Let's read the entire run

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 176: December 1991

part 2/6


Forum: Terry C Parlett praises the idea of manoeuvres for fighters. Giving people more of a feel of control is a good thing for the game in his opinion, and allows cool descriptions to really mean something. Now all it needs are a few clarifications.

Dave Wile tells us that if we set boundaries for our players, and we need to have consequences when they break them, otherwise they won't work. If they're incompetent, they should die. If they're psychotic, the law should be on their tracks. Simple as that.

Michael Kellam shows us the way to stop players from engaging in random slaughter. Make sure the people they kill have connections to other people who will miss them. They can't kill everyone, can they, and if they do, more will come of increasing power.

Tony Quirk points out that killing the wrong people will have mechanical penalties for quite a few classes. Byebye cleric & paladin powers. And without magical healing, a party will have to be much more cautious in picking their battles.

Mare Blanchard also reminds us that the only way to stop characters from slaughtering NPC's at the slightest provocation is to make sure there's consequences for doing it. Another one we've heard before, and likely will do so again. It's a lesson we have to learn even in real life, and it's one we have to learn again separately for internet interactions, for some reason. Ahh, the joys of a compartmentalising brain.


The voyage of the princess ark: Looks like this christmas, it's a step into full on western gaming as the Ark reaches Cimaroon county. They go to a saloon, endure the bawdy entertainment, watch a gunfight, and go a-prospectin for cinnabryl. There they face goblin desperados, enjoy a wagon-chase, and rescue a village of oppressed tortles from exploitative miners. Meanwhile, the Ark is trapped above the clouds by stormy weather, and faces several Heldanic warbirds. While amusing, I think this a is a step too far into direct pastichery for my tastes. You're supposed to pick and combine real world elements to make something new, not just steal straight and plonk something in without attention to the stuff around. I mildly disapprove.

Rather a grab-bag of crunchy stuff this month as well. We have deck plans and stats for Heldanic warbirds. We have info on Cimaroon. We have stats for their six-shooters, and a whole load of related skills such as staredowns and quick-drawing. As with the story part, this is entertaining, but not quite up to the standards of recent issues, as they get a bit silly. Not the series' best instalment.


V:tM gives us the anarchs cookbook. Row row fight the power, watch out for the sabbat boogeyman. Soon you'll be sidelined as people prefer to play the genuine rebels, not brats who talk big and run back to hide behind daddy's cape when things get tough.


Propping up your campaign: Hmm. This is a topic they haven't really covered before. While in LARPing, the use of props to enhance the mood is pretty much standard, it doesn't get much attention round here. About the closest is probably issue 135's reviews section, where Ken did go into detail on products which come with visual aids. So another cool idea that seems obvious gets a good filling in by Spike Y Jones. While it concentrates on modern day games, which are obviously easiest to cater for in this respect, it also mentions past and future ones as well. They don't have to be actual objects, photographs will do just fine, and are pretty easy to get hold of. (and even more so now than then with a camera in every phone and effortless copying of the digital data they're comprised of) And theres plenty of cool little things you can find in antique shops that would make good props. Even a scribbled picture is better than nothing. And there's several meta tricks you can pull, like arranging to have someone call or otherwise interfere with the game, that work really well for horror games in particular. So there is indeed quite a few ideas they've never suggested before, that can make a nice impact on the quality of your games if used sometimes. Another case of the magazine providing just what it ought to be.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 176: December 1991

part 3/6


TSR Previews: As is often the case, the start of the year sees things slow down a bit. Dragonlance is the only line getting more than one book. DLR2: Taladas: The minotaurs is another of our combined location and race splatbooks. They get the usual cool new stuff and filling in of roleplaying depth. Meanwhile, way back in time, Dark Heart sees us focus on the young life of Kitiara. How did she wind up opposing the heroes of the lance? Bad company, it looks like. Seduced by the glamour of evil. Silly silly woman.

Dark Sun gives the players a chance to play a (minor) part in the overthrowing of Kalak, in DS1: Freedom. You read the book, now enjoy the module, along with it's interesting format experiment and DM's screen. All aboard! :toot toot:

Ravenloft sees one of it's more iconic series start up. RR3: Van Richten's guide to vampires sees Nigel Findley do what he does best. Horror + Ecology = surprising win. Tons of ways to customise them, keeping them scary and mysterious for even the most powerful party.

The Forgotten realms is fairly quiet this month. MC11, their second monstrous compendium appendix, should keep your addiction fed for a while. 64 more pages of quirky creatures to challenge players with. Good luck finding places to fit them all in.


The role of computers: Another tiresome bit of explanation this month, as they remind people that they get far more letters and games than they can ever cover in this space. Don't send more ranty letters when your original one doesn't get published. They just have no luck. Phone calls in the middle of the night, games companies leaning on them to get higher marks, lying company service lines, seems their life is one wave of irritations after another. And they're hardly public figures either. This is why celebrities get secretaries and bodyguards. As 4chan has demonstrated several times, in the internet era anyone can wind up having to deal with the negative aspects of celebrity without getting all the money if they do something sufficiently notable. It's a rather thorny issue.

Heart of China is a rather pretty looking multi-pathed adventure game. Rescue the daughter of your rather unpleasant patron from an even more unpleasant oriental warlord. Time is ticking, and your initial character is predictably hotheaded and troublesome. Have fun unlocking all the different ways things can go if you use different characters and make different choices.

J. B Harold Murder Club is of course a murder mystery, where you have to interview a whole bunch of subjects and figure out whodunnit. As with the previous game, you have a lot of options, some of which are better than others. They get a bit cross about one of the cases including a rape without the box having a warning. Ah yes, the great violence/sex double standard strikes again.

Phantasy Star III doesn't get quite as good a review as II, but is still a big, interesting adventure with a multigenerational twist to it, and multiple endings as well, giving it plenty of replay value. The increases in technology are being applied to good effect at the moment.

Our conversions this month are A-10 tank killer, Thexdar, and Space quest III. Mac stuff continues to get near equal attention to the PC. I wonder if this column'll still be going when PC's have reached dominance.


Fiction: Time for an experiment by Michael G Ryan. Oooh. A time travel story where everything all slots together neatly, but things don't actually make sense until the end. Those take quite a bit of effort in writing. An elf seeks a macguffin, and goes through quite a bit of hassle to get his hands on it, including being betrayed by himself from the future in disguise, so as to ensure everything turns out as planned in the end. I think that's more than enough twists and turns to make this a very enjoyable little story. This is turning out to be quite a consistently positive issue.

 

[Orius]

Phantasy Star III doesn't get quite as good a review as II, but is still a big, interesting adventure with a multigenerational twist to it, and multiple endings as well, giving it plenty of replay value. The increases in technology are being applied to good effect at the moment.

The basic idea behind the game was actually pretty good, but not implemented very well. Either the Genesis wasn't really powerful enough to do it justice, or the development team didn't put enough work into it or both.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 176: December 1991

part 4/6


Role-playing reviews does some more boardgames. They seem to be doing that more frequently these days. Once again, it's because they like a bit of variety. And it's not as if the two things are so dissimilar that you can't learn from what works in board games. Judicious stealing is one of the easiest ways to progress through life.

The awful green things from outer space of course, is a Tom Wham creation, originally appearing in issue 28 of this very magazine. Obviously, he retained the rights to it himself, because it's now published by Steve Jackson Games. It seems to have increased in visual quality and sophistication since then, but retains it's strong sense of fun. Like most of his games, both randomness and skill play significant roles, keeping it fun and surprising through repeated play. So when exactly did he leave TSR again?

Scotland yard is another fun one suitable for short breaks. One person plays a criminal while the others play detectives hunting him down through london, both with limited movement resources and a time limit. Obviously, the more people playing, the harder it is for the criminal to win. An interesting challenge where working together is important.

Battle of the bulge is another rather familiar game, covering one of the more amusingly named battles of WWII. Set up your armies and fight, see if the Germans do any better this time around. Another one with plenty of replayability despite the seemingly limited premise.


The marvel-phile: Cut characters time here. Another year has been and gone, and 128 pages just isn't enough. So here we get to see which new characters weren't considered important enough to make the grade. La Bandera, a young mutant revolutionary with social-fu power to rouse mobs. Windshear, an insecure young British hero with control over air. And Witchfire, an apprentice nature based spellcaster who's not afraid to speak her mind. As is too often the case these days, these are characters I've never heard of before, and am unlikely to do so again, thus proving why they were the ones cut from the book. They'll be first on the chopping block next time someone like Scourge strikes. Can't work up any enthusiasm over this lot. Just another way to make up a few pages in the magazine without having to rely on freelance material.


Orcs nest wish us merry christmas in their own easily imitable fashion.


Playing in the paleozoic: We've already had extensive looks at the Mesozoic and Cenozoic eras, and the weird animals that inhabit them in the magazine. Now Greg Detwiler takes us back a little further, to fill in the paleozoic. Lot's of increasingly odd things back there being discovered as archeologists do their work. And now you can kill them and take their stuff, not that they'll have much treasure to take. Another good example of Roger's attempts to work around a subject over the years while minimising direct rehash.

Giant Opabina are exceedingly slow and rather odd looking water creatures that occupy the same kind of niche as crabs today. Their lack of armour means they aren't nearly as dangerous though. Enjoy your wading experience.

Electric Agnath may be primitive fishes, but they're hardly defenceless. The water is hardly safe, since it is where life originally came from. Watch where you step in the water.

Eurypterid are giant water scorpions. They're pretty wimpy compared to modern top predators, but they're still a decent challenge for basic set level adventurers. And if you can't breathe underwater, their grapples will have a definite home team advantage.

Eogyrinus are proto-crocodilian amphibians. Slow on land, they'll attack from ambush, and chomp your feet. Once again, they're not really that scary compared to modern animals or D&D predators. Ironically, it might actually be a good idea to start off with the more primitive eras and move forward in play.

Eryops are another slow amphibian with half-decent adaption to life on land. If they can get their teeth on you, it'll hurt, but even heavily encumbered characters'll be able to outrun them. Might not be a bad idea unless you're xp grinding.

Cyclotosarus bring things a little further along the timeline, towards reptiles taking over from amphibians. Course, not having scales, it's AC is rather lower than full crocs.

Cacops sees them start to develop half-decent land speed and protective bits on their body. They're still going to be outcompeted by things with scales, but it's not for lack of trying.

Giant Platyhystrix are one of those things that show reality is often stranger than fiction. With a dimetrodon like sail on their back, and an oddly expanded ribcage, they're better at operating on land and regulating their temperature than most cold-blooded things. But once again, that advantage will probably not be enough against a team of co-operative warm blooded tool using mammalian killers.

Estemennosuchus have an amusingly shaped hard head, and graze on stuff, occupying the same kind of niche triceratops will do a few million years later, once the size war has really taken off.

Erythrosuchus also have rather large, dinosaurian heads, and a bite to match. That's a 1 hit kill if they get a good grip on you. Not everything was wimpy back then. I'll make them suitably rare on the random encounter table.

Plus, he gives us generic stats for Armoured predatory fishes and general Therapsids. And then a bunch of random encounter tables for various terrains, so I don't even have to make my own. Along with Tom Moldvay's reexaminations of the undead, this makes this one of the longest running and most useful irregular but connected features. Now, if only they could find some game useful animals in the ediacaran period. Then we could keep this going without rehash a little longer.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 176: December 1991

part 5/6


Sage advice: Does anti-magic spell stop psionics (No, completely different type of energy)

Can a hasted psionicist use two powers per round (no. Too twinked, blah blah blah)

Does invisibility work on infravision. Does it work at night. ( yes, yes. Bored now. )

Can you disbelieve mirror image (no. Knowing it's an illusion (which is pretty obvious ) Won't help you tell which one is real )

If you polymorph an object, does it keep it's powers (as long as it's suitable to apply them. Same principle as polymorphed casters only being able to cast if they have voices and hands )

Do you have to cast 80 magic missiles to make a wand of them with 80 charges? That would take AAAAAAAges (Yes. Giving back to the adventuring community takes more effort than taking from it. Maybe now you'll appreciate the effort all those ancient wizards went too a little more. )


Novel ideas: Ah yes, the cleric Quintet. Bob Salvadore's most notable B-series, giving him a break from the Drizzt stuff while still filling in the Forgotten Realms. Starring a cleric who's not sure why he's a cleric. Also featuring a Dwarf who wants to be a druid, and communicates more effectively than many characters with a thousand times his vocabulary. A monk who would probably have been the star, were it not for the editors not wanting a class removed from the game to get too much spotlight. An imp who goes through several masters, and is quite possibly the real brains of the bad guys. And plenty of dilemmas and threats, most of which get neatly resolved at the end of each book, leaving only a few open for the next one and making sure it always seems like a happy ending, as per editorial policy. Curious business. He really doesn't want to be typecast, but TSR does want more money. Still, this did get several reprints, so it can't have been a failure, just not quite the same degree of success. Another straight bit of promotion, but quite a nice one, making the books seem quite likeable, and pointing out how the stars of each series are different from one-another. That's a welcome improvement from the usual for this column.

 

[amysrevenge]

Scotland yard is another fun one suitable for short breaks. One person plays a criminal while the others play detectives hunting him down through london, both with limited movement resources and a time limit. Obviously, the more people playing, the harder it is for the criminal to win. An interesting challenge where working together is important.

I played this one quite a bit in my younger, pre-RPG days. It was a favourite among my brother and cousins.

I think it must not have been brand new in 1991, I remember playing it earlier than that.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 176: December 1991

part 6/6


The game wizards: Great. More trading cards. Guess they're still profitable as well, as here comes next year's collection. So here's some more production details for the super geeky amongst you. The number of cards which ones were rare ones and the kind of things they tried to include this time. Lot's of odd options like kits and specialist wizards, lots of characters from specific game worlds, and quite a few original creations too. Traps, cities and a few terrible in-jokes. No end in sight here. Yawn.


Dragonmirth shows us that to attract girls, you need a really pimped out ride. Ogrek helps Yamara pack for her trip in his inimitable style. Robinson gets big chunks of his memory back in twilight empire.


Through the looking glass: The iraqi war subplot continues to be only a minor part of this column, taking up just a fraction of the first page before they get to the reviews. Like the real thing, it's turning out to be a bit of a disappointment. Looks like we won't be adding many more great battle scenarios to our repertoire any time soon.

Our minis this month are a wizard who summoned something he really wishes he didn't. A tower for another, more competent wizard. A larger castle for nearly anyone to use. Two pairs of lords and ladies to be in charge of said castles. A whole bunch of kings from various lands. And a trio of a female Ranger, Paladin and elf fighter from Julie Guthrie, bringing the badass without the cheesecake. Looks like it's back to the basic fantasy stuff this month after recent excursions to modern and cyberpunk.


The greyhawk wars boxed set. Great. Another big module that'll have metaplot reprecussions on the entire setting, invalidating big chunks of previous books. Just what we need.


An issue with lots of very good features, but rather dull regular columns. I suppose that highlights the tension between celebratory issue and business as usual. After all, christmas comes every year, so it can quite validly be both. Still, the really good presents are the ones we don't get every year. No matter how good you get, it never gets easier breaking out of your mould and trying new things. Still, if Roger has his way, we should get a few new additions to our repertoire next year. And with the halfway point of this journey within sight, I'm still willing to keep sifting for forgotten gems. To 1992!

 

[David Howery]

The awful green things from outer space of course, is a Tom Wham creation, originally appearing in issue 28 of this very magazine.

Hey, I have that one! Yeah, the board game is a hoot...

 

[Echohawk]

I think it must not have been brand new in 1991, I remember playing it earlier than that.

You are quite correct. I think Scotland Yard was first released in 1983.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 177: January 1992

part 1/6


124 pages. Another year, another special on good game mastering. Y'know, perhaps you ought to have a regular column for this kind of stuff to go with the ones for monsters, magic items and spells. Just a thought. Oh well, on with the show, with another rather nice chess themed cover drawing us in. They do seem to work quite well. Let's hope they grab potential new readers as well.

In this issue:


Waldenbooks double advertises here with some ridiculously plunging cleavage. She must have disproportionately small nipples to avoid showing even a peek of them.


Letters: As with last month, a single letter about an important topic, and it's rather long reply gets nearly all the space here. Should people be able to charge for DM'img? Roger comes down fairly strongly in the negative. It's fraught with problems, and seems likely to break up a group originally founded on friendship. It's very tricky to sell something when plenty of people are willing to give it away for free. And then there's the legal issues to consider. Making profit off their IP is exactly the kind of thing TSR has to stamp down upon. It's roughly equivalent legally to charging for playing videos to people. Best thing to do is make sure the costs for books, snacks, accommodation, etc are shared amongst the whole group, rather than one person having to bear the whole weight of putting everything together and making gaming a comfortable and enjoyable experience. Too damn right. As someone who winds up in situations where I'm putting all the effort in for very little return from others far too often for my own good, I do increasingly crave and appreciate the company of people who know how to be team players and can have work divided amongst them in a manner that makes them more productive than the sum of their parts. The individual benefits we get from working together are the true value of a society, not the money.

Oh, and Waldorf is finally officially dead for good, courtesy of an army of nilbogs. 'Bout time. That was dragged out easily as long as the dwarven beards issue. Will this truly be the end, or will april see him forced to beat this dead horse some more by public demand.


Editorial: Or see Roger try and appropriate Kinky for non-sexual purposes, and fail embarrassingly. Like middle aged people trying to spice up their sex life, or one person and their sockpuppets trying to force a meme on 4-chan, this is painful to watch, even as he tries to send a message I fully approve of. That is: try some weird games once in a while, it'll be much more fun than sticking to D&D all the time. Bunnies & Burrows, Metamorphosis Alpha, Lace & Steel; all break some of the unwritten rules of gaming and are the better for it. But once again, Gah! Major cool roll failure in the delivery. He's gonna feel the bite from that in future issues. An editorial that is highly amusing to read for all the wrong reasons.


Keeping the party going: Or how exactly did we get into this adventuring lark anyway? A question every party should have an answer to, but surprisingly many don't. And if members of the party all have different motivations arrived at without consultation, then the chances of the party being torn apart at some point increase dramatically. So this is an article strongly in favour of collaborative group character generation, with lots of examples of social groups that could be binding the party together. Be it family, religion, schooling, destiny or simply the prospect of lots of money, your choice will substantially impact the kind of missions you go on, how the characters will relate to one another, and how the campaign will progress. Another bit of roleplaying advice that seems obvious once you have it. What other figurative wheels of roleplaying design are we still missing?


That's progress: This topic, on the other hand, we've seen plenty of, both in articles and the forum. Inventing stuff is a haphazard business, as you need both ideas and the existing materials and infrastructure to implement them. (Take Leonardo da Vinci's designs for helicopters, for example) It's not as simple as just bringing an idea back from the modern day, as you should make absolutely clear to any cheeky players who try it. The physics might not be the same, the materials probably won't be optimal, especially if you're jury rigging something in the middle of a dungeon, and even when you know what you're doing, the first few times are likely to be filled with flubs. Of course, this shows up one of the substantial weaknesses in the AD&D ruleset, forcing adjudication of the success of this kind of idea to be largely handled by DM fiat. And while this article gives you plenty of real world examples, it's not particularly helpful on incorporating them into your game mechanically. Guess they can only take you half the way.