Let's read the entire run

[jonesy]

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...

It wasn't the only Alternity product I bought, but it is the only one I've kept. It's got tons of ideas.

And interestingly, when you take it at face value, it ties Alternity together with D&D because it talks about magical alternities.

It's kind of like the old Immortal rules module The Immortal Storm, where the characters who are Mystara gods suddenly find themselves in New York, but this time it's from the other side of the looking glass. Looking from sci-fi into fantasy.

But then there's so much more. How about a game of robot dinosaur hunters ruled by machine intelligence fighting against hollow world night monsters in an 'Earth is an actual living being' setting?

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 259: May 1999


part 3/7


Sage advice: Is using poison always inherently evil. (Not as much as it used to be. Regular use is still not honorable behaviour. )

Can a specialized elven archer fire two arrows before anyone gets a chance to act (Not unless you walk around bow drawn all the time. This is very inconvenient. Remember, you only have two hands. )

How many attacks does a specialized guarding 7th level fighter have (the usual)

Are Gnomes and Halflings Small creatures (Yes, with all that entails, good and bad. )

How quickly can you wake up. (It takes a full round to get your bearings. Realisticly, it should often take longer, but adventurers have to learn to roll with the punches if they don't want to die horribly.)

Can blocks counter attacks of opportunity (yes)

What adjustments do you get to saves against extra damage. (luckstones. That's your lot.)

Do monsters die from massive damage (Some of them. Skip will spell it out, and make sure it gets into the core rules next edition. )

What spells are in lesser divination. (Skip will change his mind on this one again, and strip it back to the essentials a wizard needs to function. Skip knows what Skip is doing, srysly.)

Can you cast spells on an area you can't see if you know it well enough (not if you couldn't normally.)

Does spell immunity work on magic resistant creatures (only naturally resistant creatures.)

Does tensers telling blow drain all the charges from stoneskin (no, it just penetrates it.)

Does a dual classed warrior get all the benefit from Strength spells (sometimes. Depends if you're using or not.)

What happens if you magnify time duplicate (it sticks around longer. Sorry to burst your bubble. )

How does fast healing work exactly if you take multiple hits (with minimal bookkeeping, Skip promises. )

Does efficacious monster ward affect humanoids (best not to, just in case.)

Do you need permanancy to create a magic wand (if you want it to be permanent. Is that so illogical. )

How much effect does armor have on your encumbrance ( It's complicated. It's not just weight, it's how it's distributed. Skip isn't too keen on the way it was written either. )

My player wished for the powers of a vampire and I gave him the hindrances as well. He complained. Did I do wrong? (No, padwan, you did exactly right. You have learnt Skip's lessons well. Keep it up. )

Do magical items that boost strength do anything on the astral plane (No. You'll need to get ones that boost your intelligence instead. They'll do double duty for you.)


Designer Demesnes: Our kickoff special feature this month is an attempt to do in 12 pages what took Aria thousands. Present a point-buy system for quantifying your kingdom. Of course, the thing about point-buy systems is that you need a fairly extensive list of things to spend those points on, give you freedom as a player to obsess over the choices you make, and if the ones you've done are efficient or not. And in this case, 12 pages isn't quite enough to do it justice. I'm not sure if that is made better or worse by the fact that these traits are purely descriptive in setting stuff that doesn't plug into any system or give you advantages and disadvantages when interacting with other nations. But either way, this is just too little on a subject that really needs a good mechanical implementation, and struggles to make one stick and be playable. I really ought to get round to buying REIGN at some point, see just how well that really scales up. After all, a system designed from the ground up for it ought to work better than patching and adding onto one designed for crawling dungeons and killing dragons.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 259: May 1999


part 4/7


Shop keep faces another customer who never learns. As long as they keep paying, that's the important thing.


Master of the world: Villains who want to take over the world? (roll the overplayed street fighter clip) Well, if they don't want to take over or destroy at least a country at some point, you're probably underdoing it as a DM, sticking too much to monsters that just sit in their rooms, or appear randomly with no backstory and connection to the world. So here's some system free GMing advice about establishing motivation and means, how to make them believable and competent, and what to do if that actually results in them winning (playing the underdogs of the rebellion can be great fun. ) The kind of thing we have seen before, and in the case of the complete villains handbook, in far greater detail than an article like this can manage. So this is a case where the spectre of rehash rearing it's head makes this less enjoyable for me than it would a new player. You can get all these basic plot ideas by watching a good old 80's cartoon. I don't particularly need to hear them again.


Miscellaneous Mishaps: Wandering monsters getting stale? Well, we've had dozens of different wandering monster tables in different adventures, but most of them have a distinct emphasis on the monsteriness, rather than the other kinds of mishaps that can befall you as you travel from one place to another. Well, if you want too, you can roll on this instead, have them encounter some more mundane irritations like fleas, some random piece of equipment going missing, or stepping in a bear trap. The kind of thing that could create flavour, or could be taken as a red herring, and spin off into a whole new adventure. And really, isn't that one of the things a DM wants, a world sufficiently developed that it keeps on throwing up new adventure developments without having to do a huge amount of work. So this is one of those easy to use, no fuss, suitable nearly anytime articles. It's mainly notable for the fact that it has a full colour Larry Elmore piece accompanying it, that looks quite different from his 80's work, but still high quality. Has he changed his materials or something? Well, anyway, that pushes it up from a 7 to an 8 due to the high production values.


Fiction: Stolen dreams by Elaine Cunningham. Time for our resident elf-lover to serve up a little prequel to her latest novel in the magazine, showing how one of the villains became messed up and entitled. They you up, your mum and dad, they may not mean too, but they do. And when you're adopted by a family of a different race, that can all too easily multiply the feeling that you don't fit into the world, and the way they treat you is unhealthy and not at all what you need. ( On that note, I seriously hope The Jungle Book doesn't get a crap grimdark remake for the emo generation. With CGI animals. ) But does that excuse becoming a kleptomaniac, feeling no remorse when your actions result in the death of your adopted parent, and upon learning you're actually the exiled child of a noble family, instantly starting to act like a haughty entitled bitch. I think not, and this makes me very interested in seeing her get her comeuppance. Which in a way, does make it good promotion. But it does also make it a story where the protagonist is unlikable and gets far more than they deserve with very little effort on their own part, which isn't very satisfying to read about. So really, this has exactly the same problems as the 5th age stories from '96. I'd hoped they'd learned their lesson from that.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 259: May 1999


part 5/7


Rogues Gallery: Another turn in Waterdeep, once again cementing it's place as the most detailed city in the most detailed campaign world. Many people think this is getting too much, but as Elaine Cunningham says here, people never seem to get tired of stories set in New York, so why should Waterdeep become old hat either? Maybe if we had a few more new writers, it'd help keep things fresh. But no, I guess it's another regular heavy month here. This is another column that has become far too formulaic as it's gone on.

Isabeau Thione is another sexy female thief who is fully aware of her physical attributes and exploits them to get what she wants. Seems like that's a female empowerment fantasy as much as a male sex one, as many women would love to have that kind of self-confidence and guilt-free selfishness that they can't pull off in reality. And as with last month, this makes alarm bells go off in my head. The glamour of the bad girl really isn't my thing.

Myrna Cassalanter is a professional rumor-monger. While technically a bard, she doesn't use a whole bunch of the abilities of her class. In a more technically advanced society, she'd totally be a tabloid writer. Like any hack, she's not above twisting the truth if it looks like there's more profit in it than being strictly truthful. And profit she does, having quite the mansion. It's alright for some.

Jerome Diloontier is a perfumer and occasional poisoner. Magically enforced discretion is his watchword. An oily bastard, he's not an outright villain, but he's certainly not a likeable character. His personality traits seem pretty easy to play out, and he's involved in plenty of plots, so he's one that your PC's could well run into over the course of an investigation. Muahahaha.


Dragon's bestiary: Johnathan M. Richards scours the infinite variety of the natural world once again, and manages to find a topic that isn't totally overdone for a change. Symbiotes. Despite being scarily common in reality, they've got even less coverage over the years than underwater or arctic things. This is actually one area White Wolf games do better than D&D, with so many of their supernatural types the product of unnatural symbiosis/parasitism. This could well contribute something valid to our game, even if it's ideas are straight from reality again.

Blood puddings are another transhuman metamorphosis a wizard could practice to make themselves immortal and a bugger to destroy permanently. They flow into you in gross fashion and take over your body. How pleasingly visceral and paranoia inducing.

Skullcap ivy replaces your hair with, well, ivy. On the plus side, that lets you photosynthesise. On the negative side, it looks weird and bugs will be attracted to the flowers in your hair. I doubt druids would mind that though.

Worry-warts are a pun creature that grows in you, does exactly what it says on the tin, and is near impossible to get rid of. Eww. Shoulda had this one last month.

Powerslugs supercharge your adrenalin glands, eventually making you die of a heart attack, but in the process substantially boosting your stats. One that could be a boon if cultivated carefully, and strikes a nice balance between carrot and stick. An excellent end to a collection I mostly quite like.


Wyrms of the north comes to an end, with a good old Z name. And another dragon that spends most of their time in human form, gradually doing long-term stuff to make the world a better place. (cue michael jackson song) It's a good thing the Realms has lots of powerful NPC's on both sides of the moral divide, or we'd be screwed. It's a particularly good example of how magical technology could advance in their future, if it was allowed too without countries blowing up sending things back to the dark ages. A new food source that would allow a far greater population of dragons to coexist over a the same landmass. And wouldn't that have all sorts of interesting knock-on effects on the other populations of intelligent creatures. So while this is the end of the series, it presents some very interesting new plot ideas for your long-term games, and some well sketched characters for the short term. Plus more barely disguised interracial sex. What would D&D be without that? There's plenty of value in this series really, and it has been pretty unique in the magazine due to it's sheer specificness. And since they're gradually cutting down on the amount of whimsy now, we may well not see it's like again. Let's down a good brew of one of Ed's fantastical drinks to it's passing.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 259: May 1999


part 6/7


Bazaar of the Bizarre: Ahh, to sleep, perchance to dream. We spend a good third of our life asleep, yet only a tiny fraction of our items are devoted to it. It's the same kind of principle that results in ocean adventures being so uncommon when the sea covers 2/3rds of the world. Still, there's usually one article every decade or so, and it seems like this is the time for bedtime to get it's own spotlight. So let's see if these are lifechangers like a CPAP machine, or fripperies like a wind-up lullaby player.

A Cover of Invisibility lets you blend into the surroundings while wrapped up and staying still. Course, it won't stop you snoring, or smelling, so it's another imperfect protection against wandering monsters at night.

Bedrolls of the Woodsman give you ranger abilities after a night spent in it outdoors. I think that'll definitely come in handy, especially for a solo adventurer.

Blankets of Security are one of those amusingly whimsical cursed items. No matter how big and bad you are, you'll need your blanky to avoid being scared of the dark. Taking it away from them without removing the curse will provoke muchos tantrums.

Blankets of Recuperation let you survive on one hour of sleep per night. Like most items of this type, they wear out if used repeatedly in short succession. You'll have to become undead if you want a long term solution to increasing productivity.

Pillows of perpetual youth are a bit of a misnomer, as they only work for 6 hours a day, and only when actually lain upon. You can bet someone'll come up with a scheme to lawyer that for actual immortality by using several of them, but they'll still have to get up to go to the toilet. Or be wealthy enough to get attendants to do everything for them. Hmm. That's a definite character concept there.

Pillows of Nightmares are another cursed one with an obvious effect. You'll never sleep comfortably again. If the curse isn't removed you'll be dead of exhaustion within a month.

Pillows of magic Restoration reduce the amount of tedious studying a wizard needs to recharge. Now that's one that will be highly valued by a party.

Pillows of Dream Travelling are another slight misnomer, but still useful. You don't actually do the astral scouting yourself, but send a magical spirit guide. Way to ruin the fun.


PC Portraits is interestingly progressive. Halfbreeds as a theme? That has a lot of potential, especially as you increase the number of compatible races, resulting in a quadratic increase in the number of combinations. Amusing that D&D would wind up being on the side of racial diversity (if not exactly equality) not out of altruism, but because it gives players more cool options. Along with the obvious half-elf and orc, we have a half satyr, half-giant, half cat, dog, lizard and rat people, and what looks like a half troll to me. Plus a couple where I simply can't tell what they're supposed to be crossbred with. I suppose that means the players'll have freedom to take them and make them their own then.


Dungeon mastery: Ah yes, the idea of keeping the PC's alive when defeated, but then making them suffer, thus turning what could be a game-ending event into a whole new set of opportunities. It's not unknown, but not common around here, partly because of the increasing emphasis on linear storytelling in the modules, and partly because AD&D's ruleset remains as unfriendly as ever to that happening without the DM fudging things. So this column is as system-free as ever, but this is one bit of advice that's particularly pertinent to those who like variety in their systems. There are a decent number of permutations to this idea detailed here, but none of them are unfamiliar to me. So this is pretty near the middle in terms of quality, with a good idea, but only so-so execution of that idea. Have the players lose occasionally, but not too often, otherwise they will get discouraged.


Role models: This column gets round to doing something previous ones haven't at last. Inserting cover fire into AD&D? That's probably going to work better with minis than just using your imagination. So this is mostly a little article on how to handle that, along with a little painting advice, as usual. As with last month, the well spaced writing, combined with large amounts of illustration, means this seems all too short. Still, that means it handles things in a simple and easy to remember fashion, so I guess the pudding will be in the actual play. Better get out that gridded board that they showed us how to make earlier on then.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 259: May 1999


part 7/7


Armed & Dangerous: Alternity gets a second computer game conversion in a row, making me feel a little groundhog dayed. Are the writers doing this because they're genuinely fans of the games, or are they getting paid or paying for these bits of promotional material. Indeed, what is the official status of them, and why are they doing so many more suddenly? If the letters page is anything to go by, it doesn't seem to be due to reader demand. So anyway, this time they're doing Fallout 2. And mostly skipping the setting detail, instead giving us 4 pages of solid crunch on their weaponry, which is indeed pretty extensive, going from the basic spiked power fist, to the overkill of the turbo plasma rifle. What you get is very much what you pay for here. So overall, this is pretty dry, and not a huge amount of use unless you already know the game, or are just a gun fiend in general. Their promotional filler may not be quite as annoying as 5 years ago, but it's still not really what I want to see finishing off the month's articles.


This month's contest is a dungeon design one. Only 750 words to work with? Can't be a very big one then. On the plus side, the winners of the earlier competitions are starting to come in now. The CSS Nomad doesn't look bad at all, even if it makes me think of a ship from an old shoot-em-up. Their artists have done a good job representing it from above, below, and interior.

Shop keep faces the stupidity of reality. Dragonmirth should be relieved computers are still pretty stupid. Swordplay considers giving it all up. Actually, they do, since this is the last in the series. Guess these deaths are permanent for a change. KotDT make their GM give up. Again. This really is a one-joke series.


TSR Previews: Clerics get their turn at having all the spells ever produced for them compiled. Part one, anyway. Will it take 4 volumes like wizards spells and magic items did?

Dragonlance gets a double bill, partly rehashed. All the original series gets a 15th anniversary deluxe omnibus release with bonus features and conversion stuff for the Saga edition. This really is turning into the year of the rehash. There's also Reavers of the blood sea by Richard A Knaak. Yet another perspective on the chaos war, as it sweeps across the continents.

The realms gets another novel set in Waterdeep. Dream Spheres by Elaine Cunningham. Several familiar characters make an appearance. Woo.

Ravenloft continues it's Children of de niiiight series with one on Golems. 13 more named creatures with their own histories for you to build adventures around. Every monster a special experience, that's the Ravenloft way.

Alternity gets Killer Clack, a StarDrive adventure. More alien problems, leading you to explore their base, and possibly kill them all. It's the best way.


ProFiles: Sue Cook (nee Weinlein) is one of our editors. In fact she seems much happier as an editor than as a frontline writer. Of course, married to Monte, and discussing projects at home, the line between writer and editor probably gets blurred a bit. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Her current job is as head editor of Amazing Stories, as they attempt to relaunch it again. Since that flops and dies for good pretty soon, I'm not sure that's the best recommendation of her talents. She's also worked on the Dragonlance Saga game. (um, er. This isn't really making her look good, is it. ) So yeah, whatever her talents as an editor, her ability to pick the big profitable projects is definitely a bit dubious. I think I'll stop now, before the snark gets out of hand, and I say something I regret, as I do like quite a few things that she's worked on. Funny how these things can actually wind up not selling you on someone.


I enjoyed most of the regular columns in this one, but not the special features, which ironically felt like the more formulaic and tired parts this time around. I suppose that's just normal issue to issue fluctuations. It still felt like it was over noticably quicker, but not insubstantial like last time. So it leaves me reasonably positive, as the amount of continuity seems to be rising again. After a year of flailing, WotC is finally making it stick. I guess they're ready to write their own stories. At least, once the nostalgia celebrations are over. And I just bet next issue is going to be full of those.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 260: June 1999


part 1/7


116 pages. Welcome to their 23rd birthday. A fact that's pretty much overshadowed by the fact that it's D&D as a whole's 25th, but hey ho. We'll get those celebrations in 2 years time, and hopefully they'll have something special planned for that. In the meantime, it looks like we have a good selection of dragon themed articles, as per usual. Who wants to check them, see if they're still fresh after all this time? Well, I suppose dragons have an exceedingly long sell-by-date. The odds aren't too terrible.


Scan quality: Excellent, Indexed, slightly oversaturated.


In this issue:


Jade Coocon? Looks like a total pokemon rip-off.


The Wyrms turn: They've been swinging back towards crunch since 1996. Now we get an editorial encouraging you to embrace your inner munchkin. When I became a man, I put away childish things, and that includes the fear of being seen as childish. So this is one of the signs of the direction they're going to take next edition. Enough trying to be Serious Roleplayers, it's time to power up and kick ass again! It's also a reminder to do whatever's fun, rather than what you think you ought to be doing. Loosen up a bit, chug a drink, and don't be afraid to roll them bones. Life is too short to be uptight ( up tights, on the other hand …..) So this seems inconsequential, but is actually a decent bit of foreshadowing. This is the mood in the office as they develop 3e. Take heed of it.


Forum gets to go first for a change This time they want to know what the biggest house rules are.

Justin Bacon continues to be one of the loudest debaters on the edition change. This time, he tackles spell memorisation and forgetting. One big problem here is largely a matter of semantics. What they're doing shouldn't exactly be called memorisation. Change that, and half the flames'll be gone. What's in a name, eh?

Matthew Avery doesn't think 8 & 9th level priest spells are needed, as hardly anyone gets to those kinds of levels anyway. He would like a greater variety of low level ones though.

Jon Schmunk makes it very clear just how much more powerful clerics actually are in play, and wants that imbalance fixed next edition. He's already come up with a solution for his game though.

Brett Paulfler thinks charm person, fireball, and cure wounds are the most important spells in the game. They're certainly staples of many many groups, and really change your tactics. You may well be right.

Jade Murphy thinks dragons still aren't tough enough for their size, as high level character can still overtake them. I think someone needs reminding that HP are an abstract resource of badassery, not just physical resilience.


D-Mail: We start off with a request for more Skills & Powers material. Fear not, they have a few more of these coming before they discard 2e altogether.

A bit of nitpicking about the weapons in issue 250's alternity article. The kind of rules detail I couldn't spot because I'm not an owner of the system.

A letter of general praise for issue 256. Once again I yawn.

A request for Rangers and Bards to get their own special issues. Perfectly reasonable, since they haven't yet, and quite a few other classes have. Hopefully the freelancers will be prompt with their ideas.

Two exceedingly long letters on the historical accuracy of their Dark Ages article. It's one of those things that combines conflicting sources with people feeling passionate about it, always a recipe for a good flamewar.

And finally, another letter from someone pleased to see minis coverage again. Like Greyhawk, it didn't seem like people really cared until it was cancelled, now people are overjoyed to see it. What's the lesson here? Appreciate what you've got, or otherwise it may well go away.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 260: June 1999


part 2/7


Nodwick continues to do the adventurers dirty laundry. All 5 tons of it. Shop keep deals with the creepiest gamer evar. How does he survive?


Dungeoncraft: Ray continues to put off drawing any maps with more talk about creating a home base for the PC's. You know, I've never bothered with this step, simply because the players are unlikely to stick around for long. Of course, if you detail one area more, they're more likely to get attached to it and stick around, but I think that's one of those chicken and the egg situations. So this one feels like padding, deliberately slowing his progress through the worldbuilding process so he can get more milage out of the column. The most interesting part of this is the letter, where they tackle the old issue of the thief stealing from the party, with Ray suggesting methods by which the DM and player can collude to screw over the other players and prevent metagaming. Muahahahahaha! Nice to see him encouraging a little badwrongfun in his advice. After all, it does make for interesting games, up to the point where it tears them apart. So this is a bit of a mixed bag, really. Get on with it!


Sage advice: You gave different answers to the fire shield question in issues 256 and 146. Which is right? (The new one, duh. When Skip changes Skip's mind, skip expects you to pay attention. )

What constitutes a magical trap. (Anything the spell find traps finds. Recursive, Skip knows, but true.)

Can thieves use shields (Still no. Don't go on.)

Can thieves double backstab or get attack bonuses against beholders. (No. You just don't get why it doesn't work do you. If they know you're there, it's not a backstab.)

Do you need to be able to see people to fireball them. (Its a wide range effect. You don't need to be close. )

Do dwarves get AC bonuses against all big things (oh, stop sending the same bloody questions in. No.)

How do deep gnomes get such a low AC (Armor comes as standard in the monster description. Don't think you get it for free as a PC)

Who rolls the dice (you rolls the dice. Skip rolls the dice, they rolls de dice, everybody rolls de dice. Dice are not an exclusive device. But try and keep cats off the table, otherwise they will roll de dice all over the place and lose them. )

Why are thieves sometimes better at reading unknown scrolls than wizards ( Because they're trained in winging it. Wizards always take so long worrying about the proper way to do these things.)

Can Sha'irs get their gens to fetch true dweomers (no. They have to cast them the hard way, with research and stuff )

It's unrealistic that you can only increase THAC0 through gaining levels (welcome to D&D. That's the way we roll here. )

How many martial arts styles can you specialize in (1, plus whatever they spend their later slots on)

You lose your extra attacks if you move over half your movement rate. That's so unfair! (Them's the rules. They're the rules this edition, and they'll be even stricter rules next edition. You don't get something for nothing. )

Is strength added to natural attacks for monsters or not (varies from monster to monster. Fear the arbitrary changes. )

Can an epicure detect poisoned food (possibly. Maybe not in time to avoid it though. )

What's dwarven rune magic. (A pair of neat cleric spells. Skip has a page going free, so Skip'll reprint them for you. Say thank you to Skip, now, or Skip may not be so generous next time. )

 

[Orius]

Designer Demesnes: Our kickoff special feature this month is an attempt to do in 12 pages what took Aria thousands. Present a point-buy system for quantifying your kingdom. Of course, the thing about point-buy systems is that you need a fairly extensive list of things to spend those points on, give you freedom as a player to obsess over the choices you make, and if the ones you've done are efficient or not. And in this case, 12 pages isn't quite enough to do it justice. I'm not sure if that is made better or worse by the fact that these traits are purely descriptive in setting stuff that doesn't plug into any system or give you advantages and disadvantages when interacting with other nations. But either way, this is just too little on a subject that really needs a good mechanical implementation, and struggles to make one stick and be playable. I really ought to get round to buying REIGN at some point, see just how well that really scales up. After all, a system designed from the ground up for it ought to work better than patching and adding onto one designed for crawling dungeons and killing dragons.

It's not too bad an article, I've used it quite often to set up kingdoms in my homebrew. It is a bit limiting at times though, with not quite enough options to go around.

 

[Ed_Laprade]

Do you need to be able to see people to fireball them. (Its a wide range effect. You don't need to be close. )

He doesn't actually answer the question that was asked. He did that often enough, and made enough non-intuitive rulings, that I really didn't like his column. A conclusion that I came to long before this issue, by which time I was reading the mag quite sporadically.