Let's read the entire run

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 194: June 1993

part 6/6


With a bond of magic: Greg Detwiler's back again, with a moderately experimental little article trying to get round the problems giving out lots of normal magical weapons causes. Bonded weapons aren't exactly what you would expect from that name. The bond is actually to a particular element or concept, such as fire, fear, disease, magnetism, wood, etc. They bypass the usual plus structure, and hurt nearly anything, but don't have the usual bonuses to attack and damage (although the majority of them do extra energy damage of whatever type.) This means you'll rarely be completely helpless against a monster the way you can be when they're immune to everything below +3, but things with massively low ACs'll still be a very real threat. Mixing these with regular magic weapons in your party handouts'll be another thing that subtly livens up your game. Nothing wrong with that at all.


Novel ideas: As I've noted before, Dragonlance writing seems to be all about the male/female cowriter pairings. Particularly in the novels, it just works best when you have that particular kind of chemistry. It also helps if you have complimentary talents and work habits in other respects as well. Such as when one's a morning person and the other a night owl. Done badly, this can tear a partnership apart. Done well, people can set aside their egos for the sake of getting the product done quicker, better, by trading off work between them, and only actually working together for a few hours a day. Yeah, this all feels very familiar. A huge amount of my life, particularly the musical parts, are filled with annoyance at me being several hours ahead body clock wise, and a lot more reliable than anyone else. Learning to let go and allow them to run with it when I start to flag, because a lot of the time, they're just getting warmed up at that point is one of the lessons I've really had to work hard to internalise. Plus you want people who have talents that complement yours rather than compete directly with them, otherwise it is all too easy to get competitive, and that results in gradual resentment from the less talented partner which eats away at the relationship, while the more talented one can wonder why they're keeping these wasters around, they should just go solo and reap all the rewards themselves. It's all an incredibly complex issue. And here we see it played out in microcosm, albeit in a fairly harmonious manner, since it's also a husband/wife pairing that's being interviewed. It's all rather interesting, and definitely worthy of further discussion. How do you create a creative partnership that is greater than the sum of it's parts?


Dragonmirth is even more dragon-centric than usual. Yamara continues enduring the twisted drow interpretation of imprisonment and torture. Won't someone save her? The party is back together in twilight empire, but the big fight is still to come.


Through the looking glass: Is lead saved at the last minute?! Appeals are in process! You can still make a difference! Ah yes, the legal monster is a slow and sclerotic beast, and getting it to do anything takes months, if not years. This saga feels pretty sluggish to me going through the issues at this rate; it must have been positively torturous to live through. On top of the encouragement to keep fighting the appeals, Robert also starts motions towards setting up an underground railroad for existing lead figures, keep them in active use by the people who want them most. It's like a deliberate co-opting of classic social movement methods in microcosm. I can't help but smile.

Our minis this month have a pretty high proportion of underground stuff too, in a different sense. Drow and their spider mounts. Three different sets of dwarves. An ooze creature to schlorp your adventurers. An equally oozy pod which could contain all manner of horrors. Plenty of humans, mostly of the martial kind. One female fighter, but plenty of male soldiers, with crossbows, bows and swords. And some very 70's looking cyberpunk rockers. And some centaurs and a giant for your aboveground combat needs. Ready for action?


A pretty complicated set of issues raised by this issue. On one hand we have the substantial push to bring back coverage of non D&D RPG stuff. On the other we have the slick self-centred promotional stuff. Similarly, there's a definite tension between the bits that are business as usual, and the special features, and the bits where we see people trying to shut down our fun. Good intentions, but people pulling in different directions, and the whole thing becoming slightly less than the sum of it's parts. Is anybody really on top anymore? When no-one's on top, that leaves things open for someone unexpected to take charge. We shall have to see what happens next, because even if it isn't that unified, there's still lots of interesting threads to follow.

 

[(un)reason]

A second installment in quick succession to catch you up after the crash

Dragon Magazine Issue 195: July 1993

part 1/6


124 pages The draconic covers continue. This one is looking in pretty poor condition, but isn't out of the fight yet. Will reinforcements save the day? And exactly which side are the good and bad guys anyway? They're all warriors anyway, which puts them all in a fairly dubious moral position from a pacifists point of view. Good thing violence is a morally neutral act in D&D! Otherwise most of our characters'd be out of a job. Anyway, here's another fighter themed issue. I don't doubt we'll see more of those as time goes on.


In this issue:


Letters: A letter from someone annoyed at the number of powergamers out there. Where are the tales of the low level characters. Plane hopping is a pretty expensive proposition, you know. Anyone able to break the 4th wall is automatically going to be of a certain minimum bar. But yes, this could be rebalanced at bit in articles, as Roger admits.

Some more jokes of what constitutes an unfair DM.

A letter asking what the hell the symbols on the wizards spell cards mean. Buy the priest's spell cards to find out! Gotta collect 'em all!

A letter from a christian gamer asking if there are any christian specific games around. Anyone who's been reading this thread regularly will be able to point you to Dragonraid. Roger does exactly that, and then neatly segues into another discussion of the people trying to ban roleplaying for spurious reasons. A game like this splits their ranks quite nicely.


Editorial: Continuing on from the letters, Roger tells his own tale of how his non twinked characters not only survived but prospered, and had interesting adventures too. In famed third party product Tegel Manor too. The statistical intelligence of the character came second to the ingenuity of the player, and with a little help from her friends, she cleared out the place, and become landlord for a whole bunch of semi-retired adventurers ( in a place that huge, there's always going to be a few monsters you missed in the basement, or attic, or maybe a secret room, keeping you on your toes. ) If anything, it was more fun than later games where he was playing obscenely powerful characters. Goes to show. Greatness is defined by the adversity you face. Having a good, easily remembered gimmick doesn't hurt either. It's not the numbers, it's what you do with them. Goes to show. Reiteration of anything is more interesting with specific examples.


So you want to be a samurai?:It's not an easy life, you know. They have alignment restrictions forcing them to be lawful for good reason. The regulations put upon them in reality were pretty strict, and the only honourable way of protesting them suicide, which frankly is a bit iffy as it silences the protester's voice, leaving the daimyo free to continue being despotic unless the rest of his staff join in the protest. Independent thought was not encouraged, peasants giving you any lip were to be struck down without mercy. Unless you went ronin or had an understanding daimyo, adventuring in the traditional way would be rather tricky. No-one gets to have much fun in reality. One of those vaguely tiresome realistic history articles, in other words. I knew most of this stuff already, and the way it's presented this time isn't very exciting. Let's move onwards.


To all a good knight: Back west again to encourage you to give your fighters connections to the world here too. Knightly orders have quite a complex history in the real world. In a polytheistic one, this can be even more interesting, with connections to various gods, and quite different codes of conduct. We get a couple of real ones, and talk about how they would adapt to AD&D, and a new one from the writer's own campaign. While not bad, this is both more longwinded, and less mechanically innovative than a similar article from issue 125, so this once again falls into rehash territory, demonstrating how articles have become a good deal less experimental in recent years. Everything has to fit into the regular class and kit format. Is that another directive from on high, trying to get us to stick to the official rules, or are players just not monkeying around with the workings of the system the way they used to? Once again it is good reason for me to yawn and sigh.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 195: July 1993

part 2/6


TSR Previews: Dragonlance finally tries to move forwards again, having spent years prequelling the setting with increasing detail. PQ1: The players guide to the Dragonlance campaign may look like an RPG book, but it's pretty much system free, being a bunch of fiction and little essays designed to introduce people to the setting from a ground eye view. See, its not scary to join in instead of just watching. It also gets DLT1: New tales: The land reborn. You get to tag along with some of the characters from the books and clean up the crap from the aftermath of the war. Doesn't that sound like fun!

Spelljammer introduces a new area. The Astromundi cluster. Another boxed set opening up a place where things work a little differently. Which is pretty neat. Can you manage to live peacefully beside neogi and mind flayers?

Ravenloft continues to give Van Richten prominence in the setting with his guide to Werebeasts. If you don't think they can be scary, look again. The amount of mystery and suspense involved in finding one, and then dealing with them if they're unwilling, is quite substantial. These creatures are a lot more annoying here than anywhere else, and even powerful adventurers can feel the long term sting of an encounter with them.

Dark Sun goes back to home base, to show you what's changed. DSS1: The city-state of Tyr. Is it going to actually become free, or just another chaotic miserable shithole. You know the answer by now. Bloody happy endings mandate. How are we supposed to run a sustainable persistent world suitable for adventuring in if the good guys always win?

Greyhawk is still obsessed with Iuz, with the third product in a row focussing on his works. WGM1: Border watch sees the PC's trying to keep him from expanding his territory. Nasty business, but somebody's gotta do it. Don't you miss just going into the temple of elemental evil and killing everything in it. So much simpler.

The forgotten realms focusses on it's own villains. Prince of lies by James Lowder sees Cyric face some ghosts from his past. How long can he remain triple portfolio'd god of superdickery? Surely the other gods aren't going to put up with this upstart for ever.

Gamma world has the orwell inspired supplement GWQ2: All animals are equal. Mutant animals have taken over the zoo. What kind of society will they form without the humans?

And finally, even our generic novels get increasingly serial. Book of stones by L. Dean James completes the story from sorcerers stone. I don't even know about this to be properly snarky, so I shall say nothing.



Real warriors ride elephants: Off to africa again. Persistence is paying off in multiple ways, as this is also another collection of kits to differentiate the class that most needs it. It may not be hugely groundbreaking, but it's certainly needed. Let's hope the mechanics are satisfactory.

Ashanti Warriors dress brightly and ride horses, travelling across great distances and generally being showy and heroic. They seriously kick ass in the saddle, with both combat and social benefits, but if they lose their horse, they'll be out of action for ages. This is most likely to be a problem at higher level.

Benin Hunters are fierce trackers and protectors, an African spin on Rangers. They get improved stealth and favored enemy bonuses, but lose two weapon fighting, as there's no particular cultural tradition of that. This a pretty minor adjustment, about on the same level as wizards giving up a familiar for some other minor benefit. After all, many wouldn't use it anyway.

Bornu Horsemen show that chivalry is not a purely european invention, being the closest thing to knights. This makes them generally pretty popular and trusted, but they have to behave or become hunted down by their former companions in arms. The real benefit is that they get to use heavier armour than any of the other kits round here, which is easy to overlook.

Kalahari Bushmen go around near naked in the desert sun, toughening them up, and making them able to survive their easily, but resulting in serious premature wizening. As this is a purely social penalty for substantial mechanical benefits, this is one of the more powerful kits here.

Kongo Pygmies are another set of shortarses, adapted well to the jungle. They get a whole bunch of woodland benefits that make them superior to rangers in some ways, particularly stealth, but all their initial nonweapon proficiency slots are eaten up by their requirements, seriously curtailing their choices, and they have a strength penalty to reflect their size, which is a pretty strong drawback for a fighter. I think that about balances out, but in an interesting way.

Kushite Elephant Warriors are the titular kit of this article. Of course, an elephant is both benefit and hindrance. It requires a ton of maintenance and won't fit in many dungeons. But on open ground it can trample most opposition into the dirt, especially if you have several of them in formation. Have fun.

Interesting to note how few bonus proficiencies these classes get, especially in contrast with the athasian kits of last issue. Other than that, they're pretty balanced, with the lack of armour an understated but omnipresent factor that'll actually be a pretty significant compensation for the benefits. I think this is a pretty good collection that'll add to your game without breaking it.


The game wizards 1: Dragon Strike must be quite a big part of their catalog, as they're giving it a second promotional article this month. While Bruce's was focussed on creating the rules, board and pieces, Jim Ward got to handle creating the video. This end was turned around on a stupidly tight schedule as well, with the reality of scripting, casting, costuming, makeup, special effects, editing, hitting them like a jackhammer. And I'm betting doesn't look nearly as impressive as they're selling it too, especially in hindsight. Computer FX in particular have come a long way since then, and I wouldn't be surprised if they look laughably cheap in actuality. After all, if many major motion pictures have that problem, what hope a little company from Wisconsin? Our imaginations are always going to be capable of greater special effects budgets than they are, which makes the rash of videos and CD games all the more questionable. And of course, making these things is still expensive even if they look cheap, so they have to sell quite a lot to make a profit. I have to wonder if this didn't make things worse for the company, by creating a whole bunch of products that didn't recoup their costs. The problems are mounting up, aren't they.


Sage advice goes back to 1st edition again, apropos of nothing. They really are still pretty friendly to previous edition stuff at the moment, even if the articles have tapered off.

How do you see using shadow walk. (You're moving at 126 MPH. Whatever you see is going to be pretty blurry)

Command dragon is virtually impossible to get the material components for. (Indeed. It is what we in the business call a plot device, not an everyday weapon. )

Does a periapt of wound closure work on damage caused by a sword of wounding (yes. Defensive powers trump offensive ones if they conflict. And you thought exalted was innovative. )

How long do familiars live. (about as long as their masters, unless magically zapped.)

What happens if you combine a bag of holding and a portable hole ( We've already covered this one. You get to take a quick one-way extradimensional trip through a spacial rip )

What's lawful about peace? (It lets you build stuff without it being destroyed unexpectedly. Peace is very conductive to order, if done right. )

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 195: July 1993

part 3/6


The game wizards 2: Looks like the Amazing Engine is getting a second promotional article as well. You know, a good actual article with new crunch and fun writing would do more to sell it to me than half a dozen of these promo columns. As with the Dragon Strike stuff, here we tackle things from a different angle to last month. There, it was Bughunters getting the spotlight, this time it's For Faerie, Queen and Country. Where that had substantial rules for tactical combat based on sacrificing movement points for various actions, this brings an open-ended magic system, and rules for all sorts of fae races and their human half-breeds. The whole thing is designed to minimise rollplaying and maximise roleplaying Yes, seriously, they actually say that. Combine that with the general cheesiness of their actual play example, (Mister Wog the frenchman? :facepalm: ) and a lot of my sympathy over the game's failure is rapidly evaporating. I really shouldn't be surprised at whimsy in a game this fae heavy, but I still find the tone of this horribly grating. Definite fail.


Pandemonium! Adventures in tabloid world. I don't remember this one. Would someone be so kind as to shed enlightenment?


The marvel-phile: New Characters! Hot off the presses! Getchore new characters here! Proctor & the Gatherers. All dressed up, posing, going raar, and ready to fight your heroes! Manipulative psychic supervillain extraordinaire; his wizened, also psychic crone sidekick; a cyborg with mobility, sensory & shielding powers; a big amiable bestial lunk of a tank; and a shapeshifting creature that duplicates others. Pretty decent team really, not totally stereotypical, and with plenty of variety. And they have a pretty interesting storyline too. Heroes from another reality, they've found themselves in the antagonist role here due to their bosses manipulations. Which of them will do heel face turns is still up in the air. Although maybe less so now, depending on how fast the turnaround time for articles is these days. Will any of these characters stick and become recurring ones after their storyline is over? Or is this just another part of their endless attempts to keep up with the obscure parts of the Marvel universe? Either way, it feels very much like business as usual here.


Forum returns. Evidently they had so much stuff they wanted to cram into the birthday issue, something had to give. It is extra big this time, so that should make up for it.

Owen Muir speaks out against sexism and agism. But he does point out that Alias did have a valid IC reason for wearing impractical cheesecake armour. I suppose that makes it all better then. She was created to be an object of cheesecake IC AND OOC. There's so much wrong with that concept I'm really not sure where to begin.

Peter Rivellini praises issue 189. We need some more interesting themed issues like that. But anyway, there is some good mapmaking software out there. Feel free to order it direct, since it doesn't have major label distribution.

Cynthia Higginbotham has cheaper suggestions. MS Paint! Tee Hee. Frankly, that would be trickier and slower than doing it by hand for me.

W.A.N also thinks that shelling out several hundred dollars for the professional software would not be a wise investment. Think how many gamebooks you can buy with that! Yeah, some of these things can be pretty obscene. It's like academic textbooks. The development costs outweigh the demand, so they have to set prices far above the material costs of duplication.

John F. Wherry suggests getting some shareware. Ahh, this once again reminds me why I love the internet. And also why it makes such a mess of old commercial models. How can you sell stuff when people are giving it away, and also copying your stuff and giving that away for free too.

William B. Philips has yet another suggestion. Being in the army does have it's perks in terms of exposure to technology. No shortage of options then, as long as you pay the price.

Craig Judy recommends a bit of software that only costs $30. See, that sounds like a decent price to me. Now, how many copies would you have to sell at that price to pay for the developers and still make a decent profit?

Troy Herman goes waaaaaaaaay back, and tackles the issue of Paintballing prejudice. Really, they're in much the same boat as we are, and you shouldn't snipe at them. As with Jake and the LARPing crap, it's depressing to see our writers falling prey to the same prejudice that they decry in others.

Dennis Rudolph recommends you watch the antiques roadshow. No, seriously. There's so much cool stuff to draw upon. Tee Hee. History is not boring at all. Get your plot devices where your players least suspect.

Matthew W. Hurd has profited quite a bit from giving his address out in the magazine. Now he has a number of cool pen pals. See, the system works! The right combination of forcefulness and god manners gets you furthest with both genders.

Christopher T. C. Miller gives methods for encouraging a long campaign that keeps people engaged. You need to wind them along with carrots, not push them forward with sticks. And don't hesitate to draw upon realistic stuff to fill out background details.

Bryan Fairfield kicks the complaints about the complete bard's handbook into high gear, with some extensive statistical analysis of how powerful and versatile multiclass bards with kits are. His group is now comprised almost entirely of them. It's a big problem. He also suspects the complete book of elves will make things even worse. How very very perceptive of him. Get better rules editors for your splatbooks!

Vincent Nasso is another person who finds multiclass combinations generally turn out superior to single classed characters of the same XP total. It's all different facets of the same issue. How long will this breakout of complaints last?

Talus London Young has a whole bunch of mean nerfs for multiclassed characters, that probably go rather too far. 10% more failure on everything? Are the penalties from splitting XP and ability scores not enough? Yeeesh.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 195: July 1993

part 4/6


The role of computers: Quite an interesting introduction this month, as they wax lyrical over their new sound card. We're not quite at the stage where full CD quality Analog/Digital converters are available to regular consumers cheaply, but we're still making regular quantum leaps, and most of them can at least manage coherent speech. You can even record stuff through the line in, although hard drive space (and write speed) will still be a pretty big limiting factor unless you get a full pro tools rig, and quantisation distortion'll still be a real problem at that bitrate. I'm geeking out, aren't I. Oh well, it's a drop in the ocean compared to the obsessive geekiness of doing all this in the first place. Back to the main topic.

Night Trap takes full advantage of the new sound and video specs to fill up it's length with grainy low res movie stuff. You have to watch the video screens, and try to ensure people don't get eaten by zombies. This'll probably take a few goes round to get right, and it's long enough that it won't be completely lacking in replay value. There are far worse examples of this kind of game.

Dungeon Master moves from Amiga to PC, with corresponding increases in speed, graphics and sound while maintaining the good gameplay. Nothing much to say here.

Empire Deluxe is a sequel to Empire. (see issue 142) Among the updates include multiplayer online connections, a scenario editor, and the expected graphics and sound upgrades. This gives it pretty near infinite replayability, presuming you have someone who likes building maps and so forth. Games with an active mod community can survive for years.

Road Avenger, on the other hand, doesn't have much replay, due to it's linearity, and only takes half an hour to finish. Only for those who really want to show off the graphic capability of their new system.

Star Control II tries to take on Elite's mantle for a new generation of computers, with reasonable success. Collect minerals across hundreds of planets, deal with all sorts of alien races, and try to save earth from the evil Ur-Quan Hierarchy. You'd be disappointed if it wasn't ridiculously huge and open-ended, and this is very much the case.

Who Killed Sam Rupert? is another one that's good while it lasts, but doesn't have much replayability. Seems far too many games these days are concentrating on graphics over interactivity, trying to squeeze in FMV cutscenes that eat up tons of memory, forcing them to keep the overall thing linear. This sounds rather familiar. I remember complaints of developers favoring graphics over gameplay at the time as well. The more things change, the more they stay the same.


Role-playing reviews decides to go for the small press stuff again, see if they can find some diamonds in the rough.

Legendquest definitely qualifies as one of those, with it's home-press origins pretty obvious. But Lester is quite pleased by the system, which packs a lot into it's page count, and has pretty good, not totally derivative rules. Looks like your basic point buy system with a few idiosyncrasies to me, particularly in the magic system. You're only going to break, break my break, break my heart.

Monsters & Slayers, on the other hand, just gets a painful review. It's amateurishly written, edited & drawn, doesn't do what it says it's going to do on the cover, and is frequently so stupid it's funny. (volcanoes in wales? Bendover the hobgoblin necromancer? ) Avoid, if you ever see it.

Legendary lives is from the Lost Souls team, and puts just as skewed a view on generic fantasy as they did on the afterlife. Fun races, elegant mechanics that emphasise speed over realism, it treads a path many indie hipster games will follow. The art is rather dubious though, and they could do with more spells. Don't hesitate to add to it.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 195: July 1993

part 5/6


The role of books: The boggart by Susan Cooper sees an ancient scottish fairy transplanted to modern day Toronto. Hilarity ensues, with electricity and the like giving it a whole new avenue for pranks. Both the creature and it's new victims PoV are explored. This seems like good fodder for a movie conversion.

Burning Bright by Melissa Scott depicts a future in which a single MMORPG has taken over the entire galaxy and become the primary form of entertainment. Amusingly, this has not eliminated the active participation of GM's (unlike in reality ) This premise stretches the reviewer's suspension of disbelief quite a bit. You'd think people would get bored, and monopolies naturally get complacent and bloated, setting themselves up for a fall. If you can swallow that bit, the rest of the plot is quite good, mixing real world and in game stuff quite well. Remember, it's science fiction. It doesn't have to be plausible.

Danger of the sixth by Michelle Shirey Crean gets a pretty negative result. Poor pacing, poor focus, iffy morality, uncertain ending. Work on all of these for the next one! :wags finger:

The dragon's tomb by D J Heinrich gets quite a good review, making interesting use of D&D's Immortal based cosmology, and giving the monsters proper characterisation as well as the humans. The plot doesn't play it too safe either, with mystara in genuine danger throughout the novel. Well, it is the first series. It's only when you have half a dozen authors writing semi-independently at once that you have to take care not to tread on other people's toes.

The starship trap by Mel Gilden is a star trek novel with a nice concept, but clunky characterisation and writing. We know who Kirk and Spock are! Get on with the story!

To green angel tower by Tad Williams is one of the more successful Tolkien imitations the reviewer has seen, managing to capture the scope without copying the details too much. They're always looking for a real epic, and this is one they can reccomend.


Palladium once again boasts about their amazing rifts sales. No-one else gives concrete numbers. What's all that about?


Overcoming obstacles: Another rather interesting superheroic article this month. Heroes with some kind of handicap as well as their special abilities are actually surprisingly common. Be it mundane stuff that they have to compensate for, like Daredevil's blindness, or more complicated issues deriving from their powers, like Cyclop's danger of destroying everything he sees, the best characters are ones defined by their weaknesses as much as their strengths. But as in D&D, it seems far too many FASERIP players don't believe in that maxim, and want everything to be average or better. Looks like it's time for one of those short filler articles that encourage you to make a well-rounded character and play them properly, for it will result in more interesting games. The mundane difficulties they'll face can be a big source of roleplaying, and the way they use their powers to mitigate their limitations will hopefully be interesting. Have you got that into your thick heads yet, bloody powergamers?


Fiction: The end of trading season by Daniel Hood. Ooh. An unhappy ending! Not often you see those around here. Merchant fails to heed the native traditions, things go horribly wrong for him, and he winds up being a sacrifice to an undead monster posing as their god. Not hugely surprising, apart from the ending, where we can be pretty sure he didn't get saved at the last minute, but full of neat worldbuilding details nonetheless. The whole scenario looks perfect for an RPG module, as there's plenty of points where you could do things differently, and still get interesting results. That makes this a very strong bit of fiction for the magazine on multiple levels. Not just entertainment, but also helpful too.


Campaign Journal: We return to Greyhawk again, courtesy of Carl Sargent. And he's starting to feel the backlash from people who aren't at all happy with the major changes the war made to the world. They can't exactly reverse this stuff, but they can certainly mitigate it. A lot of this is a reminder that the books do not have to be adhered strictly to for your own campaign, and things can be rearranged, transplanted, adapted, or simply ignored if they contradict stuff built up in your own game. Which you probably know already, but it's still annoying when a world goes in a different direction to the one you want it too. One reason it can be easier to play in a setting that doesn't have a constantly churning active supplement mill. So I guess we're seeing the first signs of backlash against metaplot here. It's still going to get bigger before it goes away, but it's no longer the fresh young thing that can do no wrong, and everyone has to have. Welcome to the bloated arena rock days. Feel the gated reverb on that drumkit. Get ready for lightshows, costume changes, and guitar solos longer than ZZ Top's beards. Not my favourite environment. So this says nothing I don't know, and reminds me that there's a storm a comin'. Bleah.


KULT! The darkness continues to spread. Death is only the beginning.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 195: July 1993

part 6/6


Up front In charge: Quite a tricky roleplaying issue. The problem of leadership within the party is one we probably haven't covered enough over the years, with the player/DM adversarial relationship taking the brunt of the heat. But a group without proper organisation and tactics is a group sleepwalking into it's own death, likely to face humiliation at the first group of enemies played smartly. And a group that bickers while in the dungeon and has players wander off to try stuff without knowledge of the rest of the team, or fire off fireballs without checking everyone else's position will practically kill themselves. Thomas Kane well and truly graduates from expanded forumite to full blown writer here, in a piece which combines intelligent writing on social dynamics IC and OOC with rather amusing and all too true to life fiction. A dwarf that talks like Yoda. A gnome that everyone ignores until he gets them in trouble. A wizard who is all too keen to play grand vizier with her companions. And a fighter who likes to think he's in charge, but isn't to hot on the actual ideas. This clearly illustrates quite a few things. The person who most wants to be in charge is often not the best actual leader in terms of ideas and organisation. Listening to your subordinates and letting them feel valued and able to exercise their creativity is vital for keeping them happy. The best plan is a simple one. Beware PvP spilling out into bad feeling amongst the actual players. A very good article here, that even experienced players can learn from. Issues of leadership and hierarchy will be settled informally if you don't pay attention to them, and if you don't know what's going on, it's a lot harder to figure out why things have gone wrong and fix them.


Swordplay: Another regular comic starts here. As is often the case, not very impressively, but then, you need time to introduce the cast in strips as small as this. It's been 5 years and Yamara is still only on its third plotline. Man, the monthly serial format has its flaws.

Speaking of yamara, she gets a double size episode this issue as we see the trial of Yocchi. And once again ogrek .... er, seems to be about to save the day. Dragonmirth really isn't playing fair, as usual. The team get captured in twilight empire. Hey, that just means they'll be taken straight into the bad guys lair. That should help get things flowing.

The four horsemen of the apocalypse come to Rifts. Can you guess what they want to do? Canasta? Opening a milk round? I think not.


Through the looking glass: Ahh, joy, the government committees have got involved in the lead bill. We know how long THEY take to get anything done. I swear they're just an excuse for government guys to give well paying jobs to their mates where they do maybe a few hours work a week for months or years. Bleah. And in the meantime, uncertainty is bad for business, so half the companies and stores are phasing out their lead minis anyway. Which means nobody really wins but the lawyers. This like, totally sucks donkey balls Beavis.

As usual, the minis are less interesting than the drama. Several knights from Pendragon. The real differences are in the personality. A 12 piece green dragon that'll be a real pain in the butt to assemble. King Arthur, his sword & horse, perfect for a bit more pendragon tie-in. A young and fully grown pair of wyverns. A dragon and her eggs, which are in danger of being nicked. And a full-blown diorama in which a party of dwarves are fighting a dragon. Quite a bit of multi-piece stuff, for some reason.

We also get three other reviews on top of that. Dragonfire gets a pretty mediocre review, with incredibly simple and dull rules for experienced wargamers. Legions of Steel does rather better, with a pleasingly consistent (if rather grimdark) aesthetic, and fast and furious rules that may be a little simple, but have plenty of scope for expansion. Study in contrasts of how to do introductory games right or wrong. In addition, he also proves rather fond of the Battletech Recognition cards. They're not actually that expensive, and can speed play quite a bit. I'm surprised how much coverage Battletech is actually getting over the years. I guess it's another of those things that you can skip over when reading casually, but this kind of detailed examination reveals.


Man, drizzt really needs to get a better photographer. He looks about 50 here, and that's in human years, not elf years. And would it hurt him to smile a little? At least he's got the eyebrow raising down pat.


Yet another mixed bag, with some good articles, but no real consistency, and an increasing number of non-useful promotional columns. The gradual slide into complacency on the part of the playing population continues, much as I and Roger wish it wouldn't. Someone ought to do a reading thread for White Wolf's old magazine or the Rifters, so we can get a more positive slant on this era from the up and comers. I'd quite enjoy vicariously reading that. But for me, it's to the next issue.

 

[LordVyreth]

Actually, all the Yamaras are double length from hereon. But this one in particular was so wonderful to me. I loved that last panel so much when I was a kid.

 

[Orius]

The four horsemen of the apocalypse come to Rifts. Can you guess what they want to do? Canasta? Opening a milk round? I think not.

It's RIFTS. Just about anything could happen in that insanity.

Man, drizzt really needs to get a better photographer. He looks about 50 here, and that's in human years, not elf years. And would it hurt him to smile a little? At least he's got the eyebrow raising down pat.

Smile? And risk destroying that angsty image he's worked so hard to build?

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 196: August 1993


part 1/6


124 pages. The dragon in this month's cover takes a secondary role, looking a lot like a pet of the guy with the sword. Who's in the driving seat this time? Hopefully you, as it's time for another issue full of DMing advice. Poor players. They never get to control dragons. (yet) And if they do, you'll have to think of even more impressive suitable challenges or risk the whole thing falling apart. So a DM's work is never done. Good thing we've still got many more years of advice to draw upon to go.


In this issue:


I, Strahd, by P N Elrod. Once again they bring out the big guns for Halloween, on the 10th anniversary of the original module.


Letters: A letter asking if the Snarfquest compilation is still available. Unlike the Fineous Fingers one, you're in luck. Larry still has a good relationship with the TSR staff, so they're happy to be of service to you both.

A follow-up on the Uriah Heap question. It was the early 70's. Lots of people were putting occult & Tolkien inspired blather in their music. These days, their hubcap diamond star halos are looking a little rusty and need a good servicing.

A letter from a person who found a moth squashed on their fire elemental trading card. The jokes here make themselves. Jim Ward, on the other hand, fails to see the funny side. I think the stress of his job may be getting to him. He ain't the mischievous monty hauler he used to be.

A suggestion that they include martial arts demos at their conventions. After all, so many gamers love MA in their games. Luring them to try it out IRL would be good commercial sense, and also fitting from a health point of view. After all we have to battle the stereotypes about being weedy/overweight couch potatoes, and what better way than being able to slam anyone who takes the piss to the ground and punch through bricks. Roger doesn't think it's a bad idea, although he'd really like to see sumo wrestlers, but doubts they could get any in. Always the joker, eh.

Some nitpicking about kukris. The historical accuracy brigade won't let any weapon go mislabeled!


Editorial: Never trust a DM who forces you to roll for breast size. Roger can't find anything current events related to get worked up over, so once again his mind drifts back to reminiscing on games past, and the naive fun they had. Seems he's doing increasing amounts of that recently. So say hello to Bob. A guy with boundless enthusiasm, no sense of proportion, and very little taste. It's tricky to get rid of him because he's so enthusiastic about it all, but at the same time the things he does are so silly that you can't really have a campaign with him without it all falling apart. Still, while it may be a pain at the time, at least it makes for memorable stories. And given the alchemy of nostalgia, the fun bits remain, while the crap gets glossed over. And so Roger manages to come up with enough entertaining anecdotes to fill this column for another month. Making it a permanent fixture may not have been the smartest thing to do really.


Exploring the fantasy political campaign: Ah yes, politics. One of those things that continue to be a challenge to insert into a game compared to dungeon crawling. Continuity becomes so much more of an issue when you're dealing with the same faces year in, year out. And if you get sloppy, it'll come back to bit you more than if you're moving from dungeon to dungeon, not looking back. Unlike a kill and take their stuff mission, where it can be safely assumed that the bad guys are indeed bad enough that compromise is a pointless task, who the PC's are, and what their opinions are on a topic can vary widely, and this affects the direction that they'll take the story. On the plus side, while you need to keep on making up new dungeons wholecloth, once you have a well set up political game, it'll last you years if well maintained, with actors fading in and out as time goes by. We've been through this before, but this manages to do so quite well, reminding us that the individual missions in a politics heavy campaign will often be little different, especially while the characters are pawns of the other power players. It's more the way the adventures tie together and have an effect on the larger setting that's interesting. And making the playstyle seem accessible rather than intimidating is an important aspect to getting new people involved that the older articles sometimes failed at. So as is usually the case with themed issues, they've picked a good one to start things off with.