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<blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5735849" data-attributes="member: 27780"><p><strong><u>Dragon Magazine annual 1998 </u></strong></p><p></p><p></p><p>part 3/8</p><p></p><p></p><p>The home front: A lot of emphasis in the Dragonlance 5th age fiction was put upon family, and the small acts of heroism that happen on an everyday basis, and make the lives of those around you better, rather than going off and saving the world, which you may not get the credit for, and if you do, the stories'll be twisted and exaggerated. I'm not surprised that they're doing an article covering the same ground. Of course, the fact that Krynn has been taken over by giant dragons which take what they want from the population, and give nothing back, while allowing monsters to freely roam the countryside, really keeps things interesting for the average person in the worst possible way. Which means plenty of opportunity for heroes to have whole campaigns without ever venturing far from home. Really, this is applicable in any campaign where the evil overlord is an approaching menace, or wandering monsters are common enough that everyday people have to constantly take precautions against them. Even in real world hunter-gatherer societies, you'd lose quite a few people to predation over the course of a year. To keep people around, they introduce a popularity mechanic which seems easy enough to add into either AD&D or the 5th age system. So this is a good way of both continuing to give coverage to this setting, and provide advice that's applicable elsewhere. When the stakes are personal, you don't have to escalate the scale too much to keep people emotionally engaged. Just take care not to kill all their friends and family in one raid, otherwise they'll lose all the attachment they had for the place. Overall, I definitely approve of this, and can see how you could easily get a good campaign out of it. </p><p></p><p></p><p>Alternate frontiers: Star Frontiers! I was hoping we'd get a conversion of their old Sci-fi setting to their new system. Woo. At 10 pages, it's a pretty extensive one too. Dralasites, Vrusk, Yazirians and Sathar all get racial writeups making them available as PC's. And there's a dozen bits of equipment that are relatively common in Star Frontiers, but not in the Star Drive setting. Despite it's size, this feels like it's over all too soon, which is a testament to the amount of material they published in the magazine for it between 84-88, and the degree which I remember it despite it being over 2 years of real time since I was covering that period. So this doesn't leave me completely satisfied, but is generally a positive experience, with a ton of useful crunch, and enough setting that a complete newbie can understand what's going on. This is a nice boost in variety of material covered, and hopefully we'll be seeing a few more resurrections of old material in the next year, as the 25th anniversary celebrations get underway. </p><p></p><p></p><p>Super science in the marvel universe: Another rather interesting bit of crunch for their other new system. We talked about the gadgeteer issue in the old FASERIP system, and issue 180's attempt at tackling it, which didn't impress me much. Their SAGA system solution, on the other hand, is both simple and exceedingly flexible and wide-ranging, making only your imagination (and the technical competence to back it up) your limit. Which in a comic book universe is very appropriate. Also appropriate is the fairly high chance of things blowing up in your face if you overreach yourself, keeping you from just trying the same thing again until you succeed if you have the time. And it also tackles how to keep inventions from changing the world too easily, and how to keep the research process from getting in the way of adventuring. Pretty damn good, really. I suppose if there's one thing the SAGA system should do well, it's getting the rules to fit into the narrative, and this is more than simple and flexible enough for that.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="(un)reason, post: 5735849, member: 27780"] [B][U]Dragon Magazine annual 1998 [/U][/B] part 3/8 The home front: A lot of emphasis in the Dragonlance 5th age fiction was put upon family, and the small acts of heroism that happen on an everyday basis, and make the lives of those around you better, rather than going off and saving the world, which you may not get the credit for, and if you do, the stories'll be twisted and exaggerated. I'm not surprised that they're doing an article covering the same ground. Of course, the fact that Krynn has been taken over by giant dragons which take what they want from the population, and give nothing back, while allowing monsters to freely roam the countryside, really keeps things interesting for the average person in the worst possible way. Which means plenty of opportunity for heroes to have whole campaigns without ever venturing far from home. Really, this is applicable in any campaign where the evil overlord is an approaching menace, or wandering monsters are common enough that everyday people have to constantly take precautions against them. Even in real world hunter-gatherer societies, you'd lose quite a few people to predation over the course of a year. To keep people around, they introduce a popularity mechanic which seems easy enough to add into either AD&D or the 5th age system. So this is a good way of both continuing to give coverage to this setting, and provide advice that's applicable elsewhere. When the stakes are personal, you don't have to escalate the scale too much to keep people emotionally engaged. Just take care not to kill all their friends and family in one raid, otherwise they'll lose all the attachment they had for the place. Overall, I definitely approve of this, and can see how you could easily get a good campaign out of it. Alternate frontiers: Star Frontiers! I was hoping we'd get a conversion of their old Sci-fi setting to their new system. Woo. At 10 pages, it's a pretty extensive one too. Dralasites, Vrusk, Yazirians and Sathar all get racial writeups making them available as PC's. And there's a dozen bits of equipment that are relatively common in Star Frontiers, but not in the Star Drive setting. Despite it's size, this feels like it's over all too soon, which is a testament to the amount of material they published in the magazine for it between 84-88, and the degree which I remember it despite it being over 2 years of real time since I was covering that period. So this doesn't leave me completely satisfied, but is generally a positive experience, with a ton of useful crunch, and enough setting that a complete newbie can understand what's going on. This is a nice boost in variety of material covered, and hopefully we'll be seeing a few more resurrections of old material in the next year, as the 25th anniversary celebrations get underway. Super science in the marvel universe: Another rather interesting bit of crunch for their other new system. We talked about the gadgeteer issue in the old FASERIP system, and issue 180's attempt at tackling it, which didn't impress me much. Their SAGA system solution, on the other hand, is both simple and exceedingly flexible and wide-ranging, making only your imagination (and the technical competence to back it up) your limit. Which in a comic book universe is very appropriate. Also appropriate is the fairly high chance of things blowing up in your face if you overreach yourself, keeping you from just trying the same thing again until you succeed if you have the time. And it also tackles how to keep inventions from changing the world too easily, and how to keep the research process from getting in the way of adventuring. Pretty damn good, really. I suppose if there's one thing the SAGA system should do well, it's getting the rules to fit into the narrative, and this is more than simple and flexible enough for that. [/QUOTE]
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