(un)reason
Legend
Dragon Magazine Issue 250: August 1998
part 8/8
Previews: AEG release Tomb of Iuchiban for L5R. An evil wizard's tomb full of scary things. A boxed set adventure? Sounds just like home. Suit me up, honey, we're going adventuring! They also get Way of Shadow: The ninja investigations of Kitsuki Kaagi. Looks like another gameline has taken the IC approach to setting development deployed by Volo and Van Richten.
Archon Gaming release Unknown Armies. Woo. Another kickass approach to horror gaming who's influence will filter through the system over the next decade.
Armitage House release A guide to the Cthulhu cult. The kind of people who really need foiling, now you can find out a little more about them, before going mad.
Atlas Games give Ars Magica the Wizard's Grimoire Revised Edition. Old info is refined, new stuff is added. And you know what wizards are like for spell research. More power is always welcomed.
Basement Games unleash Forge: Out of chaos. Another medieval fantasy heartbreaker, it looks like. A new slant on magic indeed.
Chaosium are also busy with Cthulhu stuff. Before the fall: Innsmouth adventures prior to the great raid of 1928 seems pretty self explanatory, if possibly too verbose a title. Sounds like they don't want you to be the ones who get to call in the army and purge the nasty place for good though.
FASA release stuff for a whole bunch of gamelines. Battletech gets Technical readout: 3060. Technology and timelines continue to advance, which means new mechs for both sides to kick butt with.
Earthdawn fill in more details on their Dragons. They may not have elves, but they can't resist putting a load of elaboration and variation on this fantasy cliche.
Shadowrun gets a triple bill. Renraku Arcology: Shutdown sees an explosive bottleneck adventure take place. Just how much of the population will make it out alive, and will your PC's be among them? If they do make it out, it's time for them to convert to the Third Edition rules. Prepare to see the canon outcome of the previous adventures incorporated into the timeline. And if that's not enough, there's a novel too. Psychotrope by Lisa Smedman. Trapped in the matrix by an evil AI, they need to work together to escape with their lives. What lessons will they learn in the process?
Flying Buffalo have a slightly unseasonal offering. Grimtooth's Halloween special. I suppose it'll take a few months to get to the shops. They also compile their citybooks. More generic stuff for all to use.
Guardians of Order give us the Sailor Moon RPG. Ah yes, the days when BESM was not only healthy, but got a load of official licenses. Now you too can have teenage girls doing nude transformation sequences for great justice. Hee.
Hogshead Publishing release another well remembered game. The extraordinary adventures of Baron Munchausen. The exaggeration extends to the description of the corebook, amusingly. They're also bringing out Marienburg: Sold down the river. WHFRP must also be doing reasonably well then.
Inner City Games gets Gary Gygax in to make a module. The Ritual of the Golden Eyes. Exactly what system it's for, if any, is not disclosed. Any more info available on this one? They also release A Very Large Campaign. Take control of giant monsters for fun and profit. Sounds fun, and more than a little whimsical.
Pagan Publishing are a third company doing Cthulhu stuff. What's with that? What are the licensing arrangements here? They release Mortal Coils. 8 more adventures for a system already well catered for in that area.
Steve Jackson Games have a nice little pair for us. Killer gets it's 4th edition. God, I remember when that caused a dirty great controversy, back in issues 53 and 58. Good to see it's still going. GURPS is also doing pretty well for itself, with Egypt the subject their latest supplement. Will you be a pulp hero unearthing the ancient ruins, or travel back to the era they were made in?
Profiles: Unlike Margaret Weis, Tracey Hickman doesn't appear to have aged much since his last appearance in issue 120. (although I wouldn't be surprised if a bit of hair dye was involved. ) Like her, he's kept busy since then, churning out dozens of novels, including a few solo ones, and doing his best to promote his message of a strong morality and influence people's real life behaviour by the messages he puts in his writing. Which I do find slightly dodgy, especially when that morality involves mormonism, and of course, deriding the whole concept of escapism in writing. Gotta be family friendly and set a good example. Bleh. Trouble is, I don't disapprove of the methods, just the specifics. After all, you should try to accomplish something with your creativity. He gets my respect, even if we are ideological enemies in many ways.
After two pretty good issues, this one sees them slip back into dullness again, with a whole load of sensible, realism heavy articles that might be useful, but don't light up my life. You wouldn't think going underwater would bring out the sensible conservative side in people, but I guess knowing you'll be dead in minutes if something goes wrong kinda brings out the desire to prepare carefully. In any case, it means the end of the Archive doesn't feel like anything special in terms of quality, despite having a little more non D&D RPG coverage than they've had in a while. It's making me feel that 2e really did drag on several years beyond it's natural lifespan, and they should have started preparing something earlier. Still, this does feel like a real landmark in that I'm now way closer to the end than the beginning, and the standardised format in which the issues have been indexed is about to stop with the next one. This means that exactly what future issues contain takes a little longer to find out, which maintains a bit more mystery. Whether I'll find them more interesting or not, we shall have to see.
part 8/8
Previews: AEG release Tomb of Iuchiban for L5R. An evil wizard's tomb full of scary things. A boxed set adventure? Sounds just like home. Suit me up, honey, we're going adventuring! They also get Way of Shadow: The ninja investigations of Kitsuki Kaagi. Looks like another gameline has taken the IC approach to setting development deployed by Volo and Van Richten.
Archon Gaming release Unknown Armies. Woo. Another kickass approach to horror gaming who's influence will filter through the system over the next decade.
Armitage House release A guide to the Cthulhu cult. The kind of people who really need foiling, now you can find out a little more about them, before going mad.
Atlas Games give Ars Magica the Wizard's Grimoire Revised Edition. Old info is refined, new stuff is added. And you know what wizards are like for spell research. More power is always welcomed.
Basement Games unleash Forge: Out of chaos. Another medieval fantasy heartbreaker, it looks like. A new slant on magic indeed.
Chaosium are also busy with Cthulhu stuff. Before the fall: Innsmouth adventures prior to the great raid of 1928 seems pretty self explanatory, if possibly too verbose a title. Sounds like they don't want you to be the ones who get to call in the army and purge the nasty place for good though.
FASA release stuff for a whole bunch of gamelines. Battletech gets Technical readout: 3060. Technology and timelines continue to advance, which means new mechs for both sides to kick butt with.
Earthdawn fill in more details on their Dragons. They may not have elves, but they can't resist putting a load of elaboration and variation on this fantasy cliche.
Shadowrun gets a triple bill. Renraku Arcology: Shutdown sees an explosive bottleneck adventure take place. Just how much of the population will make it out alive, and will your PC's be among them? If they do make it out, it's time for them to convert to the Third Edition rules. Prepare to see the canon outcome of the previous adventures incorporated into the timeline. And if that's not enough, there's a novel too. Psychotrope by Lisa Smedman. Trapped in the matrix by an evil AI, they need to work together to escape with their lives. What lessons will they learn in the process?
Flying Buffalo have a slightly unseasonal offering. Grimtooth's Halloween special. I suppose it'll take a few months to get to the shops. They also compile their citybooks. More generic stuff for all to use.
Guardians of Order give us the Sailor Moon RPG. Ah yes, the days when BESM was not only healthy, but got a load of official licenses. Now you too can have teenage girls doing nude transformation sequences for great justice. Hee.
Hogshead Publishing release another well remembered game. The extraordinary adventures of Baron Munchausen. The exaggeration extends to the description of the corebook, amusingly. They're also bringing out Marienburg: Sold down the river. WHFRP must also be doing reasonably well then.
Inner City Games gets Gary Gygax in to make a module. The Ritual of the Golden Eyes. Exactly what system it's for, if any, is not disclosed. Any more info available on this one? They also release A Very Large Campaign. Take control of giant monsters for fun and profit. Sounds fun, and more than a little whimsical.
Pagan Publishing are a third company doing Cthulhu stuff. What's with that? What are the licensing arrangements here? They release Mortal Coils. 8 more adventures for a system already well catered for in that area.
Steve Jackson Games have a nice little pair for us. Killer gets it's 4th edition. God, I remember when that caused a dirty great controversy, back in issues 53 and 58. Good to see it's still going. GURPS is also doing pretty well for itself, with Egypt the subject their latest supplement. Will you be a pulp hero unearthing the ancient ruins, or travel back to the era they were made in?
Profiles: Unlike Margaret Weis, Tracey Hickman doesn't appear to have aged much since his last appearance in issue 120. (although I wouldn't be surprised if a bit of hair dye was involved. ) Like her, he's kept busy since then, churning out dozens of novels, including a few solo ones, and doing his best to promote his message of a strong morality and influence people's real life behaviour by the messages he puts in his writing. Which I do find slightly dodgy, especially when that morality involves mormonism, and of course, deriding the whole concept of escapism in writing. Gotta be family friendly and set a good example. Bleh. Trouble is, I don't disapprove of the methods, just the specifics. After all, you should try to accomplish something with your creativity. He gets my respect, even if we are ideological enemies in many ways.
After two pretty good issues, this one sees them slip back into dullness again, with a whole load of sensible, realism heavy articles that might be useful, but don't light up my life. You wouldn't think going underwater would bring out the sensible conservative side in people, but I guess knowing you'll be dead in minutes if something goes wrong kinda brings out the desire to prepare carefully. In any case, it means the end of the Archive doesn't feel like anything special in terms of quality, despite having a little more non D&D RPG coverage than they've had in a while. It's making me feel that 2e really did drag on several years beyond it's natural lifespan, and they should have started preparing something earlier. Still, this does feel like a real landmark in that I'm now way closer to the end than the beginning, and the standardised format in which the issues have been indexed is about to stop with the next one. This means that exactly what future issues contain takes a little longer to find out, which maintains a bit more mystery. Whether I'll find them more interesting or not, we shall have to see.