Let's read the entire run

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 192: April 1993

part 4/6


Fiction: The heroes of weefield by Mitchell Diamond. A reminder why the stalwart knight single-handedly fighting monsters is considerably less effective than a bunch of adventurers with varied skills, who attack with teamwork, magic, missile weapons, flaming oil, etc etc. You really can't afford to play fair, particularly with creatures much bigger than you that'll deal out and take more damage than even the most badass mortal man can manage. This is even more the case in a system where the ageing and advancement rules are more realistic than D&D's. But still it's not just kill or be killed. And so we have a story in which sympathy for the monster results in them sparing it, despite the fact that it may well kill again. Actually, all sides in this story are pretty sympathetic, even when they're being idiots. The plot is a bit insubstantial, but it's still a decent enough read, with good character banter.


Sage advice: What does a nilbog do to a spelljamming helm (Not much. It may make the user fly it somewhere unwise though. )

What's a ziggurat. ( A really scary monster. Second only to the Gazebo in it's power to terrify and confound players. )

Can you turn a staff into a morning star (not without ruining it. Wood is not the most flexible and resilient of materials. )

What happens if you turn someone to stone, then turn the statue to mud, resculpt it, turn it back to stone, then turn it back to flesh. (Oooh, thatsa nasty tricksa. I'll seta de godsa on you and theyla smita you for crimes againsta nature. )

What ToM spheres do the forgotten realms deities grant (Hmm. This is gonna take up quite a bit of space. Better get cracking.)

Would breaking a staff of the magi permanently destroy a vampire (possibly. Their indestructibility isn't as good as the tarrasque's)

Can spheres of annihilation permanently destroy the tarrasque (no)

How much alcohol do you need to get an umber hulk drunk. (They're about 3 times as heavy as humans, so Skip will make a wild guess and say three times as much. This may get expensive. )

Can you teleport inside a creature (no)

How far can you jump while wearing a girdle of giant strength. (36' plus 2 per point of strength above 18/00. Not that impressive really)

Are trained falcons really more expensive than war elephants (yes. Elephants are easy to train, and expensive to keep. Falcons are not. So there's more demand and less supply. )

What is a lair. (Anywhere I hang my hoard, that's my lair :fingerciicks: )

Can you enlarge something, cast permanancy, then enlarge it again (I'm afraid that falls foul of the no stacking the same kind of bonus rule. Or would, if we'd properly standardized that yet. )

Can we make a rope trick permanent and then take it with us as a storage method. (no, twice. It is neither sustainable or portable)

How do I measure east/west on hex grids (counting from the middle. Don't tell me that's hard for you.)

Do you reroll all your hit points when you gain a new level (Not officially. You can play it like that if you like, and the game doesn't break though. )

Why did you change THAC0's for the new edition (simplicity.)

If you wish for extra arms, can you wear extra magical items on them (No. Skip will not budge on this one, even if other writers do. Beware TPKing mariliths.)

Which speed factor and damage do small creatures wielding bastard swords have. (the worst ones)

How does poison work )ing witcha biochemistry. They can pull some pretty nasty tricks. )

Can a troll die from starvation. (Eventually. They may not obey the law of conservation of mass, but they still need refueling sometimes. )

Can you recalibrate your aim on a wand of wonder once you know what it's about to shoot. (No. These devices can not be relied on in any way, shape or form. Skip laughs at your attempts to mitigate it's consequences.)

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 192: April 1993

part 5/6


Role-playing reviews decides to go the lycanthropic route, apropos of nothing.

Werewolf: the Apocalypse gets a fairly long and not entirely positive review. Rick still isn't keen on the idea of entirely nonrandom chargen, which reminds us how long ago this is now. And he gets a quite substantial number of cracks in at their Metallica obsession and overall melodramaticness. Lars Ulrich really really isn't all that. And WW's editing sucks, as usual. But as with Vampire, he's still impressed by the underlying ideas. Fix the Mechanics!

Night howlers is the D&D offering. It's both less impressive, and less mechanically problematic, and focusses quite a bit on infected lycanthropes learning to control their condition. This takes quite a bit of work for players, but seems like it could liven up an existing campaign.

Rick also directs his amusement at death cheese, and other excessive setting building of recent books. All sorts of systems are getting into it, from D&D to shadowrun. As usual, some do better than others. Watch out for both silliness and dullness, sometimes at the same time. How does that happen? Mostly when you have page count to make up, so you throw in any ideas you can come up with without editing to pad it out.


The ecology (love life) of the lamia: Brendan Farwanderer returns for a third time, with the author finding yet another way to twist the traditional series title. Even more so than yuan-ti, lamias are an inherently degenerate race, requiring regular infusions of human seed to keep their progeny from becoming sterile animals. Since they're also bug nuts with hair trigger tempers, and they drain the common sense of those they touch, this is almost a textbook recipe for a dysfunctional relationship. (I will kill the first person to say they've been out with girls like that. ) Once again Spike delivers an excellent bit of fiction, combining titilation, horror and humour with aplomb. And their new ecological cycle is pretty distinctive and nifty as well. This adds new depth to them without upsetting previous assumptions. He's definitely proving himself as one of the best ecologists currently writing in. Now, if only he'd do so a bit more frequently.


Forum continues with much the same topics as last time round.

Philip Edwards is one of those who thinks psionics is indeed overpowered. It needs more saving throws, more playtesting, more checks and balances! You know that stuff slows things down if done wrong.

Jon Winter gives a full bunch of rather official sounding nerf suggestions for psionics, some of which would be incorporated later. He's particularly keen on psionics-magic transparency, which does help, after all. Again, watch out for the play-slowing finickiness.

Shlomi Chetrit thinks that balancing psionicists is easy. Just enforce training rules strictly and force them to find someone to teach the powers they want. Never mind that that isn't particularly in keeping with the literature, which often has them manifesting new powers abruptly. But training times might well be a good idea, especially at higher levels.

Jason Jex doesn't think psionicists should have restrictions just because wizards have them. After all, clerics don't have the same ones. But that doesn't mean it doesn't need a little nerfing. Balance must be struck, but the game must also be kept interesting and varied.

Charlie Frye has a bullet-pointed list on how to deal with monty haul cheaters. Just make sure you have copies of their character sheets, and all the dice are rolled in the open. That keeps the worst excesses under control.

Justin D. Somma also offers point by point advice on how not to deal with Monty Haul characters. It's not easy to take stuff away without them complaining to high heaven. And make sure cheaters don't prosper. There's nothing wrong with kicking them out the group.


Dragonmirth really needs to sort out it's fashion and design habits. Yamara finds out what her husband got up to before he married her. Hee. Finella decides to bite the bullet and get married as well in twilight empire. Man, they're having a lot of relationship dramas these days. And many of them are inter-racial, too. Interesting, that.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 192: April 1993

part 6/6


Through the looking glass: Boo! THE LEAD BILL GOT PASSED. All Robert's work over the last year or so has gone to waste. Now they're going to have to put up with crappy pewter, tin and plastic. Such a tragedy. And on top of that, people are giving him gyp about the poor photo quality in the column. You shoulda seen them 10 years ago. Roll on digital photography. He's obviously not in the best of moods. Better not disturb him

Our reviews, as a result, seem to be on autopilot, with everything getting 4 stars. A flying pig, to minor humour. Another pair of elves for those who still don't have enough unique ones for their army. A wizard and his familiar. Some adventurers trying to steal an idol, and facing skeletons as a response. A completely lead free monk. Plenty of weaponry, both futuristic and medieval. And a selection of general props. Zzzzzzzzz.

The review of Battletech 3rd ed isn't particularly interesting either, being very dry and technical. The rules are good, the prepackaged mechs, less so. Oh well. Can't blame him for being off his game given the circumstances. But life goes on. We'll adapt. Like banning smoking in pubs, before long we'll wonder why it was ever an issue.


TSR Products: Dragon Mountain takes top place this month. See Tuckers Kobolds totally canonised in this epically brutal dungeon crawl. Just getting there is hassle enough. As for getting through it. You'd better get smart or you'll be dying a lot of times against enemies with a tenth your hit points.. Speaking of kobolds, you can now play them to somewhat higher level than you could last edition, thanks to PHBR10: The complete book of humanoids. 30 races, old and new, weak and strong, and some moderately lame kits to keep them in their place. Humans are still supreme!

Ravenloft builds up the epic rivalry between Strahd and Azalin even more in RQ4: Roots of evil. Who will come off better from the fight? Either way, ordinary people are likely to suffer. Miserable job.

The Forgotten realms shows us FR16: The shining south. Well, with Al Qadim doing well for itself, it would be a good idea if we knew what we were traveling though to get there, just as with the Horde set and Kara-Tur. (which we haven't seen anything on in a while. Guess they've decided that was played out. ) So Halruua, Lurien, and the other weird nations down there get fleshed out for you to enjoy.

Spelljammer is up to book 5 in the cloakmaster cycle. The Broken Sphere sees Nigel Findley try to finish this particular epic. Can he find the Spelljammer once and for all?

D&D has Rage of the Rakasta. Everyone's favourite cat people get a bit more attention. Serving as both adversaries and allies here, you'll have to do some puzzle solving to keep them from attacking.

Gamma world tries to make itself more suitable to extended campaigns, with GW2: The overlord of boniparr. An evil mutant overlord. Just the thing to make blasted post apocalyptic world even more annoying. Any resemblance to Iuz is purely coincidental.

And finally, our novel department produces Naked came the sasquatch by John Boston. Modern day comedy fantasy? That's an unusual one for this bunch. Will anyone be intrigued by this strange title and pick it up?


In case you didn't get the message in the last article, Dragon mountain! Well, it's a lot snappier than really unfair kobold infested mountain with a dragon at the end. Egads, that had some annoying bits in it.


A decidedly subpar april fool this year, both in terms of laughs and usability. Somehow, they've managed to be both less goofy and less crunchy at the same time than the last few years. There's still a couple of cool articles elsewhere in the issue, and the new Dragon Project stuff is definitely a cool idea but the weak theme, combined with the lead bill hassle makes this a bit of a depressing one overall. Things certainly aren't all going their way. You can't ever afford to get complacent, especially when you're working in the realm of ideas. Keep trying to expand their minds, Roger.

 

[LordVyreth]

Yeah, I don't get the lead bill issue at all. I read about it at the time and generally was against it for geek solidarity reasons, but I didn't really worry about minis at the time. And these days, the plastic things are usually more than sufficient, especially since they're pre-painted. Occasionally, I have to worry about the spears and such on larger miniatures, but that's my only complaint with plastic.

I actually really enjoyed this issue back in the day, though at my age, my tolerance for joke songs was probably a lot higher. Hell, I still have Weird Al songs on the iPod, though I think he puts a bit more work into them. Speaking of age, that lamia article was...enlightening at the time. It helped that this came just after a bunch of Final Fantasy games that also had cute lamias in them. It sort of solidified them at one of my favorite monster races as a result. Not that I've ever put them into an actual D&D game.

 

[David Howery]

amusingly, I can remember one of Robert's articles talking about the Reps who were dealing with the lead bill in Congress... one of whom was Montana's Rep, Max Baucus (I was living in MT at the time). Robert misspelled his name as 'Bakkus". I imagined ol' Max receiving a bunch of letters from D&D players addressed to "Max Bakkus", begging him not to pass the bill, and him passing the bill out of annoyance of having his name misspelled...

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 193: May 1993

part 1/6


124 pages. Tying in with their new Dragon Project column, they have a whole bunch of covers featuring dragons lined up and ready to go. People do judge magazines by their covers, and this seems like a good way to reaffirm their core intent. Course, that still gives them plenty of freedom in terms of colours, shapes and surroundings. Such as down in the underdark. In reality, there aren't many places a full-grown dragon could fit, and it's not optimal for their mobility either, but D&D will favour drama over realisticness sometimes. And those are often the most fun times too. Hopefully there'll be some fun to derive from this issue.


In this issue:


Letters: A letter from a brazilian gamer who wants to write directly to games companies to get stuff not available in shops round his neck of the woods. This is a relatively easy request to satisfy.

Another of those letters complaining about people who perpetuate the crappy stereotypes. We wouldn't dream of killing cats, and anyone trying in our vicinity is going to get a pretty stern talking too. To be frank, that's more likely to provoke general rage than a crime involving other people.

A letter asking exactly what languages D&D has been translated into. The answer shouldn't be hugely surprising. Most of the big european languages, plus mandarin and japanese. And hebrew, for some reason. Didn't know roleplaying was particularly popular in Israel.

And an amusing letter about figuring out if you're an unfair DM. Muahahahaha. Thanks for that. I think most of us know if we're doing something like that.


Mage focusses on the technomancers in this months teaser. Pleasing to note white wolf are already fully aware of the internet. This aint your fathers magic system, or game company.


Editorial: Roger celebrates his 10 year anniversary of becoming an official member of the TSR staff. This gets a relatively short bit of writing because after all, what is there to say? He's been living the dream for 10 years, even if it has been much harder work than you'd think it would be. And like many people who've been living the dream for a while, he feels the urge to pass on the mantle. Course, kids will rebel from their parents, so expecting them to follow directly in your footsteps when there's so many shiny new things out there is a moderately futile task. Have half a dozen of them, you'll be lucky if one becomes your true successor. And before you know it, you'll be looking at the new fads the kids are following in disgust and incomprehension, saying that's not real music/tv/roleplaying. Don't expect things to stay the same forever, and try and appreciate the new for what it is, not what you think it should be. Here's to many more years of entertaining articles.


Dungeoneering 101: Steven Schend has learned well from Ed, as he strikes out on his own in creating fictional characters that break the 4th wall and interact with the author, representing their writings as mere recountings rather than actual creative works. Which from one perspective, is doing your talent a slight disservice, but on the other hand is usually pretty fun to read. So say hello to Essimuth the dungeoneer. Unlike most of our transdimensional visitors, he's not a high level wizard, but a hard-bitten illiterate roguish sort who learned all his wisdom the hard way. Which means he's been at the sharp end of more traps than you can shake a stick at, lost a limb without being able to get a decent replacement, and learned all about how inconvenient encumbrance actually is when you don't have a bag of holding. Just the kind of guy you need to teach you adventuring isn't all shiny magic and level appropriate challenges. This reads like a love letter to old skool brutality, written in a very new skool way, so as to reintroduce more recent DM's to the idea of running games full of traps, air supply issues, darkness with monsters lurking within, slimes and oozes of many colours, and inventive ways of surviving said challenges to make your fortune. It's not quite the equal of Ed's top articles, but its a strong combination of practical information and fun writing method that make this entirely deserving of pole position. Now what he needs is the ambition to go solo, create his own campaign world.


The amazing engine, coming soon. TSR begins the promotion for their attempt at making their own universal system. I bet we'll be seeing some stuff for that in here. Lets hope it does better than buck rogers did. Man, that went down like a lead balloon.

 

[(un)reason]

I do apologise for missing a day due to being temporarily internetless

Dragon Magazine Issue 193: May 1993

part 2/6


Live statues and stone men: Or lets have a few more Golems. They don't need food and other regular maintenance, so they can hang around underground for ages just waiting for adventurers to turn up and kill them, and the DM need worry not about ecology and all that irritation. These three all turn up in later monstrous compendia, as monsters in the magazine are increasingly likely to do these days. Brain golems also get quite a few appearances in other books. I guess illithid's strong connection with the magazine continues.

Brain Golems are ridiculously macho looking for something made entirely out of brains. They are rather smarter than the average golem, just like most illithid creations. And of course, they don't break out of control on an irregular basis like minded members of other races. So they tend to get fairly good treatment for a slave.

Hammer Golems are dwarven creations designed to crush their racial enemies with great prejudice. They also work pretty well as miners, making new tunnels almost as fast as a dwarf can walk down them. With one of these, you really could excavate a dungeon a day. Monte Cook would approve.

Spiderstone Golems are Drow creations, unsurprisingly. With lots of limbs, climbing and web powers, they're well suited to taking on larger parties. Their chaotic evil origins make them one of the less reliable varieties of golem, prone to breaking free and killing their owner before going off to become a lurking tunnel predator. Still, they're neither as scary or unreliable as clay golems. They might well last a while as long as they're properly taken care of. And Lolth cares not that they'll turn on her own race, as her willingness to create things like Driders shows. These three are all pretty reasonable new creations.


Role-playing reviews turns it's eye on small press games. This is interesting because they're the ones that benefit most from a review in a major magazine. A good one can boost their sales by several orders of magnitude, while even a bad one is better than no publicity for a tiny company, and gives them a level of legitimacy it can be hard to feel when you know them personally, and it's just a couple of guys laying things out in their basement in their spare time.

Bloodbath is one of those simple but fun games with a few obvious holes in it's rules. Pure hack and slash, with setting entirely subordinated to that goal. Everything uses d6's, and you have an actual bloodlust stat which ha a significant effect on your actions. Perfect for if you want to play an all-barbarian game where life is cheap and limbs fly like confetti.

Bloodchant introduces magic to Bloodbath. The spells are just as gruesome as the combat, and the descriptions are just as florid and technically dubious. It all sounds like it was written by a teenage boy who has too many heavy metal albums. Are you ready to breathe the miasma of DISPAIR!

Advanced Phantasm Adventures is a translation of a fantasy game that's apparently big in japan. It gets a rather long review, explaining the rather crunchy system in detail. Unfortunately, despite it's high detail, it has rather slipshod editing, which is a bigger crime than in a rules light game it's easy to modify and hopefully fix. It does have some cool ideas, and is impressively open-ended, but doesn't really feel like a finished game. Maybe it lost something in translation, or maybe it was also problematic in it's original language. After all, Original D&D was pretty sketchy too ruleswise. I have to wonder how well that was translated into various languages.

Duel seems to be trying to fill the gap left when The Fantasy Trip evolved into the insanely crunchy GURPS. At 36 pages, it's small, but pretty versatile, with 3 main stats and 5 magic aspects covering most of what you'll want to do. The main complaint of the reviewer, ironically, is the base dice system. Lester likes his bell curves, it seems. And there's the constant temptation to load it down with expansion crunch. Oh, woe is you.

Toy war is even tinier, at a mere 12 pages. It gets a similarly tiny review. It works with nearly any toy, and has a mere 2 stats. It's actually surprisingly elegant really. You can have quite a bit of fun with it, especially if you have a big toy collection. Like clay-o-rama, this is barely a step up from let's pretend really.

Critter commandos is another fun minis game, designed to evoke a cartoon atmosphere. This has obviously been quite successful actually, with a supplement, and conversion rules to bring Warhammer 40k characters over, quite possibly to get a good cream pieing. It also has it's own suitably silly setting. Like Toon, this is an entirely viable niche to carve out in the market, even if it'll never be huge.


Palladium fantasy takes us to the island at the end of world. Now with extra metaplot. Everyones doing it. You don't have to copy them.

Traveller the new era! Now compatible with Twilight:2000 and Dark Conspiracy. Another company making attempts at giving all their games a universal system, it seems.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 193: May 1993

part 3/6


The known world Grimoire: Logistics, logistics, again there are nitpicks. Bruce goes back to the domain management stuff yet again in an attempt to singlehandedly support that playstyle in the face of widespread apathy. This time, it's the question of what you need in a castle to turn it into a self-sufficient mini community that can withstand months of siege. You need enough living quarters for an entire army, and storage space for food for said troops, plus toilet facilities, heating and general servants to maintain the place and feed everyone. Even a garrison of a hundred troops requires easily that again in support staff, and substantial daily expenditure. You know, someone ought to do a cost analysis, figure out exactly when it becomes more profitable to create undead and golem servants than train up and employ living ones. It'd probably come surprisingly quickly, especially for long term projects. Anyway, this once again slips quite heavily into dullness. Graah. Surely there must be some way of making ruling nations and commanding armies interesting, and not too mechanically onerous. Anyone? No wonder it fell out of fashion at this rate.


Fiction: Bainnor's last ballad by Ralph W Bundy. Or how to learn to sing the blues, D&D style. In this world, all it takes is a lifetime of poverty, heartbreak and alcoholism. There, rather more killing things, taking their stuff, and losing loved ones when monsters do likewise is involved, as an inevitable result of the XP system. So yeah, technically skilled but cloistered bard learns some hard but crucial lessons that you need to actually be able to sing with feeling and get the public engaged. No great surprises. The monsters are a bit vague, but it's all about the relationships built up and broken along the way anyway. Fairly average overall.


The role of computers has one of it's spates of many small reviews. This is a bit tiresome.

Amazon: Guardians of Eden takes you into the rainforest to find your brother and solve the many puzzles of the deep jungle. With puzzles, arcade action sequences, cut scenes and bits where you control other characters, it's a big and varied game. Even more than usual, saving regularly is important, with backups several stages back handy for making sure you get everything you need without starting all over again.

Castles II: Siege and Conquest expands on the original to enable you to administer kingdoms and attack other people's castles. This actually means you'll spend less time building castles than in the original, but such are the perils of making your game more generic. As we saw in the minigames reviews, it can actually take away what makes you special and unique and interesting in the first place.

The Incredible Machine is a game where you create incredibly elaborate cartoon like machines to solve puzzles. That's a fairly original idea. With a ton of different pieces, it's easy to start, but hard to master, and produces funny results even when you get it wrong. Sounds like you could have hours of fun mucking around even ignoring the supposed objectives.

Indiana Jones and the fate of Atlantis once again shows lucasarts knows what they're doing with a multi-pathed, fully original follow-up game. With plenty of different ways you can complete it, and high quality cut-scenes, it's a good attempt at having a cinematic atmosphere, while not compromising the game aspect. I seem to recall there being plenty more in this vein to come over the years.

Lemmings gets a pretty good mac conversion. Psygnosis have had several years to get this formula really working, and they have the brutal puzzles down to a tee. Remember, Blockers are vital so you can experiment without losing everyone.

M4 has you commanding said class of tank in WWII. Unlike many sims of this sort, it's actually fairly accessable, with point and click making things far easier than old programs where you had to learn hundreds of button commands. Convert the newbies! Gotta keep wargaming alive in some form!

Push-Over is a tremendously fun variant on dominos, where you control an ant trying to set things up so that when you push, all the pieces fall in the right order. Since some of the pieces do weird stuff, this can be a real brain teaser, but you can skip some levels if you do well enough in others. This sounds pretty familiar.

Space Legions lets you play the bad guys from the previous games in the series. Invade and conquer planets with great brutality! Failure will not be tolerated! It doesn't take itself too seriously, obviously.

Carriers at War is another WWII game this one focussed on the navy & air force. Well, I guess the 50th anniversary of various WWII events are passing as we speak. That probably contributed to a resurgence in interest.

Eric the Unready is yet another game that they can't really recommend wholeheartedly due to the magazine's family friendly policy. Toilet humour is not to be tolerated around here, no matter how much people may be laughing. :sticks up nose:

Paladin II feels several years out of date in terms of graphics and gameplay. One for adventure genre addicts.

Task Force 1942 gets a buggie. It simply didn't work on their system. You suck microprose, and need to fix it.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 193: May 1993

part 4/6


The druid gets a life: Oh, not again. Are people still perpetuating stupid put-downs against druids. Quite possibly the most awesome class in the game, with full spellcasting, decent weapons and easy shapeshifting on top. And, in these editions, a fairly strict charisma minimum. If they're social outcasts, it's because they choose to be, not due to necessity. And let's face it, they can achieve balance between man and nature much more effectively if they involve themselves in the affairs of both. There's also the interesting fact that they're one of the few classes that has an overarching organisation that they have to be a part of, and this makes them very able to co-ordinate their actions should it become necessary. By providing magical assistance to the common man, as long as they're acting in a nature-friendly way, with the threat of taking it away present in the background, they can subtly become a fantasy mafia that surpasses even the thieves guilds. This is the kind of thing that makes a political campaign seem rather more appealing than Bruce's contribution this month. Politics means little without agendas and means, and the fun is in just how subtly and obliquely you can fulfil your objectives, preferably via masterstrokes that accomplish several things at once while also turning your enemies against one-another. This is a very pleasing article. Plus on top of being likeable, this has a nice array of spells which serve to expand their everyday usefulness. Keep fighting the stupidity.

Fertility is one that'll let even a single 1st level druid make a real difference to a whole community over the course of the year. Once they have a few more levels under their belt, they can wander across a whole country. It really will take surprisingly few druids to make a huge impact on a society with tools like this.

Heal Plants is a lot more effective than the human cure wounds spell of the same level. At higher levels, it'll fix an entire blighted field. It's reversible too, which'll let you ruin a recalcitrant farmer's life as quickly as you saved it.

Ripen lets you cheat the seasons, presumably in case of emergency. Because regular use would probably result in disapproval from the hierarchy and possible power loss.

Firebreak stops nasty creatures from setting fire to the forest. Watch them look thoroughly bemused as it just doesn't work. Whether you choose to reveal your presence will obviously depend on what they do next.

Spring lets you conjure water from the ground, presuming there's any to conjure. Probably wouldn't work too well in athas. Still, you can get more than you would conjuring it wholecloth if you choose your location well. Both approaches have their place in a well rounded repertoire.

Heal Trees is a higher level variant of heal plants, able to affect the largest of plant-organisms, including intelligent ones. Meh.

Insect Ward is handy on several levels, as it can up an ecosystem as well as make life more pleasant. With a duration of months, this is another one that can change the life of a community for better or worse. And isn't that a lot more interesting than another combat spell that's over in a flash.


The game wizards: Time for the collector's cards to get their now regular promoting in here. And oh god, the statistics are more complicated than ever. They now have both the regular gold bordered cards, and considerably rarer red bordered cards, explicitly made just for the purpose of giving people who really want to collect them all a real challenge. They've started hand-sorting the packs to make sure the distribution across the country is truly random. And there's several visual gimmicks like prismatic cards, stickers, and exclusive stuff. Amusingly, they point out their own errata here as well. Sure they've made a few mistakes. But that just makes those runs even more collectible, honest! As one of those articles that started off as an interesting diversion, but is now becoming routine, this is rather less interesting than last year. Statistics can only sustain my interest if I have some attachment to the underlying topic. And that's not really the case here.


Forum: Karen Remick is yet another person organizing their thoughts on an issue into numbered points. Seems to be becoming quite the trend. She's another person trying to address the twinkery problem, often by oblique methods. Remember, the less they know about the rules and their character's statistics, the less they can twink them. If you have to change system to regain that air of mystery, so be it.

Warren Tilson is even more keen on removing the statistics from the player's annoying grasps, having them define their characters narratively and just build from that. It forces them to roleplay, and speeds up character generation considerably too. Get back to roleplaying's let's pretend roots, not it's wargaming ones.

Randy Hunt yet again says the DM should be the one keeping the character sheets between sessions. I'm starting to think that should be standard. After all, if a player doesn't turn up, you can still run that character accurately as an NPC. If the DM flakes, everyone's screwed regardless. In addition, make sure you present options other than combat to your players.

Bill Heron also encourages number-pointing your ideas. Oh, and actually communicating with them, and establishing what people want out of a game. Passive-aggressive nerfing mid game is no fun for anyone.

Matt Martin advises you not to follow the treasure tables to the letter, or allow every optional rule into the game. These are sure paths to overpowered characters. The imbalance is inherent to the system, and you must actively work to prevent it.

Jorge Hernandez once again brings the mean solutions to the table to make sure no overpowered character escapes. As with the jedi stuff, at this point you really have no excuses but your own incompetence and cowardice for letting payers get away with this .

Ed Pflager tries to be reasonable about age restrictions on gaming conventions. Yes, a flat limit is a bit unfair. But in a public convention, how are they to know if you're mature enough or not. Best to be on the safe side.

Thomas M. Heckmann (is that bowdlerised? ) explains exactly why SARPA have an age restriction on many games. As usual, its the parents that are the problem, not the kids. You have to take precautions in these litigious times. Yes, it is a bit of a tiresome business. The alternative is worse.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 193: May 1993

part 5/6


Sage advice: Do dex and cover bonuses stack (Nah. If you're hunkered down, you can't dodge properly. )

Do dex bonuses stack with the shield spell (probably.)
What other magic stacks with the shield spell ( stuff that adds, not stuff that provides a new base. )

Can spectral hand be used to deliver cure spells at range. (Technically no, but you probably should. )

Does word of recall transport other people with you. (As long as they're not too heavy. )

What's padded leather armour. (A no longer extant type of armour. Like assassins, it was deemed unnecessary.

What happens if you roll higher than 23 with a vorpal sword. (You can't. The math does not parse like that. It's like rolling a 7 on a d6. )

Do all big creatures suffer penalties against dwarves and gnomes (no, only the ones listed. )

Can you use granted priest powers after being at deaths door. (no.)

Why do weapons do different amounts of damage to different sizes (to give you interesting tactical choices )

Why does thunder rift use AD&D stuff when it's a D&D adventure. (When in doubt, blame the editors. Writers get the praise, editors take the blame. Who made the rules like that? Some questions even Skip won't answer.)

If you create a giant zombie is it harder to turn (no, but you can't turn as many )

Can find traps figure out what a contingencies trigger is (not usually)

Do shamans and wokani have armour restrictions (yes, but not the same as normal clerics.)

How do I get a job at TSR. Will having a degree help. ( Keep sending in submissions as a freelancer. Persistence persistence persistence is waaaay more important than talent, especially if you listen to feedback. )


Shadowrun RPG for the SNES. I remember this as well. It took forever to complete if you didn't cheat. The amount of grinding I did to level up in that, and then lost because there were only two save slots, and someone saved over mine. :grumble, mutter:


The role of books: The grail of hearts by Susan Shwartz takes us across history in the wake of a female Wandering Jew, manipulated by the forces of evil as she tries to escape her fate.

Strange devices of the moon and sun by Lisa Goldstein doesn't do so well, with neither the historical worldbuilding or the fantastical elements brilliantly done.

Aquamancer by Don Calander has a rather mixed review for simultaneously being formulaic, and breaking several important rules of writing. Hmm. That doesn't sound right, yet somehow it works. I guess it's in the implementation.

Realms of Valor, edited by James Lowder brings us a whole load of Forgotten Realms short stories. Lots of familiar characters make appearances, including Elminster, Drizzt and Jandar Sunstar, plus a whole load of new smaller perspectives. There seems to be plenty of room in this world for further short stories, that don't take a whole novel to tell and have some significant effect upon the world.

War world: Blood feuds, created by Jerry Pournelle sees Larry Niven's frequent collaborator getting into the shared world business himself. And like the Man-Kzin wars, this involves both action and moral complexities, an overarching sweep of history bigger than any one story, and well done worldbuilding, even if some of the individual stories aren't brilliant.

The city who fought by Anne McCaffrey & S. M. Stirling comes close to being shared world too, as apparently McCaffrey is now leaving most of the heavy lifting to her younger collaborators. This makes it a little formulaic, staying well within the established boundaries for her world, but with a tone somewhat different from her own writing voice.