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[Let's Read] ARES Magazine
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<blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 7013198" data-attributes="member: 27780"><p><strong><u>Ares 09 - DeltaVee: July 1981</u></strong></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>55 pages. The balancing of sci-fi and fantasy continues with a split cover, advertising both this month's game, and a big feature on an upcoming movie. Guess that's another sign that they've got media awareness beyond just wargaming geeks. Let's see how they juggle their various responsibilities this time, and if they'll drop the ball and wind up looking like fools. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Muse: Once again they acknowledge that they're gradually pushing up the amount of gaming material, and accept that some people will like that, and others won't. When you have detailed survey material like they do, you can crunch the odds, but it's still a gamble in the end. If they focus on the people who like gaming correctly, chances are they'll also buy more of their other games as well as sticking with the magazine. As with most of their statements here, this seems sensible with the information they had, and makes their demise seem all the more undeserved. That doesn't seem to be changing as the magazine progresses. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Dragonslayer also advertises a tie-in boardgame (by SPI themselves, which explains a lot) before the big feature, showing that even back then, Disney really didn't mess around when it comes to their cross-marketing and self-promotion. Get your fingers in as many pies as possible, as it makes the company as a whole harder to kill even when one product doesn't do so well. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Dragonslayer: So yeah, they're doing some serious promotion on the movie Dragonslayer this issue. Now there's a film I haven't thought about in many years. They take a fairly interesting tack, too, as it stars an apprentice wizard, while simultaneously taking steps to make magic mysterious and unreliable, and the overall setting gritty (and the color palette oversaturated by brown, showing that this isn't just a thing in modern computer games) and focussed on the human characters rather than the monster. It's an offbeat combo, but as there's a whole load of other fantasy movies coming out around the same time, they're hoping this'll work out in their favor and help them stand out. They talk a fair amount about the special effects, which were by ILM, and haven't actually dated too badly, apart from some of the stop motion, which is a bit obvious to my modern eye. They also talk a fair bit about wargaming and roleplaying, largely in the sense that they're pleased that exists, but had never heard of it before the interview, (as they'd spent the last couple of years working hard on the movie and not keeping up with current events) and view it as just another manifestation of the same trends. Sometimes, a whole bunch of people seem to independently come up with the same ideas, and you'd need a lot of info and understanding of the butterfly effect to figure out what the cause was. So like a lot of the media articles in here, this is a very interesting bit of historical perspective, reminding us what people thought of the changes in fashion at the time, and also the ways technology was advancing that we've now superceded or take for granted. I wouldn't mind a few more of these. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>The sword and the stars: On top of our regular boardgame and roleplaying material, we also have this bit of promotion and errata for another of their new games by the designer and playtesters. The Sword and the Stars takes the system they used for Empires of the Middle Ages, and updates it for a Sci-fi setting. The primary means of FTL travel is stargates, which means who is adjacent to each other is far less important, and they can keep the map two dimensional and compact and not have to worry about the complex trigonometry of 3D travel times. You aren't limited by historical accuracy, so you can make sure all the factions are approximately balanced and equally interesting. You can create a greater variety of scenarios, and use your imagination more as a designer. Once again demonstrating why sci-fi and fantasy are more popular with writers than strict historical games and stories. Still, this article manages to make the game seem interesting without being blatant shilling, and the extra rules bits means it's useful once you buy the game, so it falls on the positive side of the spectrum. Just another way the proportion of mechanical stuff in the magazine can gradually increase. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Lasers in Space: John Boardman gives us another of his pessimistic hard science essays, talking about exactly what lasers are, how they're created, and why they can't be used to easily disintegrate things from huge distances like sci-fi rayguns. That's not to say they can't do some pretty awesome things, including nonviolent uses such as eye surgery and holograms when used precisely, but they aren't some kind of miracle device, and are an exceedingly inefficient way of expending energy. Unlike the movie effects stuff, this all feels quite familiar, as laser technology hasn't advanced vast orders of magnitude like computers. (although they're a lot more common, as they're a part of every CD and DVD drive. ) Which makes it a good contrast, as what stays the same is just as important as what changes. It's good to know that the laws of physics remain constant (rather than being shaped by belief like certain RPG's) and it's merely our understanding of them that improves, because the other option would be a lot scarier to live in. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Facts for Fantasy: Apparently the last two thousand years of domestication has made cats slightly less assholish after all. Or maybe it's the neutering. Either way, while domestic tomcats do still sometimes kill kittens from other males, research shows it's no longer the default, and they can be devoted father figures as well. Their ability to inspire love out of all proportion to what we actually get from the little monsters hasn't changed though. This column is almost entirely historical rather than mythological this month, and the only definitely fantastical part is another pet related one, that of Sir Tristan's many-coloured dog, which is a cute little story I'd somehow missed from my readings of arthurian mythos. This column continues to be far drier than I'd prefer, and a real pain to think of anything to say about. It's really slowing me down. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Science for Science Fiction: Three decades ago we were still wondering if there was a 10th planet out there. Now we know there's a whole load of them, many larger than Pluto, with eccentric orbits that take them many orders of magnitude further away from the sun, and make numbering them in order of distance futile because the order would change on a regular basis. Do we call them full planets, or merely dwarf ones? Does the universe care about our attempts to categorise it's contents? Things aren't as neat as we'd like them to be. Similarly, the truism that plants can't move quickly is upended by venus fly traps, which can be pretty scary if you're the right size to become their dinner. And one thing that has become even more nebulous today is when you can actually call yourself an adult, with not only the destruction of traditional coming of age rituals, but the increasing difficulty of earning enough to own your own house and support a family. So the usual mix of things I already know, things that have changed, and things that have stayed the same here. </p><p></p><p></p><p>The Embracing: The fiction this issue is a shockingly dark piece about what living in a dystopia can do to a person. Crippled and thrown into a prison where only the strongest survive to rot, the things you do to survive can turn you into a monster that can never go back to a normal life, and destroys those that you loved because you can't face living with them as you are. No happy ending here, only living another day, and hopefully doing some damage to the system in the process. Well, that's definitely a downer, even by my standards, making this interesting, but not particularly enjoyable. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Film & Television: Raiders of the Lost Ark gets a review that's superficially positive, but also points out that while well done for what it is, it's purely a fun popcorn movie, with no deeper message or artistic subtlety. Don't go into it expecting it to change your life, just sit back and enjoy the ride. </p><p></p><p>Superman II gets a review that makes it very clear that while it's not terrible, diminishing returns and stupid comedy are already creeping in compared to the first movie. Fair enough. After all, we know with hindsight what happens next, and it does indeed get much much worse before they decide to reboot the series. Sometimes when you get it right first time, the only way to go is down. </p><p></p><p>Excalibur, on the other hand, gets a very positive review filled with lots of highly specific superlatives. The cast is excellent, the plot is intricate, the fights are gritty, and the sets are well-designed. There's plenty of social allegory and depth to the design too. If you see just one of these films, it's obvious which they'd prefer. </p><p></p><p>Knightriders (not to be confused with Knight Rider, which won't be out until next year) is a movie about internal conflict in a travelling SCA jousting group. The somewhat ludicrous concept is turned into a genuinely intelligent examination of the stresses and backstage politics of showbiz and organised sport by none other than zombie guru George Romero. That's incredibly interesting to find out about, and leaves me very interested in checking this out for myself. </p><p></p><p>Clash of the Titans is another big blockbuster that they're somewhat disparaging about. The lead actor is absolutely wooden, and a complete pawn in the hands of the gods, who are far more interesting. The mechanical owl obviously wants to cash in on R2D2. The stop-frame work doesn't look convincing and blend well with the real action. Special effects technology has a long way to go to make truly fantastical fantasy convincing. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Media: We tackle another interesting topic that thankfully has got better over the decades, that of the hassles of back catalogues. A retailer has to carefully manage their shelf inventory for maximum sales, as most products sell a lot when first released and then slow to a trickle, and it's hard to tell what will become a perennial seller that needs regular reprints. If you get it wrong and don't purge occasionally, you end up with a load of crap that just sits there forever. This is further compounded by the issues of warehouse stock. You don't want to just destroy it, but keeping stuff for years costs money, and it's tricky to get it to the right place at the right time to sell the remainder of it. The joys of ordering off the internet have gone a long way towards letting us find old, rare, and obscure things, and the combination of preorders to accurately judge demand, and electronic products with optional print on demand that don't require any physical space also helps keep companies from losing money by making too many copies of their products. Once again, this makes it very clear that the past might be an interesting place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there, as there's just so many more conveniences now. It's good to get perspective. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Books: Savage Empire by Jean Lorrah is correctly predicted as the kind of novel that wants to be the start of a series, as it creates two mutually antagonistic kinds of supernatural powers, and then does it's worldbuilding around the interplay of those abilities and the human drama that results. The reviewer isn't entirely convinced by the worldbuilding, and is distinctly unimpressed by the political stance of the book, but still finds it an interesting read anyway. If you like the romantic fantasy subgenre, this'll make for a good way to pass a few days.</p><p></p><p>Sword of the Lamb by M. K. Wren also looks like it could run and run, as it's basically a historical family drama, only set in the future. (which is only mildly more technologically advanced than their present, and almost definitely less advanced than the real changes that have happened in computing over the past 30 years) Once again, they find it addictive in a junk food kinda way, but don't think the worldbuilding holds up to serious scrutiny. Very few books do, because you'd need to be familiar with virtually every technical discipline in existence to make it completely accurate, and that would get in the way of telling a compelling story. </p><p></p><p>A Planet in Arms by Donald Barr gets a much more positive review than the last two, with only one little nitpick about philosophy to even things up. Wouldn't we all like to tell the banks where to stick it with their manipulative debt traps and make a society that doesn't depend on them. That's a theme that hasn't changed at all in the intervening decades, even if inflation is somewhat lower than it was then. </p><p></p><p>Valis by Philip K. Dick gets an ambivalent review. Is he really a genius, or just a purveyor of drug-fuelled gibberish who gets critically acclaimed because people don't understand it, so it must be deep. Now that's a can of worms if you want a debate. That kind of psychedelic thing has fallen out of fashion since then, and there's probably a good reason for that. If you're going to be experimental, they should be different experiments each time, not repeating the same experiment without learning from it. </p><p></p><p>Masks of the Illuminati by Robert Anton Wilson also has some profoundly silly drug-fueled bits in it, but is a more coherent story, and so gets higher marks. As is often the case, what you juxtapose something with can have a big impact on if it seems good or not. </p><p></p><p>The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe gets unstinting praise as an epic fantasy series done the way it should be, taking the protagonist from lowly torturer to world-conquering hero through all sorts of fantastical adventures. Another case where the books that'll be remembered decades later actually got spotted successfully by the critics. </p><p></p><p>Too Long a Sacrifice by Mildred Downey Broxon is the story of what happens to a couple who've spent centuries in faerie lands, and then get out, only to find themselves in the middle of the irish Troubles. The juxtaposition of ancient myths and modern explosives provides plenty of opportunity for drama and plot twists, and this time the one minor criticism is about stilted dialogue. Still worth revisiting to remind us how close violence has always been even in "civilised" countries, and how easily it could break out again. </p><p></p><p>Dragonslayer also gets a review here, placing the book in context with the film version. It's obviously a straight conversion of the script, and suffers a little for this, but still makes an entertaining story. If you only choose one though, go for the movie. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Games: Amoeba Wars gets a slightly disappointed review, as it's not about wars <em>between</em> amoebas, but humans vs giant space amoeba. It's not entirely negative, but they're as nitpicky as ever about little details and how they could be different. This is what happens when you let professional designers become reviewers. They overthink stuff normal players wouldn't even notice. </p><p></p><p>War of the Worlds completely changes things from the book so we can have a viable game in which the human and martian players have approximately equal chances of winning, and the reviewer is somewhat scathing about using a property if you're going to miss the point of it. They're also not particularly impressed with the system, which is mathematically simple enough that they'd worked out the optimal tactics for both players within a couple of plays. Not one worth keeping and remembering. </p><p></p><p>High Fantasy and it's adventure book also gets a review that carefully lists out good and bad points of the rules, but ultimately comes down on the negative. It might have a universal resolution mechanic and be better organised than D&D, but it's still no Runequest in terms of design stylishness and setting depth. Really, it feels like bandwagon jumping from the publisher, as they've spotted a new market, and want some of that money. Yeah, there's going to be a lot more fantasy heartbreakers like this along in the next few years. If you want a game that survives, it has to establish it's own identity, not just be generic fantasy RPG no 1653.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Designer's Notes: This article is heavily spoileriffic, talking about the development of the games in the next three issues, and how their rules work. As such, there's some interesting stuff here, but I think I'll pass lightly, and save detailed talk for when I actually get to them. They also warn about a postal strike, which is also vaguely amusing. That's another thing that hasn't changed much. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Feedback: This is much the same as usual, but with lots of new game ideas submitted for consideration. The most notable is a wargame based on the Thomas Covenant series, which seems to me like COMPLETELY missing the point of the books to the point where it's funny. (which is extra ironic in light of the earlier War of the Worlds review.) They also want to play in Robert Adam's War of the Horseclans setting, Robert Asprin's Myth Adventures series, and have two different ideas for Invasion America, along with the plentiful ideas for Dragonquest and Universe. Are they doing this before or after they get the licenses to do so? Where does getting the permission of the authors come in, and what happens if the public is vocally negative about the idea of the game after they've already committed to doing it? These things can be such a headache. After all, look what happened to Eden Studios after Buffy left. Was that also a factor in SPI's mounting debts? Another case where I'd really like to know more about the behind the scenes mechanics of things to form a better opinion. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>DragonNotes: Another single page article here that's half upcoming products, half Sage Advice. One setting book, one adventure, and one more general GM advice supplement, they're still covering their bases sensibly in this area, even if they really could do with some more player focussed material. The new rules are probabilities for weapon breakage, which is one of those gritty things that shows up over and over, yet most players ignore, so I can't see this one becoming essential. Just another day at the office, I'm afraid. Wake me when they do something bigger. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>DeltaVee: The game is moved to it's own separate insert, which results in it's being moved to the back of the .pdf (Which ironically, is the opposite of what happened over the course of the Dragon Magazine scans.) As you can guess from the name, it's an attempt at realistic space combat where momentum is conserved from turn to turn unless you actively change it, fuel is limited, and controlling them crucial to your tactics. This requires keeping a log book each turn, so while it can work for more than two players fighting, it does rack up in complexity of interactions fairly quickly, as actions are interleaved to simulate the slow reaction times of spaceships and force you to anticipate your opponent's moves to succeed. Spaceships are statted up in terms of pods, which each add a certain amount of capabilities onto the overall ship, and are destroyed individually, which gives ships a very definite death spiral in combat. The whole thing is designed to be slotted into the Universe RPG as their tactical space combat system, so it's quite open to new things being added in terms of ships and equipment. It's all pretty easy to understand, and is one I could see myself, not only using, but kitbashing to expand the scope. It's a good bit of joined-up thinking, and shows they're thinking about their games as an ecosystem rather than just a bunch of games. Two thumbs up. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Once again the amount of gaming material gradually sneaks upwards, and diversifies in form, making this a very different magazine from when it first started, and somewhat less accessible to newcomers. It still has some interesting bits, but then again, it also has some very dull ones too. It still feels like much harder work doing this than Dragon, as it's so much less familiar to me, but it's starting to cohere into it's own picture. Time to get to double figures, and see where that takes us.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="(un)reason, post: 7013198, member: 27780"] [B][U]Ares 09 - DeltaVee: July 1981[/U][/B] 55 pages. The balancing of sci-fi and fantasy continues with a split cover, advertising both this month's game, and a big feature on an upcoming movie. Guess that's another sign that they've got media awareness beyond just wargaming geeks. Let's see how they juggle their various responsibilities this time, and if they'll drop the ball and wind up looking like fools. Muse: Once again they acknowledge that they're gradually pushing up the amount of gaming material, and accept that some people will like that, and others won't. When you have detailed survey material like they do, you can crunch the odds, but it's still a gamble in the end. If they focus on the people who like gaming correctly, chances are they'll also buy more of their other games as well as sticking with the magazine. As with most of their statements here, this seems sensible with the information they had, and makes their demise seem all the more undeserved. That doesn't seem to be changing as the magazine progresses. Dragonslayer also advertises a tie-in boardgame (by SPI themselves, which explains a lot) before the big feature, showing that even back then, Disney really didn't mess around when it comes to their cross-marketing and self-promotion. Get your fingers in as many pies as possible, as it makes the company as a whole harder to kill even when one product doesn't do so well. Dragonslayer: So yeah, they're doing some serious promotion on the movie Dragonslayer this issue. Now there's a film I haven't thought about in many years. They take a fairly interesting tack, too, as it stars an apprentice wizard, while simultaneously taking steps to make magic mysterious and unreliable, and the overall setting gritty (and the color palette oversaturated by brown, showing that this isn't just a thing in modern computer games) and focussed on the human characters rather than the monster. It's an offbeat combo, but as there's a whole load of other fantasy movies coming out around the same time, they're hoping this'll work out in their favor and help them stand out. They talk a fair amount about the special effects, which were by ILM, and haven't actually dated too badly, apart from some of the stop motion, which is a bit obvious to my modern eye. They also talk a fair bit about wargaming and roleplaying, largely in the sense that they're pleased that exists, but had never heard of it before the interview, (as they'd spent the last couple of years working hard on the movie and not keeping up with current events) and view it as just another manifestation of the same trends. Sometimes, a whole bunch of people seem to independently come up with the same ideas, and you'd need a lot of info and understanding of the butterfly effect to figure out what the cause was. So like a lot of the media articles in here, this is a very interesting bit of historical perspective, reminding us what people thought of the changes in fashion at the time, and also the ways technology was advancing that we've now superceded or take for granted. I wouldn't mind a few more of these. The sword and the stars: On top of our regular boardgame and roleplaying material, we also have this bit of promotion and errata for another of their new games by the designer and playtesters. The Sword and the Stars takes the system they used for Empires of the Middle Ages, and updates it for a Sci-fi setting. The primary means of FTL travel is stargates, which means who is adjacent to each other is far less important, and they can keep the map two dimensional and compact and not have to worry about the complex trigonometry of 3D travel times. You aren't limited by historical accuracy, so you can make sure all the factions are approximately balanced and equally interesting. You can create a greater variety of scenarios, and use your imagination more as a designer. Once again demonstrating why sci-fi and fantasy are more popular with writers than strict historical games and stories. Still, this article manages to make the game seem interesting without being blatant shilling, and the extra rules bits means it's useful once you buy the game, so it falls on the positive side of the spectrum. Just another way the proportion of mechanical stuff in the magazine can gradually increase. Lasers in Space: John Boardman gives us another of his pessimistic hard science essays, talking about exactly what lasers are, how they're created, and why they can't be used to easily disintegrate things from huge distances like sci-fi rayguns. That's not to say they can't do some pretty awesome things, including nonviolent uses such as eye surgery and holograms when used precisely, but they aren't some kind of miracle device, and are an exceedingly inefficient way of expending energy. Unlike the movie effects stuff, this all feels quite familiar, as laser technology hasn't advanced vast orders of magnitude like computers. (although they're a lot more common, as they're a part of every CD and DVD drive. ) Which makes it a good contrast, as what stays the same is just as important as what changes. It's good to know that the laws of physics remain constant (rather than being shaped by belief like certain RPG's) and it's merely our understanding of them that improves, because the other option would be a lot scarier to live in. Facts for Fantasy: Apparently the last two thousand years of domestication has made cats slightly less assholish after all. Or maybe it's the neutering. Either way, while domestic tomcats do still sometimes kill kittens from other males, research shows it's no longer the default, and they can be devoted father figures as well. Their ability to inspire love out of all proportion to what we actually get from the little monsters hasn't changed though. This column is almost entirely historical rather than mythological this month, and the only definitely fantastical part is another pet related one, that of Sir Tristan's many-coloured dog, which is a cute little story I'd somehow missed from my readings of arthurian mythos. This column continues to be far drier than I'd prefer, and a real pain to think of anything to say about. It's really slowing me down. Science for Science Fiction: Three decades ago we were still wondering if there was a 10th planet out there. Now we know there's a whole load of them, many larger than Pluto, with eccentric orbits that take them many orders of magnitude further away from the sun, and make numbering them in order of distance futile because the order would change on a regular basis. Do we call them full planets, or merely dwarf ones? Does the universe care about our attempts to categorise it's contents? Things aren't as neat as we'd like them to be. Similarly, the truism that plants can't move quickly is upended by venus fly traps, which can be pretty scary if you're the right size to become their dinner. And one thing that has become even more nebulous today is when you can actually call yourself an adult, with not only the destruction of traditional coming of age rituals, but the increasing difficulty of earning enough to own your own house and support a family. So the usual mix of things I already know, things that have changed, and things that have stayed the same here. The Embracing: The fiction this issue is a shockingly dark piece about what living in a dystopia can do to a person. Crippled and thrown into a prison where only the strongest survive to rot, the things you do to survive can turn you into a monster that can never go back to a normal life, and destroys those that you loved because you can't face living with them as you are. No happy ending here, only living another day, and hopefully doing some damage to the system in the process. Well, that's definitely a downer, even by my standards, making this interesting, but not particularly enjoyable. Film & Television: Raiders of the Lost Ark gets a review that's superficially positive, but also points out that while well done for what it is, it's purely a fun popcorn movie, with no deeper message or artistic subtlety. Don't go into it expecting it to change your life, just sit back and enjoy the ride. Superman II gets a review that makes it very clear that while it's not terrible, diminishing returns and stupid comedy are already creeping in compared to the first movie. Fair enough. After all, we know with hindsight what happens next, and it does indeed get much much worse before they decide to reboot the series. Sometimes when you get it right first time, the only way to go is down. Excalibur, on the other hand, gets a very positive review filled with lots of highly specific superlatives. The cast is excellent, the plot is intricate, the fights are gritty, and the sets are well-designed. There's plenty of social allegory and depth to the design too. If you see just one of these films, it's obvious which they'd prefer. Knightriders (not to be confused with Knight Rider, which won't be out until next year) is a movie about internal conflict in a travelling SCA jousting group. The somewhat ludicrous concept is turned into a genuinely intelligent examination of the stresses and backstage politics of showbiz and organised sport by none other than zombie guru George Romero. That's incredibly interesting to find out about, and leaves me very interested in checking this out for myself. Clash of the Titans is another big blockbuster that they're somewhat disparaging about. The lead actor is absolutely wooden, and a complete pawn in the hands of the gods, who are far more interesting. The mechanical owl obviously wants to cash in on R2D2. The stop-frame work doesn't look convincing and blend well with the real action. Special effects technology has a long way to go to make truly fantastical fantasy convincing. Media: We tackle another interesting topic that thankfully has got better over the decades, that of the hassles of back catalogues. A retailer has to carefully manage their shelf inventory for maximum sales, as most products sell a lot when first released and then slow to a trickle, and it's hard to tell what will become a perennial seller that needs regular reprints. If you get it wrong and don't purge occasionally, you end up with a load of crap that just sits there forever. This is further compounded by the issues of warehouse stock. You don't want to just destroy it, but keeping stuff for years costs money, and it's tricky to get it to the right place at the right time to sell the remainder of it. The joys of ordering off the internet have gone a long way towards letting us find old, rare, and obscure things, and the combination of preorders to accurately judge demand, and electronic products with optional print on demand that don't require any physical space also helps keep companies from losing money by making too many copies of their products. Once again, this makes it very clear that the past might be an interesting place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there, as there's just so many more conveniences now. It's good to get perspective. Books: Savage Empire by Jean Lorrah is correctly predicted as the kind of novel that wants to be the start of a series, as it creates two mutually antagonistic kinds of supernatural powers, and then does it's worldbuilding around the interplay of those abilities and the human drama that results. The reviewer isn't entirely convinced by the worldbuilding, and is distinctly unimpressed by the political stance of the book, but still finds it an interesting read anyway. If you like the romantic fantasy subgenre, this'll make for a good way to pass a few days. Sword of the Lamb by M. K. Wren also looks like it could run and run, as it's basically a historical family drama, only set in the future. (which is only mildly more technologically advanced than their present, and almost definitely less advanced than the real changes that have happened in computing over the past 30 years) Once again, they find it addictive in a junk food kinda way, but don't think the worldbuilding holds up to serious scrutiny. Very few books do, because you'd need to be familiar with virtually every technical discipline in existence to make it completely accurate, and that would get in the way of telling a compelling story. A Planet in Arms by Donald Barr gets a much more positive review than the last two, with only one little nitpick about philosophy to even things up. Wouldn't we all like to tell the banks where to stick it with their manipulative debt traps and make a society that doesn't depend on them. That's a theme that hasn't changed at all in the intervening decades, even if inflation is somewhat lower than it was then. Valis by Philip K. Dick gets an ambivalent review. Is he really a genius, or just a purveyor of drug-fuelled gibberish who gets critically acclaimed because people don't understand it, so it must be deep. Now that's a can of worms if you want a debate. That kind of psychedelic thing has fallen out of fashion since then, and there's probably a good reason for that. If you're going to be experimental, they should be different experiments each time, not repeating the same experiment without learning from it. Masks of the Illuminati by Robert Anton Wilson also has some profoundly silly drug-fueled bits in it, but is a more coherent story, and so gets higher marks. As is often the case, what you juxtapose something with can have a big impact on if it seems good or not. The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe gets unstinting praise as an epic fantasy series done the way it should be, taking the protagonist from lowly torturer to world-conquering hero through all sorts of fantastical adventures. Another case where the books that'll be remembered decades later actually got spotted successfully by the critics. Too Long a Sacrifice by Mildred Downey Broxon is the story of what happens to a couple who've spent centuries in faerie lands, and then get out, only to find themselves in the middle of the irish Troubles. The juxtaposition of ancient myths and modern explosives provides plenty of opportunity for drama and plot twists, and this time the one minor criticism is about stilted dialogue. Still worth revisiting to remind us how close violence has always been even in "civilised" countries, and how easily it could break out again. Dragonslayer also gets a review here, placing the book in context with the film version. It's obviously a straight conversion of the script, and suffers a little for this, but still makes an entertaining story. If you only choose one though, go for the movie. Games: Amoeba Wars gets a slightly disappointed review, as it's not about wars [i]between[/i] amoebas, but humans vs giant space amoeba. It's not entirely negative, but they're as nitpicky as ever about little details and how they could be different. This is what happens when you let professional designers become reviewers. They overthink stuff normal players wouldn't even notice. War of the Worlds completely changes things from the book so we can have a viable game in which the human and martian players have approximately equal chances of winning, and the reviewer is somewhat scathing about using a property if you're going to miss the point of it. They're also not particularly impressed with the system, which is mathematically simple enough that they'd worked out the optimal tactics for both players within a couple of plays. Not one worth keeping and remembering. High Fantasy and it's adventure book also gets a review that carefully lists out good and bad points of the rules, but ultimately comes down on the negative. It might have a universal resolution mechanic and be better organised than D&D, but it's still no Runequest in terms of design stylishness and setting depth. Really, it feels like bandwagon jumping from the publisher, as they've spotted a new market, and want some of that money. Yeah, there's going to be a lot more fantasy heartbreakers like this along in the next few years. If you want a game that survives, it has to establish it's own identity, not just be generic fantasy RPG no 1653. Designer's Notes: This article is heavily spoileriffic, talking about the development of the games in the next three issues, and how their rules work. As such, there's some interesting stuff here, but I think I'll pass lightly, and save detailed talk for when I actually get to them. They also warn about a postal strike, which is also vaguely amusing. That's another thing that hasn't changed much. Feedback: This is much the same as usual, but with lots of new game ideas submitted for consideration. The most notable is a wargame based on the Thomas Covenant series, which seems to me like COMPLETELY missing the point of the books to the point where it's funny. (which is extra ironic in light of the earlier War of the Worlds review.) They also want to play in Robert Adam's War of the Horseclans setting, Robert Asprin's Myth Adventures series, and have two different ideas for Invasion America, along with the plentiful ideas for Dragonquest and Universe. Are they doing this before or after they get the licenses to do so? Where does getting the permission of the authors come in, and what happens if the public is vocally negative about the idea of the game after they've already committed to doing it? These things can be such a headache. After all, look what happened to Eden Studios after Buffy left. Was that also a factor in SPI's mounting debts? Another case where I'd really like to know more about the behind the scenes mechanics of things to form a better opinion. DragonNotes: Another single page article here that's half upcoming products, half Sage Advice. One setting book, one adventure, and one more general GM advice supplement, they're still covering their bases sensibly in this area, even if they really could do with some more player focussed material. The new rules are probabilities for weapon breakage, which is one of those gritty things that shows up over and over, yet most players ignore, so I can't see this one becoming essential. Just another day at the office, I'm afraid. Wake me when they do something bigger. DeltaVee: The game is moved to it's own separate insert, which results in it's being moved to the back of the .pdf (Which ironically, is the opposite of what happened over the course of the Dragon Magazine scans.) As you can guess from the name, it's an attempt at realistic space combat where momentum is conserved from turn to turn unless you actively change it, fuel is limited, and controlling them crucial to your tactics. This requires keeping a log book each turn, so while it can work for more than two players fighting, it does rack up in complexity of interactions fairly quickly, as actions are interleaved to simulate the slow reaction times of spaceships and force you to anticipate your opponent's moves to succeed. Spaceships are statted up in terms of pods, which each add a certain amount of capabilities onto the overall ship, and are destroyed individually, which gives ships a very definite death spiral in combat. The whole thing is designed to be slotted into the Universe RPG as their tactical space combat system, so it's quite open to new things being added in terms of ships and equipment. It's all pretty easy to understand, and is one I could see myself, not only using, but kitbashing to expand the scope. It's a good bit of joined-up thinking, and shows they're thinking about their games as an ecosystem rather than just a bunch of games. Two thumbs up. Once again the amount of gaming material gradually sneaks upwards, and diversifies in form, making this a very different magazine from when it first started, and somewhat less accessible to newcomers. It still has some interesting bits, but then again, it also has some very dull ones too. It still feels like much harder work doing this than Dragon, as it's so much less familiar to me, but it's starting to cohere into it's own picture. Time to get to double figures, and see where that takes us. [/QUOTE]
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