Let's read the entire run

[LordVyreth]

I think you're mistaken about Wolfenstein 3D in that it's also normal shareware. So the first third of the game was free, and then you had to pay for the rest (or, you know, pirate it.) I can't even remember if it had console versions, and I remember the ones for Doom several years later were pretty crappy.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 197: September 1993


part 4/6


Forum: Clarissa Fowler points out an interesting conflict in the TSR camp, between Roger's support of GLB (but not T yet) gamers, and their code of conduct, which tries to sweep all that ickiness under the carpet. This looks like another topic likely to cause further debate now it's been exposed to the light. As well as that, she offers some more advice about how to make gaming more inviting to people of various minority groups. Things are gradually getting better, but only due to the hard work of people like her.

Kendal Miles encourages you to involve your players in creating backstories for their characters collectively, instead of sending them away to produce several page essays of pretentiousness. That'll help them find reasons to get the party together and all working on the same goals.

Erik Munne also encourages you to talk about what characters you and your players want when building a game, instead of working in a vacuum. Communication is integral to gaming, so of course improving your skills at that will help.

Les Bowman laid down the law when it comes to timekeeping and food during his game. He did lose a couple of players, but now the whole thing runs so much better. A little discipline is a very good thing. You wouldn't want the people who can't buckle down to it anyway.

Steven Cox brings the Complete book of Dwarves into the overpowered kit debate. As with the bard ones, it's the multiclass stuff that really brings the cheese. Another voice joins the list of people clamouring for a solution. Is it any wonder 3e overcompensated and wound up going the other direction with multiclass power levels.

Eyal Teler doesn't find psionicists overpowered. Course, that's because his wizards have houserules that substantially increase their versatility. In any case, you shouldn't expect them to work in the same way, as that gets boring. If you do encounter problems, he has some relatively reasonable sounding nerfs to keep them from getting too complacent.


Mage gets a rather odd byline. Truth until paradox. And there are ninjas with shades and people riding hoverbikes firing lots of guns with telekinesis. That'd certainly invoke lots of paradox in the actual game. Guess we have another unfortunate case of artwork disconnect. I suppose you've got to lure people in. A bit of false advertising never hurt anyone.


Role-playing reviews: The HERO system is Allen's choice of review material this month. Like GURPS, you can do a hell of a lot with it. But unlike GURPS, it has a definite focus, with the Champions game seeing the lions share of it's supplements. With it's effect based point buy design, it does stand out, and has some fanatical devotees, but not enough to keep it financially stable. As a result, we get a quick history lesson as well, telling us how ownership has shifted around over the years. It once again cements Allen's position as a good reviewer who knows the context of what they're talking about.

Dark Champions: Heroes of vengeance sees a decidedly mixed review, with Allen recognising it's quality, but also rather uncomfortable with the violent, nihilistic worldview it espouses, where the heroes are barely better than the villains. This may be just a reflection of the recent changes in comics, but it's a decidedly depressing one, and he wants no part in games based upon it. Fight the grimdark!

High tech enemies gets listed, but then almost forgotten about in the actual prose of the review. The only important detail is the sheer brutality of some of the enemies, who are quite capable of kicking the average parties ass. Better get accumulating those extra points then.

Champions Universe is a bit of a headache, as it tries to consolidate the work of all the previous setting books into one rather large unified supplement. Unfortunately, it's not nearly large enough to stand on it's own, and raises as many questions as it answers. You'll have to reconcile the inconsistencies exposed yourself.

Normals Unbound is the only supplement that gets serious praise, with character sketches that are both appropriate and fun. They may not have special powers, but that doesn't make them any less critical to the story. It's one of those areas where campaigns often struggle to emulate the source material, and this bunch of prefab example characters go quite a way in showing you how to do it.

Allen also mentions the monster book, adventures, official magazine, and online ventures by the community. There does seem to be the persistent theme of plenty of potential, but patchy implementation. Just can't get the staff, it seems, so they have to rely on the fans to keep the fires burning. I suppose that puts them in a good position to have their fortunes revived by the internet age.


The marvel-phile: This issue has been pretty light on new crunch so far. Here we get some rather unexpected new stuff for this game. The proportion of badass normals in comics has been increasing in recent years, and it's got to the point where they really need to represent this properly in the game. Steven Schend does just that, allowing you to generate characters who rely on skills and gadgets for any exceptional capabilities they have. On the plus side, they get more contacts than regular heroes, and a whole bunch of talents, which means they may not have the world changing powers, but they will be more versatile. Hopefully they'll be able to hold their own with the likes of Batman and Captain America. Not a bad article at all, even if it does highlight another area of growing conservativeness in the company, that of gradually backing off from high level coverage in their adventures and supplements. As usual, any actual play experience with these optional rules is welcome.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 197: September 1993


part 5/6


Beyond the dark horizon: The start of our little Dark Sun section is a mix of new spells and magic items, meaning it doesn't quite fit into either of the regular columns for those. Still, lots of crunch will generally have a few gems hidden in it, ready for raiding whatever the campaign. Let's chomp like a starving sand howler on a juicy kank abdomen.

Erdlu claw is your basic hand to hand enhancer, probably better cast on the party fighter than yourself. Slash them to death like an animal, divert the attentions of detectives.

Giant Fur makes you ridiculously hairy, providing modest armour, although not the protection from cold it probably should. But this is athas. Who wants to know how something'll protect you from something you'll never experience.

Petrification makes wooden weapons as damaging as stone weapons. Only in athas would someone even consider developing a spell like that. Still, life and death, often you can't get anything better.

Boneiron & Bonewood do much the same, although as these are more powerful transmutations, they're a bit higher level.

Erdlu Hide brings your AC down to 6. Not that great really, but it is long-lasting and cumulative with a good Shield spell. And good armor is in short supply on athas. A wizard needs all the help they can scrounge.

Ranike Cloud drives away even the biggest bugs. This'll range from a minor convenience to absolute lifesaver. Don't use if there's a thri-kreen in your party.

Reverse fossilisation makes stone weapons work like bone ones. Once again, you can't see adventurers who take proper blacksmithing for granted bothering to fill slots with that.

Stoneiron & Woodiron give us another round of the sequential weapon material enhancers. This does feel rather like padding, and could easily have been compressed into fewer, better scaling spells.

Erdlu Egg give wizards a basic food creating spell, even if it can't compete with cleric's capabilities at this level. When you draw your power from consuming lifeforce, you don't get many free lunches.

Kank Shell is another armouring spell that's flavourful, but a bit weak for it's level. Once again, the poor scaling of these spells is very notable in a setting which is all about the high level characters.

Isolate Templar is our first real winner, ing up their ability to memorise and cast spells via interfering with their connection to the boss. Still, this is another one that'll be no use at all on other worlds with different cosmological setups.

Heart Call finally does something cool, giving you an instadeath spell with great visuals. Indiana Jones won't get away this time. Time to really show them the meaning of pain.

Which brings us to the magic items. Ranike Rods are another bug-repellent, making sure they'll learn not to mess with you pretty sharpish. Ranike Staves do much the same, only with more options on how to apply the pungent smoke.

Erdlu Canteens give you just enough to survive off if very conservative. A whole party trying to rely on one will soon wind up with egg on their faces.

Petrified weapons & shields are the permanent equivalent of the earlier spells. Since they're still susceptible to breakage, this seems a rather inefficient use of a really high level wizard's time. Why not just give them more plusses?

Purple-leaf blades are made from razor-sharp grasses. They get bent out of shape easily, but it's just as easy to get them back in. Watch you don't cut yourself while doing so.

Bonewood Fossilized, Woodiron, Stoneiron & Boneiron weapons continue this formula, allowing you to bring stuff up to the level adventurers in other worlds take for granted. Yawn city. Man, there's a ridiculous amount of padding and dross in this one. They could definitely be using their page count in a more efficient manner.


Fiction: Ashes to ashes by Lisa Smedman. Man, it sucks being a templar. You have to deal with a god who is very much present, giving you specific instructions and often being very partial and petty. And unlike most other priesthoods, you don't even have any kind of unifying ideology. Instead, it's more like a modern business, dog eat dog, short term profits paramount, with everybody treading on everybody else to suck up to the boss. No wonder that some people wind up doubting their commitment to the boss, particularly the ones who ironically started out as idealists. If it weren't for the fact that everyone'd lose all their powers and no-one knows how to replicate becoming a sorcerer-king, they'd have been deposed long ago. This gives us a side-story to the whole business where Kalak fell and Tyr became a free state, as one of his templars discovers just how nasty her boss is, and finds out that maybe losing all your spellcasting isn't such a terrible deal after all. Sure, it's a sacrifice, but it's better than knowing you're a jailer in a gilded cage, likely to be sacrificed yourself in the future if you stick around. Like most athasian stuff, this has a hard edge, but somehow remains fundamentally hopeful. Things will get better, because it's hard to see how they could get worse. As gaming fiction goes, I've seen worse.

 

[jonesy]

I think you're mistaken about Wolfenstein 3D in that it's also normal shareware. So the first third of the game was free, and then you had to pay for the rest (or, you know, pirate it.) I can't even remember if it had console versions, and I remember the ones for Doom several years later were pretty crappy.

Dude, SNES Wolfenstein and SNES Doom were awesome. Yeah, I'm looking back at them with my nostalgia goggles on. Still, they probably did make a lot more money than the PC version.

About SNES Doom. You couldn't save the game, so it was by default the hardest version of the game. Which made it pretty interesting. Zero replay value. Modifications made Doom (and Quake) big, and you couldn't mod the SNES game.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 197: September 1993


part 6/6



The dragon project: ARS Magica gets a turn in the magazine this month. And in the process, we get to see Roger's editorial on evolutionary plots applied practically in another way, as this takes the big twist of Forbidden Planet and twists it to the point of near unrecognisability to fit it into their setting. The result is one of those adventures where there isn't really a proper good or bad guy, and it'll take a lot more work to solve the mystery than hacking and slashing. Unlike the GURPS one in issue 194, this'll take a moderate amount of work to convert to another system, heavily bound to Ars Magica's default setting as it is. I guess you'll have to practice those evolutionary tricks again. Should be fun. I definitely like this one, as it does manage to put a very distinctive spin on some familiar ideas, as well as once again introducing readers of the magazine to a new system.


Swordplay still has cash-flow problems. The drow still have Ogrek problems. The undead have serious paternity problems. Where is Yamara in all this? Dragonmirth has very contrasting art styles. Twilight empire also has multiple familial problems. She might help dad escape, but I don't think Becca would let him kill mum.


Through the looking glass: Minis continue to struggle onwards, with price increases and material changes frequent in this season's lineup. This certainly isn't business as usual, however much they'd like to pretend it is. But there's still more than enough choice for one little column. A vampire on the stairs, cape a-swishing. A princess with one of those silly conical hats that blow off at the slightest breeze. Some CoC deep ones, ready to lurk and rend. A rather emaciated looking minotaur. A nicely modular set of castle pieces. A gatehouse which might or might not mesh with the previous model. Another tank to add to your collection. A swarm of giant rats, one of those fantasy staples that's a bit under represented in minis. A suitably petite sylph. Some digitised monsters for Shadowrun games, looking suitably angular and polygonic for the era. A four-piece set of battletech mechs, some assembly required. A couple more mechs from Fantasy Force. Some polearms for those who want to mod their armies. An old skool paladin, judge Dredd style cops, and a trio of mad scientists, one of which is wheelchair bound. Affirmative action! Tons and tons of little things get tons of little reviews.


TSR Previews: The Forgotten Realms continues to move forward, quickly obsoleting a few elements of the new core set. FRQ2: The doom of daggerdale rips off sleeping beauty. But don't think solving it'll be as easy as just kissing someone. Meanwhile, R.A. Salvadore has a very good month indeed. His new novel, Starless night, sees Drizzt return to menzoberanzan to kick ass and lift curses. And his previous novel appears in paperback with a bonus chapter. This line is still very profitable indeed.

Ravenloft is also doing pretty decently. Castle Forlorn lets you explore this deeply messed up, vaguely scottish flavoured domain, experience serious time shifting weirdness, and try and solve one of the more intractable darklord's issues. Not easy, and definitely not a hack and slash one. Be ready to leave baffled, frustrated, and quite possibly dead if you can't find the clues.

Dark Sun gives it's clerics a splatbook too. DSS2: Air, earth, fire and water. More cool tricks for them, particularly at high levels to make them a half-decent challenge to those bloody Dragons and Avangions. Are you ready to get para-elemental and save the world? Or just find out once and for all how those ing magnets work.

Our generic stuff this time combines the spectacular and the prosaic. The Book of Artifacts brings back dozens more ways to screw your players over while also making them think they're going to get obscene power. Most have extensive backstories, many tied into specific worlds. Use with caution. They also complete the first round of solo modules with HHQ4: Cleric's challenge. Tailored specifically to your talents, which means lots of undead. Get ready to roll.

D&D gets champions of Mystara, the compiled book of the princess ark adventures. Now you too can explore the savage coast in detail and fly airships. Bruce Heard has worked a lot on this over the past 3 years. Enjoy. They also complete the Penhalligon trilogy. Come on, they've gotta save magic, because otherwise, they'd have to publish a whole new game with different rules! (shh, don't give them ideas )

And in our increasingly small completely unconnected to D&D bit, we have AM4: Magitech, our next Amazing engine world. So what happened to AM3? Is it late, or are there still more books coming out that don't show up in these previews for space reasons? Vaguely bemusing.


It's quite notable how computers are moving forward in this issue, which is pleasing to see, but the gaming stuff has some very ropey bits indeed, with official promotion getting far too big a part of the magazine. The rise of grimdark and street level stuff isn't particularly pleasing to me either, as it feels rather like a step down when you've already enjoyed truly epic adventures and know that you can save the world. The shine of the start of the year is long gone, and it's pretty obvious they're building up their big guns for the huge christmas celebration. The next two may well be pretty lean pickings as well.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 198: October 1993


part 1/6


124 pages. Horror elements on this month's cover, but combined in amusingly goofy fashion. Goes to show, it's a tiny change from genuinely creepy uncanny valley stuff to harmlessly weird and back. Just the kind of melding of serious and playful Roger has got rather good at over the years. Lets see if the april spirit persists at the other end of the year this time.


In this issue:


Letters: Three letters from people having trouble getting hold of some of the smaller company games reviewed in the magazine. It's an object lesson in how much power the main distributors still wield in controlling what becomes big or not.

Another letter from someone who wants to become an Officially Qualified DM. That little rumour will not die, for some reason. I suspect some creepy gamers perpetuate it to gull the gullible.

A couple of questions about bonded weapons from issue 194. They aren't quite that special.

A letter asking for the sources used as references by the artists. We do have a lot of artists with different influences, but a few names do turn up again and again.

A letter wondering why they don't do more fiction. We tried that around issue 2. 1 piece of fiction per month has turned out about the optimum to minimise complaints from both sides of the fence. We are primarily a gaming magazine, you know.


Editorial: Well, Cons are still a growth industry, anyway. As has become habit over the years, it's time for Roger to recount our tales of Gen Con wackiness. TSR has increased the size of their booths, but they still look proportionately smaller when you account for all the other companies blowing up around this time. Once again Margaret and Tracey are right in the middle of any trouble that crops up, being captured by Klingons and then setting them on the rest of the TSR staff. (all for charity, of course. Jurassic park stuff was huge, George Takei guest starred with aplomb, and Roger consumed FAR too many M&M's over the three days. As usual, the whole thing was exhausting but fun. They've somehow retained enough immaturity and sense of wonder to really take advantage of events like that, despite this being a job to them for well over a decade. As is often the case, I am full of envy. It does get very tiring being the serious one all the time, but I just don't seem to be able to unwind enough to enjoy that kind of mischief anymore. Too much time spent writing alone, too little direct feedback for what I do leaves me perpetually insecure as to my value. It drives me forward, but it's not healthy by any yardstick. I wish I got to have more fun.


Pin back their ears: Lycanthropes get first place this year, unusually. However, it is not exactly to get more toys for the DM or players. It's actually mostly nerfs, with some optional clarifications as well. Handy for a low magic game where you have to figure out how to defeat them without the easy solutions, and especially if you've somehow wound up with a lycanthrope PC with a degree of control over their actions, and they've tried to run rough-shod over bit chunks of your campaign. A bit of mixed bag really in terms of opinions, but it does have some nice adventure seeds. They've done better, they've done worse. This doesn't set my world alight either way.


The false undead: Pseudo-undead were one of the more vague and irritating creatures of 1e, and for whatever reason, they never got converted over to 2e. But the idea of monsters that fake out the players is a well-established one, and always useful in dealing with overconfident players. Still, a surprise is only a surprise once, before you have to find a new one, so here's another instalment of things that look creepy, but you can't actually turn. Bunch of cheek really.

Skullriders are arachnoid creatures with a shell that looks very much like a human skull. They can attach themselves to a dead body and animate it temporarily, but are more a nuisance than a real danger to prepared adventurers. Just another strange add-on to D&D's dungeon ecology.

Goop ghouls are oozes that also like to use someone else's remains as a means of facilitating their mobility and ability to manipulate objects. They flow over a skeleton and animate it, looking like regular undead at a distance as they're semitransparent. Sounds like the kind of thing a Slithering Tracker might evolve into, given the right level of underground radiation. Both of these are pretty cool monsters, both from a conceptual and design point of view.

 

[David Howery]

I always liked Roger's write ups of Gencon... I went to several of them while he was the editor, and saw some of that stuff he wrote about. sadly, though, I didn't make it to the one in 93, and missed out on Roger being tortured by the Klingons. Barbara Young found that so amusing that she mentioned it to me a couple of times in our correspondence...

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 198: October 1993


part 2/6


Beyond the Grave: From Pseudo-Undead to the real thing, as Tom Moldvay returns after 3 years to provide some more alternative takes on the traditional AD&D undead. Tracing back their names to various cultures, he shows how they largely stem from the desire to guard graves, and humanities discomfort at the remains of their dead. A primal fear manifested in many different ways around the world, and it's no surprise that they'll have quite different power levels and abilities, even if most have much the same goal. So let's see what he has to say about wights, wraiths and mummies.

Ka are somewhat more benevolent than normal mummies, but still not to be trifled with. They can animate the statues from their tombs, and control people with magical glyphs. If you're including one, you really need to design a suitably cool tomb complex to go with them, for the extra resources, secret doors and traps are what'll really make the encounter special.

Angreden are based on an icelandic legend, and have quite an idiosyncratic appearance. Their special power, that of cursing the person who defeats them, on the other hand is a pretty common legendary one. This is another reason why full parties work better than the solitary heroes you find too often in legends. The tall grass gets the scythe, and winds up with all the drama of death curses and blood feuds. An anonymous bunch of heroes can save the world and move on.

King-wights take us to Norway for a little inspiration storywise, but mechanically they're pretty much what you'd expect, albeit with slightly more magical powers. They're load-bearing bosses too, which is awesome. D&D could do with a few more of those.

Wraith-kings are fairly obviously based upon tolkien's ringwraiths. With the power to drain levels merely with a gaze, enslave people with ease, and a penchant for Nightmare mounts, they're pretty darn terrifying, and can make for quite credible big bads in themselves. Anything with the power to assemble 9 of them as lieutenants is going to take some serious levelling up to fight head-on.

Vartha are essentially revenant variants, people reinhabiting and preserving their body because they have some important task that needs fulfilling. They can be of any alignment, so who knows what their goal might be. Probably best to get on their good side, for they're another creature with an extensive set of spell-like abilities with which to deal with you, many which are divinations for some reason. I doubt trying to trick them will go down well. This lot are well up to the standard of his previous instalments. When he finally gets round to finishing this series, it'll be a real standout of the middle years of the magazine.


The marvel-phile: Our final instalment of this column this month, as it slips unheralded into obscurity, after a year in which the company didn't release anything for the game. Still they're going out not exactly with a bang, but a roar at least, as they cover a trio of giant monsters from the comics. Grogg, a massive horned scaly firebreathing horror. Why not just come out and say the word dragon? Taboo, a near indestructible ooze creature cast out from another world. And The Glop, another alien scouting the earth for potential conquering. They really shouldn't bother, but there you go. The heroes will triumph in the end, and the villains will be defeated in an ambiguous way that leaves things open for a future return. For if they aren't, a future writer will have to concoct an implausible twist or retcon to bring them back. This neatly leads us into our final little bit of pontification, as they talk about some name changes that people and creatures have gone through over the years. It feels very much like business as usual, which is ironic. Did the licence expire naturally, or did it get pulled suddenly for some reason? Either way, it means that despite their attempts to cover non D&D stuff more in the Dragon projects, they're losing one of their longest running and most reliably covered games at this point. Bit of a shame, but they have been struggling to fill it of late, with the information getting increasingly obscure and/or new as the years went by. All things must come to an end, and this has sometimes felt like it outstayed it's welcome over the last year. So long, superheroics, it's been a blast.


Sage advice: How many slots does an out of group proficiency cost. (1 extra. If you want healing, that's gonna use up your whole selection )

Does call lightning really do that much damage. (Yes. Its powerful because the conditions you can use it in are bloody inconvenient. )

Why isn't undead turning disrupted when you're attacked. Does this apply to other granted powers ( Because the gods wish it to be so. Yes. Granted powers don't require the complicated supplications spells do. )

Do you still lose your spell if you save for half damage. (yes. Pain is painful. Don't get in fights.)

How many languages can priests of Deneir speak (all of them! It may sound awesome, but once you have a universal translator, they get treated like a commodity, rather than a person. Then again, you are a cleric, so you should be used to it. )

Also, Skip's generous contribution this month is the Aztec pantheon. Blood sacrifice. Rogar of Mooria approves.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 198: October 1993


part 3/6


The dragon project I: Along with his new computer game column, Sandy contributes a little something to bolster his old RPG's position in the magazine. Mr Josh Wellmeat, a largely sessile, but still very scary creature from millions of years in the past that stretches the definition of dragon somewhat visually, but fits in perfectly from a thematic point of view, with his truly machiavellian level of scheming and hoarding, taking a long view with his plans to an extent that humans can't match because they simply don't have the lifespan. The way that he maintains a human facade is both clever and pretty horrifying, with lovingly crafted details to give it that truly cthulhu-esque san destroying air. He can be used as either an adversary or a rather dubious employer and provider of info, and either way, can be behind a good long adventure arc. This is a joy to read about, fulfilling all the several overlapping remits this column has with aplomb. He's really earned his keep here.


Role-playing reviews: Rick looks like he's facing the same kind of problem I sometimes have to deal with in coming up with introductions. How do you say something pretty similar to what you've said before and keep it both entertaining and informative? In this case, it's talking about what makes a good fantasy setting for him. Just because it's an RPG, doesn't mean you should forget the Chekov's gun principle. Keep your focus, and make the adventures fit the setting. Because there's a lot of settings out there now, and you have to make yours distinct if you want to get anywhere.

From the ashes gets a pretty positive review. Greyhawk finally has a consistent tone, rather than being a patchwork quilt of adventures sewn together into a setting post-hoc. This may displease some people, but you have to try. And you do wonder exactly how someone else could have done things differently so this didn't alienate so many people while still moving things forward. If only we could actually see parallel universes.

GURPS fantasy II sees the debut of Robin Laws, bringing a decidedly silly air with him. The giant moose and gopher gods stamp across the setting, throwing the utopian human culture into stark relief. Well, if you lived in a world that was virtually cartoonish at times, you'd come to throw away greed (as very little has enough permanency to really value) and treasure boredom where you could get it. It's a clever idea, but the theory is better than the execution. Guess that's why he got into theory in a big way later.

Eidolon: city in the sky is a sourcebook for Rolemaster's Shadow World. It's a cool setting idea, with the distinction between the haves and have-nots pretty obvious. The visuals are the best part of it though, with the adventure ideas and details on the inhabitants a bit lackluster. Once again, the concept exceeds the execution.


Eye of the monitor: Sega vs Nintendo. Mac vs PC. Computers vs Console. These interlocking wars are raging right now, with the great number of competitors that were flooding the market a few years ago being ruthlessly narrowed down. As we know now, the economics of scale where game development is involved means any advantage will rapidly tip further in the favour of the winning side, and push the others out of the market. Unless you can find a slightly different niche to target, as Apple managed to do, and then Nintendo a decade later, you will not survive for long outside the conglomerates. This is one of those topics that can run and run, and I don't doubt that we'll be seeing more unexpected twists and turns in future years too. What will the next generation of consoles bring, now the Wii has proved playability sells over the latest graphics cards and screaming processors? Will another company manage to come from no-where, or are computers pretty much entrenched now? Will the iPad take over the world. For all my examination of the flow of the past, I still can't predict the future.

A link to the Past is of course a stone-cold classic, both instantly accessible (none of the frigging cutscenes that really bog down the later instalments) and full of little hidden bits to discover. I can do it all in around 4 hours, including getting every single heart piece, but it'll take you a while to get that good. Playing around with the large quantity of magical items is called out as a particularly fun part, and I must admit there is a certain joy in sprinkling magic dust and making the beansprouts talk, or the pink skulls turn into fairys, or freezing monsters and throwing them at other ones. I'm sure you don't need me to tell you to get this one.

The Legend of Zelda doesn't do quite as well, simply because it is a bit dated now, and I must admit the saving is a bit clunky (but he would know there is a trick to it if he'd read the manual properly. ) And of course, there's the massive replay value, with the second harder quest and mass of really hard to find (albeit because there's no clues, and you have to burn every tree and bomb every bit of rock to find them) bits and pieces. (You must pay the door repair charge )

The Adventure of Link is well known as being a bit of an odd one out amongst the Zelda series, both stylistically and in terms of quality, and it seems Sandy agrees with the general consensus, giving it only 3 stars. The description is a bit sparse, and there's not as much to riff off. But you're going to buy it anyway, because you're completists.

Doom is previewed here, in it's own shareware incarnation. It of course manages to improve on wolfenstein in terms of graphics, and more importantly, the size and variety of your weapons. Even using your fists is more fun than usual, and as for the BFG's, my oh my you've just got to love them, and what they do to the enemy. \m/ So it's a full house of classic games this month. Haven't seen that before. Sandy is definitely making his mark as a reviewer and writer this time round.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 198: October 1993


part 4/6


The dragon project II: Another of our reviewers is roped into covering the game they worked upon before TSR poached them. This time it's Lester Smith and the Dark Conspiracy game. He doesn't do as well as Sandy, with a more conventional stalking and ravaging monstrosity, quite possibly from another dimension. Still, even if it doesn't support a whole campaign as easily as Mr Wellmeat and his plot hooks, the Darkwyrm is pretty scary both physically and magically, with 5 heads, disintegrating lightning breath, and the ability to mess up all your technological equipment. I'm not sure exactly how big and experienced a party you'll need under this system to have a good chance of beating it, but it's pretty clear starting characters need not apply. Decent enough filler that would probably have more impact if they'd spread it out better, instead of having two in one issue and then a gap of a month or two. Like the fiction, reviews and promotional columns, you have to tread the line between too much and too little to appeal to the greatest demographic, and this is another skill they appear to be slipping on lately.


Campaign journal: Al-Qadim gets a turn in this column, showing us to combine arabian stuff with horror. After all, they have no shortage of their own ghost stories to draw upon. Why can't they be two tastes that taste great together? Fallen Nog and Kadar are already perfect grounds for forbidden lore, quite possibly of the sort that erodes sanity merely by reading it. Meanwhile the rest of the continent is riven by paranoia. The priests are more oppressive, the holy slayers considerably less holy, and the wizards and genies more mysterious and feared. Yak-men are another perfect horror creature with their rather nasty possession powers and skill at long term planning. It all fits together pretty easily, as if it were born to do this. Sometims, you just get an easy assignment, where everything naturally flows into place.
Along with the strong advice, we also get two new kits and a monster, making this a fairly complete package with plenty of reasons for us to return to it. Looks like this is turning out to be a pretty good halloween.

Priest-defenders gain the ability to turn genies as well as undead, but are members of one of those obsessive orders that can never give up their quest to destroy evil without losing their powers, and are generally not well suited for integration into society. They can turn evil in the pursuit of smiting though, giving PC's plenty of chance to get into means and ends arguments with NPC's.

Sungazers fight evil, but are likely to fall to madness in their study of it, unless you have access to a cleric powerful enough to cast restoration regularly, in which case their hindrance will be mostly mitigated. A decidedly tricky one in determining game balance, since so much of their benefits and penalties are external action and situation dependent.

Zakharan Kraken are pretty similar to their brethren elsewhere, only albino and slightly more powerful. They're set up to be perfect big bads, with a greater tendency to accumulate slaves and cults. Better watch out, etc etc. Horror can be things from the deep just as much as it can be undead, and we know there really are some pretty horrific looking things down there. (even if they'd actually die from pressure issues if they tried to come up to the surface)


Forum: Anonymous writes in again, supporting talking things through with your players to figure out who their characters will be, and what kind of world they'll live in. A really good game starts long before you ever actually play. Whatever happened to just making stuff up as you went along?

Joe Katzman actually thinks fighters need a little nerfing! Mostly due to specialisation providing an unfair advantage. Well, Len Lakofka thought the same. The disadvantages from having access to a narrower range of weapons do have to be deliberately attacked to become an issue. Another issue that probably needs tweaking.

Jeremy Pataky is yet another person suffering under the yoke of officials with stupid preconceptions about gaming. Epic education fail. This stuff gets you reading, writing and thinking. But of course they don't REALLY want to encourage that, do they.

Chris Scofield is angry that churches are attacking gaming when there are far bigger and realer issues like poverty and crime around. Oh, they're old news. It's always the fads that really get the attention.

Eyal Teler gives support to the idea of playing evil games. You can have a lot of fun, honest! Damn straight you can, even playing it Paranoia style. And it certainly doesn't make it easier either. You might not have to play fair, but it really is you against the world.

Karim Pedersen has a fairly brutal nerf for wizards, based on temporary ability drain when they cast spells. Since it's more dangerous for high level spells, this makes it a real risk casting them. Yeah, that works, if you want to encourage a low magic campaign. Maybe a little too well.

David Howery praises Roger Moore for reminding us that even most good DM's steal most of their ideas. It's all about twisting them enough that it's not immediately obvious. And even if they do spot it, twist things in the right way, and that supposed foreknowledge actually becomes a liability. Muahahaha. I like you.

Roger Smith answers a whole bunch of points from previous writers. Debate needs listeners and replies, not just people talking at each other. Otherwise it's just politics.

Chris Morris also answers lots of letters with his personal experiences on their questions. He's managed to solve the demihuman issues in his campaign, but not the one where people always pick the powerful classes. Just make them roll randomly. That reduces the odds they get to pick those classes considerably, and really pleased if they do.