(un)reason
Legend
Merry Christmas everybody!
Dragon Issue 73: May 1983
part 1/2
100 pages They change not only their format, but their typeface and column layout this month. Very interesting. I expect we'll soon take it for granted, like most little changes of this sort. But they haven't made the changes they said they would last issue. April fool
In fact, they've actually increased their size, and intend to keep this up. Great. More work for me. We have several old things elaborated upon, plus the usual array of new stuff and returning features. On with the show.
In this issue:
Hmm. A Harn advert. Interesting. Another long running setting gets added to the list of arrivals.
Out on a limb: Two letters asking some questions about the attack priority system in issue 71. Kim does his best to help, as usual.
Two letters commenting on and complaining about the social class articles. People really don't like the idea of being unable to get into a class because they're too low on the totem pole. And if every other PC is going to try and break the rules just because they're there, why have them at all?
A letter filling us in on the effects of extreme cold (or at least, canadian temperatures.
) and asking for a better article on the effects of temperature in general. They reply that since the writer seems so knowledgable, perhaps they should write it. 
A letter engaging in some mathematical quibbling.
A letter telling us more about tides around the world. As usual, things are never as simple as they first seem, and there are a bunch of variations and exceptions. Fascinating.
A letter praising their humble artists. They really don't get enough credit for their part in making the magazine look good. Damn right. Good to see a purely positive letter once in a while.
Another new class this month, The Duelist. Designed to put a little more drama into D&D combat, they are exceedingly good at one-on one battles, but not so much at facing monsters, spellcasters and other stuff. While more powerful than straight fighters, they still can't hold a candle to a properly designed druid or wizard. They would make a perfectly legitimate character as long as you weren't facing nothing but humans in your adventures. I quite like this, even though they might outshine the other fighting classes a bit, it's well written and has a strong sense of flavour and thematics.
From the sorceror's scroll: Oooh. The planes take another big step forward, as Gary introduces the para and quasielemental planes. Ooze, magma, radiance, vacuum, and all the rest in their instadeath inflicting glory. Plus we get the code for the colour curtains when engaged in ethereal and astral travel. Every planar traveller ought to know them, because ending up in a place that'll kill you instantly when unprepared is not a good idea. As ever, it's fascinating to discover how this stuff started and evolved. That he gives us several alternatives that he tried and rejected as well is a definite plus. After all, even if they're not canonical, you could still use them in your own games. It keeps players who've read the books from knowing all the answers.
We also end with another blatant plug for money, as Gary mentions the TSR scholarship fund for gamers (?!) and encourages people to both donate to it and apply for it. Ookay. That's a bit of a sour note. He could definitely have phrased that a bit better.
The solo scenario: Katherine Kerr considers the benefits and difficulties in one-on-one play. You have to put in rather more effort to tailor the adventure to both the abilities of the character and the personality of the player if you want it to work well. However, it does offer substantial benefits in terms of attention, you're free to have extensive attention on emotional matters that would result in big chunks of the group doing nothing for parts of the session, and you don't have to worry about splitting the party. She quotes plenty of personal experiences and her advice seems sound, particularly if you want to do more roleplaying than dungeon crawling. She also digresses onto how to introduce a new player to the game, and how to integrate a newly joined player into an established group. This is a very strong article indeed, and really stands out from the crowd. I get the impression that this inspired quite a few people to develop their playstyle beyond team based dungeoncrawling. Which is good.
The ecology of the catoblepas: Looks like this series has been taken up eagerly and is already in full swing. They have entries lined up for the rest of the year. And why not. Who doesn't love ecology (apart from the current D&D developers). This month's entry takes a particularly strange tack in inventing and rationalizing it's subjects powers and mating procedure. The catoblepas we see are the females, and the males are pathetic little grazing things that have to run up behind her and get their end away without being looked at and dying. (so many comments I could make here but won't ) Their death attack is due to their breath, rather than an actual gaze. (grody) And the fiction ends with an amusing twist. Even if you don't use the changes and additions it makes, its still an entertaining article. The antics of the sages in it jive well with my view of D&D sage groups of this period's implied setting. Lets hope the next few entries in the series keep up this strong showing.
The whole half-ogre: Roger Moore reiterates and expands upon the half-ogre. (from all the way back in issue 29. That's quite the gap) Yes, they are quite limited in a lot of ways. You'll just have to accept that if you play one and concentrate on the good parts. Low stats do not neccecarily make a character not fun to play. Not an exceptional article, especially as so much of it is rehash. I wonder why they decided to do that now. Seems like the sort of thing that would be more appropriate for the best ofs than here.
Relief for traveller nobility: Oh joy. Another article offering extra detail (and more importantly, extra powers) for a particular career path. [/sarcasm] Yeah, I'm recycling my material. So are they. You want to be a noble who actually has the money to own an estate or a full-on ship, rather than just being some hanger-on relation, use these. Seems pretty self explanatory.
Lights, camera, life!: Having done several artist profiles. they're now showing you some hints on how to make your own dramatic images from miniatures. Basic set-up, how to make simple special effects, and lots of sample pictures. Once again I am reminded just how much computers have revolutionized the editing process, allowing even amateurs to achieve results that would take tons of equipment and training years ago. This is one of those articles that feels woefully short, as you could fill whole books on this subject, and he's got only a page or so of writing to give to us. But at least they're trying to cover other topics.
Figure feature has lots of ridable stuff this issue. Dinosaurs, elephants, big cats, wyverns, griffons. Quite the selection for your character to choose from. Hopefully the figure on top will also suit your conception of your character.
When it gets hit, it gets hurt: Equipment damage and maintenance rules. No thanks. Particularly when they happen every time you roll a 1 or 20. While I don't inherently object to realism, those odds are just bastardliness masquerading as realism, and would not make for better games. On the plus side, they're simple, so if you want to set your game in a universe where entropy has a far more brutal hand on the balls of reality than this one, it won't slow the game down too much. You can still expect complaining from the players, unless they get a chance to escape and kick entropies ass at some point.
Dragon Issue 73: May 1983
part 1/2
100 pages They change not only their format, but their typeface and column layout this month. Very interesting. I expect we'll soon take it for granted, like most little changes of this sort. But they haven't made the changes they said they would last issue. April fool
In fact, they've actually increased their size, and intend to keep this up. Great. More work for me. We have several old things elaborated upon, plus the usual array of new stuff and returning features. On with the show. In this issue:
Hmm. A Harn advert. Interesting. Another long running setting gets added to the list of arrivals.
Out on a limb: Two letters asking some questions about the attack priority system in issue 71. Kim does his best to help, as usual.
Two letters commenting on and complaining about the social class articles. People really don't like the idea of being unable to get into a class because they're too low on the totem pole. And if every other PC is going to try and break the rules just because they're there, why have them at all?
A letter filling us in on the effects of extreme cold (or at least, canadian temperatures.
) and asking for a better article on the effects of temperature in general. They reply that since the writer seems so knowledgable, perhaps they should write it. A letter engaging in some mathematical quibbling.
A letter telling us more about tides around the world. As usual, things are never as simple as they first seem, and there are a bunch of variations and exceptions. Fascinating.
A letter praising their humble artists. They really don't get enough credit for their part in making the magazine look good. Damn right. Good to see a purely positive letter once in a while.
Another new class this month, The Duelist. Designed to put a little more drama into D&D combat, they are exceedingly good at one-on one battles, but not so much at facing monsters, spellcasters and other stuff. While more powerful than straight fighters, they still can't hold a candle to a properly designed druid or wizard. They would make a perfectly legitimate character as long as you weren't facing nothing but humans in your adventures. I quite like this, even though they might outshine the other fighting classes a bit, it's well written and has a strong sense of flavour and thematics.
From the sorceror's scroll: Oooh. The planes take another big step forward, as Gary introduces the para and quasielemental planes. Ooze, magma, radiance, vacuum, and all the rest in their instadeath inflicting glory. Plus we get the code for the colour curtains when engaged in ethereal and astral travel. Every planar traveller ought to know them, because ending up in a place that'll kill you instantly when unprepared is not a good idea. As ever, it's fascinating to discover how this stuff started and evolved. That he gives us several alternatives that he tried and rejected as well is a definite plus. After all, even if they're not canonical, you could still use them in your own games. It keeps players who've read the books from knowing all the answers.
We also end with another blatant plug for money, as Gary mentions the TSR scholarship fund for gamers (?!) and encourages people to both donate to it and apply for it. Ookay. That's a bit of a sour note. He could definitely have phrased that a bit better.
The solo scenario: Katherine Kerr considers the benefits and difficulties in one-on-one play. You have to put in rather more effort to tailor the adventure to both the abilities of the character and the personality of the player if you want it to work well. However, it does offer substantial benefits in terms of attention, you're free to have extensive attention on emotional matters that would result in big chunks of the group doing nothing for parts of the session, and you don't have to worry about splitting the party. She quotes plenty of personal experiences and her advice seems sound, particularly if you want to do more roleplaying than dungeon crawling. She also digresses onto how to introduce a new player to the game, and how to integrate a newly joined player into an established group. This is a very strong article indeed, and really stands out from the crowd. I get the impression that this inspired quite a few people to develop their playstyle beyond team based dungeoncrawling. Which is good.
The ecology of the catoblepas: Looks like this series has been taken up eagerly and is already in full swing. They have entries lined up for the rest of the year. And why not. Who doesn't love ecology (apart from the current D&D developers). This month's entry takes a particularly strange tack in inventing and rationalizing it's subjects powers and mating procedure. The catoblepas we see are the females, and the males are pathetic little grazing things that have to run up behind her and get their end away without being looked at and dying. (so many comments I could make here but won't
) Their death attack is due to their breath, rather than an actual gaze. (grody) And the fiction ends with an amusing twist. Even if you don't use the changes and additions it makes, its still an entertaining article. The antics of the sages in it jive well with my view of D&D sage groups of this period's implied setting. Lets hope the next few entries in the series keep up this strong showing. The whole half-ogre: Roger Moore reiterates and expands upon the half-ogre. (from all the way back in issue 29. That's quite the gap) Yes, they are quite limited in a lot of ways. You'll just have to accept that if you play one and concentrate on the good parts. Low stats do not neccecarily make a character not fun to play. Not an exceptional article, especially as so much of it is rehash. I wonder why they decided to do that now. Seems like the sort of thing that would be more appropriate for the best ofs than here.
Relief for traveller nobility: Oh joy. Another article offering extra detail (and more importantly, extra powers) for a particular career path. [/sarcasm] Yeah, I'm recycling my material. So are they. You want to be a noble who actually has the money to own an estate or a full-on ship, rather than just being some hanger-on relation, use these. Seems pretty self explanatory.
Lights, camera, life!: Having done several artist profiles. they're now showing you some hints on how to make your own dramatic images from miniatures. Basic set-up, how to make simple special effects, and lots of sample pictures. Once again I am reminded just how much computers have revolutionized the editing process, allowing even amateurs to achieve results that would take tons of equipment and training years ago. This is one of those articles that feels woefully short, as you could fill whole books on this subject, and he's got only a page or so of writing to give to us. But at least they're trying to cover other topics.
Figure feature has lots of ridable stuff this issue. Dinosaurs, elephants, big cats, wyverns, griffons. Quite the selection for your character to choose from. Hopefully the figure on top will also suit your conception of your character.
When it gets hit, it gets hurt: Equipment damage and maintenance rules. No thanks. Particularly when they happen every time you roll a 1 or 20. While I don't inherently object to realism, those odds are just bastardliness masquerading as realism, and would not make for better games. On the plus side, they're simple, so if you want to set your game in a universe where entropy has a far more brutal hand on the balls of reality than this one, it won't slow the game down too much. You can still expect complaining from the players, unless they get a chance to escape and kick entropies ass at some point.
