Let's read the entire run

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 190: February 1993


part 3/6


TSR Previews moves back to the middle of the magazine. Ravenloft does pretty well for itself, with Van Richten's guide to the Lich, and Tapestry of Dark souls by Elaine Bergstrom. Some choose darkness, while others are trapped within it by the wrongdoings of others. Ravenloft welcomes and delights in tormenting them both.

The forgotten realms is also mixing game and novel harmoniously. Ruins of Myth Drannor opens up another boxed set superdungeon to give your players plenty of opportunities to level up .... or die. The Druid Queen completes Doug Niles' Druidhome trilogy. The Moonshaes restore peace and proper rulership. Until next time. :fade out to ominous music:

Dark sun tries to make an epic adventure to match the promise of the setting. DSE1: Dragon's crown gives you another chance to affect the world, that may or may not be railroaded to keep things from straying too far from the official history. Go on, let your PC's break out and become Dragons too.

Dragonlance continues to reprint it's glory days, with DLC2: Dragonlav(sic)ce classics, Vol 2. Aka original modules 6-9. Give us more money! Your gameline needs you!

Generic AD&D products do well for themselves. PHBR9: The complete book of gnomes and halflings sees this line start to run out of steam. They obviously don't think either little race has enough selling power on their own. How vaguely insulting. GA1: The murky deep takes us underwater to a lost city. Woo. Looks like they're having a resurgence at the moment. We also get another year's batch of collectable cards. They have obviously proved profitable as a regular release.

D&D gets The Knight of Newts. An adventure designed for a group to play even without a DM. I'm guessing it's pretty simple then, especially as it's only 16 pages.

Gamma world has another gadget book. GWA1:Treasures of the Ancients. How much will this stuff have changed from previous editions, given real world tech developments since the 70's?

And Warlords of Jupiter completes the Invaders of Charon trilogy. Buck and the 25th century logos are not mentioned at all. It's almost as if they're embarrassed about them.


The role of computers: Darklands is a particularly in depth medieval RPG, taking your characters from birth to death. This makes for an epic, but often difficult and grindy adventure. One for those willing to do lots of experimenting with character builds and open-ended exploring.

The ancient art of war in the air is a WWI wargame. Unusually for a flight game, it's largely overhead, and has a combination of formation and individual bits to challenge you. This'll require both strategic thinking and fast reflexes.

Goblins gets a short but positive review. Control the three goofy looking little creatures, each with their own unique skills to solve an array of puzzles. Plenty of humour and weird solutions to be found here. Flex those lateral thinking muscles.

Plan 9 from outer space ironically manages to be almost as bad as it's namesake, only without the camp pleasure value. It's just a tedious find the items to solve the puzzles adventure game, linear and dull. Unless you want to MST3K it in the forums, avoid.

Shinobi adds a bunch of new ninja tricks to it's repertoire. Not just a little dog, but a whole bunch of additional ninja become available as you complete the game, with their own tricks. Sounds like someone's taking lessons from mega man's school of reward design.

Alisa Dragoon also involves summoning the right creature for the job as you go through the game. Manage your blasty powers wisely, and beat all the monsters.

Spellcraft: Aspects of valor sees you building spells from scratch using an elemental based components system. Find components, buy them, experiment with them to see what can be done, and try to avoid dying. But even if you do, it's not the end, as you can escape from the underworld, and possibly find some cool rare items while there. The biggest problem comes from mixing your components in real time as the enemies approach, and getting off the spells before dying.


Forum: Thomas Vogt asks a very interesting question. What can you do to improve a sucky GM as a player. Yeah, that is one that could merit an article. Hopefully someone'll step up to that challenge in a few months time.

Paul Cardwell, Jr radiates his disapproval for the more hyperbolic elements of TTLG's argument against banning lead miniatures. There are genuine health risks, and you're being a bit petty simply due to personal investment. Can we just make a law that's good for people.

Cory Dodt finds that people are incorporating house rules from the AD&D computer games into their tabletop experience. You know, I have never strictly tracked material components or post death door recuperation times either. Chances are, they're not even thinking seriously about it. The system actually runs more smoothly if you cut corners.

William D. Sharpe III makes the slightly patronising suggestion that if you want to get more girls into roleplaying, you should just keep all the rules stuff behind the scenes and just actually roleplay. Cos maff is hard for girlz, hehehehe.

Eyal Teler suggests that you make magic items with charges a good deal more common than permanent ones. That'll help quite a bit in keeping them from getting monty haulish in the long term, as they'll be regularly exhausting and cycling through items instead of accumulating ever more.

Alexander Dengler suggests the idea of a Ravenloft/Gamma World crossover. The mists seem to reach to all times and places, and you can incorporate a wide range of technologies. All are helpless against the Dark Powers.

Matthew Lyon talks about his worldbuilding experience as a new gamer. Not too surprisingly, he's used a hodgepodge of ideas from whatever he could afford to get his hands on. Perfectly normal. It's only once you have more ideas than you could ever use that you can really pick and choose and only incorporate an appropriately themed set.

Julien Hermitte likes to use film soundtracks to set the mood for his games. Those lyrics just get in the way. Classical music is good too, particularly the more bombastic Wagner stuff. You know, this is another topic we really haven't had enough of. For al the led zeppelin stereotypes, they didn't mention music once during the 70's. More please.

John M. Fairfield picks apart the earlier contributions saying psionicists are overpowered. They may not have many hard level limits, but the prerequisites and high psp costs on their nastiest powers keep them from being easy to use at lower levels. And don't forget the failure chances. Those can be pretty annoying in a pinch. It's particularly the case if you don't allow them insanely twinked ability score generating methods.

 

[Echohawk]

We also get another year's batch of collectable cards. They have obviously proved profitable as a regular release.

I wouldn't put too much money on the profitability of the collector's cards, since that line vanished without a trace after the 1993 series. Serves them right too, for adding those 60 ultra rare chase cards to the 1993 series. Seventeen years later and I've only managed to collect 37 of those 60 cards. Muttermumble.

 

[JLowder]

I wouldn't put too much money on the profitability of the collector's cards, since that line vanished without a trace after the 1993 series. Serves them right too, for adding those 60 ultra rare chase cards to the 1993 series. Seventeen years later and I've only managed to collect 37 of those 60 cards. Muttermumble.

The TSR trading cards initially sold really well, but you hit on one of the reasons the cards burned out as a line: it was too hard to complete sets, particularly of the 1991 and 1993 series. (I'm still missing a couple cards from 1991 set and a bunch of the parallel cards from the 1993 series.) I recall the 1992 series being overprinted, too, which happened a lot at TSR in the mid-1990s with products lines that were initial hits. The first releases did well, but then the company printed way too many of the subsequent products.

Drop me a note off the board; I might have some extras of the 1993 60-card chase set.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 190: February 1993


part 4/6


Role-playing reviews: It's a GURPS special! My oh my. They have been busy, not only writing various genre supplements, but also licensing out a whole range of properties, many rather surprising. How better to prove that their system really does everything, and if you like, it could be the only game you ever need to learn. Mind you, it'll take a fair bit of effort and money to do that, but at least you're not trying to keep up with AD&D's supplement mill.

GURPS The prisoner is one that seems like it would be particularly hard to turn into a setting, given the surreal and sometimes contradictory nature of the show. But the designer manages it, partly by making sure the toolkitness of the whole thing is played up. Answers? Hah. It's more fun without them.

GURPS Callahan's crosstime saloon is a bit easier to convert, but ironically winds up duller because of it. And the humour part of the show is a bit neglected too. Some things, even the most generic of systems will struggle to model.

GURPS Middle ages 1 shows that they realized right away this topic needed more than one book. It focusses on the english side of history, feudalism and chivalry, legal developments, wars, everyday life details. But as with far too many GURPS books, it's just a load of details. It's up to you to turn that into a good campaign.

GURPS Camelot gets much the same result, with the tension between fantasy and history being if anything, greater. How do you make it all fit together? Up to you.

GURPS Old West gets the best review of their historical sourcebooks, for being full of easy fun plot hooks, and generally having a more playful approach. Rick also approves of the way the settler/native conflict is handled. Plenty of adventures to be had on both sides.

GURPS Terradyne is one of their few full original settings. It combines corporate dystopia on earth with frontier space exploration, giving us a nice contrast between old and new. Quite hard sci-fi, it focusses particularly well on the technological and economic developments of the setting. Sounds like the kind of thing I'd like.

GURPS Space atlas 4 is also setting heavy, but is a bit system light too. This makes it particularly easy to mine and convert to other games. Combined with the previous entries in the series, and you have a pretty substantial modular future atlas for characters to adventure in.


Novel ideas: As usual for the first instalment of this column of the year, it's time to see what books are coming out over the course of the year. As you's expect, they lead with their strongest lines. The realms is getting a good 8 books, including 3 Salvadore ones. Not for nothing is he the master hack. Dragonlance is getting 6 novels, plus a rerelease of an old favourite. The people have spoken, and they want poetry! Dark sun, Ravenloft and regular D&D are getting 3 books each. Ravenloft is even getting a hardback, despite being the one that's skipping the trilogies and bigger series. They must be doing particularly well for themselves. Ahh, the joys of horror bringing in a different demographic to exploit.

Course, it's not all good news, although they try and spin it all positively. Spelljammer is finishing the end of it's only series, and they have no plans for another one. They've given no hints what's coming after this year for the basic D&D line Similarly, the XXVc line is limping out it's final products on greatly reduced print runs. And the generic line is not only down to 4 books, the same as last year, but two of them are follow-ups of previously successful stories. They really do want to cut their risks in that department. Still, overall that's 30 books mentioned, one more than last year. On the surface it all looks pretty stable, unlike last year, there's few major changes in their lineup. Whether that will result in diminishing returns for sales yet I'm not sure. Anyone with inside knowledge here?


Sage advice: Where is Zalchara ( I dunno. But if you want Zakhara you turn south at Toril, and keep going until you get past the pretentious guys with the skyships, then take a 45 degree turn left. You can't miss it, since it is an entire continent. If it's not there, go back a hundred years and try again. If it's still not there, then it's been retconned, and you might as well play cards in limbo with all the people punched by superboy prime)

What's the level limit for halfling sha'irs (10)

What do rings of wizardry and other magical items that boost your memorization ability do for sha'irs (not a lot, in most cases. Like a mule with a spinning wheel, your best bet is to sell it on for a good price. )

What's with the reference to segments in Wall of Ash (Another case of the writer not keeping up to date with rules changes.

Why are descriptions of the Baazrag so contradictory (good question. Unfortunately, Skip doesn't have a good answer, so Skip will give you two mediocre answers instead. Hopefully that'll be satisfactory.)

Tinker gnomes have been nerfed by Tales of the Lance! (Yes. We're subtly trying to keep you from playing one, so groups don't have to deal with them as PC's. )

How much damage does a sashik do. (It's a bloody kender weapon, so Skip'll take the least favourable option. )

I don't understand the cleric spell lists (They do need a bit of clearing up. That is Skip's job, so Skip will do it )

Reorx and Sargonass' turning abilities are a bit odd (Not all evil gods like hanging around with undead. And is it so wrong for some gods to give alternate turning options? Things get very boring without variety. )

The dates on the calendars contradict each other again. ( Tracey! Margaret! Please report to Skip's office on the double. No excuses and no lallylagging. )

High level sword knights can't fill up their spell list in one go. (Yes. This is an intentional bit of design. Lets them have occasional access to high level spells without stepping on clerics toes. )

How many legs do displacer beasts have (6, unless some were chopped off. Or it could just be artist incompetence, as usual. )

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 190: February 1993


part 5/6


The game Wizards: Oh no. No, no no no no. Iiiiiiit's Volo! If you thought Elminster was irritating, you ain't seen nothing yet. Ed Greenwood reveals his new finely veined, not quite fully matured cheese on the public. The little gobshite gives them an excuse to revisit previously sourcebooked areas of the realms and give them a second going over. After exploring north, south east and west, introducing three new continents to Toril, they're starting to close in and eat their own tail. Come on, there's plenty of place still to explore, we don't need to go back to Waterdeep yet. And do we really need so much info on the eating habits of various places. I suppose there's still more in Ed's personal notes that'll never see the light of day, and they want to get them out somehow. I do wonder who suggested this part IC format though. Since Athas, Krynn, Ravenloft, Planescape and Mystara would all use it at various points in their life, it must have been pretty popular in the TSR offices. It probably got overused over the years, and this is definitely one of the signs of that. Not an article that fills me with warm and fuzzy feelings, to say the least.


Sounds of wonder and delight: Jeff Grubb follows in Ed's footsteps. In issue 123, Ed detailed the musical instruments of the Realms, now we get the same treatment applied to Zakhara. Most of their instruments are pretty clearly based on real world ones, but there's always a few weird variants. The vast majority of them are small enough to be portable, with stringed, wind and light percussion being the most popular families. Not too surprisingly, there's also magical variants. The nay of the Djinn, The Riqq of the Efreet, The 'ud of the Marids, The Rababah of the Dao and the Qanun of the spirits are a themed set of musical instruments. Each has a couple of minor powers when played alone, but if you can gather all 5, you can summon a genie army. This is obviously a big plot device to place in the campaign, and players and bad guys can compete to gather one, while genies try their hardest to make sure no-one ever does. I think that'd make a pretty decent central plot for an entire tv show, or at least a season, so despite the mundane aspects being a bit predictable, this is a pretty decent article.


Unique Unicorns: 'Ello 'ello. Wot 'ave we 'ere then? A full dozen variant unicorns, doing for them what previous articles have done for dogs, imps, dinosaurs and of course Dragons. Well, it's an ideal choice if they want to appeal to the female demographic more without being too obvious. And exactly what powers unicorn horns have differs from myth to myth anyway. That leaves them with room for quite a few variants, at least one for each alignment. Another fairly obvious one they haven't done yet, so yay.

Alicorns have a twisted horn, and all the usual powers plus charming and the ability to ride on air. This obviously makes them even harder to catch or kill.

Bay Unicorns deploy the dread power of shaky-cam to win battles against their enemies. Oh, and fire based magic too. They're not very nice creatures, and like to live in volcanic caves. Sounds like a nice surprise for people who think unicorns are all sweetness and light.

Black Unicorns are of course utterly eeeevil and will eat your flesh. They radiate silence, can both become invisible and generate darkness, and have poisonous horns. Way to bring on a cheap death. Poor spellcasters just won't know what to do!

Brown Unicorns read your mind and put people with hostile intent to sleep. Very faeish. I quite approve.

Cunnequines are shiny, and can turn undead and invert your alignment. Since they're good guys, they'll generally use that to make people change their ways for the better. Unicorn hunters really are biting off more than they can chew.

Faerie Unicorns are the perfect mount for pixies and the like. If their natural concealment and mind-control isn't enough, they can summon animals to help out. Good luck trying to keep them in a snare when the squirrels and bears are around.

Gray Unicorns are of course true neutral. In the interests of balance, they have that classic equalizer the ability to make you suffer any damage you inflict on them too. Once again the dramatic irony is strong in this one. Welcome to the justice zone, fae style.

Palomino Unicorns fill the LE alignment axis and have fire powers. They probably won't get along with Bay unicorns then. Natural rivals and all that.

Pinto Unicorns ejaculate shoot rainbows from their horns. How very very my little pony. They also generate illusions, making catching them a crapshoot between humiliation and death. Send all the twee lot to the Gray Waste.

Sea Unicorns are the equine equivilent of selkies, able to assume a narwhal like form or a horsey one. Like a disproportionate number of water monsters, they can control the weather, so expect ship-destroying storms if you mess with their herd.

Unisus are a crossbreed between unicorns and pegasi. Flutter Ponies! :fangirl squee!: Sorry, no avoiding that this is one of the most obvious cheese ideas evar.

Zebracorns take their camouflage abilities to a logical extreme by being able to shapeshift. They may even assume human form and walk among us. While not evil, they're as stubborn as natural zebras if you try riding them. They'll go when and where they wanna go.

As with the earlier sea monster collection, this is a nicely mythic collection that manages to both seem logically derived and still pull a few surprises, as well as having the just about right quotient of cheese for my tastes. I think this lot would be quite usable, really making people think twice about trying to hunt unicorns. Oh, the cautionary tales that would be told. Hee.

 

[Orius]

The game Wizards: Oh no. No, no no no no. Iiiiiiit's Volo! If you thought Elminster was irritating, you ain't seen nothing yet. Ed Greenwood reveals his new finely veined, not quite fully matured cheese on the public. The little gobshite gives them an excuse to revisit previously sourcebooked areas of the realms and give them a second going over.

But I like Volo! You got to admire the little glutton, he's not afraid to mouth off to all the Mary Sues that flit around the Realms and snark about them and he's only level 4. That takes a big pair of brass ones. Plus it's always fun to read the footnotes where Elminster corrects him.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 190: February 1993


part 6/6


Too Bizarre to be magical: Looks like psionic articles are increasing in frequency. Another sign of their attempts to tackle neglected but needed topics. So here's a bunch of psionic artifacts. Since each one is intelligent and unique, there's room for a lot of them.

Devan's Force of Nature is a fake wand, with a bunch of elemental effects. It can be a real pain trying to remember convincing spell components, so faking a single command word is much easier. Unfortunately it's a bit of a homebody, so adventurers will have to put up with it whining about wanting to settle down. Ah yes, the danger of comic relief sidekicks. I suspect we may see a few more of these in this article.

Fleshcrawler is a playful stone that likes to shift your form. It'll be more likely to be beneficial if you actively ask it to turn you into bizarre and amusing forms. Yup, once again with the goof negotiations in a pinch. Psions need to get a better hold on their subconsciouses.

Ynilgeira's Instrument of pain and misery is a chaotic evil soul trapped in it's own ossified heart. It drains life force from people, and generally causes paranoia and misery. You know, you ought to just kill them. This causes more trouble than you'll ever get in benefits from it.

Malgovich's Portrait puts itself in the possession of politicians and manipulates it's way down the generations. I wonder if the Baatezu and dopplegangers'll suspect the paintings when they realize someone else is doing the subtle grandmaster thing on the same turf.

Mana-Ken is a nasty little voodoo doll that lets you mentally control and torture things, but then lets them free at a time very inopportune to the user. Another one that's probably more trouble than it's worth.

Tawnwater is an immortal psionic falcon with lots of psychometabolic tricks. It'll pick you more than you choose it, and join in in your adventures. How very literary. Roll on psicrystals.

Pennison's Light of Truth reveals the truth without pity or bias. This may make people uncomfortable when it's their dirty secrets being spread to the world.

The Slumbering Ferry of Al-Colgia is all about the dream travel. It's secretly a romantic, facilitating trysts and getting you back before the morning. Don't wear yourself out too much, and remember that your magic items are watching you.

The Arbiter is a silk judges robe. Enforce the law in comfort with telekinesis, body enslavement and disintegration. Unfortunately it doesn't have any information gathering powers, so you'll have to make sure it doesn't jump to conclusions and get overzealous. Yup, I think this lot'll liven up your game too, even if you don't have any psionic characters. Managing your intelligent items and familiar equivalents does make for fun, if sometimes goofy games.


Dragonmirth blurs the boundries between the eating and the eaten. Yamara gets kidnapped. And now for the news. Twilight empire finally starts making sense. But now he'll have to defeat his own wife. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAngst!


Through the looking glass: A collection of the weird and gruesome here this month. an alien that likes to infect your brain, and the rather startling final result. An adorable baby dragon and it's owner's warning sign. An alchemist mixing the wrong potion and a wizard summoning the wrong demon. Some cyborg commando mutant turtles, not derivative at all, scouts honour. A similarly cybernetically enhanced ninja, ready to sneak in and sabotage . An undead skeleton that'll lead you astray, will-o-wisp style, and a more conventional skeletal warrior. A truly awesome robot riding a cybernetic cat. Some boring zombies. Some very much not boring officialy licenced aliens from the movie, including facehuggers and queen. An also rather interesting cave giant plus trophies. And some amazons in chariots pulled by tigers. It'd never work in reality, but it does look cool. Still compared to the previous ones, unreality is the least of your problems.


Quite a few good articles in this one, but also signs of the larger problems starting to develop in the company management. The game wizards and known world grimoire stuff are particularly damning in that respect. The reviews were also pretty lame, generally being pretty bland in their methods and conclusions. When the end of issue filler articles from unfamiliar names beat those of the established regular writers handily in terms of entertainment, I think I can say that your formulas are becoming more of a hindrance than a help. Fight the system from inside, don't become just another cog in it.

 

[fanboy2000]

the XXVc line is limping out it's final products on greatly reduced print runs.

Ah, the Buck Rogers' books! I read the first few, but I stopped because, despite Buck Rogers' name on them, he wasn't in them very much. Made be grumpy because he was actually interesting. The published a few trilogies, in the line, but soon they made his name smaller. Eventually, they dropped it all together.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 191: March 1993


part 1/6


124 pages. PETA girl (aka Robin Wood) provides this month's cover pic. La la la, sweet music and harmony between all creatures. Sparkly sparkly flitty flitty IT'S A TRAP! And while this may not be a themed issue, looking at the contents, there certainly seems to be plenty of faeish whimsy inside too. And more real world cultural stuff too. As long as the cheese is kept in check, this could be a great deal of fun.


In this issue:


Letters: A letter interpreting issue 188's editorial as a cry for help. Funny, it read to me as almost the opposite, saying we have more than enough people trying to help, so you'd better do it right. The reality is somewhere in between, as Dale gives a lengthy reply explaining himself, and justifying the inclusion of campaign specific stuff, as well as the ease with which it can be adapted to other worlds. This is a struggle that's going to get worse.

A letter on the issue of getting hold of D&D cartoon videos. As ever, they're more likely to do so if they think there's demand out there. Don't hesitate to call and pester them.


Editorial: Oh god, Paladins and the proper roleplaying thereof. There's another almighty pain in the butt people keep complaining about. You think it's simple, that everyone should automatically know what's right and wrong. And then people inject all these grey areas. Sometimes I think they're doing it deliberately just to try and annoy you into falling, as these situations are astronomically unlikely to happen in a real world situation. But I do know that I'm less certain about what exactly is right and wrong now than I was at the age of 3. And I also know that there are a whole load of choices that have very little relevance to your personal morality, and those are the areas in which even paladins and saints can have plenty of variety. They can't control where they come from, or what they have to work with, but they can choose their actions. And without evil around them, they'd have no need to be fighters anyway. Which means they might be lawful good, but they may well often be in conflict with the actual rulers and mores of the land, which are not nearly so virtuous. Damnitt, I guess it really is that complicated. It's at time like this you wish you could just wander around using detect evil and mowing down everyone who pings as positive. So this seems like the kind of thing that's likely to stir up more forum debate than settle it. I guess Roger's got to keep people engaged and writing in somehow. I think this is a reasonable success if that was his goal.


Horses are people too: Horseys again! Well, the last time they gave them serious attention was 1989. Not at all an unwarranted topic, given how important they were to real world medieval society. This is mostly comprised of a slew of random tables for quickly individualising any encountered horse in appearance, personality and capabilities. This is mostly what you'd expect, with a few amusing surprises thrown in. ( I didn't know you could teach horses to moonwalk. ) As with most of these random tables, it should help you keep things moving in actual play quite a bit, but isn't that interesting to read. So I guess this is more of a warmup first feature than a straight off spectacular. Let's try and bring this up to a canter for the next article.


Open your mind: Psionicist kits! Now there's a much needed article. This one goes for an interesting mix of adding new kits, and adapting existing ones from the other Complete Handbooks. Many of the special benefits and penalties can be applied to another class without the game breaking, and this helps further blur the roles characters can play. Once again, the deryni get mentioned as well. It's certainly not a complete collection, but this should spur people's imaginations. and help them customise their characters. Hopefully there are some more to come in the future.

Berranie Seers are psychic gypsies. They favor the traditional mind-affecting and divination psychic powers, and justify people's suspicion of them with access to rogue proficiencies. Way to pander to stereotypes.

Thought Agents are easily the biggest and most customised kit of the bunch, with a whole variety of minor special benefits depending on if you want to be a nice guy or a mindreading fascist enforcer. Yeah, that's a perfect job for a psionicist. What fosters justice like reading minds and spying on people in their bedrooms?

Ascetic Warriors are psionic Monks. They get moderate unarmed combat bonuses at the cost of armour and wealth restrictions. Sounds about right, if very unimaginative. You'd rather still be back in 1e, wouldn't you.

Healers try and give clerics a run for their money. That'll please quite a few parties sick of the proselytising. Course, the oath of pacifism thing may be almost as irritating to groups who just want to hack and slash. That's the kind of thing you'll just have to resolve IC. So these kits are definitely on the lower key end of things, like the first few splatbooks. You won't be encountering many problems, but at the same time, they won't revolutionise your playing either.

 

[JLowder]

Course, it's not all good news, although they try and spin it all positively. Spelljammer is finishing the end of it's only series, and they have no plans for another one. They've given no hints what's coming after this year for the basic D&D line Similarly, the XXVc line is limping out it's final products on greatly reduced print runs. And the generic line is not only down to 4 books, the same as last year, but two of them are follow-ups of previously successful stories. They really do want to cut their risks in that department. Still, overall that's 30 books mentioned, one more than last year. On the surface it all looks pretty stable, unlike last year, there's few major changes in their lineup. Whether that will result in diminishing returns for sales yet I'm not sure. Anyone with inside knowledge here?

As with the TSR game lines, the fiction lines in the mid-1990s would see a lot of experiments, new lines that will be given increasingly shorter periods to prove themselves before cancellation and replacement by the next potentially "hot" project. You're seeing the early signs of that here.

The TSR fiction lines reached their peak of stability in 1991/1992. After that, lines would begin to falter, in large part because the company was publishing too many titles. (The real decline would begin in 1994 or 1995.) Readers couldn't keep up with all the Realms or Dragonlance books being produced, let alone find enough time to jump to new lines. The company was, in short, competing with itself for reader attention.

In the early 1990s, new Dragonlance books would typically sell something like 125,000 copies in the first six months after release (and continue to sell steadily for years afterward), new Realms books slightly less. Some individual titles or trilogies would do much better, a few a little worse, but the lines were incredibly successful and rather stable. The numbers for even the successful series dropped off sharply in the mid-1990s, as the individual lines bloated and the company started releasing a lot of new lines. Even the initially successful series, such as Ravenloft, saw the sales numbers for new releases drop by half by the mid-1990s and even more by the time TSR was sold. There were exceptions. R.A. Salvatore's numbers rose during this same time, justifying his move to hardcover status. (The "master hack" shot is uncalled for, by the by.) He was establishing himself as a name, a brand within the Realms brand, much as Hickman and Weis had done earlier with Dragonlance; while the company liked the Salvatore sales numbers, TSR's deep-seated reactionary impulse against individual credit, which had caused them trouble with Hickman and Weis, would eventually rear its ugly head with Salvatore and Drizzt, culminating in the Shores of Dusk debacle.

The creator-owned TSR Books line started to trail off because upper management grew displeased with the idea that TSR did not own the books outright. (What do you mean we have to pay Mary Herbert royalties if we do a Dark Horse D&D supplement...?) Plus, the sales were always rather uneven. Some titles and series sold very well, others not so much. It was easier for the company to throw its support behind books it owned outright and which would sell more predictable numbers. The Random House sales reps were happier with more shared world books, too. The creator-owned line also had a hard time escaping the shadow of those game-related books, which meant that critics and some fantasy readers dismissed them as yet more "game fiction." Calling the line something other than TSR Books would have helped there. Anyway, this meant the books were competing for many of the same readers with the shared-world books, exacerbating the growing audience attention issues.