Heard is our acquisitions coordinator, which means he's another of the poor sods who has to read through hundreds of manuscripts and find the gems amongst the dross. ( Once again we see that as the company has expanded, they raise the bar for allowing new people onboard. ) Born in france to a US soldier and a french woman, he is exceedingly multi-lingual. He first got a job as a translator of D&D stuff, but soon moved on to bigger and better things, and is turning out to be a pretty good writer in his own right as well. He seems to be one of the people who really pushed Mystara in a more high magic direction, which is a good thing in my book. I'm really looking forward to seeing his future contributions to the line.
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