LordVyreth
First Post
She must have learned the "Protection From Own Clothes" spell then. That one's bound to be a hit. She can even share it with all the fighters who insist on sticking spikes everywhere on their armor.
Let's read the entire run
(un)reason
Legend
Dragon Magazine Issue 258: April 1999
part 3/7
Sage advice: How much holy water is in a standard vial (half a pint. Individually, they may not weigh much, but they soon add up.)
Booze is a bitch. Would you give into temptation when dying of dehydration? ( Quite possibly. It's complicated. )
Can you get rid of poison by hasting someone (no. The aging is physical strain, not actual time passing. It does not heal you. or progress any stuff that would progress in a real year's aging. Trying to work logically from that assumption in any way will just waste your time. Casting it on children is a very bad idea. This stuff'll burn you out faster than crystal meth. They don't call it adventurer's crack for nothing. )
Why the hell did you remove the subdual rules from dragons. Were you making a political statement? (No. We standardized the rules, so now they apply to everyone. No more (well, less) exception based design. That's a good thing! )
Don't the planescape rules essentially make everyone immortal (no, because petitioners lose their memories and class abilities. They're about as you as you would be if you were reincarnated. )
Can you get magic resistance, cast anti-magic shell on yourself, then resist it and cast spells through it (No. It either works or it doesn't. You can't have your cake and eat it too. )
How much does a 2x4 board cost (not much)
Is a halfling falling on someone a missile (No, it's a charge.)
How do you get your hand in a 2 inch wide pouch (turn it sideways)
What happens to the energy undead drain (off to the negative energy plane it goes. Schlorp schlorp entropy consumes a little more of the universe)
Does casting call lightning within obscurement electrify the whole cloud (no. Just apply the RAW, stop trying to use real world physics. This applies to any other spells your players try to "creatively interpret" as well. Just say no to physics, kids! )
What happens if a nymph has kids with my character (boys are your race, girls are theirs. They're like those weird amazonian fishes. No need to worry about weird half-breeds here.)
How can I improve my olde english vocabulary (LARP moar)
You said you can't catch arrows. My friend so can and he has the scars to prove it. (Skip hardly thinks stopping an arrow by having it go through the middle of your palm counts as catching. In any case, D&D isn't a martial arts game. Go play something else if you want to pull stunts like that. )
part 3/7
Sage advice: How much holy water is in a standard vial (half a pint. Individually, they may not weigh much, but they soon add up.)
Booze is a bitch. Would you give into temptation when dying of dehydration? ( Quite possibly. It's complicated. )
Can you get rid of poison by hasting someone (no. The aging is physical strain, not actual time passing. It does not heal you. or progress any stuff that would progress in a real year's aging. Trying to work logically from that assumption in any way will just waste your time. Casting it on children is a very bad idea. This stuff'll burn you out faster than crystal meth. They don't call it adventurer's crack for nothing. )
Why the hell did you remove the subdual rules from dragons. Were you making a political statement? (No. We standardized the rules, so now they apply to everyone. No more (well, less) exception based design. That's a good thing! )
Don't the planescape rules essentially make everyone immortal (no, because petitioners lose their memories and class abilities. They're about as you as you would be if you were reincarnated. )
Can you get magic resistance, cast anti-magic shell on yourself, then resist it and cast spells through it (No. It either works or it doesn't. You can't have your cake and eat it too. )
How much does a 2x4 board cost (not much)
Is a halfling falling on someone a missile (No, it's a charge.)
How do you get your hand in a 2 inch wide pouch (turn it sideways)
What happens to the energy undead drain (off to the negative energy plane it goes. Schlorp schlorp entropy consumes a little more of the universe)
Does casting call lightning within obscurement electrify the whole cloud (no. Just apply the RAW, stop trying to use real world physics. This applies to any other spells your players try to "creatively interpret" as well. Just say no to physics, kids! )
What happens if a nymph has kids with my character (boys are your race, girls are theirs. They're like those weird amazonian fishes. No need to worry about weird half-breeds here.)
How can I improve my olde english vocabulary (LARP moar)
You said you can't catch arrows. My friend so can and he has the scars to prove it. (Skip hardly thinks stopping an arrow by having it go through the middle of your palm counts as catching. In any case, D&D isn't a martial arts game. Go play something else if you want to pull stunts like that. )
(un)reason
Legend
Dragon Magazine Issue 258: April 1999
part 4/7
Mage vs Machine: Hmm. This might not be as long as last issue's special feature, but it is considerably more special. We've had the odd intrusion of sci-fi into D&D, but not for a while. And this has the potential to fill quite a few more sessions than Barrier Peaks, despite being only half the size. Machine life appearing from another planet or dimension and trying to take over the world may not be inherently evil, but it is going to cause substantial disruption to the natural order, and make druids and rangers in particular rather pissed off. This gives you one of two options. You can declare them anathema, and do your best to eradicate them from the world, or you can figure out how to have organic and technological things live alongside one-another, and hybridise into cyborgs and cool stuff like that. I'd obviously incline towards the cyberware option, but this gives you the option for either or both to exist in your campaign. They detail 4 different kinds of machine life, 3 low level and one massive robotic destroyer, with the intent that they form a larger hive structure and work together to explore and tactically defeat organic life. And on the player's side, we have two new wizard kits, one dedicated to destroying them, and one dedicated to understanding them, and never the twain shall share a party; 7 new nonweapon proficiencies to allow you to understand how they work and take advantage of that, 7 new spells to help you detect and interfere with them, and 9 technological artifacts for players to salvage after defeating the creatures. This is both a substantial and rather pleasing article, that does stuff they haven't done before, but still leaves room for further expansion. I think this actually counts as a classic article, that opens up new avenues for them. That definitely deserves some pretty strong praise.
Wizard societies: Didn't we just have some secret societies 2 issues ago? Well, I suppose this theme is suitable for all classes, except maybe clerics, who's loyalty to their god is supposed to supercede anything else, and unless they're a particularly strange god, they want everyone to know openly so they can get more worshippers. Still, there is the issue of diminishing returns here. There's also the issue that this isn't as mechanically robust as the previous set of examples, and most of them are obviously intended purely as NPC adversaries rather than useful for PC's. So this is one of those articles that isn't terrible, but does suffer quite a bit by contrast. I prefer the previous implementation, plus this feels like another good example of their willingness to rehash lately, so I'm not satisfied by this.
Nodwick gets a two page spread featuring the Little tomb of horrors (bop she bop, trangalang lang, look out, out out Look OUT!, etc) Can you guess who gets screwed over the most? Can you? I think you can. He really ought to switch sides. At least Acererak is a decent conversationalist.
part 4/7
Mage vs Machine: Hmm. This might not be as long as last issue's special feature, but it is considerably more special. We've had the odd intrusion of sci-fi into D&D, but not for a while. And this has the potential to fill quite a few more sessions than Barrier Peaks, despite being only half the size. Machine life appearing from another planet or dimension and trying to take over the world may not be inherently evil, but it is going to cause substantial disruption to the natural order, and make druids and rangers in particular rather pissed off. This gives you one of two options. You can declare them anathema, and do your best to eradicate them from the world, or you can figure out how to have organic and technological things live alongside one-another, and hybridise into cyborgs and cool stuff like that. I'd obviously incline towards the cyberware option, but this gives you the option for either or both to exist in your campaign. They detail 4 different kinds of machine life, 3 low level and one massive robotic destroyer, with the intent that they form a larger hive structure and work together to explore and tactically defeat organic life. And on the player's side, we have two new wizard kits, one dedicated to destroying them, and one dedicated to understanding them, and never the twain shall share a party; 7 new nonweapon proficiencies to allow you to understand how they work and take advantage of that, 7 new spells to help you detect and interfere with them, and 9 technological artifacts for players to salvage after defeating the creatures. This is both a substantial and rather pleasing article, that does stuff they haven't done before, but still leaves room for further expansion. I think this actually counts as a classic article, that opens up new avenues for them. That definitely deserves some pretty strong praise.
Wizard societies: Didn't we just have some secret societies 2 issues ago? Well, I suppose this theme is suitable for all classes, except maybe clerics, who's loyalty to their god is supposed to supercede anything else, and unless they're a particularly strange god, they want everyone to know openly so they can get more worshippers. Still, there is the issue of diminishing returns here. There's also the issue that this isn't as mechanically robust as the previous set of examples, and most of them are obviously intended purely as NPC adversaries rather than useful for PC's. So this is one of those articles that isn't terrible, but does suffer quite a bit by contrast. I prefer the previous implementation, plus this feels like another good example of their willingness to rehash lately, so I'm not satisfied by this.
Nodwick gets a two page spread featuring the Little tomb of horrors (bop she bop, trangalang lang, look out, out out Look OUT!, etc) Can you guess who gets screwed over the most? Can you? I think you can. He really ought to switch sides. At least Acererak is a decent conversationalist.
LordVyreth
First Post
This is one of my favorite articles, too, and definitely the one I used the most in my games from the pre-3rd edition issues. I never used the exact setting specified here, but I love juxtapositions of different settings and genres, and I ended up using the Sheens in both of my last campaigns. In the first, they were part of a lost civilization the characters were exploring. I had some neat puzzles in that one; watching D&D characters try to figure out a computer interface was great fun. In the second, their world was pretty much all just magic, but they found a house that existed between dimensions and loved hosting parties. They fought with a render sheen (the big) one and one of them got killed by its "breath" weapon. Don't worry; it all happened in virtual reality. But that's a long story.
(un)reason
Legend
Dragon Magazine Issue 258: April 1999
part 5/7
Wyrms of the north: Ed draws on a less common trope this month, that of identical twins who pretend to be a single person, which allows them to seem smarter, more prepared, and more omnipresent than any one creature, however active. This becomes particular scary for dragons, when combined with invisibility, trap-setting and long range communication. So this month's dragon(s) aren't the scariest Ed's ever detailed, but they are a real Gotcha! moment if played right, with each having different sets of prepared spells and magical items, and more than enough intelligence to use them tactically. In addition, plenty of effort is put into showing how their personalities contrast, but still have plenty of similarities, and how they'll likely interact with PC's. Twice the fun, hopefully more than twice the number of encounters, which also means more efficient use of page count.
The ecology of the flail snail: Last april, the monster hunters association failed to get the better of flumphs. They still haven't lived that down, or properly replenished their coffers either. This year, it's the flail snail, another oft-mocked monster, that is their target. Far more than last time, this is played for laughs, with the humour becoming increasingly broad and character based, and the monster being almost an afterthought. Even the footnotes have jokes in them. It's still just about usable, but this is a bit too far towards straight-out zaniness for my tastes. Really, if they carry on like this, their organisation'll break down completely in a few episodes. I don't approve.
Rogues gallery finally moves to another setting, giving Ravenloft a turn. They've had another fairly interesting time lately, with Lord Soth losing his hold on his domain, and eventually losing it altogether to his lieutenant. And most of this is covered in another novel by James Lowder. So let's take a look at the characters that drove this nasty conflict.
Azrael Dak is the foul-tempered werebadger dwarf that'll wind up in charge when the dust settles. With him at the reins, the elves of Sithicus are going to find their lives even more unpleasant than before. And as he has an item that lets him hear anywhere in the domain, it's not easy to conspire against him. As usual in Ravenloft, you're probably screwed, and it's the style with which you face your fate that'll determine if you live, die, or become a cursed abomination for the rest of eternity.
Inza Magdova Kulchevich is a decidedly tricksy Vistani wizard/thief who's spoiled rotten by her mum, and has no hesitation in manipulating and stealing from anyone she encounters. It's people like her that give the gypsies a bad name. She's also bad with animals, which is a real red light to anyone with any common sense. I'd definitely steer well clear of those kind of wiles.
The Bloody Cobbler slices the soles off bad people's feet, and then uses them to make shoes for those who need a little help getting back on the moral path. So he's essentially one of those mysterious supernatural beings of dubious morality responsible for Ravenloft being a place of ironic punishment for your misdeeds. This also means he isn't screwed like the Darklords are. Interesting. This adds new shades of grey to their decidedly dark worldbuilding.
The Whispering Beast is another ironic hunter, targeting liars and oathbreakers for extended psychological torture before finally taking them away. This of course helps to spread his legend in a way a quick response wouldn't. Both seem pretty true to the kinds of legends they're trying to emulate, and very suitable for use in actual play. After all, PC's are bound to screw up at some point, and if not, there's always the NPC's they're connected too. Their power levels seem about right to make them scary but not unbeatable as well.
part 5/7
Wyrms of the north: Ed draws on a less common trope this month, that of identical twins who pretend to be a single person, which allows them to seem smarter, more prepared, and more omnipresent than any one creature, however active. This becomes particular scary for dragons, when combined with invisibility, trap-setting and long range communication. So this month's dragon(s) aren't the scariest Ed's ever detailed, but they are a real Gotcha! moment if played right, with each having different sets of prepared spells and magical items, and more than enough intelligence to use them tactically. In addition, plenty of effort is put into showing how their personalities contrast, but still have plenty of similarities, and how they'll likely interact with PC's. Twice the fun, hopefully more than twice the number of encounters, which also means more efficient use of page count.
The ecology of the flail snail: Last april, the monster hunters association failed to get the better of flumphs. They still haven't lived that down, or properly replenished their coffers either. This year, it's the flail snail, another oft-mocked monster, that is their target. Far more than last time, this is played for laughs, with the humour becoming increasingly broad and character based, and the monster being almost an afterthought. Even the footnotes have jokes in them. It's still just about usable, but this is a bit too far towards straight-out zaniness for my tastes. Really, if they carry on like this, their organisation'll break down completely in a few episodes. I don't approve.
Rogues gallery finally moves to another setting, giving Ravenloft a turn. They've had another fairly interesting time lately, with Lord Soth losing his hold on his domain, and eventually losing it altogether to his lieutenant. And most of this is covered in another novel by James Lowder. So let's take a look at the characters that drove this nasty conflict.
Azrael Dak is the foul-tempered werebadger dwarf that'll wind up in charge when the dust settles. With him at the reins, the elves of Sithicus are going to find their lives even more unpleasant than before. And as he has an item that lets him hear anywhere in the domain, it's not easy to conspire against him. As usual in Ravenloft, you're probably screwed, and it's the style with which you face your fate that'll determine if you live, die, or become a cursed abomination for the rest of eternity.
Inza Magdova Kulchevich is a decidedly tricksy Vistani wizard/thief who's spoiled rotten by her mum, and has no hesitation in manipulating and stealing from anyone she encounters. It's people like her that give the gypsies a bad name. She's also bad with animals, which is a real red light to anyone with any common sense. I'd definitely steer well clear of those kind of wiles.
The Bloody Cobbler slices the soles off bad people's feet, and then uses them to make shoes for those who need a little help getting back on the moral path. So he's essentially one of those mysterious supernatural beings of dubious morality responsible for Ravenloft being a place of ironic punishment for your misdeeds. This also means he isn't screwed like the Darklords are. Interesting. This adds new shades of grey to their decidedly dark worldbuilding.
The Whispering Beast is another ironic hunter, targeting liars and oathbreakers for extended psychological torture before finally taking them away. This of course helps to spread his legend in a way a quick response wouldn't. Both seem pretty true to the kinds of legends they're trying to emulate, and very suitable for use in actual play. After all, PC's are bound to screw up at some point, and if not, there's always the NPC's they're connected too. Their power levels seem about right to make them scary but not unbeatable as well.
(un)reason
Legend
Dragon Magazine Issue 258: April 1999
part 6/7
Role models decides to go sci-fi, and immediately bumps into a fairly significant issue. Since the last time they had minis coverage, they completely cut out non WotC games. And since Alternity is only recently out, and they don't have an official licenced minis line to go with it, this make it rather tricky to find appropriate minis. So you'll have to improvise, and incorporate stuff from other gamelines, or even (shock!) generic models. If anything is emblematic of their closing horizons around this point, it's that kind of attitude. They do also have some useful advice on using minis in game and representing cover without actually having terrain minis mitigates this a little, but this still feels very limited and a bit insubstantial. At this rate, they'll go the way of the reviews before too long, and then I'll have even less variety of stuff to cover. Boo.
PC Portraits: This column does sci-fi characters as well this month. Which means the standard demihuman races get eschewed for various alien types, including a grey with silly hair, a weren, two reptilian things, a guy with a cybernetic third eye, and a whole bunch of other humans with interesting fashion choices. I think this is one that would really benefit from showing their upper body as well as their heads. That's a perfectly valid portrait form. But they've made their format, and they're sticking too it. As with the editorial, I can't help but think the magazine would be better if it was a little less formulaic.
No one can hear you scream: Alternity goes horror? Well, it's a valid topic, but since they only had one joke article this month, while this is the second horror one, I feel a little put out. Are their proportions of submissions really so skewed at the moment? Thankfully, it's not all straight conversions from D&D, although the fear, horror and madness rules from Ravenloft are pretty much identical. The monsters on the other hand, are far more sci-fi appropriate, with effort made to make them horrific in an Alien or Event Horizon way, rather than a dracula and the wolfman way. Body horror is very appropriate when combined with mutations and cybernetics, while other dimensions don't stop being viscerally bizarre because you know the rules on how to get there and back. James Wyatt seems to be improving, because this was not only highly useful, but didn't tip over into being silly at all. He's sticking to his niche, while also expanding it. That's how you gradually take over.
Dragonmirth has much to regret this april. KotDT has another player revolt, even though the DM is entirely playing by the rules.
part 6/7
Role models decides to go sci-fi, and immediately bumps into a fairly significant issue. Since the last time they had minis coverage, they completely cut out non WotC games. And since Alternity is only recently out, and they don't have an official licenced minis line to go with it, this make it rather tricky to find appropriate minis. So you'll have to improvise, and incorporate stuff from other gamelines, or even (shock!) generic models. If anything is emblematic of their closing horizons around this point, it's that kind of attitude. They do also have some useful advice on using minis in game and representing cover without actually having terrain minis mitigates this a little, but this still feels very limited and a bit insubstantial. At this rate, they'll go the way of the reviews before too long, and then I'll have even less variety of stuff to cover. Boo.
PC Portraits: This column does sci-fi characters as well this month. Which means the standard demihuman races get eschewed for various alien types, including a grey with silly hair, a weren, two reptilian things, a guy with a cybernetic third eye, and a whole bunch of other humans with interesting fashion choices. I think this is one that would really benefit from showing their upper body as well as their heads. That's a perfectly valid portrait form. But they've made their format, and they're sticking too it. As with the editorial, I can't help but think the magazine would be better if it was a little less formulaic.
No one can hear you scream: Alternity goes horror? Well, it's a valid topic, but since they only had one joke article this month, while this is the second horror one, I feel a little put out. Are their proportions of submissions really so skewed at the moment? Thankfully, it's not all straight conversions from D&D, although the fear, horror and madness rules from Ravenloft are pretty much identical. The monsters on the other hand, are far more sci-fi appropriate, with effort made to make them horrific in an Alien or Event Horizon way, rather than a dracula and the wolfman way. Body horror is very appropriate when combined with mutations and cybernetics, while other dimensions don't stop being viscerally bizarre because you know the rules on how to get there and back. James Wyatt seems to be improving, because this was not only highly useful, but didn't tip over into being silly at all. He's sticking to his niche, while also expanding it. That's how you gradually take over.
Dragonmirth has much to regret this april. KotDT has another player revolt, even though the DM is entirely playing by the rules.
(un)reason
Legend
Dragon Magazine Issue 258: April 1999
part 7/7
TSR Previews: D&D's been building up with quickstarts for the past few months. Now they get a new core boxed set. Bill Slavisek is the guy responsible this time. Once again, newbie friendliness seems to be the primary selling point. No great change there. Sigh.
AD&D, meanwhile, goes back to mining the little tidbits from the corebooks and expanding them into full adventures in an attempt to lure us in by hitting the nostalgia buttons. The Axe of the Dwarvish Lords is the latest artifact to accumulate a prefab epic plot around it.
The Realms does some planar crossovering in The Glass Prison by Monte Cook. A half-demon comes to the realms and has to fight his darker nature. Someone wants to make another fran-chise.
Alternity, unusually, gets 3 books this month. Tangents is a book on alternate universes. Infinite possibilities, infinite ways things could go wrong. Fun fun fun. There's also Threats from Beyond, for those of you who'd prefer alien invasion, and Starfall, a bunch of short stories. This seems pretty positive.
Marvel superheroes follows up on the Fantastic Four suppement with Fantastic Voyages, a set of adventures tailored for them. Dr Doom, the Skrulls, possibly even mole men. They do seem to be concentrating on prefab stuff a lot more than last time round here as well.
ProFiles looks stupid again. They could at least be consistent. Unsurprisingly, given his appearance on the cover, Todd Lockwood is our profilee this month. He's had a long association with D&D, first appearing in in issue 22's Mapping the Dungeons as a person looking for a gaming group. He first contributed to the magazine in issue 36, doing both the art and writing for the Krolli. He made occasional contributions since then, while pursuing a day job in general commercial illustration, but recently has started doing regular work for the D&D crew. A somewhat unusual career path, in that it's taken him this long to really become a known name. Of course there's bigger and better to come, as he comes to be if anything, the artist that really defines 3rd edition. But this shows that if you keep plugging away, and honing your craft, your career can take off at the oddest times. Just make sure you're ready to capitalize on this fact. One of our most interesting profiles ever. And he still looks pretty handsome as well. Definitely one to respect, even if his work isn't to your taste.
As with issue 142, despite the page count only being about 80% of normal, it still feels like quite a significant drop, resulting in this issue feeling pretty insubstantial, apart from the epic and classic article at the beginning. I think that's enough to make the issue worthwhile though, given how few of those we've seen in recent years. And this does feel like a bit of a landmark in terms of pacing. Let's hope I can get through the remaining hundred-odd issues without anything disastrous happening to me, and finally finish this off for good.
part 7/7
TSR Previews: D&D's been building up with quickstarts for the past few months. Now they get a new core boxed set. Bill Slavisek is the guy responsible this time. Once again, newbie friendliness seems to be the primary selling point. No great change there. Sigh.
AD&D, meanwhile, goes back to mining the little tidbits from the corebooks and expanding them into full adventures in an attempt to lure us in by hitting the nostalgia buttons. The Axe of the Dwarvish Lords is the latest artifact to accumulate a prefab epic plot around it.
The Realms does some planar crossovering in The Glass Prison by Monte Cook. A half-demon comes to the realms and has to fight his darker nature. Someone wants to make another fran-chise.
Alternity, unusually, gets 3 books this month. Tangents is a book on alternate universes. Infinite possibilities, infinite ways things could go wrong. Fun fun fun. There's also Threats from Beyond, for those of you who'd prefer alien invasion, and Starfall, a bunch of short stories. This seems pretty positive.
Marvel superheroes follows up on the Fantastic Four suppement with Fantastic Voyages, a set of adventures tailored for them. Dr Doom, the Skrulls, possibly even mole men. They do seem to be concentrating on prefab stuff a lot more than last time round here as well.
ProFiles looks stupid again. They could at least be consistent. Unsurprisingly, given his appearance on the cover, Todd Lockwood is our profilee this month. He's had a long association with D&D, first appearing in in issue 22's Mapping the Dungeons as a person looking for a gaming group. He first contributed to the magazine in issue 36, doing both the art and writing for the Krolli. He made occasional contributions since then, while pursuing a day job in general commercial illustration, but recently has started doing regular work for the D&D crew. A somewhat unusual career path, in that it's taken him this long to really become a known name. Of course there's bigger and better to come, as he comes to be if anything, the artist that really defines 3rd edition. But this shows that if you keep plugging away, and honing your craft, your career can take off at the oddest times. Just make sure you're ready to capitalize on this fact. One of our most interesting profiles ever. And he still looks pretty handsome as well. Definitely one to respect, even if his work isn't to your taste.
As with issue 142, despite the page count only being about 80% of normal, it still feels like quite a significant drop, resulting in this issue feeling pretty insubstantial, apart from the epic and classic article at the beginning. I think that's enough to make the issue worthwhile though, given how few of those we've seen in recent years. And this does feel like a bit of a landmark in terms of pacing. Let's hope I can get through the remaining hundred-odd issues without anything disastrous happening to me, and finally finish this off for good.
(un)reason
Legend
Dragon Magazine Issue 259: May 1999
part 1/7
116 pages. The TSR logo changes this month, as they officially start their 25th anniversary celebrations. They've been boosting the amount of nostalgia in general for a good year now, but this really shifts things up a gear. Get ready for deluxe limited edition stuff, and and whole bunch of reprints and revisitings of old modules. But that's not the theme of the issue, at least not yet. Seems to be time for another rag-tag collection of articles. Let's see where their meanderings take them this month.
Scan quality: Excellent colour, indexed, but some bleedthrough from alternating pages.
In this issue:
Planescape: Torment! Fun fun fun! Now that's a game I'm delighted to see arrive.
The wyrms turn: For all that characterisation has expanded over the years, landscapes are still important. Even modern modules are more likely to be named after the place than the characters. Even dragonlance, which was one of the first to break those naming conventions, had some pretty memorable backdrops to it's plots. So this combines nostalgia with promotion for their upcoming rereleases. Now you can get a whole new generation into the good old adventures! So this is one editorial where the agenda is pretty transparent. They have product to push, and by gum, they're going to push it. Which is exactly the kind of thing I tend to skip over. Let's hope the letters aren't too sycophantic this month.
D-Mail: We start off with a letter praising them for finally getting round to a psionics special, and also asking them to do more big all-in one articles with setting, monsters, items, and spells. Since I have generally been giving those higher marks than the regular columns, I must concur.
A good ol' nitpicking letter. EVOLUTION DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY!!! It's lazy and haphazard and long-term and very environment specific. It's a name slapped on an emergent principle, not a natural force in itself.
A letter asking for more Greyhawk setting info. Despite everything they've done, there's still a good deal of sketchiness to it, especially as regards to geography. Well, we mainly saw towns as a backdrop to the dungeons that were the real focus. Even Hommlet only got half a module's worth of detail.
A letter that's mostly positive, but doesn't want to see computer game conversions. Those monsters should stay where they were created. Although since many of them were obviously based on D&D monsters anyway, that's a little blurrier than you might like.
And finally, another story of someone's use of minis in their game. They really have quite a neat setup for representing the landscape in an easily erasable and redrawable fashion. It's even fairly easy to fold up and transport when not in use. All you need is a little DIY skill.
Nodwick tries to keep his employers on the straight and narrow.
part 1/7
116 pages. The TSR logo changes this month, as they officially start their 25th anniversary celebrations. They've been boosting the amount of nostalgia in general for a good year now, but this really shifts things up a gear. Get ready for deluxe limited edition stuff, and and whole bunch of reprints and revisitings of old modules. But that's not the theme of the issue, at least not yet. Seems to be time for another rag-tag collection of articles. Let's see where their meanderings take them this month.
Scan quality: Excellent colour, indexed, but some bleedthrough from alternating pages.
In this issue:
Planescape: Torment! Fun fun fun! Now that's a game I'm delighted to see arrive.
The wyrms turn: For all that characterisation has expanded over the years, landscapes are still important. Even modern modules are more likely to be named after the place than the characters. Even dragonlance, which was one of the first to break those naming conventions, had some pretty memorable backdrops to it's plots. So this combines nostalgia with promotion for their upcoming rereleases. Now you can get a whole new generation into the good old adventures! So this is one editorial where the agenda is pretty transparent. They have product to push, and by gum, they're going to push it. Which is exactly the kind of thing I tend to skip over. Let's hope the letters aren't too sycophantic this month.
D-Mail: We start off with a letter praising them for finally getting round to a psionics special, and also asking them to do more big all-in one articles with setting, monsters, items, and spells. Since I have generally been giving those higher marks than the regular columns, I must concur.
A good ol' nitpicking letter. EVOLUTION DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY!!! It's lazy and haphazard and long-term and very environment specific. It's a name slapped on an emergent principle, not a natural force in itself.
A letter asking for more Greyhawk setting info. Despite everything they've done, there's still a good deal of sketchiness to it, especially as regards to geography. Well, we mainly saw towns as a backdrop to the dungeons that were the real focus. Even Hommlet only got half a module's worth of detail.
A letter that's mostly positive, but doesn't want to see computer game conversions. Those monsters should stay where they were created. Although since many of them were obviously based on D&D monsters anyway, that's a little blurrier than you might like.
And finally, another story of someone's use of minis in their game. They really have quite a neat setup for representing the landscape in an easily erasable and redrawable fashion. It's even fairly easy to fold up and transport when not in use. All you need is a little DIY skill.
Nodwick tries to keep his employers on the straight and narrow.
(un)reason
Legend
Dragon Magazine Issue 259: May 1999
part 2/7
Forum: Jesse Mix thinks half the problem of people complaining about classes being underpowered is not because they actually are, but because people these days are spoiled, and want to play badasses right from the start. You need to change their crappy attitudes, not the game. Excuse me for a second. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!fff: Might as well tell the tide to stop coming.
Leon Chang wants a skill based system, using templates to represent classes a la GURPS. Wait. Doesn't GURPS already do that? Nahh, that'd be too easy.
Jim Bobb wants the game to return to a mix of basic D&D and AD&D 1e. Modern developments mostly suck. Mostly.
Allen Mixson once again lets us know how much of a bugger an axe is to wield. You can have your toes off with a fumble. But weapons on the whole should be more balanced than they are, keep lots of options attractive to players.
Michael P. Kellam is another person who dislikes the idea of spell points, but thinks wizards do need a little more flexibility than the current system offers. In the process, we see another proto-sorcerer idea presented for review.
Daniel Bates is the token reactionary for the idea of standardising cleric & wizard spell levels. It would grossly overpower clerics, with all their other benefits. That depends how powerful the spells at each level are. Classes do not have to operate on the same scale even if they have the same degrees of granularity.
John Wade reminds us that while some classes are better than others, all are needed for a well balanced party able to handle any situation. That should be the case in theory, anyway.
Tom McGreenery thinks game balance is less important than everyone having an interesting character. Actually, which is easier, making rules that always give you balanced characters, or that always give you interesting characters. Neither is particularly easy, particularly when dealing with idiot players.
Pieter Sleijpen thinks the game ought to be strong enough that GM's don't have to change things to keep control of it. House rules are, to some degree, an admission the game isn't perfect naturally.
Dungeoncraft: Having done religion last month, it's time to tie in another topic we've seen before, but not in a while. Linguistics and naming conventions. As with previous ones, Ray tries to get us through this without putting too much effort into it. You could use existing languages, or even just give things english names based on their meanings in game, with the understanding that they aren't actually speaking english in the actual world. Basically, rip off stuff that works and sounds good, left, right and centre, but make sure your players are on the same page, and try and maintain a modicum of consistency. He then continues to go back and apply these lessons to the previous articles, filling in the names of the things he created then, tying them all together into a larger whole that rewards rereading. He also starts playing Sage as well, giving advice not on rules questions, like Skip, but on handling of players. So he's settling into a routine, and getting into a position where he has feedback to pay attention too. If he pays attention to it, he should continue to improve. I become increasingly enthusiastic about seeing how long this goes on for.
part 2/7
Forum: Jesse Mix thinks half the problem of people complaining about classes being underpowered is not because they actually are, but because people these days are spoiled, and want to play badasses right from the start. You need to change their crappy attitudes, not the game. Excuse me for a second. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
fff: Might as well tell the tide to stop coming. Leon Chang wants a skill based system, using templates to represent classes a la GURPS. Wait. Doesn't GURPS already do that? Nahh, that'd be too easy.
Jim Bobb wants the game to return to a mix of basic D&D and AD&D 1e. Modern developments mostly suck. Mostly.
Allen Mixson once again lets us know how much of a bugger an axe is to wield. You can have your toes off with a fumble. But weapons on the whole should be more balanced than they are, keep lots of options attractive to players.
Michael P. Kellam is another person who dislikes the idea of spell points, but thinks wizards do need a little more flexibility than the current system offers. In the process, we see another proto-sorcerer idea presented for review.
Daniel Bates is the token reactionary for the idea of standardising cleric & wizard spell levels. It would grossly overpower clerics, with all their other benefits. That depends how powerful the spells at each level are. Classes do not have to operate on the same scale even if they have the same degrees of granularity.
John Wade reminds us that while some classes are better than others, all are needed for a well balanced party able to handle any situation. That should be the case in theory, anyway.
Tom McGreenery thinks game balance is less important than everyone having an interesting character. Actually, which is easier, making rules that always give you balanced characters, or that always give you interesting characters. Neither is particularly easy, particularly when dealing with idiot players.
Pieter Sleijpen thinks the game ought to be strong enough that GM's don't have to change things to keep control of it. House rules are, to some degree, an admission the game isn't perfect naturally.
Dungeoncraft: Having done religion last month, it's time to tie in another topic we've seen before, but not in a while. Linguistics and naming conventions. As with previous ones, Ray tries to get us through this without putting too much effort into it. You could use existing languages, or even just give things english names based on their meanings in game, with the understanding that they aren't actually speaking english in the actual world. Basically, rip off stuff that works and sounds good, left, right and centre, but make sure your players are on the same page, and try and maintain a modicum of consistency. He then continues to go back and apply these lessons to the previous articles, filling in the names of the things he created then, tying them all together into a larger whole that rewards rereading. He also starts playing Sage as well, giving advice not on rules questions, like Skip, but on handling of players. So he's settling into a routine, and getting into a position where he has feedback to pay attention too. If he pays attention to it, he should continue to improve. I become increasingly enthusiastic about seeing how long this goes on for.
David Howery
Hero
This was the only Alternity product I ever bought, and I only got it because I've long had a deep interest in alternate history...
Similar Threads
