Let's read the entire run

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 206: June 1994


part 6/6


Fiction: defiance by Lisa Smedman. It’s a mugs game, fighting dragons head on. One breath and your entire party could well be an outline on the wall. Far better to use your brain. They have to eat, they have to sleep (quite a lot in many cases) and they have to breed. All give you levers to exploit, and in this case, a simple peasant woman manages to do so where legions of armoured knights failed. As is often the case, the fiction imparts a lesson many adventuring parties would do well to learn. Sometimes, the best way to win is by never drawing a weapon, and 0th level characters can kick the ass of 36th level ones. (especially when they’re your characters mother) Overconfidence can bring about anyone’s ruin. At least the small know they’re small and try harder.


Denver gets a full boxed set for shadowrun. Sounds spiffy.


Libram X spends a whole month choosing what outfit to wear. Jeff takes the time to poke fun at his own past works while at it. Swordplay is consumed by ennui. Dragonmirth is, as you would expect for an anniversary issue, infested with dragons. Yamara meets her sister, who wants to marry her husband, and more people who want to kill her husband. No break there then.


Through the looking glass: Another bit of painting advice in Ken’s 3rd article. This time, he discusses layering. Basecoat, wash, drybrushing, detailing. Each has their place. Once again it’s very much back to basics here and I can’t scare up much interest, especially after they have had several articles with new ideas and significant developments. I don’t need this, although I’m sure some new readers will.

Our minis this month are a feathered dragon for shadowrun, good for oriental and Mexican adventures. Another pair of dragons fighting. Make sure you paint before assembly, otherwise you’ll have a tricky time reaching everything. A cleric with a mace, looking rather cross and ready to rumble. Two Mad Max rejects. A bare potbelly spoils the most cutting edge fashion. A Julie Guthrie dragon with a knightly rider. Good as ever, I see. A giant mutant skaven monstrosity. It’s a hard life in the sewers, especially when you’re that big. Two space marine sergeants from the future edition grimdarkness. Yet more goblins and skull-headed undead spellcasters. More things that never go out of style. The lady of the lake, and some Arthurian style pageboys and dwarves. They’ll be setting you macguffin quests before you know it. And a mechanised demon thing for the Legions of steel game. Once again, it’s the big lines tied to other products that are surviving.


TSR Previews: Planescape gets it's first monstrous compendium appendix. This does mean some rehash from MC8. Still, at least it's a proper book this time. And with yet more pretty Diterlizzi art. But the succubus and marilith will not be showing any boobies. Live with it.

Dark sun expands on psionics, in The Will and the Way. Lots of new powers, and a reworking of existing ones. Given the importance of psionics to dark sun, it's about time.

The Forgotten Realms finishes off the cleric quintet. The Chaos Curse sees Cadderly conclude his journeys and lift his curse. Woo. Now he can go back to writing about Drizzt like a good little hack.

Our generic accessories this month are the Deck of encounters set 2, and the players gaming screens. Now everyone can be paranoid and hide their stuff from each other, while having useful tables at hand to reference.


This one is an interesting one because so many of it’s articles are tied into specific AD&D settings. With stuff for one-shots, established settings, brand new ones and the dying one, it really does run the gamut. Most of it’s pretty decent, but like last issue, it feels very controlled from the top down. I suspect that’s not going to change, and their grip will tighten as readers slip through their fingers. There is something to be said for co-ordinated promotion, even if it’s not as cool as when things happen organically. So I’m left a bit unsatisfied, but can’t trace it to a particular source. Bah, next issue please.

 

[Orius]

I suspect that’s not going to change, and their grip will tighten as readers slip through their fingers.

OTOH, we're getting pretty close to my first issue here, less than a year away now. So likely they're probably picking up new readers while losing others. Still, I get the impression that this is one of the magazine's weakest periods overall, and these review do seem to confirm the complaints from readers several years later that this period of Dragon was very light on D&D oriented content.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 207: July 1994


part 1/6


124 pages. Is that a boy or a girl on the cover? Hmm. The contents say the original model was a girl. It may be a trap. The topic of the magazine, on the other hand, is treasure. One that seems basic, but somehow they haven’t thought of doing it before. This seems likely to please the players in the audience in particular. Now, when are they going to do a special on wandering monsters? That seems like it could be fun for a DM.


In this issue:


Letters: This month’s letter page is devoted entirely to errata. From last issue to a good 7 month in the past, they’ve got plenty of little mistakes to report. Many of them were spotted by the writers themselves, albeit too late to fix them before printing. Allen Varney, Roger Moore, Steve Winter and Ed Greenwood all have a little egg on their face. Happens to the best of us. Dust yourself off and try not to make the same mistake again. Especially you Ed. If you’re going to do crossovers, you have to make sure you don’t mess up basic details of the other property, because that can be interpreted as dreadfully disrespectful.


Editorial: So people are complaining that their game isn't as much of a challenge as it used to be. Maybe that's because you're skipping over all the travel bits. We can't do that in real life. Even after years in the same office, the commute still takes approximately the same amount of time, and you'll regularly be faced with inconveniences such as traffic accidents, overenthusiastic evangelists, bums selling the big issue, and terrorist attacks. Or something. Anyway, this is another thing that's going out of fashion, along with wandering monsters, for more scripted storylines and metaplot stuff. And Dale is trying to fight against the tide, pretty vainly in this case. Rather surprised this lesson is being forgotten. But then, the old expert set is several years out of print by this point, and there is a new generation of gamers coming who are learning a very different set of starting lessons. Whether you prefer this way, or decry it as another sign of instant gratification culture not wanting to work for their fun or have the possibility of being thrown against impossible challenges and having to run away is your choice. Lawns, gitofa, etc.


First quest: Zeb Cook is one of those designers who has enough cool credits over an extended period of time that it's hard to pick one over the others. The original expert set, Oriental adventures, Planescape. Each would be enough to seal his place in the hall of fame individually. The fact that he's been consistently producing other cool stuff for the past 15 years as well is icing on the cake. But it doesn't seem like his start was particularly auspicious. Like so many of us, his first characters didn't even have names, just numbers as they died repeatedly. Sophistication came gradually through trial and error. Which is you've got the time, is a more fun way to learn than being bossed around by a teacher being told that things are badwrongfun without explaining why. Even now, he's still learning and developing, which unfortunately means he's leaving us for the fast growing world of computer game design. Looking forward, it seems his credits there aren't so great, although they do include being lead designer for City of Villains. Oh well. We'll always have the forbidden city.


Big-league magic: Yes, even 9th level spells are pretty puny on a cosmic scale. And even D&D artefacts rarely offer you sufficient power to take over or destroy the world. Course, there are several good reasons for this. First is that the original designers kinda expected you to stop somewhere in the teens, so they never bothered to do hard design beyond that. Second is that it's a lot harder to keep such power from ruining the whole story than it is in a narrative written by a single person. So you're put in a slightly awkward position when covering this topic. You're not sure if you should be encouraging it, because it can be a lot of fun to have phenomenal cosmic power, or warning people away from it. So this is an article that isn't quite sure what it wants to accomplish, and settles for sitting on the fence, being a serviceable bit of advice, but not really doing too much. One of those cases where I'm bemused why they put this first.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 207: July 1994


part 2/6


Bazaar of the Bizarre: A collection of items from celtic legend here, putting the lie to the statement that they were uncommon back then. It's just that they were more likely to be living creatures, large objects or locations, and most heroes only had one or two. Which is the way to keep them special, really.

The Hound of Loruaidhe is a perfect tracker. Well, not truly perfect. A good spellcaster could beat it no trouble. But it seemed impressive to them at the time.

The Pigskin of Tuis can heal you and turn water into wine. Wait, wasn't that jesuses schtick? And isn't human meat very similar to pig. Hmm. I am very suspicious.

The Chariot of Dobhar can be ridden over water. But you can't stop without sinking, which may be hard on the horses if you try long trips. Once again they prove that magic may be spectacular, but you need the mundane technology like ships as well.

The Pigs of Easal, like Thor's goats, restore themselves if you put their bones out properly. If you don't, they stay dead, and the host gets very cross indeed. Don't kill the golden goose, or something.

Apples of the Hesperides are seriously nerfed here. No immortality, just extra effective sustenance. Bah. This is a greek legend rather than a Celtic one as well.

The Spear of Pisear protects you from fire, and sets alight anyone you hit. That'll create lots of panic if you wade into a crowd of enemies, breaking up their ranks quite efficiently.

The Spear of Lugh drains the blood of those it hits and uses it to heal the wielder. Is it just me, or is that a bit vampiric? I guess it's alright if done in a heroic cause

The Cauldron of Dagda gives vast quantities of food to the worthy, and leaves cowards to starve. It can be a harsh life up north.

The Sword of Nuada has also been nerfed in D&D compared to the legends. It's still pretty powerful though. And losing limbs can be considered worse than death, amirite?

Stones of Destiny predict the future. As legends show, this generally isn't too helpful actually. You've got to actually make the mistakes to learn from them it seems.

The Horn of Dispelling Illusions does exactly what it says on the tin when you blow it. No wizard's gonna frighten off my army! Course, in D&D they'll just fireball it instead, and what will disbelieving that get you?

The Cup of Truth is another means of accomplishing an end mentioned in the last bazaar. Course, it's lie detecting power is blatant and applies to everyone around it, so it's harder to abuse by authority.

The Well of magical Lands transports you all over the shop if you stop and drink from it. If you make it back, you'll have some pretty wild adventures to tell.

Cloaks of invisibility have a pretty similar effect to rings, but only your weapon becomes visible if you attack people. This means it'll look like a disembodied sword is attacking, which may be amusingly misleading.

The Salmon of wisdom boosts your wisdom if you catch and eat it. Good luck with that, since I'm sure they're both rare and slippery. Of all the animals to invest wisdom in. Which god was responsible for that little cosmic joke? Another workmanlike collection really.


Paper prosperity: Like artwork and magic items, pieces of paper can have value far above and beyond the physical item. Paper money is of course only valuable because people honour it (well, the same is true of all money, but gold, silver, etc are rare, and have quite substantial uses in electronics and precision crafting. ) Maps are valuable because of what they let you do, and the difficulty in creating a precise one. Legal documents can let you know exactly what you can get away with doing, and may well result in you going places or owning things you otherwise wouldn't be able too. This is a fairly low key article, but one of those ones that looks good for breaking a creative impasse, and inspiring adventures a little different from the usual. You can make the treasures from one adventure a direct hook into the next one, which saves a good deal of time and reduces hanging around drinking in taverns waiting for shady quest-setters. I think we can all agree that that's a good thing, at least until overused, and you spend years running from one hassle to another without ever getting to take a break. This is one they haven't done before, and hopefully It'll help you get out of a rut too.


Trifling Treasures: The alliteration continues, with another short but amusing article. Putting a bunch of random bits and pieces in the pockets of your NPC's is the kind of thing that adds a lot to your verisimilitude, but takes a lot of work, and if you only do it with some people, you run the risk of the players jumping on the details just because they're there and making enormous red herrings out of them. What shall we do about this? Random tables time! Now that's old skool. Actually, I seem to recall them doing something like this before, quite possibly by Ed. Ah yes, issue 104 and issue 164. This isn't too uncommon an idea then. Course in this, like wand of wonder tables, you can never have too many to choose from to keep your players on their toes. Mix and match spare bits and pieces for maximum randomness in your life, like a real messy apartment. Good luck finding something that'll be just perfect for saving the day some time in the future.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 207: July 1994


part 3/6


The magic of Karameikos: Joshuan pesters Jeff for a second issue in a row, just because he can. This time, he's talking about Karemekos' premier school of wizardry. This is one of those cases where they consciously lampshade D&D's tropes, with it built on a dungeon which was repeatedly looted, repopulated by new monsters, and cleared out again. In theory, this'll keep it from being reoccupied again, and give apprentice wizards a good source of relatively safe xp as they study, as they can explore the underground bits, but run up to the surface where there's a ready force to deal with anything too nasty. An excellent example of self-awareness in setting design. Course, if it all goes wrong, one of the wizards'll be corrupted and turn into an evil overlord with their own ready made looming spire fortress once they've killed or co-opted everyone else. But hey, that just means another adventure for the PC's. So this shows you that you can do Hogwarts school of magic in AD&D, quite possibly including members of other classes as support guys. Not burdened by the metaplot stuff of last issue, this is pretty fun, and looks like it could be adapted to any high magic campaign fairly easily. D&D may be slanted more towards campaigns where you travel around, but nothing's stopping it from being set in a static location if there's enough interesting stuff going on there. Looks like we might get a few more fun bits and pieces before this world falls into disrepair.


Forum: Greg Howley nitpicks over exactly what benefit bow and crossbow specialisation should have. Yawn. This is why we abstractify.

Mike Tresca tells his stories of how thievery has hurt the gaming industry as a whole by making shops stop stocking them. This is obviously not a good thing, and the least you can do is eject people who admit to stealing books from your gaming group. Yeah, that's a tricky one. Why are gamers (and Terry Pratchett fans) more larcenously inclined than the average reader? Is it just because they have a much higher percentage of teenage males, or are more complicated social issues involved?

Ken Lacy tries to solve the Bard kit issue. His first bit of advice is that where supplements contradict the core books, you should stick with the rules in the core books. That'll cut off the worst of the twinkery before it really gets going. One of those ones that illustrates the problems in their rules editing by directly pointing out that some of their books contradict others. Where are their editor's heads?

Tim Emrick gives his 2 cents on multiclassed characters with kits. He's moderately conservative, taking the view that it's all optional, and disallowable by the DM. And don't forget, kits should have significant hindrances to offset their bonuses.

Daniel L. Grindstaff complains that gamers at cons are becoming ruder and more likely to attack the GM's running style these years. Generally, not taking crap is a good thing, but there are proper ways to go about it. If you're the only one not enjoying it, you ought to not spoil it for everyone else playing.

Adam Panshin has a whole bunch of ideas for tweaking classes. Multiclass prioritising, anti-paladins, weapon specialisation, ranger's balance with paladins. All in the name of Balance! Tough order, you know. No-one really agrees what perfect balance is.


Role-playing reviews: The Planescape boxed set gets a 6 pip review from Rick, thoroughly pleasing him with it's stylistic choices, vastly greater accessibility, and highly fun to read prose. The bones may not be too different from last edition, but everything else is much more built up. Philosophy, geography, and biology are given new spins. Of course, it's still not nearly complete yet, but with so many infinite universes, you wouldn't want it to be. The stage is set for it to support many years of supplements.

Chessboards: Planes of possibility is another attempt at creating a planar cosmology, this time system free. It too seems pretty cool, even if it doesn't have the amazing visuals or instant accessability of the planescape stuff. There's a lot more dimensional math which seems aimed at those who like analyzing the conceptual side of things. But it still manages to have a sense of mischief as well. When you're working in concepts, it's hard not to have some funny results. I think I'd like this one as well.


Tales of gargentihr? What's that all about then? Another game I don't remember.


The game wizards: Spellfire! Curse you Collectible Card Games! :shakes fist: We saw you on the horizon at the start of the year. Now one of the things that turned out to be a real bane of the roleplaying hobby, due to the way it competed directly with it for shelf space and social leisure time, is upon us. And it's chief corporate dog Jim Ward who's doing the promotional duties again. So here's a whole bunch of statistics, and a bit of rules details to tantalise us. Build realms comprised of famed locations from various D&D worlds, and attack & defend them with named characters using classic artefacts. It's not a bad idea, even if seems likely to produce scenarios that would be deeply cheesy if done in tabletop, akin to the setting gulf between WHFB & WHFRP. But then, that may be the point. Getting to quickly play scenarios that would be verisimilitude destroying in pen and paper does have it's pleasures, otherwise it wouldn't have had any success. Still, this is another development that is a bit irritating, especially as I know it'll also be taking quite a bit of magazine space in the next few years. I wasn't amused by it the first time around, and this looks like it'll give me plenty of fuel for complaint. Let's hope I can make some of the rants fun ones.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 207: July 1994


part 4/6


Eye of the monitor: Sandy once again tackles the backlash against violence in gaming. As not only a reviewer, but also a designer of one of the most celebrated gore heavy games of the year, he has a rather large stake in this argument. Unsurprisingly, his view on the matter is rather nuanced. Ironically, just as D&D players seem less likely to commit suicide statistically, it's looking like unleashing your aggressive urges on a collection of pixels makes you less likely to be violent to other people. Really, the important thing to do is raise your kids, not plonk them in front of a screen and let them play whatever they want, or just wander off unsupervised. Game rating systems only work if the parents pay attention to what's on them. This is a big part of why tribalism works. Even two adults can't give full time attention to a whole brood of rapidly growing little horrors. Having a whole bunch of aunties, uncles, grandparents around to share the burden helps in properly socialising your kids tremendously. Another bit of evidence that the way modern society is structured has some serious flaws, trying to go against human instincts and paying the price for it. But we're getting into soapboxing territory again, so let's cut to the games.

Fantasy Empires tries to do the companion level D&D thing and create a game where you start off head of a dominion and then have to conquer the world. The result is as mixed in success as the original Dominion management rules, although it alters them a lot. It does get a good long review, with lots of advice, but it's also quite critical in a lot of respects. It can be a bit slow, and once you've got halfway and victory is pretty much assured, you still have to get through the rest of it to win. Really, it's more for wargamers than RPG'ers, and how many of those are still around today?

Walls of Rome is another OK but not mindblowing wargame. I think you can figure out roughly what technology you have access to in this one, and it's not too surprising, although there are a few sloppy bits, particularly in the manual, which was obviously written before the game was properly finished. You'll have to work things out via trial and error instead.



The role of books: The magic and healing by Nick O'Donohoe looks like it'd get a 5 star review if John did that kind of thing. It's hard for him to pinpoint what makes it so good, but he settles on the way it balances realism and fantasy, hope and cynicism. getting proper depth into what you create is one of the hardest things to do, really.

Witch and Wombat by Carolyn Cushman, on the other hand, fails to do the worldbuilding needed to make it's odd premise believable. It all feels half-finished, and the jokes aren't strong enough to make it work as a comedy either. Reading tons of other people's stuff doesn't necessarily make you a god writer.

Sleipnir by Linda Evans mixes norse mythology with a hard-bitten modern day soldier protagonist. There's plenty of parallels to be drawn between ancient vikings and modern military, and this tackles them while keeping the action count high as well. Don't be surprised that there's lots of non gratuitous violence and swearing.

Decalog, edited by Mark Stammers & Stephen James Walker, is an anthology of Dr Who stories. With adventures set in a whole range of the Doctor's incarnations, it's filled with easter eggs that reward detailed knowledge of the show. In fact it may be a little too focussed on hardcore fans. But it is full of imaginative twists and turns, and has a nice narrative device typing the stories together. He may be down, but he's not out by a long shot.

The beekeepers apprentice by Laurie R King gives Sherlock Holmes a young female protegee from america. This sounds like it could turn into the worst kind of mary-sue fanfic, but this gets a good review anyway, showing her gradually learning instead of jumping right in, stealing his thunder. As pastiches go, there are many many worse ones.


Sage advice: If you forego a saving throw, then someone casts a different spell at you, can you save (nope. This is exactly what fast-talking is for. Dramatically, it's a feature, not a bug. )

Why the hell would anyone be a sha'ir! They can't get spells fast enough to use them in combat! (no, but they can keep going all day, and don't need to select their spells at the start. As tactical and utility casters, they rock to an incredible degree. Plus they can't lose their spellbook and become useless if captured.)

Can gens get out of ravenloft (Eek. There's a quandary for you. It'd make the class useless if they couldn't but potentially setting breaking if they could. Skip will allow them to temporarily check out, as they're not PC's, but just like ghosts and roaming Vistani caravans, they can never truly leave. )

Can paladins and rangers cast stuff from the tome of magic spheres (Skip does not want to seem churlish. Skip will give them one extra sphere each so they can keep up with the jones's)

Does a ring of free action prevent paralysis (Skip is going to make a completely outre ruling and say no! Do not question the whims of Skip! )

How exactly does a frost brand work (just say the word. (The word is on your lips ) Say the word. (The word is on your lips ) )

Can a gem of insight hyper boost an elf over the centuries (No. It has to be a different creature each time)

What happens when a wild mage abandons wild magic (Much Aaaangst as they ponder their new place in the world, and the harm they did with their former powers )

Can undead drink potions (yes)

How do undead recover hit points (by feasting on human Fleeeeeeeessssssssh and Brrrraaaaaaiiiinssss )

How does sunlight affect non-vampire undead (see their descriptions. )

What happens when a lich uses a wish. It shortens it's unlife by 5 years. Hey, that means it gets to be a demilich quicker. A plan with no drawbacks! )

How do you determine a liches HP (Since they use completely different dice, a complete reroll is in order.)

Can archliches be turned (Sure. It may not be easy though. )

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 207: July 1994


part 5/6


Gunnar Thorson starts his murder investigation in earnest.


The dragon sage: For a third month in a row, they have something extra for Council of Wyrms. While they may not have enough faith in it's long-term selling potential to make it a full-blown line, there must be quite a few people who like it in the office. So here's a new kit for it. Sages have a bit of a problem on a human scale because they're not that suited for adventuring. But Dragons are inherently big, scary and awesome enough to make up for that. And while spellcasting isn't their primary thing, they do get an interesting selection of spells drawn from both wizard and priest lists. (Divination and summoning are normally opposed specialities. ) If you have a large party, and are struggling to differentiate your dragons, it doesn't hurt, even if it probably is slightly underpowered overall. Now, how do you do a draconic rogue variant? That's one I'd be very interested in seeing them tackle.


Rumblings: This month's gossip is primarily concerned with our links to the computer game industry, in one form or another. As we've heard earlier, Zeb Cook is off to Magnet Interactive. On top of that, GURPS is getting computer games, Battletech is getting a CD supplement, and WotC are establishing a pretty solid web presence. TSR, on the other hand, are losing their relationship with SSI that produced so many good games, while all their net presence is in the form of third party newsgroups and websites. It's not great news for them really, if you read between the lines. Along with CCG's, this is another strong, and still growing competitor that will do a lot to take players and designers away from RPG's over the years. Getting half a dozen people together to play a game socially is a lot harder than turning on the TV and settling down to a session of final fantasy. These aren't really very good signs for us or them, are they.


There's a rum do about, old chap: A proper Amazing Engine article. About time. Spike Y. Jones turns his mind to distinctive plot hooks for this setting. The result is system free, but of course very steeped in victoriana, and so would take quite a bit of adapting for another game. Ware the french menace! How the hell does evolution apply to faeries? They're going to try and blow up parliament again?! Or replace the MP's with dopplegangers? How does this new technology of blood transfusions work when done between fae and people? Zombie Prince Albert strikes again! And a bit of parallel dimension fun just for the hell of it. A lot of rather fun ideas here, which seem to capture the mix of weirdness, humour and historical flavour the game wants to be played with. It's too little too late, but this is an entertaining little read who's heart is in the right place.


Great Responsibilities: What is with superheroes being outside the law. The good guys are rarely affiliated with any legal organisation (and the ones that are are generally noticeably less effectual) while the villains are never punished using the proper legal system, and get off ridiculously lightly for their crimes. It makes sense with the ones so powerful that no mundane system could hold them, but for street level ones it can only be explained away by liberal application of drama points. Plus unless you have super-senses of some sort, or incredible luck, spotting crimes in time to foil them regularly and get that superheroic reputation is a bit tricky. There are plenty of less glamorous things you can do with superpowers that make the world a better place proactively, instead of waiting around for some villain to attack. With a sample superheroic organisation based upon these principles, this is one of those ones that seems quite decent at what it intends to do, but not too good if you're looking for a fast-paced, high action campaign. There's always the danger of actually making the game less fun when you add more detail and realism, and this seems the case here. But if you want to try a more logical setup for your superhero-filled society as seen in the likes of Aberrant, this could be what you need.


Essential Villainy: Deliberately contrasting with the last article is a second system free supers piece. How do you make a memorably diabolical villain? Pretty much the same way you do in any genre. While powers may play a part, it's more in how they behave, and how they relate to the heroes. Whether they're flat or three-dimensional, scary or risible has little to do with their statistical capabilities, and more to do with how they're played. So this is one of those bits of end of issue filler that takes a familiar topic and tries to spruce it up by applying it to a new genre. I yawned my way through it.

 

[VirtualWizard]

Dragon Magazine Issue 207: July 1994

How do undead recover hit points (by feasting on human Fleeeeeeeessssssssh and Brrrraaaaaaiiiinssss )

Good one, almost scored a keyboard. Here I thought that undead could only be healed by multiple castings of various Cause Wounds spells. Some how flesh and brains seem kind of mundane for a high fantasy game

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 207: July 1994


part 6/6


Fiction: The lady of Roth Shan by Jo Shannon Cochran. Damn fae. Both men and women can wind up addicted to their beauty. Even if you rescue them from the immediate threat, they may well wind up in trouble again, maybe years later, quite possibly of their own volition. And you might well end up paying a price yourself. Law of drama and all that. If you think you're about to be dragged into a fairy story, steer well clear and nuke them from orbit. It's the banal way. Yeah, this is another example of why you don't want to get mixed up with fae, for the chances of living happily ever after are not actually that great. On the other hand, your chances of living happily ever after in the real world are pretty much zero, so this is a case where I can't really give a definitive answer. All I can say for certain is that this story didn't make a particularly great impression on me, positive or negative. More filler, methinks.


Libram X has amazons fighting more weird tentacled creatures. I do worry about these artists sometimes. Swordplay would prefer it if the party worked together properly. Dragonmirth's tuning is seriously out. Yamara introduces the new lich in the hood, comin' to take over ur familiars.


Through the looking glass: Convention season is on it's way again. We may be in somewhat reduced circumstances compared to a few years ago, but we're still getting our best stuff around this time of the year. A ghost and female vampire, with strikingly similar expressions for such differing body shapes. Sir Tarquine, a mace-wielding knight ready to bash your brains in. A werewolf formor that's entirely suitable for converting into a D&D monster. Three lizard men mooks, plus two more interesting lizard folk and their tamed dinosaur watchdog. A whole cast of mundane people for populating your city breaks. A whole bunch of familiars animal and supernatural for your wizard to chose from. A sarcophagus, containing a mummy, of course. An illusionist on a flying carpet. Pay no attention to the small bit of rock supporting it. And a Dwarf from Earthdawn riding a sabretooth tiger. That'll put the fear up any goblins riding Worgs for sure. (unless they seriously outnumber you, in which case I'm sure they'll pull something nasty. )


TSR Previews: Another new yet old campaign setting arrives this month. That's the 4th this year. They're really going into overdrive. Anyway, the Known World has migrated to AD&D, and been officially renamed Mystara, after the planet rather than the region. We kick off with Karameikos: Kingdom of adventure. The perfect place to make your name or die trying. Now with audio CD! We also see them kick off the supplement mill at a breakneck pace. Their monstrous compendium appendix is out straight away, as is their first novel, Dragonlord of Mystara by Thorarinn Gunnarsson. (another familiar name that's shown up in the magazine ages ago. ) Are they going to get any new stuff out, or is it going to be mostly rehash with shinier visuals. After all, there's a lot of ground already covered here.

The Forgotten realms is also rehashing, in Waterdeep, City of splendors. Another big boxed set full of stuff for players, stuff for GM's, monsters, maps, etc etc. Come on, surely there's somewhere you've missed out. What's south of Maztica? You're unlikely to find out in "Marco" Volo: Journey, as that faker also sticks to fairly safe territory.

On the other hand, we do get to go a bit further south than usual thanks to Al-Qadim, in Corsairs of the great sea. Haven't they already had one nautical sourcebox. Oh well. Plenty more strangeness at sea to go round

Planescape decides to expand on the places dumb adventurers are most likely to want to go first. The Planes of Chaos. Oh yeaaaaaaah. See the curiously phallic giant ship being constructed on the cover. Go wild in Arborea. Go mad in Pandemonium. Go drinking and brawling in Ysgard. Totally trip out in Limbo. And there's so much to do and see in the abyss that you'll never live to experience. Just enjoy the awesome.

Ravenloft does mummies, or The ancient dead, as Van Richten calls them. Considering they're one of the creatures that most needs a bit of extra depth, this is probably a good thing.

Dragonlance does Lord Toede, in the 5th villains book. Jeff Grubb makes this guy's antics amusing and full of unintended consequences. Yet more goofy humour in a setting brimming with it.

Dark sun gets The Brazen Gambit by Lynn Abbey. Another reliable worker roped in to fill out their supplement mill. A templar has a crisis of morals? Whatever next?

Endless Quest releases The Siege of the tower. Set in Greyhawk, it has you manning a tower and defending it from approaching monsters on your own. Will you be saved by the cavalry or die horribly. Guess only you can know for sure. Oh well, if you lose you can just try again.

And finally, our generic book is City of the Sorcerers by Mary Herbert. A sequel to Dark Horse, this is another one that picks up a generation later. Seems like they're doing quite a few timeline skips lately. Gotta have time for new adventurers to grow up, otherwise humanity would be a declining race from all the crises.


For an issue about treasure, there's surprisingly little crunchy stuff in this issue. It's filled with advice that seems rather familiar, and articles that are generally inconsequential, even when they aren't bad. The bits that are significant, on the other hand, are the bits showing the arrival of CCG's, and the reorganisation of their relationship with computer games. Which are a bit depressing. If issue 201 foreshadowed this stuff, now it's well and truly here, and will be a regular part of the magazine experience for the next few years. And while it may be a break from D&D, it's a lot less welcome than covering other RPG's by different companies. This doesn't feel good at all. I knew it was coming, but that doesn't make it any easier now I've actually get to it. Guess I'd better press onwards ASAP.

 

[humble minion]

Lynn Abbey was the best thing that ever happened to the Dark Sun novel line, for what it's worth. She didn't always stick 100% to canon as laid down in the sourcebooks (but really, what novelists do? Show me a single line in a D&D tie-in novel which covers a wizard or cleric agonising over which spells to memorise!) but she made the setting, and more important, the people in it, come alive in a way which should make Troy Denning and his pathetic Prism Pentad hide his face in shame.