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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 7958653" data-attributes="member: 27780">TSR RPGA No. 3: Winter 1981-2part 2/4Dispel Confusion: What's a caltrop? (Like a d4, only much pointier)I got surprised by gargoyles and they did a ridiculous number of attacks before I could move at all! (Yeah, surprise is actually a lot nastier in AD&D by the book than most people played it)Good doesn't fight good, but does evil fight evil? (If it would be profitable, or fun, or maybe just for the hell of it. There's a lot of room for variation.) Can a bard dual class (No. They've already taken three to get where they are. What more do you want, blood?!)How do you fight psionically and physically simultaneously ( You can hold a defence while doing other stuff, but attacking takes uninterrupted concentration.) Does level draining reduce your psionic powers too? (yup. Otherwise you could drain, grind, regain, drain, grind, regain, and be more powerful each time around to infinity. This is D&D, not Disgaea.) RPGA Interview with Jim Ward: Once again the interview is easily the longest article in the newszine, clocking in at a full 7 pages. A fairly detailed account of how he got in at TSR pretty much on the ground floor (mostly luck of living in the right place) and what he's done over the past 7 years (mostly be a source of chaotic inspiration who needs a good editor to create a game usable by others). He's full of good humor about this and makes sure to credit his collaborators for their role in making complete products that are only partially filled with ridiculously overpowered monstrosities. I suspect that as with Dragon, we'll be seeing a lot of him over the years, as he's got no shortage of ideas that don't merit a full book, but would make a good article, and it doesn't particularly matter which of their periodicals carries it.Chris Weiser Wins RPGA Fight In The Skies Game: We had a bit of fake actual play earlier, now it's time for the real thing. A turn by turn write-up of an 8-man dogfight, the winner is obviously never in doubt since they spoiled it in the title, but there's still plenty of drama in the journey, much of it caused by the slowness and unreliability of the equipment, which is why dogfights of that era could still have some semblance of chivalry instead of one shot KO's from over the horizon. A realistic modern war simulation would look very different, and probably not be as much fun. Medals & Commendations: As part of their attempts to make Fight in the Skies/Dawn Patrol more campaign-friendly they talk about the various medals you could win in WWI for your accomplishments. There's a considerable number of them, so you can have a full chestful on your dress uniform, and the criteria for winning them seems pretty arbitrary and heavily dependent on luck. (ie, if your superiors notice your accomplishments and care) Sounds depressingly realistic then. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" /> A reasonably interesting little bit of history trivia that shows they're still catering to the wargaming crowd in here. Turnbull Talking: Don weighs in on a debate that's been going ever since D&D was released, and still turns up in forums on a regular basis. Do escalating hit points represent actual increasing toughness, better skill and dodging ability, will to live, narrative protection, or some combination of the above? He's on the more realistic end of the design spectrum, so he's going for the skill and will explanation. A hit is not always a hit, just depletion of your energy reserves. Yeah, this is all incredibly familiar and more than a little boring. Some things just don't change, no matter how many editions we go through and how many other RPG's are released that don't have this issue, because if they did it'd ruin the D&D experience. Sigh.</blockquote>

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