Let's read the entire run

[LordVyreth]

True, though I admit that the object's back story tends to get a little silly sometimes. I remember when I first read that article a while back about the lanterns, and I noticed that every item seemed to have the same template. "This item was made by person X. Then that person was horribly killed, and it was found by person Y. Then that person was also horribly killed, so person Z last had it. But THAT person was horribly killed or vanished mysteriously, so now we don't know where it is." Seems a bit pointless if you ask me. Like a DM will bother with any of that in lieu of just sticking it in some random treasure horde.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 180: April 1992

part 4/6


The role of computers: Last month, we saw the plight of Amiga become hinted at. This time, it's the Atari Lynx that we scent the blood of. 3 years in, and they've just sold their millionth cartridge, and have a library of 40 games. That's fewer products than D&D has managed in the same timespan. Hell, it might be fewer sales than Palladium has managed as well. Compare that to the gameboy and it all becomes a bit risible.

Castles: The northern Campaign is an expansion for the original Castles. It improves on it quite substantially, adding lots of new options on both the military and trading fronts. This pushes their verdict up to 5 stars.

Castle of Dr Brain is another educational game. It doesn't really hold up to their scrutiny, with the normal difficulty level easily completed, and no interesting ending to reward you for that.

Elvira II: The jaws of Cerberus is another one that improves on the original, with more action, better graphics, better sound, and tons of items and spells that you'll need to apply carefully to progress. Get ready to juggle that equipment list again.

Hyperspeed is another game that is left behind by the advance of technology. If it weren't for Wing commander raising the bar, this'd probably be a 5 star one. As it is, it'll just have to settle for 4.

Nova 9 is a 3D shooter. This is one area that technology is definitely having an impact on. Anyway, with both ground and space based missions, there's plenty of enemies to kill and power-ups to collect. They quite enjoy it.

The Simpsons Arcade game gets a relatively weak review, being mostly mindless combat. This is another one I burnt a ton of money on at the arcade one summer. Having got to around level 7, I really wanted to finish it, but kept on dying and ran out by around level 9. I wan't even really enjoying it that much. Repeating patterns, eh.

V for victory: battleset 1, D-day utah beach, 1944 is another 5 star one. Looks like wargames are also exploiting the new technology out there. The number of scenarios isn't huge, but the interface is very good. Still, it'll take you quite a while to do each one, so it's not wasted money.

Back to the future III gets a fail result, both on a gameplay and a technical level. Recent advances in graphics really have spoiled them, and this just feels like a cheap cash-in.


Novel ideas: Looks like they're giving the huge world-changing events a miss this year. Instead, it's sequels to their bestselling series that are getting the big fanfare, as they want to milk the cash cows without disturbing them too much. Moonshaes: the next Generation. Yet more Dragonlance prequels. Existing authors have to come back to their old works and try to recapture the magic, while new ones have to learn the history and try to fit into the existing canon. As ever, they have little bits of info on the writing process and difficulties involved, which may or may not be accurate, and will hopefully make you want to buy the stuff. As usual, this column has nothing particularly essential worth reading.


The power of the pen: It's survey time again, for approximately the 7th time in the magazine's history. What do you want more, less or about the same of? Not brilliantly phrased, as I always read everything, whether I like it or not. Nothing much else to say here. What will the replies be this time? See you in the editorial in a few months time.


The dragon's bestiary: Battering rams are another creature based on a dreadful pun name. Like the Death Sheep, they might be a bit amusing, but they can still mess your day up, and in this case, break down many obstacles as well. not with a druid who has a flock of these as an entourage.

Gorse are teeny little fairies with magic that lets them control thorn bushes. Ahh, the old spike up the arse trick. That alway's gets a giggle. Since they have only 1 hp and come in large numbers, using magic while hiding in the bushes from attack, this is definitely one a flamethrower would aid in dealing with. Looks like they're treading the fine path between humour and usefulness well this year.

Quakedancers are real thunder lizards, looking much like brontosauri, but actually causing earthquakes as a hunting mechanism. Another one that's a serious monster (with very serious damage outputs indeed as it gets bigger), but can also be a bit goofy and amusing. Still, none of these guys are disbelief suspension breaking to me. They can join the queue of monsters to use.

 

[Peraion Graufalke]

Spam post reported.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 180: April 1992

part 5/6


Sage advice has it's usual collection of questions so insane that they aren't even a joke.

I pick at your elven armour exceptions! Pick, pick, pick I say! ( You know that'll only make it worse. Yeah, it isn't the most consistent of rulings. Maybe we ought to modify it a bit. )

What's the difference between a catapult and a trebuchet ( One's a tension + release mechanism, the other's a counterweight force user. But do you really care about the physics behind it? Or do you just want to cause the maximum possible destruction? )

I need help with my 6 inch tall permanently hasted fighter-monk (You need help, full stop. Haste is not good for the body. You'll wear yourself out, keeping that on all the time. )

Can you turn the tarrasque into a bunny and eat it (yes, but it still regenerates. Persistent eating of tarrasque bunny may be hazardous to your health, particularly if it escapes. And you know what rabbits are like for mating. If it got loose and started producing tarrasque blooded rabbits, the whole world would be doomed. )

What happens if I deliberately misread all the rules, and then try and break the universe based upon my misreading ( A pair of pissed off astral dragons kill you painfully. This is gonna get really really nasty. )

How does losing an arm affect your ability to use magic items ( Common sense, you are lacking it. Err on the side of generosity, you should. )

How many gnomes can a griffon carry ( Bwahahahahaha! Oh, that's a good one, :wipes away tear: Two or three seems about right. )

Where can you put a sphere of annihilation when not using it. (anywhere you want. Not many people will be able to steal it, and those that can will laugh at mere walls. )


Fiction: Murder most fowl by Deborah Millitello. Who killed the golden goose? A comical question, but when each of it's eggs is several pounds of gold, a vital one for the stability of the economy. It could be any one of dozens of suspects, from this country or others. Intrigue runs wild. Harsh measures must be used. And the result is a rather fun little romp through fairytale land, combining whimsical fantasy with murder mystery. The answer, of course is not who you'd expect, or why. As with last month, the comedy of errors air and twist at the end works pretty well. As long as Roger doesn't pick another similar one next month, I have no problem with this.


TSR Previews: Gamma world is back! 4th edition once again tries to clean up the rules, make it more fun and accessible. Just how well they succeed is a matter of opinion.

Curiously, Marvel superheroes occupies second place, putting all the D&D stuff at the bottom. Seems like the X-men are still their biggest draw, because this is another supplement focussed upon them. MHR1: X-forces, the mutant update. As if a generalised handbook covering all the changes to existing characters each year wasn't enough. Have they been going through some kind of crisis?

On the generic AD&D side, we have DMGR4: Monster Mythology. See the weird gods various creatures worship, and what spheres and priestly levels they can get for doing so. Yet another way they can be made more 3 dimensional and scary at the same time. Also being newly ecologised is MC14: fiend folio. The 1981, erm, classic gets the remainder of it's monsters converted, and a few new ones in it's spirit added on. Don't neglect the gonzo!

Ravenloft ventures into the mists, and finds RR4: Islands of terror. If you thought the Core was claustrophobic and weird, you ain't seen nothing yet. Ripper era london, seriously ed up india, the inescapable sargasso sea, it's a crap shoot regardless of whether you stay or head back into the mists to try another one.

Dark sun, on the other hand, shows while it may be bleak, there are some people on top who are doing fairly nicely for themselves. Nice contrast really. DSR2: Dune trader deals with the frequently underhanded profiteering of the merchant groups. When things are scarce but essential, you can really put your haggling skills to work.

Spelljammer reaches volume 3 in the cloakmaster cycle. The metaplot actions of the modules reach here, putting our hero in danger from marauding goblinoids. We coulda got that if we'd just stayed on krynn.

Speaking of Krynn. The Oath and the Measure is part 4 of our meetings sextet. Sturm, Caramon and Raistlin have wacky adventures together or something. I'm betting Raistlin's pragmatism vs Sturm's idealism is a principle driver of the dialogue.

And for D&D, we have Assault on raven's ruin. You know, we get through the first few levels quicker than any of the following ones. Unless you're the kind of group which can't keep the same campaign going for more than a week or two, you'll never get any use out of all these introductory adventures.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 180: April 1992

part 6/6


Wear your best suit: Great. They still haven't fixed the gadgeteer problem in FASERIP, despite it being rather noticable way back in issues 95 & 96, where they first covered Iron Man. Guess it's up to the magazine to post an unnofficial solution that probably won't make it into the next edition anyway. This is a rather limited solution too, only covering powered armour wearers rather than equipment in general. It also reminds us how glacially slow normal advancement is under the system, when upgrading your gear really shouldn't work like regular xp. Can't say I find this one very likable, or well constructed. Keep looking for a solution guys.


The wanderers: They say "If you build a better mousetrap, the world will beat a path to your door." If you build a better wandering monster table, on the other hand, that means better monsters hanging around making a nuisance of themselves. Which might sound appealing to adventurers, but is a nuisance to people who actually have to live there. Although if the tables increase your odds of encountering a large variety of normal humans and animals, as these ones do, then they might welcome the change in their living environment. By making the encounter tables nested, you can fit a lot more in, and can also reuse them by having multiple terrain ones direct to the same other ones, only with different probabilities. Like the solo tables a bit earlier this issue, (which this would combine well with) this is evolutionary rather than revolutionary, but is a good deal more elegant than the d12 + d8 tables, with the probabilities easy to figure and adjust on the fly, and more able to throw up a variety of surprises that keep your game from getting stale. These little design tricks definitely deserve consideration. And it allows you to come close to including the entire ecology of an area in your random tables, which also means you could probably increase the frequency of your rolls without breaking the game by having the players face too many killer encounters. Applying this would have lots of little knock-on effects, probably for the better. I shall try to remember it when I next design random encounter tables.


Dragonmirth is a bit creepy really. Yamara gets a new home courtesy of Ogrek. Twilight empire gets out of the fire and into the tentacle monster. Not really an improvement.


Through the looking glass: SCUD missiles. Aka scary enemy boogeyman 1991 edition. Once again I say, what a complete letdown compared to the cold war. Still, it's not as pathetic as the supposed terrorists of the 00's (less than one successful attack a year worldwide is a joke to someone who grew up with the IRA around. ) The media really do have very little sense of proportion. Still, I'm sure it was scary for the soldiers involved. (even if more of them ended up with long-term problems from our own chemical crap than enemy attacks. ) Funny that the biggest reminders of the big world outside the magazine should be coming from the Mini's and computer game columns.

Our minis this month go back to mixing fantasy and sci-fi. A wall of skulls, which I'd probably get more use out of than this reviewer. A ghostly skeleton, or skeletal ghost, however you want to play it. A dragon that should tower over standard sized minis nicely. A centaur archer. A cleric, a witch and a dwarf. (walk into a bar. The witch changes the bar into a frog as revenge, which causes the house to collapse. The cleric heals them, and the dwarf rebuilds the house. Everyone lives happily ever after. ) A futuristic hovercraft, and two battletech mechs. All get between 4 and 5 stars. He really isn't pushing himself in this respect.


This time they actually remembered to scan the trading cards in. Which is nice. They're also using mostly original characters this time. However, this does result in a very noticeable drop in the artwork quality, as they don't spring the same kind of money as they do for the various book covers they recycled from for the previous set. Say hello to Foleas, Alvestar Jankins, Aurora, Guido del Confuso, Mellenea, Zinnabar Albbee, "Slipper Kindric", "Thallios", Chobin"the punkster", Darwell Tectite, Aruthir, Jastus, Hm-boye, Lady Wendolyn of Gaunt, Reptilla Half-elven, Phun Ach-mana Phun, and Delynn Rosabell. Dragonlance, Spelljammer, Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms are all represented. Many of them have kits, all alignments are represented, there's a psionicist, and they all have at least token attempts at personalities. Pretty decent demographic collection. I wonder how many of them are from games by the writers and how many are whipped up wholecloth. This series seems unlikely to end soon, but diminishing returns are starting to set in. They need to do something more than just trading to keep people interested.


As befits the middle issue, this is indeed a very middling issue indeed, with a medium amount of april goofiness between the full specials and the ones that cut it out, an even mix of articles with cool developments and tedious rehashed ones, and a moderate amount of non RPGing diversions. As is often the case, they seem to have gone for the approach that they can't please everyone all the time, but by casting a broad net, at least one article each month should be pleasing to you. Hopefully that theory will continue to hold water for a while longer.

 

[(un)reason]

Ok, It's a new month, let's start working myself back towards full speed

Dragon Magazine Issue 181: May 1992

part 1/8


124 pages. Once more with the magical crunchiness with no theme more focussed than that. It's getting so common as to be barely worth mentioning as a topic. And yet despite the frequency of submissions of this sort, they're all pretty firmly stuck in the standard D&D magic paradigm. One of those things that makes it very clear why the 90's were a troublesome time for them. If you stay the same while the world changes, you get left behind. Still, they do make one useful little format change this issue. The various review columns get grouped together in the contents page, making them easier to locate and reducing the recent tendency of this bit to turn into just another wall of text. (the .pdf formatting follows in it's wake, which is also nice. ) So they are moving forward, just not as much as they probably need to be. I shall not be so patient, however. I fully intend to push myself to get the second half of this trek done faster than the first half.

In this issue:


Letters: Timothy B. Brown complains about the picking apart of his Dark Sun spell frequency math. These flaws were intentional! You would ruin the game if you changed it! Ha and ha again.

A letter praising their top quality fiction. Damn right. Haven't i been finding the same thing for years now, the average fiction quality is actually better than the average game material quality. Roger, of course, sends all the praise to his sub-editors. I'm sure they have to sift through a lot of crap to keep things this way.

A letter telling people to send in the adventures they spend ages working on to Dungeon if they want financial recompensation. That isn't going to work as well as you think, I'm afraid. They already get a lot more submissions than they can publish. Welcome to reality, where earning money doing things you love is really hard.


Editorial: Roger tries once again to push our gaming boundaries, proving as usual that he's a good deal more progressive than most of the material he gets. This time it's politics, and the lack of it in too many games that is his pet peeve. Once you get monsters of a certain power level, the impact they have upon the world automatically becomes a political issue, even if they themselves couldn't care less about the effect they're having on the puny humans. If your campaign lacks the epicness and emotional attachment of LotR, it may well be because you're neglecting that area, with people maintaining a nebulous status quo effortlessly despite all the monsters roaming around the world. He also exaggerates a little to demonstrate that personal power and political do not have to be linked, and you can do all sorts of clever things with long-term plans. (even if you have to retroactively make some of the details up to make the characters as intelligent as they should be. ) You can set your players at the centre of an epic and give them a decent amount of agency while still having an idea where the game will go in the long-term. He even makes it sound easy. Course I know from personal experience, it isn't quite that easy, but it's still a desirable goal to aim for. Nice to see him still aiming for the stars.


Sorcery & Strategy: Recently, we've had an article that went into tactics as performed by fighters in a relatively realistic world. Course, in D&D, spellcasters provide the majority of the really interesting tactical and strategic options, and even one makes a huge difference to the battle flow. And it's not just in their ability to inflict large quantities of area damage with a good fireball or lightning bolt. Thomas M. Kane points out that the buffing and defensive powers are actually more useful, especially once you get to higher levels and the enemies are pretty likely to resist direct effects cast at them. If you know what you're doing, you should be using divinations and terrain effects to ensure you're stacking the odds in your favour before the enemy even knows you're there. Once again we see the advantages specialists have in finding a useful niche in larger society, as he gives us some sample characters, their spell lists and normal tactics. With a nice mix of very specific detail, and principles that are applicable to any system, this is another strong delivery from forumite Thomas M. Kane. It could definitely have gone into more detail on the combat applications of clerics though. They're even more useful to an army, as they have all the healing and food effects, and aren't so squishy. Guess once again the magazine might have good material, but it's still limited in it's range.

 

[JLowder]

Dragon Magazine Issue 180: April 1992

Fiction: Murder most fowl by Deborah Millitello. Who killed the golden goose? A comical question, but when each of it's eggs is several pounds of gold, a vital one for the stability of the economy. It could be any one of dozens of suspects, from this country or others. Intrigue runs wild. Harsh measures must be used. And the result is a rather fun little romp through fairytale land, combining whimsical fantasy with murder mystery. The answer, of course is not who you'd expect, or why. As with last month, the comedy of errors air and twist at the end works pretty well. As long as Roger doesn't pick another similar one next month, I have no problem with this.

Barbara Young was really the person in charge of fiction for Dragon at this point--and for a large part of the magazine's run.

Cheers,
Jim Lowder

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 181: May 1992

part 2/8


Pages from the mages finally gives up trying to keep track of how many articles they've had. We have too many wizards! And they're all researching spells! Any time now we'll have another magical apocalypse that'll take a few centuries to rebuild from. Still, we have a definite formula by now. 4 spellbooks, each with 4 new spells in, for a total of 16 new spells. The only question is how cool and groundbreaking they are.

Galadasters Orizon is just a small part of the unique knowledge of a particularly ruthless and obnoxious lich who is still at large in Faerun and needs a good arsekicking. Now there's an easy adventure hook for you. The spells are similarly direct combat ones. Firestaff lets a wizard kick substantially more ass in hand to hand combat. Slumberward makes you immune to magical sleep, although the duration is probably a bit too short for it to make it a really good utility buff. Geirdon's grappling grasp lets you counteract the various bigby's hand spells, and engage in generalised grappling, of course. Morganava's sting is the only real clunker, as it's actually quite a bit weaker than vampiric touch overall, yet higher level. Someone didn't roll too well on their research attempts.

The Arcanabula of Jume is one of those spellbooks that teleports away randomly on a semiregular basis, ensuring that it's information doesn't stay with any one person, but is instead spread across the whole Realms. It's spells are similarly playful. Dark mirror lets you send magical darkness back against it's originator. Now there's a spell that's only going to be of limited use unless you know your enemy has a fetish for that kind of magic. Shadow hand is another rather underpowered device, that seems to be an attempt to compensate for illusionist's lack of evocations by making a semireal manipulator. Prismatic eye is a wizard's eye that can shoot color sprays. It too is mainly hampered by a too short range and duration for really effective spying, but is pretty decent as an additional attention drawer in combat. Shadow gauntlet is yet another failed attempt to make an all purpose manipulator, that looks pathetic next to the likes of disintegrate and flesh to stone. Ed seems to be seriously off his game at power level gauging today.

Laeral's Libram is a little spellbook lost by our friendly planehopping sorceress. I'm sure she'd be quite happy to have it returned to her. It only has a few spells, but the standard 4 of them are new ones. Forcewave is another one that seems weak initially. A second level spell that's less damaging and reliable than magic missile? Well, the prospect of pushing an enemy off a ledge does have the potential to do a LOT more damage, so I'll forgive that this time. Laeral's aqueous column lets you create cylinders of water through air, making diplomacy with aquatic creatures a lot easier, and having a whole bunch of creative uses. Jhanifer's deliquescence lets you melt things, even those that aren't intended to be melted. The details are deliberately left vague so he can exploit them later. Blackstaff is Khelben Arunsun's signature spell, so well known he doesn't even have to remind everyone by putting his name in front. It can drain your HP permanently, mind you, disrupts both magic and psionics, and is near impossible to affect. Now that's one that does justify it's high level with both power and versatility.

Tasso's Arcanabula is the product of an illusionist and thief, playing around with the limits of their specialist restrictions. Tasso's shriek lets you prerecord your audible illusions and set them running surreptitiously, which is pretty handy for a low level trickster who doesn't want people realising they're a spellcaster. Shadow bolt is a semireal attack that works like an upgraded magic missile, and still does half damage if you disbelieve it. Shadow Skeletons are another semireal one that let you imitate a necromancer quite nicely, albeit not as effectively as the real thing. And Chromatic Blade lets you deal with prismatic barriers without memorising half a dozen very specific spells, and is a pretty badass weapon in it's own right. So lots of neat spells here, but also more than a few noob traps that you should steer well clear of. The writing does also feel increasingly formulaic, making this rather less thrilling reading than the previous instalments.


That's certainly un-familiar: Upgrading your familiar. Yeah, that's a much needed capability, and it's no surprise at all that a certain degree of autoprogression was built into 3e familiars. So here we see a moderately influential, but very useful article indeed. Familiar enhancer I-VIII are level 2-9 spells, which means every time you get access to a new spell level, you can cast the next one to make your familiar smarter, more powerful, and more closely bonded with you. There is a lot of randomness involved in determining exactly what powers you get, which may or may not be pleasing to you, but most of the powers are pretty useful, and some of the high level ones are very cool. I can see this becoming a staple of quite a few people's character building. And isn't this exactly what the magazine should be producing. There are a few wanky bits, (I'm throwing out the once in a lifetime bit straight away, if your familiar dies, you should be able to upgrade the next one too) but I like this a lot and intend to make it available as an option to my players.

 

[amysrevenge]

That's certainly un-familiar: Upgrading your familiar. Yeah, that's a much needed capability, and it's no surprise at all that a certain degree of autoprogression was built into 3e familiars. So here we see a moderately influential, but very useful article indeed. Familiar enhancer I-VIII are level 2-9 spells, which means every time you get access to a new spell level, you can cast the next one to make your familiar smarter, more powerful, and more closely bonded with you. There is a lot of randomness involved in determining exactly what powers you get, which may or may not be pleasing to you, but most of the powers are pretty useful, and some of the high level ones are very cool. I can see this becoming a staple of quite a few people's character building. And isn't this exactly what the magazine should be producing. There are a few wanky bits, (I'm throwing out the once in a lifetime bit straight away, if your familiar dies, you should be able to upgrade the next one too) but I like this a lot and intend to make it available as an option to my players.

Here's another one that I remember having a photocopy of (or maybe even the real issue, I've lost some of my back issues). It was the default for us, not really optional.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 181: May 1992

part 3/8


Bazaar of the Bizarre: Another oriental submission? You honour us with your great generosity, oh kind freelancer. Let me put it on the shelf with all the others.

Dragon Bones are what they say they are, and enhance your divinatory abilities. Yet another useful item you can make if you can kill a dragon, along with the armour, teeth, etc etc. Someone ought to compile all the magic items that require dragon parts in their construction and figure out exactly how many you could get from a single dragon.

Celestial Fury is a intelligent katana that may well be more trouble than it's worth. With the spirit of a rampaging dragon trapped inside, it brings thunderstorms wherever it goes, and is very blatant indeed in battle. It really gives a good definition to the idea of overkill and would be pretty scary in the hands of a villain. Emrikol the chaotic approves.


The voyage of the princess ark: Bellayne gets the spotlight upon it properly this issue. Thankfully, the conflict remains civilized. A myoshiman rakasta happens to be visiting, and of course reacts badly to myojo. But they decide to settle things in a sporting manner, with a little rat hunting. We see that while they may be civilized cat people around here, they're still cat people, with all the amusing instincts that entails. Once again, this is a fairly quiet episode for Haldemar & co, but there's lots of little character building bits, which is nice. They get to enjoy a banquet of stuffed giant rat, which is probably nicer than it sounds, and the ladies get to play with balls of wool Once again I am conflicted between liking the cool stuff, and rolling my eyes at the silliness, which is a lot more noticable now than first time around. Ahh, the dreadful curse of maturity. Preventing you from getting enjoyment from the childish things you used to love.

On the OOC side, we have the usual travelogue of the place. History, population, gods, animals. We also finally get the rules for rakasta and lupin PC's. They take a different tack from the usual demihuman races, having the full range of classes available to humans, albeit at a quite substantial XP surcharge and penalty. They will be quite a bit more powerful at starting level, and then gradually fall behind, but they can still keep up way after dwarves and elves have maxed out their capabilities. This is an interesting development. We haven't seen many races with unlimited advancement in all classes around. I guess that since they also included 36 level progressions for the demihuman races as an option in the Rules Cyclopedia, there are a number of people who approve of the idea. It'll take a while to percolate through to general use though.

The letters also has an interesting thought. Why should characters with high ability scores get a further bonus in the form of XP bonuses. This is totally unfair. What if it was the other way around. Hmm. Another thing worth considering. And once again, this place covers stuff that would considerably change the game if implemented. Bruce is certainly pushing at the boundaries of what you can do with D&D, almost single-handedly. Just how much further can he go before burning out or running into some managmental obstacle?