Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 7957052" data-attributes="member: 27780">TSR RPGA No. 2: Autumn 1981part 4/4Notes for the Dungeon Master: This is much the same as last issue, if slightly less lethal. 8 more methods for screwing your players over in sadistic and inventive fashion, most of which they can't even save against and have to rely on the brains of the humans playing them to figure out and counter. Yup, that's old school all right. This is why players get into researching custom spells, so even the nastiest tricks have a counter, and possibly a counter-counter for when they get really overcomplicated and paranoid. Are you ready to put that kind of pressure on your players, and kill them mercilessly if they can't figure it out? If so, there's plenty here for you. Top Secret Transmissions: The problem with D&D being the first and dominant RPG is the tendency of people who learned how to play from it to treat other RPG's in the same way. So our Top Secret article this issue bemoans people who play it entirely in dungeon crawling style, treating every mission as a commando raid where they load up on encumbrance-straining amounts of equipment and kill or blow up anything that gets in their way. Where's the intrigue and political manoeuvring in that? Whatever happened to seducing critical information out of the enemy agent and then leaving them none the wiser? Even James Bond doesn't get caught in enemy deathtraps every single mission. All very valid complaints, if particularly tricky ones to resolve in tournament play where everything has to be wrapped up in a single session, and the map and objectives have to be highly constrained to allow for winners, losers and a proper scoring system. The big push to get out of the dungeon and tell more sophisticated stories won't happen until 1983, but you can already feel the rumblings of discontent here. We can do so much more with the medium. But of course, the big question is how much of that we'll get to see in the newszine, given it's focus. Another complex question I look forward to finding out the answers too. Rocksnoz: Following up on last issue's comic, Tom Wham gives us some of the setting details behind it. Despite the silly names and scrappy art style, it's a pretty standard fantasy world, where the heroes were thrown together by a despotic overlord, escaped, and are now trying to survive the best they can in a world filled with magic and monsters. (and as we saw, not doing a very good job of it) It seems like he's setting this up to be another recurring series, but looking ahead, it turns out to be another false start, and this won't be growing from it's humble beginnings and joining the ranks of Fineous Fingers, Wormy & Yamara as a nostalgic comic epic. Sigh. Just another seed that fell on hard ground and never got to reach it's full potential. The RPGA Tournament System: Designing every tournament module as a meatgrinder with scoring based on how far players got through it, and how much treasure and XP they accumulated has it's limitations. So in another sign of how they want to prioritise actual roleplaying in their RPG's, they're scoring by creating a system where after the adventure, everyone in the group fills out a form ranking everyone else on several different categories. This means groups that work together well and play their characters interestingly will be more likely to progress to the next round, and means adventures can be less linear and brutal and still be used for tournaments. Some old school players may complain, but this seems like a positive step overall. It'll definitely be interesting to see how they change and refine their ranking systems over the years as they grow. Still some self-consciously incomplete elements in this issue, but they're definitely picking up steam and improving with experience. Looks like it'll take a while before they level off and diminishing returns set in, which is good for me. Let's see just how much they've managed to add on next issue.</blockquote>

Verification