Let's read the entire run

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 187: November 1992

part 6/6


The game wizards: Another perspective on convention season here for some reason. Thomas Reid follows in Kim Mohan's footsteps by telling the story of his first con experience. And it seems they remain just as exhilarating and bewildering over a decade later, if not more so. After all, gaming is considerably bigger now, and so the workload on the poor staff is pretty mental. Food remains likely to upset a sensitive stomach, and three days of being on your feet may stress the sedentary gamer, but these are crosses you'll just have to bear. The whole thing still corroborates Roger's story that plenty of fun was had there, and the TSR crew still have plenty of leeway to be silly in the way they promote the game and interact with the public. Just don't piss off Jim Ward. He's still got the murderous monty haul touch. Yeah, this series is definitely getting better at making you forget it's a promotional tool, with no obvious plugs here, just lots of fun being demonstrated. Come next year, my pretties, oh yess. We will have such sights to show you. :steeples fingers: Yup, I think I enjoyed reading this.


The role of books has an unusually high quotient of collaborative works this month. That's an interesting theme to choose.

The forever king by Molly Cochran and Warren Murphy gets a rather negative review. A good idea is nothing without proper characters and execution. Yeah, we've heard that one before. Learn from your mistakes and hone your craft some more.

Knights Wyrd by Debra Doyle and James D MacDonald also gets a mixed review. The fantasy and real world elements of the story don't mesh perfectly, even if some of them are quite good. Still, this is one case where the reviewers quibbles don't seem like something I'd have a problem with. Heros completely bucking the rules of their society and not having role models is a perfectly reasonable method of generating dramatic tension.

Catwoman: Tiger hunt by Lynn Abbey and Robert Asprin is a licensed batman book that doesn't make very good use of the property. With the titular character both poorly characterized and only playing a small part in the story, I suspect an existing idea of the author roughly shoehorned into the DC universe as a quick moneyspinner. In any case, the editors should probably have rejected it, or at least made some serious edits to make it fit with the other stuff coming out at the same time.

Dark force rising by Timothy Zahn is one of his licensed Star Wars novels. This on the other hand does manage to capture the right style and characterization. reasonably well. Of course, we know now what an continuity nightmare the EU will become over the next couple of decades, but hey, it's not all his fault is it. Except maybe Mara Jade.

The crown of columbus by Louise Erdrich & Michael Dorris starts a whole section of colonial books. (well it is the 500th anniversary of Columbus discovering America.) Trouble is, it's a rather dull one, with characters that the reviewer finds unbelievable. Again. Sturgeon's law in fully in place this month.

What might have been: Alternate americas, edited by Gregory Benford and Martin H Greenberg, on the other hand is another solid anthology from the king of them. As usual, he's quite capable of both getting the big names in, and ensuring quality and diversity in the writing while staying on theme.

Yesterday we saw mermaids by Esther M Friesner finishes things up by going above and beyond the formula, producing something that's both experimental and high quality, while still being fun reading. Guess she knows what she's doing.

We also see Terry Pratchett mentioned here for only the second time. He's been busily adding to the Discworld series in the past 4 years, and is about to reach his creative peak with Reaper Man. Not that this reviewer realises that yet. Funny how that happens. I wonder if he'll ever get a proper feature.


Dragonmirth has a joke that actually surprises me for a change. The good guys start watching the events in their crystal ball this time round in Yamara. Meanwhile the plot seems to be simplified, but then gets a lot more complicated again in twilight empire. Shapeshifters mean you're never quite sure what's going on.


Through the looking glass: As with the computer games column, they have more than enough material to review here, so no point wasting time on preamble. A mechanical drill vehicle thing like the TMNT one to burst out of your floor and unleash who knows what enemies on the battlefield. A mounted chaos warrior and an infantry one, possibly usable in tandem. A skeleton riding a motorcycle. Heavy metal Death approves. A young dragon that has recently kicked the butt of a knight. A drunk guy. Not very impressive in the circumstances. Fortunately the town watch are here to escort him away. There are three different elf models from different companies, a couple of dioramas, another dragon, and more adventurers and monsters than I can be bothered to list. Yup, this is another bumper christmas. Whatever the state of wargaming, minis are still a thriving industry. Looks like this column isn't going anywhere, even if they seem to be running out of fun framing stuff to write. Let's hope they can find something to keep it interesting next year, because this isn't as varied as it used to be. Come on, give us some painting and sculpting advice again.


Another issue that feels very much like business as usual. Quality is as high as ever, but returning to the same old topics again and again does result in a feel of diminishing returns and filler. They'll have to get in a regular supply of new young players if they want to sustain the magazine in this style. I suppose it works for many companies as a business model. But it does remind me that I eventually lost interest for quite a while, and there was good reason for that. Oh well, I'll keep on sifting for forgotten gems anyway. Far too much invested to quit now.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 188: December 1992

part 1/6


124 pages. Speak of the devil. Larry Elmore shows up again this christmas to show us how it's done. And for once, he's not painting the same model That's a pleasant change. For christmas, it seems we have another round of roleplaying advice for both GM and player. Do they have any new ideas, or will it be the same old homilies to character building and respecting the feelings of others? I think I need a little something beyond the basics this far in.


In this issue:


Letters: We get a belated obituary for Fritz Leiber this month. Alas, we knew him well. Fare thee well, old rogue. Your legacy remains every time they run a collection of magical items here.

We also get an official confirmation of demise for Top Secret support. The writing has been on the wall for some time though. It managed a good decade of fairly regular articles, but the will just isn't there when the public buy D&D products in several orders of magnitude greater numbers. Bah. Must try harder.

A letter complaining about how kid-centric their recent survey was. See, it's not just me suffering from this! Roger admits that their current marketing policy is indeed to catch 'em young, trap them for life. But you do also need to keep exiting players for that to work.

A letter from someone who's forgotten who or what the thendar are. This also completely stumps the TSR staff. Fortunately, a simple keyword search allows me to solve this problem in a second. Issue 101, the creature catalog III. Ennuii ridden astral planar guys with galactus hats. I love modern technology.


Editorial: It's been a long time since you could send in an article to the magazine anonymously and have any hope of it getting published. Here we see them getting a little more bureaucratically entrenched and hard for a new writer to break into. Not only do you pretty much have to do the SASE thing if you want to avoid the norkers dressed as ogres eating your hard work, you have to ask them before sending in the article if they're interested. That should be pretty offputting to those of thin skin or short attention span. It may not be the best way to nurture talent, but as long as they can choose from dozens of articles for each one published, they can get away with treating their freelancers like a cattle market. Man, I can't wait for the internet to be adopted by business, at least solve the problem of basic return communications being horribly expensive stuff that we bear the cost for. This is exactly the kind of crap that makes people want to see big businesses taken down a peg or two.


That's role, not roll!: Or let's make that cliche a little more overused until everyone's sick of it. And gee, can you guess which side they come down on? It's not the side that kills everything and takes their stuff. Although they do warn you not to overdo the roleplaying, particularly when shopping, this is mostly encouraging you to increase your character's connection to the world, and player immersion. It's all fairly familiar, trying to get you to strike the right balance of danger, challenge, NPC detail, etc etc to make your game fun. And as ever, they can explain the equipment, but you really need to try out the tools and figure out exactly how much of each is ideal for your group and the current situation, because it'll always be a little different each time. So as usual when they get to the system free roleplaying advice, this is useful first time, but not so much for me anymore.


Be nice to your referee: And so we move onto some advice for the players. This is largely metagame stuff. Even if the DM is often the adversary within the game, that's all the more reason to treat them with respect IRL. Basic stuff, like showing up on time and calling to apologise if you have to cancel. Paying attention and not digressing into chitchat, reminiscences or mucking around on your laptop. Making sure food is sorted out before the game begins. Having all the relevant details of your character and their current stuff sorted out ready to roll. And generally planning ahead in a round situation while everyone else is going so you don't waste time when it gets to your go. If everyone does considerate stuff like this, your game experience will be both more pleasant, and a lot more will get done. In contrast to the previous article, this is one that is incredibly unambiguous in how to apply it properly, and has some ideas the magazine hasn't aired before. This is definitely one to take to the group and have a good hard talk about if your group isn't quite working as it is. Of course, you may need to kick out one or two of the worst offenders to really make sure the rest take it on board, but that's the kind of discipline you need to keep a group healthy. So yeah, this is a pretty good one. They've redone the basics, now hopefully they can fit some advanced tricks in before the issue's over.


Roles for role-players: The idea of a Caller and a Mapmaker are well established in old skool gaming. In a large group where each individual may well get limited screen time, the idea of giving players additional specialised roles to ensure they have something specific and useful to do increasingly seems like a good idea. In addition to the existing two, this article also suggests the idea of having a dedicated timekeeper, to help rounds go smoothly, and story chronicler to make sure everyone can check what went on without the DM doing all the work of writeups. On top of those roles, you can always assign players the role of temporarily playing particular NPC's, particularly when their actual characters are indisposed or the party is split. While short, this is a nicely limit-pushing article that should help you think more about the technical details of how you organise your sessions and ensure all the players are invested and involved in the game. Hopefully the forum'll have a few follow-up ideas for this one, as it definitely a cool one that's over all too soon. Easily the most useful of the articles from this themed section for me, as it isn't covering ideas I've heard already.

 

[Orius]

Editorial: It's been a long time since you could send in an article to the magazine anonymously and have any hope of it getting published. Here we see them getting a little more bureaucratically entrenched and hard for a new writer to break into. Not only do you pretty much have to do the SASE thing if you want to avoid the norkers dressed as ogres eating your hard work, you have to ask them before sending in the article if they're interested. That should be pretty offputting to those of thin skin or short attention span.

OTOH, at this point they've gotten big enough that they likely gety a lot of suibmissions on a regular basis. Requiring things like a standard format, SASE, etc, lets them more easily pick out the more polished submissions from the stuff just slapped together. Plus if the submission format follows a standard, it makes the magazine as a whole look more professional. And when you get people submitting crunch, you want to make sure the crunch follows the rules properly, or you'll have people writing angry letter about how the material is broken.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 188: December 1992

part 2/6


The wizards three: And then there were three, and another classic series truly begins. Toril, Oerth, Krynn and our own world are all represented now. How Ed's avoided being killed or turned into a small furry animal with all these superpowerful wizards visiting regularly I'm not sure. But his gain is also our gain, as we get to read the stories of him stuck in a suit of armour while three archmages bicker and exchange stories. Well, two and a half, as El and Mord would say about Dalamar. It's a hard life, stuck on a tiny little world where the gods don't let you go above 18th level, and there's hardly any CR appropriate encounters for you to try anyway. Everyone hears about the cool toys months before you do, and when people get famous, they move away and never come back.

Even more than last time, this also becomes commentary on recent metaplot events, with Ed setting this instalment after Vecna Lives, where Mordenkainen got killed in the intro. (Remember folks, always back up your memories regularly and keep plenty of clones in storage. Guess D&D and Paranoia have more in common than you'd think. ) He also refers to several other creatures he's invented, and other articles from this magazine, making this extra entertaining now I've read all those. And the new spells and magic items are incredibly mean, once again cementing Ed's ability to create tactically intelligent effects that screw over the standard countermeasures and further humiliate those attempting them. Since these are advanced techniques, you should be wary about using them regularly, and make the players really work to add them to their spellbooks, but it's still highly entertaining. He's not only lasted longer than most writers, but continues to go from strength to strength, just like his insanely high level NPC's.


Forum: Steve De Young thinks fighters are still a valuable member of the party, particularly at low levels. Yes, but rangers and paladins are still even better, and can get most fighter kits and a whole bunch of exclusive ones each. Reliable damage output and toughness is rather a one-trick pony business.

M. J. Simpson, on the other hand, supports the complaint that specialisation just isn't enough as a nice protection. Hardly anyone in his game plays straight fighters any more. Even adding extra incentives aren't doing the job.

Selman Halabi also thinks more needs to be done to make fighters interesting. Unfortunately, his solution involves removing more stuff from other classes, rather than adding it to fighters, which isn't going to make them more interesting now, is it.

William De Pretre, on the other hand is on the side that thinks they're a valuable, nay, essential part of the team. I can see this one running for quite a bit.

John Duffin thinks having a bog-standard class which is easy to master is good for the game. Plus, this means you can role-play them in pretty much any way that you like. He does have a point. Accesability is important, and doing one thing well can prove a lot more profitable than doing many things ok, as many real world businesses can attest.

Andre Costatini also thinks that the fighter classes openness is what makes them exiting. Remember, most real world famous people would be fighters, and they certainly weren't all alike. You can certainly follow in the footsteps of Conan or Robin Hood.

Rick Tazzle deals with the Swashbuckler problem in some detail, including a few new optional uses for weapon proficiency slots. You know, maybe that is part of the solution to the boring fighter problem. After all, they do get more slots, although probably not in quite sufficient quantity to make up for their lack of other stuff.

Michael Satran extends the debate by pointing out how much better paladins are than rangers. Since they use the same XP table, this isn't entirely fair. With extensive bullet-pointing, it's hard to argue with him. Still, I hope someone will take up the debate. I certainly think that when you factor in their respective kits and other splatbook stuff, rangers get more customisability than paladins, catching them up a bit.


The voyage of the princess ark: The team split up again in the final installment of the adventure. Haldemar takes a planar trip to get back to Alphatia quickly, leaving the Ark behind. This does not go quite as planned, but the diversion proves useful, as now he has solid evidence with his own eyes that the Glantrians are planning to somehow drain magic from the world. Not good. He tells the Empress, but she of course has to deal with politics. Here we run into the problem that their future is now predetermined, with Alphatia's destruction in the Wrath of the Immortals metaplot. It just hasn't happened to them yet. Bruce drops a number of rather obvious hints in here, in another case of the big setting reveal being spoiled where it probably shouldn't.

Meanwhile, back at the Ark, the rest of the crew run across the Phanatons. Despite being cute little gliding things, they still prove more than capable of capturing the crew. Proving that they are friendly turns out to be a rather testing experience, involving lots of spiders used in a rather witch-hunt-esque manner. Charming. Still, all's well that ends well.

Having covered a new race in here, Bruce of course elaborates on their history and culture, and makes them available as PC's. Since being uplifted by the immortal Ui, the Phanatons have been a persistent thorn in the side of the Herathians, given their tendency to hunt and eat giant spiders. They aren't the scariest race, but in a forest environment, they can be very effective, shooting things from above and gliding from tree to tree. Like Kobolds, they can take down much tougher creatures by use of hit and run tactics, poison and traps. They get the usual shamanic option, and here we see an AD&Dism creep in, as they get different powers depending on the specific immortal they follow. Are dwarves and halflings the only races that don't have spellcasting as a standard option?

And that's the end of the series. It really could have gone on longer, after all, there's the entire arm of the immortals and most of the southern continent still left uncovered. And up to a few months ago, Bruce certainly seemed to think it would continue. But I get the impression that the management didn't want the series continuing in the past when the timeline in general has been moved on, and Bruce didn't want to send them into the future again, to see the aftermath of their nation's destruction. After all, Haldemar doesn't seem the sort to take that lightly, and if allowed to continue as a protagonist, he might mess up the metaplot. And we can't have that, can we. Another case where a good series is hampered by overall management. Such a downer of an ending.

 

[Orius]

And that's the end of the series. It really could have gone on longer, after all, there's the entire arm of the immortals and most of the southern continent still left uncovered. And up to a few months ago, Bruce certainly seemed to think it would continue. But I get the impression that the management didn't want the series continuing in the past when the timeline in general has been moved on, and Bruce didn't want to send them into the future again, to see the aftermath of their nation's destruction. After all, Haldemar doesn't seem the sort to take that lightly, and if allowed to continue as a protagonist, he might mess up the metaplot. And we can't have that, can we. Another case where a good series is hampered by overall management. Such a downer of an ending.

Well, it is at the end of 1992 here, and Basic D&D's popularity must be waning at this point. It's only a few months before I started playing, and the line got discontinued about a year after that. That's what happens when the beginner and advanced rules become slightly incompatible and you've got several different game worlds competing for attention.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 188: December 1992

part 3/6


Bazaar of the Bizarre: Another article following very directly in Ed's footsteps. Idiosyncratic magical swords? Of the Realms? Issue 74 would like to have a word with you, whippersnapper. As ever, the difference between a homage and a rip-off is purely a matter of quality.

Calathangas turns both the wielder and those attacked into wererats. This may or may not be considered a good thing. It also lets you control normal rats, which probably is handy. Better get practicing that control shape skill.

Dyerwaen makes you highly popular with elves and lets you fit into the forest as well as any ranger or druid. Whether you use that responsibly is up to you.

Equillar lets you change shape, can change it's own shape, blocks mind-reading and disrupts the shapechanging abilities of others. You can slice through intrigue with ease and finesse. Useful here, and even more so in Ravenloft.

Evithyan's Blade is an elven sword designed to kick drow ass. Like Glamdring, just seeing it'll have them quaking in their boots, such is it's reputation.

The Heart of Stone lets you cast stoneskin on yourself, and petrifies enemies with a crit. Cheesy or what? It does have a teensy little drawback, but that's only a problem if you don't do your homework. And I do so love putting players in situations like that, so I approve of this.

Ice Claw is an intelligent frost brand that wants to kill dragons. Don't we all mate. And with an ego like that, you aren't going to be saying no to it any time soon. Have fun being dragged along in search of foes to valiantly slay.

Neekar lets you speak and read any language. It's intelligent as well, so it'll help you by explaining the context of stuff you still don't understand, and quite possibly being a general right-hand diplomat whispering in your ear. A sword that likes preventing bloodshed? Next thing you know, we'll have an axe that encourages you to plant trees.

Nightwatcher lets you see in the dark, and alerts you if set properly while you sleep. Solo dungeon crawling is always a mugs game, but this is a good bit of gear to have if you really can't find a team.

Swords +2, shock blade add extra energy damage to your hits above and beyond their regular plus. Ahh yes, this became one of the great cheese exploits in 3e, particularly Neverwinter nights. Add a whole bunch of 1d6 elemental/energy damage effects (and permanant true strike if you want to be really cheesy) and the weapon becomes a lot more deadly for it's GP value. That's what happens when you put item crafting in the hands of smart PC's.

Swords +2, Vampiric regeneration do exactly the same as the ring of the same name. Not sure why they bothered to specify the exact plus, and that's easy enough to change anyway. Really, that ability could be applied to nearly any item. Not the most imaginative ending to the collection, but they all seem pretty handy anyway, and have enough quirks to keep players on their toes. It's much easier to follow a trail than it is to blaze it.


Shadow knight supplement for Amber! With lots of glowing quotes and a questionnaire.


The role of computers decides to fill their page count with more smaller reviews. In the process, they stray ever further from their original remit to review things from the perspective that this is a roleplaying magazine, and the games chosen and criteria they're examined with should reflect that. Another thing that has gradually been diluted over the years to the point where it's pretty much forgotten without actually being consciously abandoned. And more cause for long-term concern. Complacency is a persistent challenge that never gets any easier to deal with, just like creativity.

Aces of the Pacific is a WWII flight sim. It's pretty easy to learn, and reasonably fun. But they don't give much info about it, apart from stuff on what your computer needs to play it, which is a section that hasn't got any shorter under their new format.

Darkseed gets another review driven strongly by complaints and system requirements. Annoying copy protection plus a crap instruction manual drag down it's marks.

Falcon 3.0 is another flight sim, this time more modern. This gets a little more detail, and a general recommendation, although they once again complain about the manual. They're computer programmers! They may work in larger teams than in the 80's, but the days of each program being a massive project with space and budget for dedicated music & manual writers is still a few years away.

Minotaur is a multiplayer fantasy adventure game where you're put in a maze and have to compete to find weapons, spells, etc to beat the other players and escape. Treacherous alliances and brutal deaths are the order of the day. The online arena is progressing nicely these days.

Prince of Persia gets 5 stars, kicking off another long-running series with a bang and much frustration. Once again they complain about the copy protection. If you lose the manual, you're in trouble. Play it on a console instead.

Red Baron is a third flight sim, this time concentrating on WWI. Man, what has this got to do with roleplaying? I suppose it draws on the wargaming link, but we haven't see much of that round here in years. I am left vaguely bemused again.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 188: December 1992

part 4/6


Fiction: Something familiar by Eliza Erskine. Another tale of wizardly hubris and comeuppance this month. You try and steal from a thief, and who knows what they'll do to get revenge. Well, the same applies to stealing from wizards, as we've seen before, so the results are usually interesting whichever side wins. As usual where magic is involved, the punishment is suitably ironic and quite mean. About average for fiction around here, which still means it's reasonably entertaining.


This year's statement of ownership shows another steady year. With an average of 93,371, and a last month of 93,545, it looks from a casual inspection have a consistent fanbase at the moment. Delve closer, though, and the number of subscriptions has declined by more than a thousand and a half, while the number of newsstand sales is down by over 800, and the surplus is a large number of undistributed copies. This is interesting statistically, if not that pleasing. They'll probably sell those eventually as back issues, but in the meantime they're hanging around eating up warehouse space. Another subtle sign of slow decline.


Role-playing reviews: Rick once again diverts our attention to the various board gamers out there. It is christmas after all, and we might want a little light entertainment for the kids. Whether you're a normal parent sneaking a look at your kid's magazine for ideas, or a gamer parent looking to subtly corrupt your offspring, I can see the marketing sense in putting this in here.

The Xanth boardgame brings his much-loved paedophillic punnery to a new arena. Pick a character, each of which has distinctive abilities, draw a hand of cards, roll the dice and head around the board. The number of options you have to choose from and random events that can happen keep it replayable for quite a while, even if it can be rather unfair and swingy. Yeah, sounds about right as an emulation of the source material.

Minion hunter is a board game based on Dark Conspiracy. As with the Warhammer minis games and RPG's, players are substantially more empowered in this, with a decent chance of actually taking on the monsters and no actual character death. It's another one that's pretty simplistic, and seems more intended to snag newbies than cater to existing players. Get it to corrupt your kids.

Greyhawk Wars gets the same marks, but a slightly more positive review. A war game for people who hate war games? Hmm. Trouble with this one is that it has so much hate built up over what it represents historically, it's hard to judge it for what it actually is. There do seem to be some wonky rules bits, but they make heroes more important than they otherwise would be, which is probably good from a dramatic point of view. It may have it's flaws, but it's probably better to play this and apply it's results to your game than to simply use the default timeline advance.

Battlemasters appears to be another highly stripped down game set in the warhammer universe, like Heroquest. Rick isn't very keen on this one, finding it far too simple and lacking in tactical decisions, but realises that his tastes are a good deal more refined than the average 8 year old. And it's cheap too. Perfectly positioned to appeal to the lowest common denominator and make millions.


Novel ideas: Christmas has certainly come for R. A. Salvadore. Drizzt is a runaway success, and he's about to release his 10th Forgotten Realms novel, with several more already scheduled for next year. This is a pretty cool situation for any writer to be in, but it has it's dangers. You risk burnout, ( Writing a whole book in two months, yikes!) and there is the persistent danger of your character becoming an obscenely powerful mary-sue who's near impossible to seriously challenge and impossible to kill off due to fan demand. But he does seem commendably aware of the dangers and unfazed by the challenges, putting him in a good position to remain one of their primary cash cows for some time, and also making him a likable interviewee. It's so much more pleasant seeing people live the dream when they're not smug superior s. Another relatively good performance from this column. They seem more likely to produce useful information when not splitting it up into too many tiny chunks.

 

[amysrevenge]

It's so much more pleasant seeing people live the dream when they're not smug superior s.

That's pretty much how I feel about the subject too.

Interestingly, I'm finding that as your series goes on, the articles I'm most interested in are the game reviews (RPGs and PCs) and novel reviews. I wasn't expecting that; I was expecting to pleasantly remember articles and such.

 

[Orius]

Battlemasters appears to be another highly stripped down game set in the warhammer universe, like Heroquest. Rick isn't very keen on this one, finding it far too simple and lacking in tactical decisions, but realises that his tastes are a good deal more refined than the average 8 year old. And it's cheap too. Perfectly positioned to appeal to the lowest common denominator and make millions.

I still have a copy of that game. I thought it would be cool like Hero Quest, but it ended up being disappointing. It was hard to really make any sort of tactical decisions at all, since turns were determined by drawing cards from a single deck. Unfortunately, if a whole bunch of cards came up for the Empire or the forces of Chaos all at once, one side could easily smash up the other. It also had a tendancy to be a bit swingy and some of the units were far too squishy. I certainly hope full blown Warhammer plays better than this.

OTOH, it does make for a nice supply of minis. I've used the men-at-arms for basic city guards from time to time, and you can never have too many orcs, especially when you need a big horde.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 188: December 1992

part 5/6


The marvel-phile: Another selection of pretty much brand-new characters here this month. Shield has a new team of super-agents, ready to kick ass and quite possibly go maverick to get things done. Ivory, who ironically is only moderately dark-skinned, and very resilient indeed. Knockabout, a pathological liar who treats life like one big game. Psi-borg, a latverian who may or may not be a double agent, possibly even unwittingly due to subconscious programming. And Violence, who lives up to her nickname quite effectively. The kind of team that you send out if you don't mind there being some collateral damage and unorthodox solutions to problems. Even Nick muthain' Fury finds it a struggle to keep them disciplined. Another entry that's rather too specific to be of a huge amount of use, and as Steven admits, it was a struggle to find enough info to write about them because they are so new. If they keep catching up like this, they soon won't be able to run this every month simply due to lack of new characters. After more than 8 years, I think this gameline is approaching saturation. Where can they go from here? Without rehash, I'm really not sure.


Sage advice finally finishes ploughing through the bloody psionic questions. Skip is getting quite sick of them.

Is flesh armour cumulative with regular armour (no. Best of either, as per usual. )

Can prolong enhance ballistic attack (no)

How does phobia amplification work on PC's (either they cower like little girls willingly, or the DM will have to take control. No stoic badasses when you're being mind controlled)

How far can you teleport at the minimum cost (less than 10 yards)

Does Molecular Manipulation work against Body Weaponry (yes. See the shapeshifter caveats previously mentioned.)

How do you contest control body (opposed roll. Higher better, up to failure point. Weird nonstandardized maths. )

Do telekineticly controlled weapons inflict normal damage (with some exceptions. There's always exceptions. AD&D likes her exceptions, because she's a very exceptional lady. That's why it takes a badass sage like Skip to satisfy her. )

Does the psionics errata in dark sun apply to other settings (Yes. Buy it now, for an even more official gaming experience, etc etc.)

What happens to the hit points animal affinity gives you when you stop if you're damaged ( adjudicate each form separately. This can get complicated. )

Does reduction affect equipment (no. Hee. Tiny naked psychics, running around a dungeon. )

Does dream travel work if you aren't sleepy (if you have enough willpower. )

Is psychic drain permanent (if overdone. The rules for this are clearly spelled out.)

Does wrench make you vulnerable to normal weapons (Depends on the creature. Not everything is immune to nonmagical stuff because it's extraplanar. Try it on the wrong creature and you've just wasted a round in which it can splat you. )


The game wizards: Not only are they revamping the columns and submission guidelines next year, they're doing the same for the RPGA. They are trying commendably hard at the moment. Polyhedron is bigger, more frequent and higher budget. More contests, more tournaments, more support of games other than D&D (including our first mention of something called the Amazing Engine in these pages) more online stuff, more clubs, and tons of Raven's Bluff stuff to make it the most filled in city in the Realms. They certainly aren't stagnant or resting on their laurels. A reminder that at this stage, it's mainly the casual gamers that they're losing. As the convention stuff and statement of ownership shows, serious players are staying loyal and maybe even getting more involved as things progress. A distinctly above average article in terms of historical relevance, this is quite interesting and useful to me. This also serves as an irritating reminder that we still don't have a thread for Polyhedron, and I haven't been able to find back issues online in any quantity. Come on, surely there's someone reading this forum who's been a regular member since the early 80's and is willing to step up to the mic. If these page counts are right it'll only be a tiny fraction of the work this thread or the Dungeon one have been. Anyone?