Let's read the entire run

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 123: July 1987

part 5/5

The role of books: The king of satan's eyes by Geoffrey Marsh is a very pulpy tale of a suit designer who winds up in all kinds of adventures around the world. With very tight, if somewhat formulaic plotting, it would make a good bit of inspiration for the more cinematic kind of Top Secret game.
With a single spell by Lawrence Watt-Evans is a story of the adventures of a young wizard who does indeed, start off with only one spell, and has to make the most of it. Seems like a typical heroes journey, going from small to large in a neatly plotted manner. Now, what will he do next? Can't get too formulaic.
Bimbos of the death sun by Sharyn McCrumb, on the other hand, isn't formulaic at all. Murder mystery? Character study of the nature of geek conventions? Fantasy? Very good question. In any case, it seems to work, despite the individual parts not being entirely satisfying on their own. It richly deserves it's memorability.
Arrows of the queen by Mercedes Lackey is the start of another trilogy. Looks like it's gonna need it, as it hints at several big plot points, and then leaves them completely unexplored. The reviewer still enjoys it though, as it's another one which does it's formulas right.
To the haunted mountains by Ru Emerson is a well described wilderness adventure, told in an interesting style that manages to be both distant and highly personal. It may not be to everyone's tastes, but as a regular reviewer, Mr Bunnel also enjoys his novelties.
Winter of magic's return by Pamela F Service is a tale of magic returning to a postapocalyptic world. Stealing liberally from arthurian myth, a reincarnated merlin must find his way to avalon, and release Arthur so he may be king again. While aimed at the young adult market, it has enough clever references that older people can appreciate as well.
Unicorn and dragon by Lynn Abbey does not get a very good review. The plot is confusing and cluttered, and the characters don't seem to have understandable motivations beyond what the story demands, and the format of the book is a bit odd. An experiment that doesn't really work, but is still mineable for historical detail.

Paranoia takes out a full colour three page spread advertising both the new edition, and all the old adventures. Orcbusters, Yellow clearance black box blues, send in the clones. This is a nice selection.

Operation Zondraker: So we come to the end of this four part Top Secret epic just as the new edition comes out. Out with the old, in with the new. Not that it matters much here, as this installment is pretty system free, giving us a bunch of example missions using the alternate future history they've spent time building up. They really ought to have multiplied this stuff out, and made it into a full-blown sourcebook, because there is a lot more they could have said on this subject, and fleshing out the missions with maps, character stats and the like would have been an entirely reasonable thing to do. Guess like some of the forum entries which are almost articles, there's a nebulous ground where a piece doesn't quite fit into either format comfortably, and it's not quite worth it to pad it out to reach the next weight category. Still an interesting experiment, and much better reading than the attacks of rehash. Lets hope that they have a few more epic articles planned for the near future.

Top secret SI is finally out. Buy it now. Yet more well co-ordinated advert positioning.

Profiles: Warren Spector is our only, and final profilee, as they retire this regular column, presumably because they've been doing this nearly 2 years now and are running out of people to cover, plus they just introduced two new intended regulars and need to clear out space. Anyway, he's our newest editor, having been poached from Steve Jackson games, where he edited The Space Gamer, and played a big part in the creation of Toon. He takes a David Bowie influenced method of recounting his history, emphasizing the sheer randomness of how his life has turned out. An amusing framing device that makes this a pretty strong finisher to this series, covering someone who's actually better known for their non D&D work. Will it return? Good question. I'm pretty sure I remember seeing it brought back later on. But if you weren't there at the time, you'll have to wait until I get there to discover exactly when with me.

TSR previews: Something goes very wrong here, as most of the things they said would be coming out next month last month are missing. The only things mentioned as coming out are the Forgotten Realms Boxed set, and Top Secret SI. I know both are pretty big deals, but that's no reason to forget everything else. Someone in editing seriously dropped the ball here. How very curious. Tut tut Roger.

Larry has to take a break from snarfquest, but there is some rather amusing filler art. Dragonmirth gets cloned. Irving doesn't believe Wormy is in danger.

One of those issue with quite high highs, and low lows. The editorial sloppiness continues, and there's quite a bit of rehash, but still several quite cool bits and genuine surprises. It's certainly not perfect, but still considerably better than the last issue. Still it's looking touch and go, as the continuing introduction of new columns and removal of old one mean it could improve rapidly, or decline again in the next issue. Can't really predict that at the moment, given the unpredictability of recent fluctuations. Guess I'll just have to look and see.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 124: August 1987

part 1/5

108 pages Hmm. As part of their drive to improve their services, they're considering setting up a BBs. Or in other words, thanks to their recently acquired computer game columnists, they're aware of what passes for the internet at the moment, and are considering getting on board. That would be forward-thinking of them. I wonder if they'll follow through on that. Our theme this month is Aerial adventuring. Something we've had the odd article on, but never a whole special feature, so hopefully there won't be too much rehash. Not a bad start. Lets see what else is new and shiny in the world of dragon publishing.

In this issue:

Letters: Another letter from people interested in breaking the world record for playing continuously. Roger tells them that we don't do that any more, due to the health hazards. Oh, for the halcyon days of 1980, when people played 100 hours at a a time.
A letter suggesting some more regular columns. Hmm. As ever, we'll certainly consider these ideas.
Another of our regular questions. Someone wants to become a writer for the magazine, and wonders how you do it. The usual response follows. Get the writers pack, read the guidelines, and then practice practice practice, making sure you listen to constructive criticism along the way. No surprises here.

Forum: Rad Jorgensen is one of the many people who thinks that the game is actually less fun when you incorporate the new stuff from Unearthed Arcana. The characters are more powerful, which means they have to fight higher level monsters, and get gold and XP more quickly, which means you don't get to enjoy the early stages of the game. Lest we forget, many people like the bit where one good hit can kill you, and you need to be cautious if you want to survive.
Kim Eastland pops in to do a shill piece on gamma world and it's supplements. If you want more material to come out, buy the existing stuff! If it isn't profitable, we can't produce it. This is even worse than Frank Mentzer's dragon thing. At least he offered a debatable point for people to run with along with his shilling.
Brock Sides suggests that magic items ought to be given power levels, so dumb DM's can know approximately what level they should start giving them to their characters at. Rather a good idea, really.
Uriah Blatherwick shows up for a second month in a row. This time he makes the point that there is no one true way of running games. It's all about what's fun for both players and DM. And since variety is the spice of life, one group can and should experiment with multiple playstyles to keep things fresh. A viewpoint I very much agree with.
Clark Timmins reminds us not to sweat the small, everyday stuff when roleplaying.
Daniel S Huffman wants to play the beastmaster as a PC, but doesn't want them to overshadow other PC's. So he suggests a whole bunch of nerfs for them to bring things back under control. Woo. Nerfs. :deadpan: I'll keep these in mind for if I ever get to try the class.
Dan Fejes is another returning forumite. He points out that he wasn't being sexist when he said that the proportion of female players, and female lead characters in fantasy books, is not very high. It's the truth. Go to any bookshop, do a random sampling, prove it for yourself. Don't shoot the messenger, maaaan. Provable statistics will not shield you from the flames, especially where sexual and racial identity is involved. Even something as simple as " A larger proportion of people of non caucasian descent are lactose intolerant" can spawn hundred post flamewars.
Pam Parisi is also against sexism in fantasy on the grounds of it's escapism, damnitt. Let us play really badass women and don't worry about it. Seems a rather popular viewpoint.

Role-playing reviews returns, due to popular demand. There's lots of games out now, many of them diverging quite substantially from D&D, and it would be a foolish company which ignored them and the ideas they have to offer. They start off with a look over the current big competitors. Runequest is currently in decline, due to 3rd edition taking a number of dumb design and setting choices. fantasy Hero and GURPS are perfectly decent systems, but you'll have to do most of the world building yourself, as they don't have much of a supplement base. Harn has a well developed world, but a woeful lack of adventures. Pendragon is kickass at what it does, but has a very narrow focus that may not be for everyone. MERP is fairly good, but a bit too crunchy to really keep many of the inexperienced gamers it's big license attracts. All of which leaves things open for another system to move in and become number two. Which is where our review really starts in earnest.
Warhammer fantasy roleplay is of course the attempt of Games Workshop to compete with TSR in fairly generic fantasy. Classes are replaced by careers, combat has an exceedingly brutal critical hits chart, magic is relatively limited, and the setting is well developed, with an interesting mix of grimness and humour. It already has it's first module series, the enemy within, in full flow. For someone who dislikes how characters increase exponentially in power in a few levels in D&D, it seems a pretty good choice for your fantasy gaming. Another interesting development. While still partisan, and presenting the D&D system as the best all around game, they are acknowledging that other games do certain things better. This definitely helps me get a better idea of what things were currently like in the world of roleplaying as a whole. Good to see them looking outwards a little more again.

 

[LordVyreth]

Dragon Issue 124: August 1987

part 1/5

108 pages Hmm. As part of their drive to improve their services, they're considering setting up a BBs. Or in other words, thanks to their recently acquired computer game columnists, they're aware of what passes for the internet at the moment, and are considering getting on board.

Talking about RPGs on the Internet? That will never catch on.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 124: August 1987

part 2/5

Sage advice: How big or small can you get using polymorph self ( DM's choice, but remember they can't exceed the hit dice limit)
How many times a day can hellhounds breathe fire (as often as the random roll lets them. It's like 4th ed, only nonstandardised.)
Can't completely dicing a troll stop it from regenerating (No. Even if it's put miles in the negative, it can still come back if you don't kill it with fire. Trolls are bastards to get rid of.)
Will remove curse make a magic item useful. (if it was cursed in the first place. If it was designed specifically to screw you over, it still will. Ha ha. )
How do you keep a sword with a different alignment? ( don't touch it with your skin or try and fight with it. I recommend selling it on as soon as possible. )
How far can you abuse geas and quest. (Moderately. Not as far as you think. )
Can you remove Quests and Geases with dispel or remove curse (no. You need the specific counterspell. They are specifically designed to be a right nuisance to deal with. )
How do you build a stronghold ( The costs and construction times are right there on page 23. Beyond that, you'll have to design the details yourself. Reading the evil overlord list before you do would be a good idea, even if you think you're a good guy. )
How much does it cost to build a wall (page 23, again. Pay attention, people.)
Why was the method of calculating will scores changed (because Frank Mentzer thought making the battle purely mental would be a better idea. Yes, this screws over fighters. Intelligent swords are a pain in the ass. Live with it. Or write to him to complain, not me. Oh, wait, he doesn't work here anymore. )
Is the sling range listing right (Yes. We claim Historical Accuracy. Do you doubt our claims? )
Why do galleys suck at riding out storms (because their sides hang low, and they waggle too and fro. You'll have to get a giant to put your ship over it's shoulder like a regimental soldier if you want to avoid sinking. )
Why are saving throws and thief abilities worse in Mentzer ed than Moldvay (Because Moldvay was a more of a twink. You remember Giants in the earth, don't you? Seriously though, it's so high level characters still have room to advance. 36th level is a long way, and we have to ration out your bonuses more carefully correspondingly.)

Sailors on the sea of air: Airships! Another cool fantasy topic we haven't seen stuff on in Aaaaages. A cool idea, with plenty of fictional sources for you to draw on for inspiration, multiple methods by which they could be constructed, and plenty of ways in which they can be used to drive the plot. Ed agrees with me, and is quite willing to insert them into the forgotten realms. Indeed, he would later go on to create an entire nation of mages that make heavy use of skyships to travel around and trade with the rest of the world. But at the moment, it's the thayvians that have their hands on a mysterious bit of ancient magitech. He's a lot more specific than he used to be about realmslore, mentioning many familiar faces and places, and filling in a fairly substantial detail in the history of the Seven Sisters. (Mary sue metaplot off the starboard bow sir! Shall we open fire? ) He's also quite detailed about the construction and functioning of his sample ships, making sure that they aren't too powerful, but players would have a decent chance of creating and maintaining one, and could also salvage their components and turn the various effects on them to imaginative ends. So this is both a flavourful and very gamable contribution from the master, well suited to kick off this special with.

On a wing and a prayer: Of course, skyships are big, expensive, much coveted and frequently a bugger to maintain. You're unlikely to be able to justify giving a group possession of one (as opposed to riding on someone else's) until name level or so. But there are other methods. Such as Gliders. These can function even without any magical intervention, but a little levitation spell can hugely increase your flying range and maneuverability. They might be fragile and require quite a bit of training, but they're accessible to low level characters, and can be quite useful in some adventures, while giving the DM plenty of easy excuses that keep players from using them all the time. (Ahh, the joys of the weather) Definitely an idea worth considering, both for players and their adversaries (Goblins and Kobolds using makeshift gliders to drop stuff on attacking parties seems curiously appropriate, somehow. ) and the writer manages to strike a nice balance between the cool stuff and the realistic inconveniences. Once again, a highly enjoyable contribution.

 

[LordVyreth]

Ah, airships. Maybe it's all the Final Fantasy and other video games, but I've always had a soft spot for those big flying anachronisms. I even gave one to my current party. Actually, they're up to two now; it remains to be seen what they'll do with them.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 124: August 1987

part 3/5

Flying the Friendly(?) Skies: And unsurprisingly, we have our third common method of getting airborne. Flying mounts are another thing that requires substantial upkeep, and if they cause trouble to the game having them killed or stolen is entirely an option. But although this article assumes them as the default method of getting up there, this is really more concerned with the fun you have once you've made the grade, and are now soaring through the stratosphere. Wind, clouds, and other weather issues become very important considerations, as does maneuverability in combat. This obviously requires some tables, lists of penalties, and other such inconveniencing rules. While less interesting than the previous two, someone's got to do the dirty work, and at least it's kept pretty short and efficient, rather than bogging down in endless frequently recalculated modifiers. Roger's editorial hand ensures that the other articles are referenced, but not overlapped with, and the whole thing doesn't look like it'd be much more time consuming for a DM than designing a regular dungeon adventure. They seem to have made this topic work.

The wings of eagles: And we finish off our themed section with a new PC race. Aarakocra have been around for a few years now, and as flying creatures which don't have huge amounts of HD and special abilities, plus some special disadvantages, they're about as close to a balanced flying race as you're gonna get. With not particularly brilliant class abilities, they'll be quite effective at low level, then fall behind, as other characters get the ability to fly as well via spells, only without the claustrophobia and hollow bones. So it's a typical AD&D balance by campaign, rather than by encounter. If you want to make them work, you'll need to adapt the game around them to a certain extent. Much the same as they would later appear in the complete book of humanoids, this is another example of their current upsurge in new classes and races. As with UA and the forgotten realms, the magazine is probing the way, looking for good routes for future books to follow. Another interesting, if not completely satisfying article.

Kicks and sticks: Speaking of new classes, Oriental Adventures continues to get new goodies this month. The Escrimador, practitioner of a variant set of martial arts designed to function with primarily wooden weapons in a hot jungle environment analogous to the real world Philipines. Since OA focusses strongly on china and japan in the main books, this is a pretty cool add on, giving you a chance to introduce an interesting new NPC when they venture afield, and possibly then having one join the party. Cultural Homogeny does get tiresome. (Hegemony of homogeny? Now there's a tongue twister for you) Somewhere between a monk and a conventional fighter in terms of abilities, they get plenty of tricks to help them kick butt with, which they'll need, because their weapons and armour aren't the greatest. Not sure if they're balanced overall, they seem quite strong, but as we know, monks look good on paper but are actually problematic in both 1st and 3rd ed. Guess it's another one to test out, find out the fun way.

Front-end Alignments: Hee. Looks like we have an april fools article that got away, or was simply too good to be forced to wait until next year. People have often referred to games players as having various joke alignments. But this writer has taken it upon himself to codify most of the commonly recurring ones, and then submit this stuff to the magazine. And it got accepted too. How very droll. Lawful Bored, Lawful Liar, Lawful Serious, Lawful Goody-goody, Lawful Ignored, Lawful Idiot. Neutral Absent, Neutral Confused, Neutral Puppet, Neutral Self-centred, Neutral Montyhaul, Neutral Dietosser, Neutral Wound-wailer. Chaotic Crybaby, Chaotic Stupid, Chaotic Diehard, Chaotic Hotshot, Chaotic Everywhere and Chaotic Suicidal. 19 personality stereotypes, mostly negative, arranged into a rough diagram of related types. (and how to deal with them.) This is amusing, useful, and has me seriously tempted to adapt it to use as a new outer-planar cosmology and/or pantheon. Muahaha and all that. Definitely a classic article, even if only a few of these alignments are really famous in modern day forum discussions. Still relevant though, as after all, it isn't tied to the old system.

Arcane Lore: Another mage gets their personal spellbook rifled through, and the unique spells that they spent years developing laid out for all to see. This month, it's the mage Odeen. Not quite an archmage, he still developed at least 5 new spells that your players can hunt down. Odeens magic cloud is a versatile little bag of tricks that can be used for offense, defense, utility or entertainment. Odeen's impenetrable lock is a more powerful magical warding for your doors and chests. Welcome to the arms race, because Knock just won't cut it against this baby. Odeen's magic tailor lets you customize your clothes quickly. Odeen's secret word is another advanced warding spell. Dispel this one rather than using the password, and it'll erase the stuff it was hiding. How evil. Odeen's sounding stick is yer basic dowsing rod spell, adapted for the special needs of adventurers. One of these'll massively increase your odds of clearing out the dungeon and getting all the treasure. So no blatant blasty spells, but lots of stuff that adventurers will find exceedingly handy nonetheless. While there is a bit of power creep here, making higher level variants of existing spells is a perfectly reasonable thing that would happen in a real world, so I don't have a problem with that this time.

 

[Dyson Logos]

Warhammer fantasy roleplay is of course the attempt of Games Workshop to compete with TSR in fairly generic fantasy. Classes are replaced by careers, combat has an exceedingly brutal critical hits chart, magic is relatively limited, and the setting is well developed, with an interesting mix of grimness and humour. It already has it's first module series, the enemy within, in full flow.

The fact that this comes up time and time again when people review WHFRP really makes the game out to be something it isn't. It's like everyone who read the combat rules didn't bother to read how the critical hits work - instead of happeneing when a good hit roll is made, critical hits happen when you have run out of Wounds (aka Hit Points). Effectively it's not a brutal critical hit chart in the sense of D&D, but a pretty forgiving system for handling characters with zero hit points in a system where there is no resurrection.

Okay, enough of that pet peeve.

 

[Dyson Logos]

Why are saving throws and thief abilities worse in Mentzer ed than Moldvay (Because Moldvay was a more of a twink. You remember Giants in the earth, don't you? Seriously though, it's so high level characters still have room to advance. 36th level is a long way, and we have to ration out your bonuses more carefully correspondingly.)

I wrote that question back in the day. What they omitted was the other half of the question, being why the layout was so much worse in the Mentzer edition.

To this day the nerfed thieves are the second reason I prefer Moldvay over Mentzer. The first reason is how horrible the Mentzer layout was.

 

[(un)reason]

Ha. Well, now you can see if reality lives up to your imagination or not. The worst that can happen is bannination.

Looks like most of the comments are in favor though.

Aaand they've locked it. Guess my opinions are a bit too far out of sync with the board culture. Vaguely surprised it happened after a month, I'd have thought they'd nuke it straight away or not at all. But then, issue 22 and it's fallout don't reflect well on Gary, do they.

The fact that this comes up time and time again when people review WHFRP really makes the game out to be something it isn't. It's like everyone who read the combat rules didn't bother to read how the critical hits work - instead of happeneing when a good hit roll is made, critical hits happen when you have run out of Wounds (aka Hit Points). Effectively it's not a brutal critical hit chart in the sense of D&D, but a pretty forgiving system for handling characters with zero hit points in a system where there is no resurrection.

Okay, enough of that pet peeve.

Understandable. But then, there are many who find any form of critical hit system in which permanent crippling effects are fairly likely too brutal. They would much rather the character simply died than have to carry on with a "ruined" one.

I wrote that question back in the day. What they omitted was the other half of the question, being why the layout was so much worse in the Mentzer edition.

To this day the nerfed thieves are the second reason I prefer Moldvay over Mentzer. The first reason is how horrible the Mentzer layout was.

Congratulations on getting printed, I guess. Yeah, it's funny when some bits of later editions are actually done worse than their predecesors.

 

[booga]

Aaand they've locked it. Guess my opinions are a bit too far out of sync with the board culture. Vaguely surprised it happened after a month, I'd have thought they'd nuke it straight away or not at all. But then, issue 22 and it's fallout don't reflect well on Gary, do they.

I've been lurking and following your thread both here and over there, and I do hope you'll fight it, as tactfully as possible. It was very interesting to compare the perspective of the commenters between the two...not to mention the extra illumination that was being provided in the thread by those who were "there" for the early days.

It's too bad there seems to be a vocal minority over there who seems to treat any less-than-glowing comment about the early days of D&D as a direct attack on holy scripture, and I say that as someone who's an OD&D/1e enthusiast. I also could not help but notice that their support forum is littered with threads complaining about the specific moderator involved; perhaps you might be able to make headway with one of the others for that section.

In any case, these reviews have inspired me to print off a PDF of more than one old article and incorporate them into our game. Keep it up!

*cloak of lurking re-engaged*