LordVyreth
First Post
Well, at least reviewed two books that I actually read, so that's notable to me. Mind you, I might want to admit to reading them, but still.
-
The VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Let's read the entire run
- Thread starter (un)reason
- Start date
(un)reason
Legend
LordVyreth
First Post
Let me guess. The Xanth book and the Belgariad.
Good guess! Also note there should have been an aptly-placed "not" in that last sentence.
Well, I don't mind reading the Eddings stuff THAT badly. I just got annoyed when I read his later series and realized he was telling the exact same story with the nearly exact same characters each time.
As for the Xanths, well...I will say I was much more interested when I was a teenager than when I got older and got slightly uncomfortable about all the naked teenagers and panty obsessions.
(un)reason
Legend
Dragon Issue 100: August 1985
part 1/3
116 pages. Time for the magazine to make a quantum leap, in the most literal sense. They've obviously decided to push things out again for the big number. However, this also means the price goes up, all the way to $3.95. They'd better have something to justfy this. Starting right away, they have a cover that's sculpted, rather than painted, which is very interesting, and the photo captures the three-dimensionality of it quite nicely. A nice idea for a change, but one that could go wrong if overused. Lets hope they don't start doing covers from posed dolls. We also have a whole bunch of special features, for both D&D and other systems. Whether this is as spectacular as they hoped is yet to be seen, but it's definitely going to be quite different, in any case. Which means it should be interesting for me as well.
In this issue:
Letters is actually not comprised of specific letters at all for a change, but is instead an extensive Q&A about the workings of the magazine and lots of other related stuff. As usual, we get told just how much hard work it is getting consistent product where creative endeavours are involved. The dreaded deadline beast needs feeding, and so often there will be something going wrong that results in them scrambling to get everything done on time. Which means the time they have to read and answer letters and assess manuscripts is not as much as they'd like. If you want to be published, you'd better make your articles both eye-catching and well written, because with their current volume of stuff, if it doesn't get their attention on the first read-through, it's going to go straight in the slush pile. We don't have time to fix up cool but flawed articles like we did in the early days. Interesting to note that marvel super heroes is definitely the second most popular game in the magazine. Not so interesting is the usual disclaimer that their Roger Moore is not the film star Roger Moore. Like most of these editorials, this is a welcome look into where the writers heads are at at a particular point in time. Can you go fast enough to jump on board their train? Good luck with that, because you'll need it.
Kim reminisces about the time he's spent here. Seems like only yesterday he walked in nervously, and got given a big pile of manuscripts to go through as his baptism of fire. Next thing you know, he's head of the department, putting together a hundred page magazine with a six figure circulation every month. How did they get there? One step at a time, just like any journey. And despite the hard work, not particularly stellar pay, and general weirdness, he still loves his job. But we can't rest on our laurels. Here's to many more years of cool gaming products.
Score one for sabrotact: Looks like they're trying to put a little LARP material in here again. They do seem to try that every few years, but it never sticks. Most frustrating for all involved.
Anyway, this is a most fascinating way of expressing the boffer LARP principles. By attaching a bunch of target points to the people fighting, and having proscribed scoring systems for breaking specific ones, they remove the fighting from the realm of fiat without much danger of real injury by the participants. Of course, the buy in costs and need for large numbers of participants may be a problem. Still, this is definitely a game that has potential. Does it still get played these days, or has it become just another historical footnote?
All about the druid/ranger: Ahh, one of the more awkward things in D&D's design. Druid and ranger are both nature based classes that complement each other well, but alignment restrictions mean you can't be both at once. So to allow this, you need to bend a few rules in their respective strictures, creating characters who balance their commitments to nature and the people from the borderlands who explore it. This is a definite roleplaying challenge. Frank Mentzer also takes the time to examine some of the game's metaphysical assumptions. Do druids and rangers get their spells from the same source, and if so, why are they held to very different standards? Could rangers who act too lawful or chaotic wind up being denied spells? Once again we see the writers being confronted with ramifications of their own rules that they hadn't considered before, and the implied setting that results in. Organic writing does result in a whole bunch of weird resultant effects that you could never get if you planned it all out from the start. Is this a good or a bad thing? Probably a bad thing in this case, but there's plenty of instances where it has turned out for the better. This may be a small article, but it's jam packed with thought-provoking stuff. You could have long, fun flamewars as a result of this.
The forum: Michael D Selinker thinks that while there's nothing wrong with changing the game to suit your group, you ought to at least try playing it as written first, to make sure it isn't to your taste. If you can't handle playing AD&D as written, maybe you ought to go back to basic D&D instead.
Brian McCaskill tells a story about his D&D experiences, and the stages he went through as players munched out, and then lost interest. Already, people are drifting away from gaming because they don't want to be seen as uncool. We need to regroup and reassess what we're doing if we want to keep this hobby around.
Chad P Culotta (no relation) also thinks that the official rules are unusable, and you should examine them to use the good bits, as well as incorporating the good stuff from the magazine. Are we getting close to a consensus here? How very surprising. They'll have to find something else to flame about.
part 1/3
116 pages. Time for the magazine to make a quantum leap, in the most literal sense. They've obviously decided to push things out again for the big number. However, this also means the price goes up, all the way to $3.95. They'd better have something to justfy this. Starting right away, they have a cover that's sculpted, rather than painted, which is very interesting, and the photo captures the three-dimensionality of it quite nicely. A nice idea for a change, but one that could go wrong if overused. Lets hope they don't start doing covers from posed dolls.
We also have a whole bunch of special features, for both D&D and other systems. Whether this is as spectacular as they hoped is yet to be seen, but it's definitely going to be quite different, in any case. Which means it should be interesting for me as well. In this issue:
Letters is actually not comprised of specific letters at all for a change, but is instead an extensive Q&A about the workings of the magazine and lots of other related stuff. As usual, we get told just how much hard work it is getting consistent product where creative endeavours are involved. The dreaded deadline beast needs feeding, and so often there will be something going wrong that results in them scrambling to get everything done on time. Which means the time they have to read and answer letters and assess manuscripts is not as much as they'd like. If you want to be published, you'd better make your articles both eye-catching and well written, because with their current volume of stuff, if it doesn't get their attention on the first read-through, it's going to go straight in the slush pile. We don't have time to fix up cool but flawed articles like we did in the early days. Interesting to note that marvel super heroes is definitely the second most popular game in the magazine. Not so interesting is the usual disclaimer that their Roger Moore is not the film star Roger Moore. Like most of these editorials, this is a welcome look into where the writers heads are at at a particular point in time. Can you go fast enough to jump on board their train? Good luck with that, because you'll need it.
Kim reminisces about the time he's spent here. Seems like only yesterday he walked in nervously, and got given a big pile of manuscripts to go through as his baptism of fire. Next thing you know, he's head of the department, putting together a hundred page magazine with a six figure circulation every month. How did they get there? One step at a time, just like any journey. And despite the hard work, not particularly stellar pay, and general weirdness, he still loves his job. But we can't rest on our laurels. Here's to many more years of cool gaming products.
Score one for sabrotact: Looks like they're trying to put a little LARP material in here again. They do seem to try that every few years, but it never sticks. Most frustrating for all involved.
Anyway, this is a most fascinating way of expressing the boffer LARP principles. By attaching a bunch of target points to the people fighting, and having proscribed scoring systems for breaking specific ones, they remove the fighting from the realm of fiat without much danger of real injury by the participants. Of course, the buy in costs and need for large numbers of participants may be a problem. Still, this is definitely a game that has potential. Does it still get played these days, or has it become just another historical footnote?
All about the druid/ranger: Ahh, one of the more awkward things in D&D's design. Druid and ranger are both nature based classes that complement each other well, but alignment restrictions mean you can't be both at once. So to allow this, you need to bend a few rules in their respective strictures, creating characters who balance their commitments to nature and the people from the borderlands who explore it. This is a definite roleplaying challenge. Frank Mentzer also takes the time to examine some of the game's metaphysical assumptions. Do druids and rangers get their spells from the same source, and if so, why are they held to very different standards? Could rangers who act too lawful or chaotic wind up being denied spells? Once again we see the writers being confronted with ramifications of their own rules that they hadn't considered before, and the implied setting that results in. Organic writing does result in a whole bunch of weird resultant effects that you could never get if you planned it all out from the start. Is this a good or a bad thing? Probably a bad thing in this case, but there's plenty of instances where it has turned out for the better. This may be a small article, but it's jam packed with thought-provoking stuff. You could have long, fun flamewars as a result of this.
The forum: Michael D Selinker thinks that while there's nothing wrong with changing the game to suit your group, you ought to at least try playing it as written first, to make sure it isn't to your taste. If you can't handle playing AD&D as written, maybe you ought to go back to basic D&D instead.
Brian McCaskill tells a story about his D&D experiences, and the stages he went through as players munched out, and then lost interest. Already, people are drifting away from gaming because they don't want to be seen as uncool. We need to regroup and reassess what we're doing if we want to keep this hobby around.
Chad P Culotta (no relation) also thinks that the official rules are unusable, and you should examine them to use the good bits, as well as incorporating the good stuff from the magazine. Are we getting close to a consensus here? How very surprising. They'll have to find something else to flame about.
(un)reason
Legend
Dragon Issue 100: August 1985
part 2/3
Pages from the mages V: Since he's one of their most popular writers, and this is one of his most popular series, having a 5th installment of this seems a very logical choice for Ed's contribution. As in the previous installments, we get 4 spellbooks. Exactly how Elminster knows so much about all these is still unrevealed, but he's definitely quite the font of lore as well as having a certain sense of mischief. He's becoming more defined by the article as much as the world he describes.
Sabrine's specular comes from the north, and runs the range from small to mighty, with three new cantrips, plus bladethirst, Merald's murderous mist, and one of those marvels of quirky magical design (Blatantly cribbed from Larry Niven) Spell Engine. Just the thing to have in your study, make sure people don't cause too much havoc.
Glanvyl's workbook is slightly less spectacular, with 3 more cantrips, plus a copied druidic spell for no apparent reason other than the compiler found it, and a couple of Ed's cookery recipies that just go to show how much cool detail he can casually create.
The red book of war is actually a cleric's prayerbook, not a spellbook. Guess Ed's tired of wizards getting all the new spell goodies, and is looking for reasons to share the love. I approve. As this is for Tempus, the FR god of war, the new spells within are quite useful in combat. Holy flail and bladebless handle the offensive and healing side. Reveal has huge strategic advantages, and sacred link has all manner of twinky possibilities in the hands of an inventive player. Wizards don't have to have all the spell-hunting fun on their own.
The Alcaister is a decidedly dangerous book to possess, with it's lethal pages and tendency to send you through a one-way gate if you read it wrong. But if you can survive it, you can learn a lot, including 3 new cantrips, plus Reconstruction and Body Sympathy. More ways in which wizards can mess with unsuspecting people and prevent themselves from dying.
Fiction: At moonset blackcat comes by Gary Gygax. Oh Gord. Oh Gord Oh Gord Oh Gord. Have you guessed what it is yet? Yes, it's the start of the Gord novels. Be very afraid. So we get a short story featuring Gord & co to promote it. In a bit of ingenious cross-promotion, our protagonist is playing Dragonchess in the starting illustration. It even features in the story, so it's not just a tacked on bit of pimping. Once again we see Gary get away with stuff no-one else would be allowed to in this magazine, with whores, gambling and drinking aplenty, and even some proper swearing. This definitely stands out, if not always for the right reasons, with overblown prose and a decidedly fiaty plot which leaves lots of questions unresolved. Will they be answered in the actual novels? Do you want to spend the money to find out? We won't judge you if you do.
Dragonchess gets a new edition. This complex variant on the traditional game runs across three boards, has 15 different pieces, each with their own idiosyncracies that'll take a while to learn, and supports some pretty heavy tactical play. Once again we are reminded that while D&D may be their big breakaway hit, Gary also enjoyed wargaming, model railroads, boardgames, and other similar hobbies, and wasn't short of ideas for those either. They really should have pushed this one harder, as it certainly shouldn't have been that hard to get this into commercial production and onto the toy store shelves at this time, and chess is a perennial game that seems to sell quite nicely without the endless revisions RPG's go through. This is another successful attempt to push the boundaries of what this magazine does, and definitely goes on the list of things I want to do when I have some free time. (ha) Drawing up and cutting out all the needed bits and pieces would be an adventure in itself.
The city beyond the gate: One of our longest modules ever, at a full 22 pages, plus interruptions by several full page ads. They've certainly pushed the boat for this one. It's a somewhat goofy adventure, as the adventurers stumble through a dimensional portal into modern day london. With victorian overtones, given the prevailance of horse drawn hackney cabs, thieving street urchins, and other amusing sorta-anachronisms. (You can tell it was written by an American) Dr Who makes a cameo, you'll get plenty of chances to roll on the random harlot table, you'll have to deal with the strange technology, (which is handled pretty well) and your money will be useless for spending, but incredibly valuable if converted. Not quite as brilliant as the hut of Baba Yaga, this is still a well written, open-ended, tremendously fun adventure, which could have all kinds of insane results if inserted into your game. This easily matches up to Expedition to the barrier peaks as a demonstration of how to put crossover stuff into your D&D, and has advice on how to stop it getting completely out of hand in the long run as well. As a special feature, this succeeds quite admirably.
ARES Log: The massive popularity of supers games, and the marvel super heroes game in particular, has resulted in them deciding to do a special on it for this month's ARES section. This starts off right away in the editorial, where they fill us in on the changes to various characters due to events in the comics. Plus Marvel superheroes will hopefully be getting an advanced version sometime soon. Other supers games will also get more coverage. Just don't ask us to do conversions, for legal crapola means we cannot. Intriguing developments here as well.
Creative conjuring: Magic. While found in both main supers universes on a regular basis, like gadgeteering, it's a definite problem from a gaming point of view, particularly if the ruleset is a simulationist one, because it implies a level of awareness of how your powers work, and ability to get them to do whole new things on a regular basis that most powers simply don't allow. So how are we to deal with this, make having magical powers balanced with the other options? You could make learning each spell require study and XP, but that wouldn't fit the source material very well, and would take up an entire sourcebook on it's own. This magazine doesn't have that kind of space. So instead, it breaks up magical power into a bunch of schools, which is fairly thematic, and still means you have access to broad swathes of abilities . A nerf, but probably a needed one.
part 2/3
Pages from the mages V: Since he's one of their most popular writers, and this is one of his most popular series, having a 5th installment of this seems a very logical choice for Ed's contribution. As in the previous installments, we get 4 spellbooks. Exactly how Elminster knows so much about all these is still unrevealed, but he's definitely quite the font of lore as well as having a certain sense of mischief. He's becoming more defined by the article as much as the world he describes.
Sabrine's specular comes from the north, and runs the range from small to mighty, with three new cantrips, plus bladethirst, Merald's murderous mist, and one of those marvels of quirky magical design (Blatantly cribbed from Larry Niven) Spell Engine. Just the thing to have in your study, make sure people don't cause too much havoc.
Glanvyl's workbook is slightly less spectacular, with 3 more cantrips, plus a copied druidic spell for no apparent reason other than the compiler found it, and a couple of Ed's cookery recipies that just go to show how much cool detail he can casually create.
The red book of war is actually a cleric's prayerbook, not a spellbook. Guess Ed's tired of wizards getting all the new spell goodies, and is looking for reasons to share the love. I approve. As this is for Tempus, the FR god of war, the new spells within are quite useful in combat. Holy flail and bladebless handle the offensive and healing side. Reveal has huge strategic advantages, and sacred link has all manner of twinky possibilities in the hands of an inventive player. Wizards don't have to have all the spell-hunting fun on their own.
The Alcaister is a decidedly dangerous book to possess, with it's lethal pages and tendency to send you through a one-way gate if you read it wrong. But if you can survive it, you can learn a lot, including 3 new cantrips, plus Reconstruction and Body Sympathy. More ways in which wizards can mess with unsuspecting people and prevent themselves from dying.
Fiction: At moonset blackcat comes by Gary Gygax. Oh Gord. Oh Gord Oh Gord Oh Gord. Have you guessed what it is yet? Yes, it's the start of the Gord novels. Be very afraid. So we get a short story featuring Gord & co to promote it. In a bit of ingenious cross-promotion, our protagonist is playing Dragonchess in the starting illustration. It even features in the story, so it's not just a tacked on bit of pimping. Once again we see Gary get away with stuff no-one else would be allowed to in this magazine, with whores, gambling and drinking aplenty, and even some proper swearing. This definitely stands out, if not always for the right reasons, with overblown prose and a decidedly fiaty plot which leaves lots of questions unresolved. Will they be answered in the actual novels? Do you want to spend the money to find out? We won't judge you if you do.
Dragonchess gets a new edition. This complex variant on the traditional game runs across three boards, has 15 different pieces, each with their own idiosyncracies that'll take a while to learn, and supports some pretty heavy tactical play. Once again we are reminded that while D&D may be their big breakaway hit, Gary also enjoyed wargaming, model railroads, boardgames, and other similar hobbies, and wasn't short of ideas for those either. They really should have pushed this one harder, as it certainly shouldn't have been that hard to get this into commercial production and onto the toy store shelves at this time, and chess is a perennial game that seems to sell quite nicely without the endless revisions RPG's go through. This is another successful attempt to push the boundaries of what this magazine does, and definitely goes on the list of things I want to do when I have some free time. (ha) Drawing up and cutting out all the needed bits and pieces would be an adventure in itself.
The city beyond the gate: One of our longest modules ever, at a full 22 pages, plus interruptions by several full page ads. They've certainly pushed the boat for this one. It's a somewhat goofy adventure, as the adventurers stumble through a dimensional portal into modern day london. With victorian overtones, given the prevailance of horse drawn hackney cabs, thieving street urchins, and other amusing sorta-anachronisms. (You can tell it was written by an American) Dr Who makes a cameo, you'll get plenty of chances to roll on the random harlot table, you'll have to deal with the strange technology, (which is handled pretty well) and your money will be useless for spending, but incredibly valuable if converted. Not quite as brilliant as the hut of Baba Yaga, this is still a well written, open-ended, tremendously fun adventure, which could have all kinds of insane results if inserted into your game. This easily matches up to Expedition to the barrier peaks as a demonstration of how to put crossover stuff into your D&D, and has advice on how to stop it getting completely out of hand in the long run as well. As a special feature, this succeeds quite admirably.
ARES Log: The massive popularity of supers games, and the marvel super heroes game in particular, has resulted in them deciding to do a special on it for this month's ARES section. This starts off right away in the editorial, where they fill us in on the changes to various characters due to events in the comics. Plus Marvel superheroes will hopefully be getting an advanced version sometime soon. Other supers games will also get more coverage. Just don't ask us to do conversions, for legal crapola means we cannot. Intriguing developments here as well.
Creative conjuring: Magic. While found in both main supers universes on a regular basis, like gadgeteering, it's a definite problem from a gaming point of view, particularly if the ruleset is a simulationist one, because it implies a level of awareness of how your powers work, and ability to get them to do whole new things on a regular basis that most powers simply don't allow. So how are we to deal with this, make having magical powers balanced with the other options? You could make learning each spell require study and XP, but that wouldn't fit the source material very well, and would take up an entire sourcebook on it's own. This magazine doesn't have that kind of space. So instead, it breaks up magical power into a bunch of schools, which is fairly thematic, and still means you have access to broad swathes of abilities . A nerf, but probably a needed one.
(un)reason
Legend
Dragon Issue 100: August 1985
part 3/3
Champions Plus!: New powers. You'll always need those for a superhero game. At least until you've been around a few decades, and your corebook is a bullet-stopping monstrosity that contains an elaborate, rigorously playtested point buy system. And even then, you'll need advice on how to properly apply them to a mileu. As you may guess, this article is for Champions. It contains 11 new powers, from Bouncing to Vertigo. A decidedly imaginative and quirky bunch of abilities that patch in holes in the current ruleset. Plenty of fun to be had in this short but sweet article.
The D&D Master set out now! The BD&D series is now almost complete. Are you ready to ascend to immortality? Leave your domains behind and take on the greatest adventures ever.
Charisma counts!: Oh dear. Using the Charisma system in villains and vigilantes as written doesn't work the way it should. This needs fixing, otherwise the plots will not emulate the genre correctly. What do we need?! More crunch!! When do we need it?! Right now!! Despite it having a very valid point, and solid ideas, I find myself inclined to dislike this article. Curious, as I can't really pinpoint why. Must be a writing style thing.
Defenders of the future: Marvel super heroes gets a second article. We zoom into the future to say hi to the defenders of the galaxy. Vance Astro. Charlie-27. Martinex. Yondu. Starhawk. And Nikki. (Talk about a dull name by comparison with everyone else. ) All ridiculously popular in their home time, to a degree modern superheroes can only dream of. I guess when you don't have your own series, you don't have to worry so much about everyday dramas which take the mystique from your character. They don't have to worry about that secret identity crap either. Life seems pretty good for them. At least, until some timeline fluctuation or writer whim, retcons them from existence. What are they up to these days, as I've never heard of them before.
The marvel-phile: And finally we have Jeff being his usual reliable yet witty self. By an amazing coincidence, this month he fills in the stats for the missing present day Defenders. Man, that's a lot of ™'s. Gargoyle (Oh woe, for I have lost my mortal body), Cloud (ZOMG gender switching to avert lesbianism! What's all that about then?) and Valkyrie (they have tables entitled Hack-and-slash and Slugfest. Genius.) The usual grab bag of disparate origins and weird powers you'll find on a superhero team, particularly one with a fluid roster. And once again I find myself learning more about something I've only ever had a casual interest in before now. My knowledge of Marvel canon will definitely be hugely expanded by the time this series finishes.
The chance of a lifetime: So now both D&D and AD&D have mass combat systems (albeit very different, largely unrelated ones) You know what this calls for? Author commentary! Let's hear it for Doug Niles on da microphone. I said, Douglas Niles on da Microphone! Booyakasha. Respec. [/Ali G] As this is AD&D, and they were devoting an entire book to it, they decided to go for a rather more complex and zoomed in system than the D&D one, with all the spells and special abilities from the regular game drectly convertable, and one-on one battles playing a part as well. The project seems to have had a rather chequered development history, with lots of writers contributing and sometimes pulling it in different directions. The results definitely seem more suited to skirmish level combat involving a few hundred creatures at most than truly massive armies. You can use this as an alternate combat system for variety in your AD&D games, or you can run an entire campaign focussing on it, with it's own advancement system. Well, that's their hope, anyway. I guess we'll see if this gets supported for the next few years, or dies an ignomious death like so many of their experiments.
From first draft to last gasp: The battlesystem commentary continues, with Michael Dobson the editor taking the reins. He discusses how this got tied into their new cardboard fold-up figures gimmick, and quite a bit of playtesting annoyance took place. They've taken care to involve the entire team in this, with modules for both AD&D and D&D planned. He also talks about how the Battlesystem and War Machine rules can co-exist in the same campaign, with War Machine used to fight really big battles involving your domain (Once again we see that BD&D handles the really epic stuff better) and stuff where you're not present and just want a quick resolution. He then encourages you to throw all sorts of wacky and epic stuff at the system. It will handle it, honest. You can have Nazi's Vs Slaadi Vs Gamma world mutants Vs Drow if you like. I must say, I'm tempted to take them up on their offer. Anyone have any opinions and experiences to contribute on this topic?
Wormy finally gets back to the giants. And once again we see how much Tramp's skills have improved, as we get some truly epic horror visuals. Snarfquest takes stock of what they've lost and what they still have.
Having been expanding the range of RPG's that they cover recently, this is another big leap outward in scope. They haven't tackled topics with this kind of diversity since 1981. And it's interesting that Gary is one of the primary forces behind this experimentation. He's evidently not happy with all the directions the magazine has taken, and would like to see more things on his other interests. However, it's also notable that despite their attempts to revitalize it with the Battlesystem, wargaming is pretty much dead by this point. If they want to expand the topics they cover, they'll have to do more books, PbM's, computer games and other such things instead. Are they up to the task? Or will this issue be an exception rather than a pointer for their future direction. Either way, as a celebratory issue, it's quite the success, breaking out of their rut and showing that there are plenty more things they can do to avoid getting repetitive and formulaic. Here's to the next hundred issues full of surprises and misadventures.
part 3/3
Champions Plus!: New powers. You'll always need those for a superhero game. At least until you've been around a few decades, and your corebook is a bullet-stopping monstrosity that contains an elaborate, rigorously playtested point buy system. And even then, you'll need advice on how to properly apply them to a mileu. As you may guess, this article is for Champions. It contains 11 new powers, from Bouncing to Vertigo. A decidedly imaginative and quirky bunch of abilities that patch in holes in the current ruleset. Plenty of fun to be had in this short but sweet article.
The D&D Master set out now! The BD&D series is now almost complete. Are you ready to ascend to immortality? Leave your domains behind and take on the greatest adventures ever.
Charisma counts!: Oh dear. Using the Charisma system in villains and vigilantes as written doesn't work the way it should. This needs fixing, otherwise the plots will not emulate the genre correctly. What do we need?! More crunch!! When do we need it?! Right now!! Despite it having a very valid point, and solid ideas, I find myself inclined to dislike this article. Curious, as I can't really pinpoint why. Must be a writing style thing.
Defenders of the future: Marvel super heroes gets a second article. We zoom into the future to say hi to the defenders of the galaxy. Vance Astro. Charlie-27. Martinex. Yondu. Starhawk. And Nikki. (Talk about a dull name by comparison with everyone else. ) All ridiculously popular in their home time, to a degree modern superheroes can only dream of. I guess when you don't have your own series, you don't have to worry so much about everyday dramas which take the mystique from your character. They don't have to worry about that secret identity crap either. Life seems pretty good for them. At least, until some timeline fluctuation or writer whim, retcons them from existence. What are they up to these days, as I've never heard of them before.
The marvel-phile: And finally we have Jeff being his usual reliable yet witty self. By an amazing coincidence, this month he fills in the stats for the missing present day Defenders. Man, that's a lot of ™'s. Gargoyle (Oh woe, for I have lost my mortal body), Cloud (ZOMG gender switching to avert lesbianism! What's all that about then?) and Valkyrie (they have tables entitled Hack-and-slash and Slugfest. Genius.) The usual grab bag of disparate origins and weird powers you'll find on a superhero team, particularly one with a fluid roster. And once again I find myself learning more about something I've only ever had a casual interest in before now. My knowledge of Marvel canon will definitely be hugely expanded by the time this series finishes.
The chance of a lifetime: So now both D&D and AD&D have mass combat systems (albeit very different, largely unrelated ones) You know what this calls for? Author commentary! Let's hear it for Doug Niles on da microphone. I said, Douglas Niles on da Microphone! Booyakasha. Respec. [/Ali G] As this is AD&D, and they were devoting an entire book to it, they decided to go for a rather more complex and zoomed in system than the D&D one, with all the spells and special abilities from the regular game drectly convertable, and one-on one battles playing a part as well. The project seems to have had a rather chequered development history, with lots of writers contributing and sometimes pulling it in different directions. The results definitely seem more suited to skirmish level combat involving a few hundred creatures at most than truly massive armies. You can use this as an alternate combat system for variety in your AD&D games, or you can run an entire campaign focussing on it, with it's own advancement system. Well, that's their hope, anyway. I guess we'll see if this gets supported for the next few years, or dies an ignomious death like so many of their experiments.
From first draft to last gasp: The battlesystem commentary continues, with Michael Dobson the editor taking the reins. He discusses how this got tied into their new cardboard fold-up figures gimmick, and quite a bit of playtesting annoyance took place. They've taken care to involve the entire team in this, with modules for both AD&D and D&D planned. He also talks about how the Battlesystem and War Machine rules can co-exist in the same campaign, with War Machine used to fight really big battles involving your domain (Once again we see that BD&D handles the really epic stuff better) and stuff where you're not present and just want a quick resolution. He then encourages you to throw all sorts of wacky and epic stuff at the system. It will handle it, honest. You can have Nazi's Vs Slaadi Vs Gamma world mutants Vs Drow if you like. I must say, I'm tempted to take them up on their offer. Anyone have any opinions and experiences to contribute on this topic?
Wormy finally gets back to the giants. And once again we see how much Tramp's skills have improved, as we get some truly epic horror visuals. Snarfquest takes stock of what they've lost and what they still have.
Having been expanding the range of RPG's that they cover recently, this is another big leap outward in scope. They haven't tackled topics with this kind of diversity since 1981. And it's interesting that Gary is one of the primary forces behind this experimentation. He's evidently not happy with all the directions the magazine has taken, and would like to see more things on his other interests. However, it's also notable that despite their attempts to revitalize it with the Battlesystem, wargaming is pretty much dead by this point. If they want to expand the topics they cover, they'll have to do more books, PbM's, computer games and other such things instead. Are they up to the task? Or will this issue be an exception rather than a pointer for their future direction. Either way, as a celebratory issue, it's quite the success, breaking out of their rut and showing that there are plenty more things they can do to avoid getting repetitive and formulaic. Here's to the next hundred issues full of surprises and misadventures.
Orius
Legend
'Cause he's a Mary Sue, that's why.
Although Ed does show quite a good deal of creativity with the spellbook descriptions in the series. (Actually I know them from the 2e splat, but the flavor text wasn't changed at all).
(un)reason
Legend
Dragon Issue 101: September 1985
part 1/3
100 pages My god. The price increase was only temporary. That's a new one. How long before it goes up for good? As ever, this will be reported as I discover it. Another reminder that they're not really in it just for the money here, as Kim talks in the editorial about refusing to print an advert that slagged off another company. Nevertheless, the party is over, and it's back on the treadmill. The deadlines are coming strong as ever, and the contents page looks surprisingly empty. Hopefully that means several big articles rather than a glut of advertising, but of course the only way to be sure is to get reading. See you on the other side.
In this issue:
Letters: A letter asking about the level limits for aquatic elves. They remain reluctant to give any, because they don't want them as PC's. They may have opened up a whole bunch of subraces in UA, but an all underwater game? That's a little too far for their comfort.
A question about the problems underground demihumans suffer in the light. They take the time to once again promote UA, but point out that PC's of those races have been nerfed in comparison to their NPC relations for the sake of game balance. Is this going to help sell it, or provoke complaints? Probably both.
A simple question. Does the will-o-wisp keep glowing after dying. An equally simple answer. No.
Yet more questions about demihumans, this time concerning their new increased level limits, and how they interact with old articles. They reply that yes, a whole bunch of old stuff is invalidated by UA. You'll just have to like it or lump it, because all the new stuff will be using it. We are currently in a phase of preferring cool ideas over consistency or universal compatibility, and publish our articles based on this. Which bits you take and use in your game, and how you make them fit together is your concern.
Some questions about the lightning bug. This is not a huge problem.
A question about murlynd's stats. Once again, there are very different versions of the same character floating around the D&D multiverse. It's like Amber. They got played in the original games, so they spawn tons of references and funhouse reflections all over the universe, long after they've retired.
An editorial turn in response to getting far too many letters to print on the subject of the Dragons Teeth article. Man, people have picked this one apart like a flock of crows on a dead sheep. Please, folks, don't look to us for all the answers, make them up yourself. Seems to be becoming a familiar refrain here.
A rather dumb letter that they seemingly printed as a joke, while still making a serious point. Logistics, people. All the old issues don't exist in some kind of phase space until ordered, there's bloody great warehouses and trucks and printing runs and all that. Its quite the issue.
The forum: Mike Dombrowski has some rather complicated thoughts about the balance of humans and demihumans, and how it changes over a very long term game, with different races aging and dying at different rates, as well as having different class maximums. How do we deal with and compensate for this? This is definitely a topic worth examining.
Gary comes in to make some comments on recent stuff. These are pretty positive, actually. He likes the idea of more scaling in dragons, so they can be a challenge for all levels of parties. After all, it is D&D. Without the Dragons, it would just be a dungeon crawl.
Sam Swanson is very much against the DM fudging dice rolls. This may seem like a good idea in the short term, but in the long run it will ruin your game by taking away the sense of danger and freedom of events. Plus it sets a bad example and the players are more likely to cheat as well if they have a DM who does it. A good DM should be firm but fair. So there, David F Godwin.
Dan Swingley has a short comment on the way climate affects the terrain. It's not just the plants and animals living in it. It also has significant effects on the erosion patterns. Why do you think we only get fjords in the far north.
Jim Ayotte talks about his gaming experiences, and how one size most definitely does not fit all. Also, Gary should stop being so cranky. I know he has lots of deadlines, but that's no excuse, plenty of other writers manage to meet their deadlines and still not let their personal feelings spill over into what they're writing.
And finally we get a rather innappropriate use of the forum, as Frank Mentzer pops in to shill the D&D companion set, and the new challenges it offers for jaded mid-level characters who think they've seen it all. You think dragons aren't scary anymore? Think again. With all their tactical moves, they make even a party of that level look like chumps if they don't think fast. While he has a point, this is definitely not where he ought to be saying it. I disapprove.
Update from the chief: Unearthed Arcana has sold out immediately! Holy jumping jimminickers Mohan! Back to the printing presses! We also have two big new books coming soon. Oriental adventures. Booyeah! And Temple of elemental evil is finally finished and will be coming to you in a bumper pack book containing the contents of all 4 intended modules. Double Booyeah! Am I not the man! I can run two companies simultaneously, find time to make products personally, and still think of myself as lazy. Would a satanist do things as amazing and selfless as that? I think not. Now back to work. I can't rely on you incompetents to do anything right when I'm not around and someone's got to keep this company afloat. Plans and plots, we have lots. (Many of which are going to fall through painfully in the next year or so, but that's life) We take another step, albeit an entertaining one, towards the realization that the supplement treadmill is the way to go to make the bucks the company needs to pay all it's built up staff, and the infrastructure they require. Be afraid.
All about the kender: Oookay, upgrade that. Be very afraid. Because these guys can't be, so you've got to be terrified for everyone. Roger Moore (lest you've forgotten, the creator of splat articles for all the other PC races back in 1982) outlines the history of the kender, and how they differ from halflings or humans. Fearless, insatiably curious, whimsical, no sense of personal property, vicious taunters. It's like they were custom developed to be pains in the ass to party dynamics in the hands of all but the best players. What were their creators thinking? Oh, yeah, we can handle it, and it works well in stories, so it should work well in a game. Plus it's the 80's, so you've got to have a silly comic relief character. It's a law or something. The transformers movie managed to survive four of them, so we can put in three bloody comic relief races and still create a serious, epic and dramatic story. Urgh. :throws hands in the air: Someone give me 20cc's of babylon 5 stat to cancel out the cheese overload. Funny how the writers of something liking them too much can result in other people finding them tremendously annoying, and not in the way intended. This is deeply problematic. Once again the integral flaws of the dragonlance setting are shoved in our face and called features. I do not find this pleasing.
Traveler alien modules. Now there's a splatbook series if ever I saw one. Once again, traveller is ahead of D&D when it comes to book type trends. Funny to notice that.
Plan it by the numbers: Another attempt at a CR system. Oh joy. [/deadpan] Frank Mentzer gives us the one he uses. Actually, this is pretty good for it's time, allowing you to calculate the deadliness of an encounter and reverse engineer it to your taste with a few minutes math, and being pretty accommodating to parties of various sized and mixed levels. At least, as long as the creators of the monsters don't mess up their number of asterisk calculations. A system is only as solid as it's weakest link. Still, if you stick to the BECM stuff that he also developed, this should hold up pretty well. More evidence that Frank was one of the people who really helped make TSR a professional outfit. I can see myself using this, which is a good sign.
For king and country: Great. Moral relativism and D&D alignment. Two flavours that do not happily mix. It's time for one of those detailed examinations of what exactly morality in D&D can mean. How can we have genuinely compelling morality tales when there is an absolute right and wrong, and people know for certain if they are good or evil. This writer dislikes the idea, and would rather change that. He'd much rather throw the idea of cosmic standards of behaviour out, and substitute specific ones derived from the character's culture and the specific gods they worship. That way, you can have people who both feverently believe they're right, and have their holy powers back them up. This is one of those cases where I find myself divided, as this is a well-written article, but one holding a position I'm not very keen on, as I rather like the idea of objectively quantifiable morality, even if the folks on the ground don't know exactly what the rules are they should be following. Still, this goes quite some way towards demonstrating that you can make subjective morality work in D&D, despite all the rules that get in it's way, as long as you apply a little effort. I'm not going to knock the fact that many people do like to play it like that.
part 1/3
100 pages My god. The price increase was only temporary. That's a new one. How long before it goes up for good? As ever, this will be reported as I discover it. Another reminder that they're not really in it just for the money here, as Kim talks in the editorial about refusing to print an advert that slagged off another company. Nevertheless, the party is over, and it's back on the treadmill. The deadlines are coming strong as ever, and the contents page looks surprisingly empty. Hopefully that means several big articles rather than a glut of advertising, but of course the only way to be sure is to get reading. See you on the other side.
In this issue:
Letters: A letter asking about the level limits for aquatic elves. They remain reluctant to give any, because they don't want them as PC's. They may have opened up a whole bunch of subraces in UA, but an all underwater game? That's a little too far for their comfort.
A question about the problems underground demihumans suffer in the light. They take the time to once again promote UA, but point out that PC's of those races have been nerfed in comparison to their NPC relations for the sake of game balance. Is this going to help sell it, or provoke complaints? Probably both.
A simple question. Does the will-o-wisp keep glowing after dying. An equally simple answer. No.
Yet more questions about demihumans, this time concerning their new increased level limits, and how they interact with old articles. They reply that yes, a whole bunch of old stuff is invalidated by UA. You'll just have to like it or lump it, because all the new stuff will be using it. We are currently in a phase of preferring cool ideas over consistency or universal compatibility, and publish our articles based on this. Which bits you take and use in your game, and how you make them fit together is your concern.
Some questions about the lightning bug. This is not a huge problem.
A question about murlynd's stats. Once again, there are very different versions of the same character floating around the D&D multiverse. It's like Amber. They got played in the original games, so they spawn tons of references and funhouse reflections all over the universe, long after they've retired.
An editorial turn in response to getting far too many letters to print on the subject of the Dragons Teeth article. Man, people have picked this one apart like a flock of crows on a dead sheep. Please, folks, don't look to us for all the answers, make them up yourself. Seems to be becoming a familiar refrain here.
A rather dumb letter that they seemingly printed as a joke, while still making a serious point. Logistics, people. All the old issues don't exist in some kind of phase space until ordered, there's bloody great warehouses and trucks and printing runs and all that. Its quite the issue.
The forum: Mike Dombrowski has some rather complicated thoughts about the balance of humans and demihumans, and how it changes over a very long term game, with different races aging and dying at different rates, as well as having different class maximums. How do we deal with and compensate for this? This is definitely a topic worth examining.
Gary comes in to make some comments on recent stuff. These are pretty positive, actually. He likes the idea of more scaling in dragons, so they can be a challenge for all levels of parties. After all, it is D&D. Without the Dragons, it would just be a dungeon crawl.
Sam Swanson is very much against the DM fudging dice rolls. This may seem like a good idea in the short term, but in the long run it will ruin your game by taking away the sense of danger and freedom of events. Plus it sets a bad example and the players are more likely to cheat as well if they have a DM who does it. A good DM should be firm but fair. So there, David F Godwin.
Dan Swingley has a short comment on the way climate affects the terrain. It's not just the plants and animals living in it. It also has significant effects on the erosion patterns. Why do you think we only get fjords in the far north.
Jim Ayotte talks about his gaming experiences, and how one size most definitely does not fit all. Also, Gary should stop being so cranky. I know he has lots of deadlines, but that's no excuse, plenty of other writers manage to meet their deadlines and still not let their personal feelings spill over into what they're writing.
And finally we get a rather innappropriate use of the forum, as Frank Mentzer pops in to shill the D&D companion set, and the new challenges it offers for jaded mid-level characters who think they've seen it all. You think dragons aren't scary anymore? Think again. With all their tactical moves, they make even a party of that level look like chumps if they don't think fast. While he has a point, this is definitely not where he ought to be saying it. I disapprove.
Update from the chief: Unearthed Arcana has sold out immediately! Holy jumping jimminickers Mohan! Back to the printing presses! We also have two big new books coming soon. Oriental adventures. Booyeah! And Temple of elemental evil is finally finished and will be coming to you in a bumper pack book containing the contents of all 4 intended modules. Double Booyeah! Am I not the man! I can run two companies simultaneously, find time to make products personally, and still think of myself as lazy. Would a satanist do things as amazing and selfless as that? I think not. Now back to work. I can't rely on you incompetents to do anything right when I'm not around and someone's got to keep this company afloat. Plans and plots, we have lots. (Many of which are going to fall through painfully in the next year or so, but that's life) We take another step, albeit an entertaining one, towards the realization that the supplement treadmill is the way to go to make the bucks the company needs to pay all it's built up staff, and the infrastructure they require. Be afraid.
All about the kender: Oookay, upgrade that. Be very afraid. Because these guys can't be, so you've got to be terrified for everyone. Roger Moore (lest you've forgotten, the creator of splat articles for all the other PC races back in 1982) outlines the history of the kender, and how they differ from halflings or humans. Fearless, insatiably curious, whimsical, no sense of personal property, vicious taunters. It's like they were custom developed to be pains in the ass to party dynamics in the hands of all but the best players. What were their creators thinking? Oh, yeah, we can handle it, and it works well in stories, so it should work well in a game. Plus it's the 80's, so you've got to have a silly comic relief character. It's a law or something. The transformers movie managed to survive four of them, so we can put in three bloody comic relief races and still create a serious, epic and dramatic story. Urgh. :throws hands in the air: Someone give me 20cc's of babylon 5 stat to cancel out the cheese overload. Funny how the writers of something liking them too much can result in other people finding them tremendously annoying, and not in the way intended. This is deeply problematic. Once again the integral flaws of the dragonlance setting are shoved in our face and called features. I do not find this pleasing.
Traveler alien modules. Now there's a splatbook series if ever I saw one. Once again, traveller is ahead of D&D when it comes to book type trends. Funny to notice that.
Plan it by the numbers: Another attempt at a CR system. Oh joy. [/deadpan] Frank Mentzer gives us the one he uses. Actually, this is pretty good for it's time, allowing you to calculate the deadliness of an encounter and reverse engineer it to your taste with a few minutes math, and being pretty accommodating to parties of various sized and mixed levels. At least, as long as the creators of the monsters don't mess up their number of asterisk calculations. A system is only as solid as it's weakest link. Still, if you stick to the BECM stuff that he also developed, this should hold up pretty well. More evidence that Frank was one of the people who really helped make TSR a professional outfit. I can see myself using this, which is a good sign.
For king and country: Great. Moral relativism and D&D alignment. Two flavours that do not happily mix. It's time for one of those detailed examinations of what exactly morality in D&D can mean. How can we have genuinely compelling morality tales when there is an absolute right and wrong, and people know for certain if they are good or evil. This writer dislikes the idea, and would rather change that. He'd much rather throw the idea of cosmic standards of behaviour out, and substitute specific ones derived from the character's culture and the specific gods they worship. That way, you can have people who both feverently believe they're right, and have their holy powers back them up. This is one of those cases where I find myself divided, as this is a well-written article, but one holding a position I'm not very keen on, as I rather like the idea of objectively quantifiable morality, even if the folks on the ground don't know exactly what the rules are they should be following. Still, this goes quite some way towards demonstrating that you can make subjective morality work in D&D, despite all the rules that get in it's way, as long as you apply a little effort. I'm not going to knock the fact that many people do like to play it like that.
Ed_Laprade
Adventurer
Ah yes, the Kender article. Even before I'd finished reading it (I'd never read any of the Dragonlance stuff, or played in that universe) I swore an oath that any Kender that any character of mine ever came across would be killed on sight. I have to like them, and will let them get away with taking my stuff and taunting me? Yeah, right. (I might add that the oath was delivered aloud, despite the fact that I was quite alone at the time, I was so angered by what I read.) Fortunately, I've never seen one in game.
(un)reason
Legend
Dragon Issue 101: September 1985
part 2/3
The role of books: The destiny dice by David Bischoff tells the story of things happening within a fantasy game people are playing, and discovering that they may be inside a game played on an even higher level of the multiverse. The book leaves lots of questions unanswered, presumably for future books in the series to deal with. This makes it an interesting but unsatisfying read. Fortunately, this is a long time later, so you can now get the full trilogy.
The Isle of Glass by Judith Tarr (typoed as the isle of class in the header ) tells the story of a half-elven guy trying to find his place in your typical pseudo english fantasy world. Our protagonist is dragged into big battles for the fate of the kingdom, largely against his will. Despite the very generic elements, it gets a fairly positive review, being good gaming material. Guess it's all in the way the story is actually told.
Cats have no lord by Will Shetterly (awesome title) is a riddle filled story of why every race apart from cats has a god. (Because they're waay too arrogant for that.) The quest to solve these puzzles is handled in a surprisingly low-key, humorous way. Even after it's over, there are still plenty of questions left open for the audience to discuss. Will and his co-conspirators are definitely ones to watch.
Ladyhawke by Joan D Vinge is of course the novelisation of the film. It hews fairly close to the plot of the movie, and the changes it makes are generally improvements. In general, the reviewer is pretty positive about both the book and the film. I guess there were many far cheesier films produced in the 80's.
The sword of Calandra by Susan Dexter may be part of a series, but is rather more episodic than the usual trilogies that are currently clogging up the fantasy genre. This is probably a good thing, as along with the good plotting, it helps keep things from being too predictable.
Dayworld by Philip Jose Farmer is the rather clever tale of one man's attempt to buck the far future system in which most people are placed in suspended animation for 6 days a week, to deal with overpopulation. This is a great combination of theoretical speculation and fast paced action that is well up to his usual standards.
Charging isn't cheap: Making magical items. A most tedious process. Just how much do you codify it, forcing players to personally hunt down the ingredients for a device. How much random rolling will you insert to see if it works as planned, or fails, or even develops unplanned features. Here's a big load of sample procedures for making and recharging wands, rods and staves. Another thing you can insert into your campaign fairly easily when the issue comes up, even in different editions, and is full of flavor. Another thing that'd definitely save you time making everything up if you're not feeling inspired.
Draco dracorum: The limited edition figurine celebrating ral partha's 10th anniversary. Get it now, because it'll soon be very collectible.
Reviews: The DC heroes roleplaying game gets reviewed by Jeff Grubb. This is actually a pretty positive one, as he welcomes the competition to the genre he is currently the leader in. While crunchy, and not always brilliantly organized, it scales to handle the huge disparities in power level well, and emulates the combination of big world shaking plots and keeping track of personal drama you see in the comics. He's going to take this as motivation to step up his own game, so much arse may be kicked. A pretty cool review that manages to skirt the problems that his very partial position presents.
Creature catalog III: Another 16 page set of new monsters is this month's centerpiece. A whole bunch of writers, including many of our usual suspects. What kind of trends will we see in them this time. Good or bad, direct or sneaky, mechanically sound or not. We shall see.
Alcor are arctic lizards that snowboard on their specially shaped tails. Yeah, it's as goofy as it sounds, especially looking at the illustration. That quirk aside, they're just another basic low-mid level humanoid race to harass your players with. If you're going to cold climes, they're a perfectly decent lizard man alternative.
Avari are bat monsters from the lower planes. They aren't particularly powerful as planar monsters go, and have suffered for it, being kicked around by Deamonkind and relegated to obscure places. Which is an interesting take on it and explains why they're rare. They're still scary enough to do some serious wreaking of havoc if summoned, so don't take them too lightly or extend them any sympathy just because they're currently the underdogs.
Automatons are exactly what you would expect them to be, robots constructed by wizards or "scientists". They're primarily designed as servants rather than combatants, but are hardly useless in a fight. Suffers from a very goofy illustration.
Bogeymen are another creature with a very definite comedic edge, that do exactly what you'd expect them too. Not particularly dangerous in actual combat, they can still be immensely annoying, and ruin a good nights sleep.
Burbur are immensely useful to dungeoneers because they eat Slimes and Molds, and are immune to their nasty special powers. Keep a jarful of them, and then let them out whenever you encounter some of the weapon immune, equipment destroying bastards. It'll save you a lot of hassle, and they make the D&D underground ecology make more sense. I approve on multiple levels.
Creeping pits are an even more brilliant example of the deranged D&D dungeon ecology. Nearly impossible to destroy, they're likewise largely unable to harm you directly, but can be massively inconvenient to deal with, (Unless there are stairs nearby, hee) especially when combined with other monsters. Definitely one for the sadistic and inventive GM.
Dracones are another emergent monster, produced by the union of a snake and a dead Fighter. (Err, yes. Hmm.) They have a whole bunch of plot hooks embedded in their description, and are another monster straight combat won't get rid of for good. You can definitely get more out of talking to them.
Forchoreai are magical stags from the beastlands. They have a whole wild hunt thing going where they don't really die when hunted. They're a decent challenge, and you can also get one as an ally for your druid or ranger. Nicely thematic.
Gargorians are extra badass versions of gargoyles. With 12HD, 6 attacks per round, and regeneration, they're good straight-up combat for your low name level team, or a boss encounter with some minions for a slightly higher level party.
Gu'armori are magical suits of armor that explode when you hit them. Given their fragility, they're more a nuisance than anything, both to their makers and the people encountering them. I'm not very impressed.
Hamadryads are another more powerful variant of a common monster. They have the standard charming capabilities, plus a whole load of spell-like abilities, and aren't limited to a small area like their lesser cousins. Mess with nature while they're around at your peril.
Hawkdragons are a self-explanatory magical hybrid. They can be trained, but have exceedingly stinky breath. Oh well, if nobles will pay ridiculous prices for caviar, you can probably make a decent amount of money training these guys up for them.
Lhiannan Shee are one of those delightful mythological monsters. They seek out handsome men with musical talent, and slowly suck their lifeforce away. Much potential for intrigue and intraparty conflict here.
Mantimera take the ridiculous hybridization of the chimera and further cross it with the manticore. Apart from firing tail spikes, they're pretty much the same as the other chimera variants, annoying things that go raar and ravage the countryside. No great inspirations here.
Metal mimics are another powered up variant of a normal monster. As they can imitate a wider range of materials than regular mimics, they're great for inducing paranoia. Never trust an unguarded treasure pile.
Orpsu are decidedly odd looking gliding bloodsuckers. They're a weak but flavorful creature that make a good alternative to stirges, bats, giant centipedes, and other verminous low level monsters.
Pilfer vines are another amusingly named and behaving thing that does exactly what you would expect it to do. Intelligent plants that steal your shinys? Sign me up for putting some of those around my dungeon!
Righteous clay (these names just get more and more amusing) drops on you and STEALS YOUR SOOOOOOOUUUUUULLLLL! They can imitate sounds like an organic stereo too. Insane genius. I'm loving this.
Sea giants are, yeah, giant variants on merpeople. They're big, fairly smart, and many of them are quite magically capable. One of those monsters who's effectiveness will vary widely depending on how they're played, and may be both friend and foe.
Tener are thieving humanoids from pandemonium with definite arachnoid traits. With powerfull class abilities, lots of innate spell-like powers, and rather more physical power than you would expect from a creature of this type, they are pretty dangerous. Well, if you go plane-hopping, everything is scarier than on the prime material.
Thendar are near immortal humanoids from the astral plane who look rather like a slimmed down galactus. They do seem rather stereotypical, with their ennui with life in general and tendency to impart wisdom in exchange for a new story. Not very interesting.
Tundra beasts are another creature with a self-explanatory name, as they can camouflage themselves as part of the landscape and then jump out to eat you. Hopefully they'll eat the snowboarding lizard-men as well. At least they're covering a wide range of climates.
Wind throwers are badass relatives of dwarves that have the power to manipulate wind, making them virtually immune to missile weapons, and able to use them to enhance their own ranged capabilities. They'll definitely be a nasty surprise for people expecting the standard heavy armour and battleaxe variety dwarf.
Yale are another goofy pseudonatural animal incorporating a stags body, a boars head, and sword-like horns. Despite being pretty tough in combat, they're a favoured prey of huntsmen. Well, it's not sporting to fight a monster that can't fight back.
Definitely a very mixed bag this time, with both monsters I love, and dull, derivative stuff. All the levels between starting and low teens are well catered for, and there's plenty of variety in habitats, alignments, and fighting styles. The overall quality control probably isn't quite as good as the last one, but there's more genuinely funny stuff, and I can see myself using quite a few of the monsters in here.
part 2/3
The role of books: The destiny dice by David Bischoff tells the story of things happening within a fantasy game people are playing, and discovering that they may be inside a game played on an even higher level of the multiverse. The book leaves lots of questions unanswered, presumably for future books in the series to deal with. This makes it an interesting but unsatisfying read. Fortunately, this is a long time later, so you can now get the full trilogy.
The Isle of Glass by Judith Tarr (typoed as the isle of class in the header
) tells the story of a half-elven guy trying to find his place in your typical pseudo english fantasy world. Our protagonist is dragged into big battles for the fate of the kingdom, largely against his will. Despite the very generic elements, it gets a fairly positive review, being good gaming material. Guess it's all in the way the story is actually told. Cats have no lord by Will Shetterly (awesome title) is a riddle filled story of why every race apart from cats has a god. (Because they're waay too arrogant for that.) The quest to solve these puzzles is handled in a surprisingly low-key, humorous way. Even after it's over, there are still plenty of questions left open for the audience to discuss. Will and his co-conspirators are definitely ones to watch.
Ladyhawke by Joan D Vinge is of course the novelisation of the film. It hews fairly close to the plot of the movie, and the changes it makes are generally improvements. In general, the reviewer is pretty positive about both the book and the film. I guess there were many far cheesier films produced in the 80's.
The sword of Calandra by Susan Dexter may be part of a series, but is rather more episodic than the usual trilogies that are currently clogging up the fantasy genre. This is probably a good thing, as along with the good plotting, it helps keep things from being too predictable.
Dayworld by Philip Jose Farmer is the rather clever tale of one man's attempt to buck the far future system in which most people are placed in suspended animation for 6 days a week, to deal with overpopulation. This is a great combination of theoretical speculation and fast paced action that is well up to his usual standards.
Charging isn't cheap: Making magical items. A most tedious process. Just how much do you codify it, forcing players to personally hunt down the ingredients for a device. How much random rolling will you insert to see if it works as planned, or fails, or even develops unplanned features. Here's a big load of sample procedures for making and recharging wands, rods and staves. Another thing you can insert into your campaign fairly easily when the issue comes up, even in different editions, and is full of flavor. Another thing that'd definitely save you time making everything up if you're not feeling inspired.
Draco dracorum: The limited edition figurine celebrating ral partha's 10th anniversary. Get it now, because it'll soon be very collectible.
Reviews: The DC heroes roleplaying game gets reviewed by Jeff Grubb. This is actually a pretty positive one, as he welcomes the competition to the genre he is currently the leader in. While crunchy, and not always brilliantly organized, it scales to handle the huge disparities in power level well, and emulates the combination of big world shaking plots and keeping track of personal drama you see in the comics. He's going to take this as motivation to step up his own game, so much arse may be kicked. A pretty cool review that manages to skirt the problems that his very partial position presents.
Creature catalog III: Another 16 page set of new monsters is this month's centerpiece. A whole bunch of writers, including many of our usual suspects. What kind of trends will we see in them this time. Good or bad, direct or sneaky, mechanically sound or not. We shall see.
Alcor are arctic lizards that snowboard on their specially shaped tails. Yeah, it's as goofy as it sounds, especially looking at the illustration. That quirk aside, they're just another basic low-mid level humanoid race to harass your players with. If you're going to cold climes, they're a perfectly decent lizard man alternative.
Avari are bat monsters from the lower planes. They aren't particularly powerful as planar monsters go, and have suffered for it, being kicked around by Deamonkind and relegated to obscure places. Which is an interesting take on it and explains why they're rare. They're still scary enough to do some serious wreaking of havoc if summoned, so don't take them too lightly or extend them any sympathy just because they're currently the underdogs.
Automatons are exactly what you would expect them to be, robots constructed by wizards or "scientists". They're primarily designed as servants rather than combatants, but are hardly useless in a fight. Suffers from a very goofy illustration.
Bogeymen are another creature with a very definite comedic edge, that do exactly what you'd expect them too. Not particularly dangerous in actual combat, they can still be immensely annoying, and ruin a good nights sleep.
Burbur are immensely useful to dungeoneers because they eat Slimes and Molds, and are immune to their nasty special powers. Keep a jarful of them, and then let them out whenever you encounter some of the weapon immune, equipment destroying bastards. It'll save you a lot of hassle, and they make the D&D underground ecology make more sense. I approve on multiple levels.
Creeping pits are an even more brilliant example of the deranged D&D dungeon ecology. Nearly impossible to destroy, they're likewise largely unable to harm you directly, but can be massively inconvenient to deal with, (Unless there are stairs nearby, hee) especially when combined with other monsters. Definitely one for the sadistic and inventive GM.
Dracones are another emergent monster, produced by the union of a snake and a dead Fighter. (Err, yes. Hmm.) They have a whole bunch of plot hooks embedded in their description, and are another monster straight combat won't get rid of for good. You can definitely get more out of talking to them.
Forchoreai are magical stags from the beastlands. They have a whole wild hunt thing going where they don't really die when hunted. They're a decent challenge, and you can also get one as an ally for your druid or ranger. Nicely thematic.
Gargorians are extra badass versions of gargoyles. With 12HD, 6 attacks per round, and regeneration, they're good straight-up combat for your low name level team, or a boss encounter with some minions for a slightly higher level party.
Gu'armori are magical suits of armor that explode when you hit them. Given their fragility, they're more a nuisance than anything, both to their makers and the people encountering them. I'm not very impressed.
Hamadryads are another more powerful variant of a common monster. They have the standard charming capabilities, plus a whole load of spell-like abilities, and aren't limited to a small area like their lesser cousins. Mess with nature while they're around at your peril.
Hawkdragons are a self-explanatory magical hybrid. They can be trained, but have exceedingly stinky breath. Oh well, if nobles will pay ridiculous prices for caviar, you can probably make a decent amount of money training these guys up for them.
Lhiannan Shee are one of those delightful mythological monsters. They seek out handsome men with musical talent, and slowly suck their lifeforce away. Much potential for intrigue and intraparty conflict here.
Mantimera take the ridiculous hybridization of the chimera and further cross it with the manticore. Apart from firing tail spikes, they're pretty much the same as the other chimera variants, annoying things that go raar and ravage the countryside. No great inspirations here.
Metal mimics are another powered up variant of a normal monster. As they can imitate a wider range of materials than regular mimics, they're great for inducing paranoia. Never trust an unguarded treasure pile.
Orpsu are decidedly odd looking gliding bloodsuckers. They're a weak but flavorful creature that make a good alternative to stirges, bats, giant centipedes, and other verminous low level monsters.
Pilfer vines are another amusingly named and behaving thing that does exactly what you would expect it to do. Intelligent plants that steal your shinys? Sign me up for putting some of those around my dungeon!
Righteous clay (these names just get more and more amusing) drops on you and STEALS YOUR SOOOOOOOUUUUUULLLLL! They can imitate sounds like an organic stereo too. Insane genius. I'm loving this.
Sea giants are, yeah, giant variants on merpeople. They're big, fairly smart, and many of them are quite magically capable. One of those monsters who's effectiveness will vary widely depending on how they're played, and may be both friend and foe.
Tener are thieving humanoids from pandemonium with definite arachnoid traits. With powerfull class abilities, lots of innate spell-like powers, and rather more physical power than you would expect from a creature of this type, they are pretty dangerous. Well, if you go plane-hopping, everything is scarier than on the prime material.
Thendar are near immortal humanoids from the astral plane who look rather like a slimmed down galactus. They do seem rather stereotypical, with their ennui with life in general and tendency to impart wisdom in exchange for a new story. Not very interesting.
Tundra beasts are another creature with a self-explanatory name, as they can camouflage themselves as part of the landscape and then jump out to eat you. Hopefully they'll eat the snowboarding lizard-men as well. At least they're covering a wide range of climates.
Wind throwers are badass relatives of dwarves that have the power to manipulate wind, making them virtually immune to missile weapons, and able to use them to enhance their own ranged capabilities. They'll definitely be a nasty surprise for people expecting the standard heavy armour and battleaxe variety dwarf.
Yale are another goofy pseudonatural animal incorporating a stags body, a boars head, and sword-like horns. Despite being pretty tough in combat, they're a favoured prey of huntsmen. Well, it's not sporting to fight a monster that can't fight back.
Definitely a very mixed bag this time, with both monsters I love, and dull, derivative stuff. All the levels between starting and low teens are well catered for, and there's plenty of variety in habitats, alignments, and fighting styles. The overall quality control probably isn't quite as good as the last one, but there's more genuinely funny stuff, and I can see myself using quite a few of the monsters in here.
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