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<blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5680340" data-attributes="member: 27780"><p><strong><u>Dragon Magazine Issue 246: April 1998</u></strong></p><p></p><p></p><p>part 3/8</p><p></p><p></p><p>Knights of the dinner table advertises the RPGA. Two great tastes that taste great together! </p><p></p><p></p><p>Out of character: Peter gives us his first bit of writing that isn't particularly consequential after all. Happens to every writer sooner or later. This is why many epics stop at a trilogy, as that's about the longest you can ratchet up the tension before having to take a break to let things plateau. Anyway, this feels like a companion piece to their longer henchman feature a little later, a selection of random personality quirks that you could give them. Since we've had longer, more detailed personality lists in the past, this isn't a game changer. If anything, it feels like filler. So I really don't have much to say here. I don't actively dislike it, but I don't like it either. Having the boss talking to us every month again means the novelty is starting to wear off. </p><p></p><p></p><p>The wizard's companion: Hmm. We've had a good half a dozen articles on familiars by now. That's getting a little played out. So let's put the spotlight on homunculi instead. Well, it's about the equivalent of focussing on grimlocks rather than the regular orcs for your low level monster encounters. Still, it follows pretty much the same formula. Several pages of extrapolation on the nature of homunculi, their creation, their relationship with wizards and possibly their familiars if they have those as well, and what happens if they become independent. Then it details a whole bunch of alternate homunculi types with their unique appearances and abilities. The illustrations are all in colour and not too bad either, and it gives you some obvious avenues to develop these ideas further. It's a pretty good starter, if rather formulaic. Looks like they're going for a safe option that'll retain it's value for a while. </p><p></p><p></p><p>The Omega Variant: Oooh. So this is our first proper Alternity article. A 10 page quick-play solo adventure that introduces the basic concepts of the rules, and then takes you through a little choose your own path adventure that'll take maybe half an hour if you're lucky. (although if you're not, it could take several tries, as they give you plenty of opportunities to lose.) This is definitely better than the Amazing Engine's similar attempt, which they didn't do until well after it was released, and then didn't really show you what to do with the system once you had it.</p><p></p><p>Straight away, I can see that they're using mostly the same abilities as D&D, but with some noticeable differences. Charisma has been renamed Personality, while wisdom has been renamed Will, and has taken the Perception role that would be shoehorned into Wisdom in 3e. So it looks like we can already say that this'll have some influence on the development of D&D. This highly swingy, roll under resolution mechanic, on the other hand, I think we can safely say was discarded because of the weird way it scales and interacts with the difficulty modifiers as you increase your stats. The action phases system also seems like an interesting experiment that might have been kept on, but was instead replaced by the full/standard/move/free system and cyclical initiative that takes slightly less rolls and bookkeeping. And the wound system was obviously an intentional change because they didn't want characters to become unstoppable tanks as they gained experience in this system. So there's plenty to analyse here. The adventure itself is pretty linear, but there are several nice touches of humour that make it fun reading, and it shows us some setting details that I assume will be expanded upon in the main books. This definitely feels like a good introduction that'll get a few more people to buy the system. My main lingering question here is how the system handles advancement. Does it have the potential for campaigns as long as Basic or Advanced D&D, or does it run out after a while?</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="(un)reason, post: 5680340, member: 27780"] [B][U]Dragon Magazine Issue 246: April 1998[/U][/B] part 3/8 Knights of the dinner table advertises the RPGA. Two great tastes that taste great together! Out of character: Peter gives us his first bit of writing that isn't particularly consequential after all. Happens to every writer sooner or later. This is why many epics stop at a trilogy, as that's about the longest you can ratchet up the tension before having to take a break to let things plateau. Anyway, this feels like a companion piece to their longer henchman feature a little later, a selection of random personality quirks that you could give them. Since we've had longer, more detailed personality lists in the past, this isn't a game changer. If anything, it feels like filler. So I really don't have much to say here. I don't actively dislike it, but I don't like it either. Having the boss talking to us every month again means the novelty is starting to wear off. The wizard's companion: Hmm. We've had a good half a dozen articles on familiars by now. That's getting a little played out. So let's put the spotlight on homunculi instead. Well, it's about the equivalent of focussing on grimlocks rather than the regular orcs for your low level monster encounters. Still, it follows pretty much the same formula. Several pages of extrapolation on the nature of homunculi, their creation, their relationship with wizards and possibly their familiars if they have those as well, and what happens if they become independent. Then it details a whole bunch of alternate homunculi types with their unique appearances and abilities. The illustrations are all in colour and not too bad either, and it gives you some obvious avenues to develop these ideas further. It's a pretty good starter, if rather formulaic. Looks like they're going for a safe option that'll retain it's value for a while. The Omega Variant: Oooh. So this is our first proper Alternity article. A 10 page quick-play solo adventure that introduces the basic concepts of the rules, and then takes you through a little choose your own path adventure that'll take maybe half an hour if you're lucky. (although if you're not, it could take several tries, as they give you plenty of opportunities to lose.) This is definitely better than the Amazing Engine's similar attempt, which they didn't do until well after it was released, and then didn't really show you what to do with the system once you had it. Straight away, I can see that they're using mostly the same abilities as D&D, but with some noticeable differences. Charisma has been renamed Personality, while wisdom has been renamed Will, and has taken the Perception role that would be shoehorned into Wisdom in 3e. So it looks like we can already say that this'll have some influence on the development of D&D. This highly swingy, roll under resolution mechanic, on the other hand, I think we can safely say was discarded because of the weird way it scales and interacts with the difficulty modifiers as you increase your stats. The action phases system also seems like an interesting experiment that might have been kept on, but was instead replaced by the full/standard/move/free system and cyclical initiative that takes slightly less rolls and bookkeeping. And the wound system was obviously an intentional change because they didn't want characters to become unstoppable tanks as they gained experience in this system. So there's plenty to analyse here. The adventure itself is pretty linear, but there are several nice touches of humour that make it fun reading, and it shows us some setting details that I assume will be expanded upon in the main books. This definitely feels like a good introduction that'll get a few more people to buy the system. My main lingering question here is how the system handles advancement. Does it have the potential for campaigns as long as Basic or Advanced D&D, or does it run out after a while? [/QUOTE]
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