(un)reason
Legend
Dragon Magazine Issue 157: May 1990
part 4/6
Editorial: Still more commentary on the removal of the fiends from 2nd edition in here. Roger puts his 2 cents in, making it pretty clear where he stands on their removal while not actually contradicting company line in any way. There are a whole bunch of good reasons why they are useful to have in the game, both from a mechanical and flavour point of view. There's also a reminder that the old books are hardly obsolete, and the canon police aren't going to break down your doors if you keep using them. As with the Buck Rogers stuff, there are big chunks of the company that are rolling their eyes at some of the recent decisions, and working behind the scenes to undermine them. It's all a bit awkward, really. It'll be interesting to see just how this progresses, both in terms of this issue, and the larger company politics.
The dungeon alone: A second article on solo play in the same magazine? How curious. Well, actually this is mainly for one-on-one play, but it's not that big a difference. Weirdly, the idea of having a single player play multiple characters (By far the easiest solution, and one I use regularly) doesn't occur to this writer, and the rest of this article consists of ways you can turn down the difficulty level to give them a chance of surviving. Poison and paralysis obviously need serious moderating. Bend the rules on death and unconsciousness liberally. Give them better chances than normal to run away. Govern monster replenishment conservatively. Basically, be a complete wimp, and let them win even if they're playing dumb. He also seems to assume that you'll be playing fairly linear adventures, and if they make a "wrong" choice, you should blatantly have it just not work, or figure out how to get them back on track as soon as possible. While there are some cool ideas to steal, overall, I find this a moderately objectionable article, encouraging you to break the rules to achieve your ends, and make sure that the players win, rather than being a properly neutral moderator. Plus there are more satisfying ways of handling solo play, as they've shown in the past, and this is another sign of the gradual dilution of the game's deadliness over the editions. Bleh.
Next stop - Eveningstar: Ohh, shiny. More Realms bonus features. Ed's overwritten as usual, and we get the benefits. Say hello to the village of eveningstar. Not a hugely important place in the scheme of things, but notable for FLYING CATS!!!!! FANGIRL SQUEE!!!!!! EPIC KYOOT!!!!! I do apologize. I just got a sudden unexpected nostalgia overdose. As I remember, this place does get into the updated second edition boxed set, and the flying cats become Tressym, which went on to play a fairly substantial part in my own youthful gaming. It's somewhat bigger than it's appearance there as well, filling in several details that were left unclear in the later version, and with a whole bunch of plot hooks and descriptive details that can make it a suitable adventuring location for both low and higher level parties. They can deal with wolves and local humanoids, or they might wind up rubbing shoulders with King Azoun and seeing what monsters live in the ruins of the Zhentarim base. (I'm betting there's a Deepspawn involved, given the ease they replenish with. ) This is definitely a welcome appearance of something I wasn't expecting to see again, but am very pleased to have discovered. See you again soon, hopefully.
Keep the heroes flying: Our Marvel article this month is another on proper world and plot building. Learn the plots that the comics use. Tailor adventures to your heroes and their backstories and personalities. A cast of recurring NPC's that aren't heroes or villains is important. A romantic interest is particularly useful as a driver for adventures. Turning friend against friend always makes for a fun fight. If struggling, temporarily remove their powers. All seems fairly familiar from years of the ARES section and the similar advice for other genres. Yawn. My mind, it is already expanded enough to not even notice this going in.
Through the looking glass: Robert continues to keep this more interesting than the other review columns by mixing up elements as usual. Once again, he has to explain his methodology. He can't review stuff that hasn't been submitted, and there's no point reviewing stuff that isn't available to most people. Similarly, given the magazine's international audience, mentioning specific shops would be bad business. Being a pro is hard. On the plus side, he's been reviewing enough that he can recommend figures for a whole range of monsters. Many of them are even officially licensed.
On the reviews side of things, the big one is Blue Max, a wargame of WW1 dogfighting. Modeling 3D movement and a whole bunch of maneuvers, it is as much about player skill as equipment stats and luck, and seems both pretty fun, and very open to expansions. Still trying to keep wargaming alive, I see.
On the actual minis side, we see that Shadowrun has taken off quickly and effectively, and have already licensed out their minis rights to grenadier. But D&D is still holding on tight to the market too, with new models for the Dragonlance line. There's probably room enough for both in this town, but it's not going to be a completely harmonious co-existence. More fun little snippets of history leaking through here.
part 4/6
Editorial: Still more commentary on the removal of the fiends from 2nd edition in here. Roger puts his 2 cents in, making it pretty clear where he stands on their removal while not actually contradicting company line in any way. There are a whole bunch of good reasons why they are useful to have in the game, both from a mechanical and flavour point of view. There's also a reminder that the old books are hardly obsolete, and the canon police aren't going to break down your doors if you keep using them. As with the Buck Rogers stuff, there are big chunks of the company that are rolling their eyes at some of the recent decisions, and working behind the scenes to undermine them. It's all a bit awkward, really. It'll be interesting to see just how this progresses, both in terms of this issue, and the larger company politics.
The dungeon alone: A second article on solo play in the same magazine? How curious. Well, actually this is mainly for one-on-one play, but it's not that big a difference. Weirdly, the idea of having a single player play multiple characters (By far the easiest solution, and one I use regularly) doesn't occur to this writer, and the rest of this article consists of ways you can turn down the difficulty level to give them a chance of surviving. Poison and paralysis obviously need serious moderating. Bend the rules on death and unconsciousness liberally. Give them better chances than normal to run away. Govern monster replenishment conservatively. Basically, be a complete wimp, and let them win even if they're playing dumb. He also seems to assume that you'll be playing fairly linear adventures, and if they make a "wrong" choice, you should blatantly have it just not work, or figure out how to get them back on track as soon as possible. While there are some cool ideas to steal, overall, I find this a moderately objectionable article, encouraging you to break the rules to achieve your ends, and make sure that the players win, rather than being a properly neutral moderator. Plus there are more satisfying ways of handling solo play, as they've shown in the past, and this is another sign of the gradual dilution of the game's deadliness over the editions. Bleh.
Next stop - Eveningstar: Ohh, shiny. More Realms bonus features. Ed's overwritten as usual, and we get the benefits. Say hello to the village of eveningstar. Not a hugely important place in the scheme of things, but notable for FLYING CATS!!!!! FANGIRL SQUEE!!!!!! EPIC KYOOT!!!!! I do apologize. I just got a sudden unexpected nostalgia overdose. As I remember, this place does get into the updated second edition boxed set, and the flying cats become Tressym, which went on to play a fairly substantial part in my own youthful gaming. It's somewhat bigger than it's appearance there as well, filling in several details that were left unclear in the later version, and with a whole bunch of plot hooks and descriptive details that can make it a suitable adventuring location for both low and higher level parties. They can deal with wolves and local humanoids, or they might wind up rubbing shoulders with King Azoun and seeing what monsters live in the ruins of the Zhentarim base. (I'm betting there's a Deepspawn involved, given the ease they replenish with. ) This is definitely a welcome appearance of something I wasn't expecting to see again, but am very pleased to have discovered. See you again soon, hopefully.
Keep the heroes flying: Our Marvel article this month is another on proper world and plot building. Learn the plots that the comics use. Tailor adventures to your heroes and their backstories and personalities. A cast of recurring NPC's that aren't heroes or villains is important. A romantic interest is particularly useful as a driver for adventures. Turning friend against friend always makes for a fun fight. If struggling, temporarily remove their powers. All seems fairly familiar from years of the ARES section and the similar advice for other genres. Yawn. My mind, it is already expanded enough to not even notice this going in.
Through the looking glass: Robert continues to keep this more interesting than the other review columns by mixing up elements as usual. Once again, he has to explain his methodology. He can't review stuff that hasn't been submitted, and there's no point reviewing stuff that isn't available to most people. Similarly, given the magazine's international audience, mentioning specific shops would be bad business. Being a pro is hard. On the plus side, he's been reviewing enough that he can recommend figures for a whole range of monsters. Many of them are even officially licensed.
On the reviews side of things, the big one is Blue Max, a wargame of WW1 dogfighting. Modeling 3D movement and a whole bunch of maneuvers, it is as much about player skill as equipment stats and luck, and seems both pretty fun, and very open to expansions. Still trying to keep wargaming alive, I see.
On the actual minis side, we see that Shadowrun has taken off quickly and effectively, and have already licensed out their minis rights to grenadier. But D&D is still holding on tight to the market too, with new models for the Dragonlance line. There's probably room enough for both in this town, but it's not going to be a completely harmonious co-existence. More fun little snippets of history leaking through here.
) as quickly as possible. Now that's a good contrast with the rather sluggish release of monster manuals in 3rd and 4th edition. 
It's obvious that the writer has had to deal with players who think like that, and wants to discourage that kind of behaviour, as he taken pains to make these places extra tricky to get through, with large numbers of obscenely powerful creatures around before you get to the actual bosses. While this does fall somewhat into the old problem of making an infinite universe seem small, it lampshades it better than most of these articles. While not really big or good enough to be a classic add-on, it's still an interesting and fairly useful article, that helps give high level characters more to do. And as we know, that's always a problem, given how many adventures it takes to advance a level at that stage in the game. 
