Let's read the entire run

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 223: November 1995


part 4/8


Bazaar of the Bizarre: We riff off both Ed Greenwood and Tolkien here this month, with 9 more magic rings. We also see them reset the artwork to old skool style, which looks curiously clunky and blurry, as if it's been photocopied too many times and scaled up and down in a computer without proper antialiasing. More evidence that their budget is going doooooooooown. Still, they haven't come up with many hugely inspired items in the past few years. Maybe the ideas will be inversely proportional to the presentation.

Rings of Assimilation let you fit other items into your ring slot. This seems like a waste in the case of ioun stones, but it might be handy for pearls, scarabs, and the like. Metamagic effects continue to develop in interesting ways.

A Ring of Autonomy makes you immune to minding. Just what every adventurer wants for christmas. Few things are more valuable than assured free will.

A Ring of Cages lets you escape from said implements. It's very hard to detect too. Another failsafe that's almost too valuable really. Who could possibly say no?

Rings of Life shield you from energy draining. Looks like antiscrewage really is the name of the game this month. I quite approve.

Rings of Might give you power over all 4 elements. All purpose badassery makes you able to do without wizards little better. Hey ho.

A Ring of Obstruction prevents you from casting spells. Like a ring of weakness, this will completely screw you over until you can get a remove curse. Doncha just love it when that happens.

A Ring of Shields lets you make a magical force shield. This isn't too impressive normally, but will really save your hide if something tries to disintegrate you. Pray you or the DM remember this.

A Ring of Swords makes a magical blade of various types. All are rather scarier than a standard blade, but it only has limited charges. Still, your own lightsaber is another one that seems very tempting to certain players. Are you ready to be generous?

A Ring of Timelessness makes you immortal. It does not protect you from the mental pressures of said state, however. But what's a little insanity among friends anyway? All your buds'll be shades or liches or something, and I'm sure they'll be forgiving of your idiosyncrasies.


Role-playing reviews:Bug city is the kind of adventure that completely changes a big part of a setting, turning chicago into a sealed off zone infested with giant insects, and trapping the players inside to survive however they can. This may involve resorting to eating the bugs, or cannibalism. Rick finds the whole scenario more funny than he expected, because it is just so over the top. Something of this scope could do with being even bigger though. We're not all entomologists, and could do with some more ideas on how the lifecycles of giant bugs differ from real ones. Still, it's entertaining as both an adventure and political commentary, and adaptable to other cities and systems as well. It's certainly different, and a lot more ambitious than another dungeon crawl. Will you derail your game with this unnatural disaster?

Mystic China gives the palladium system it's oriental fix courtesy of Erick Wujik. The whole thing is fast-paced and easily explained, packing a ridiculous amount of info in and keeping the writing exciting at the same time. Rick gives it 6 pips, finding it lives up to the standard of Oriental Adventures quite adequately. Well, with source material this fun and diverse, it's not hard to fill out a book with ideas.

Pacific rim is for Cyberpunk 2020. This doesn't get such a good review, the sheer size of the area means things are again sketchy at times. You'd best invest in some good real geography books if it looks like your characters are going to spend much time there.

Tabloid! was released a good year ago now. Not sure why Rick is reviewing it here, but it is an entertaining idea. Still, since he freely admits that the system is exceedingly light, it's very much up to the DM and players, and their grasp of comedy to make it fun. All it'll do is get out of the way. You could play this premise under any system.

More interesting are some of the supplementary reviews. The Marco Volo series gets bizarrely high praise. Well, I guess they read better than they play. Meanwhile Dirty secrets of the Black Hand gets described as humourless. Uh yeah. Shapeshifting alien-infected plants. A vampire werewolf who has to be constantly kept from suicide. A power that makes you act like a skipping record. A whole family of ghouls raised explicitly for the purpose of child snatching. Can you not see the funny side of that? I suppose by contrast with the Volo impersonator the humour here has quite a bit more subtlety. But really, the vampire designers were having fun making this stuff too - I've seen their foreword dedications.

 

[jonesy]

The Marco Volo series gets bizarrely high praise. Well, I guess they read better than they play.

That was my experience, oh yes.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 223: November 1995


part 5/8


Winter Fantasy 96 gets a brief promotional article over recycled artwork. Meh, my dear, meh. Exactly the kind of thing you've been told to cut out.


The role of books: Season of shadows by Ellen Foxxe appears to be written under a pseudonym, with an unknown amount of the worldbuilding and plot done by the publisher. This results in John being curious who's behind it, and how much of it is actually a collaborative work. That is an interesting question. As I've said before, even when one person appears to be sole author, they do often benefit from a friend or SO providing an ear and holding up a mirror to their work. It's like an editor without the extra cost. Anyway, the review is positive overall.

Chicks in chainmail, edited by Esther Friesner is obviously on the lighterhearted side of fantasy female asskicking. There is of course good stories and bad ones, and a bit of cyberpunk in amongst the typical fantasy. And it is very obviously aimed at a female audience. But it is generally pretty entertaining, and any preachiness is generally outweighed by the fun. Since she's had stuff published in here, I can guess pretty well what this'll be like.

Time scout by Robert Asprin and Linda Evans is of course a story of time travel with fairly complicated rules that are crucial to the unfolding of the plot. Sounds fairly familiar. Still, as he says, the implementation is the important thing, and this fast-paced action filled one is pretty good. Looks like it's going to be all positive reviews this time around.

Fires of eden by Dan Simmons is essentially a bottleneck murder mystery, only set in Hawaii, with a cast of unpleasant gods endangering everyone. This means the structure may be traditional, but the trappings and twists certainly aren't your standard english country house cluedo cliches. Plus it's tightly plotted and well paced. No objections here then.

Point of hopes by Melissa Scott & Lisa A Barnett is another novel that gets plenty of praise for being well-crafted, well plotted, and understated in style, so you can uncover more with multiple readings. One of those cases where I'm sure John has said exactly the same in a previous review. Either he's been doing these too long, or I've been reading them regularly for too long.


The ecology of the chitine: Hmm. This ecology is delivered by a drow, upon one of their many enemies. Very interesting. In this case, it's a self-made problem, as the chitine were created by them, and then thrown out when they failed to live up to expectations. Lolth, on the other hand, still thinks they've got potential. But then, she's the kind of deity who really gets off on the idea of her worshippers fighting over who loves her more, while being randomly cruel to all sides to "make them stronger." A pretty short ecology, this is very much business as usual. Description, footnotes, a bit of new crunch. They may be planning to shake up the magazine, but it doesn't look like much needs changing here.


Eye of the monitor comes to an end with a rather embarrassing little piece about zeb's upgrade woes. Sure, it's vaguely reassuring seeing our familiar long-term writers suffering from the same problems as us, but it really doesn't make them seem like professional computer operators. Plus Windows '95? I'm not sure if I'm nostalgic for that or not. On balance I'm gonna have to go with not. I certainly remember our computers crashing a hell of a lot more in those days than they do now. So this is yet another case where they go out poorly, and with little warning, as if they know there's going to be some changes around here, but are expecting, or at least hoping to have a place in the new order, and trying to present a positive face accordingly. Life can be cruel.

Our only actual review here is of the Discworld computer game. This gets a decidedly mixed result. The writing is funny, the art is great, but the coding really is not up to scratch, and it gets very repetitive by the end. This is one game that seriously needs a good patching. A very definite shame, really.

 

[prosfilaes]

The Marco Volo series gets bizarrely high praise. Well, I guess they read better than they play.

It may just be Rick Swan. Back in 197 he reviewed GURPS Space Adventures, and gave two thumbs up to the Health Police adventure. There is a point in that adventure where you get off the railroad, but I can't imagine any self-respecting player making it there, unless his DM didn't mind him sleeping to that point.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 223: November 1995


part 6/8


Forum belatedly gets the triangle, although it's in black and white. Unusually after skipping an issue, this is rather a short one too.

Adam Volk reminds all the rules pedants that are clogging up games that the rules shouldn't be set in stone, and the game runs faster if you cut away many of the options. Plus you should stick with one campaign for a while instead of jumping from one world and set of characters to another like a kid with ADD.

James Fahy also thinks that you need to get a little consistency in your game, and better communication if you want it to last. You can't throw the kitchen sink in the stew, as it's pretty indigestible, and what's going to store the water once you've done that.

W. Jason Peck wants to nerf level draining, and make temporary ability damage more common. Yeah, that's another prophetic one to chalk up. Ability damage is a good way to make the players really hurt without putting them out straight away.

Michael C. DeRosenroll defends TSR's modules and points out that the dungeon crawls are also frequently guilty of being over linear. That's pretty crap too you know, and I shouldn't tolerate it either.

Karrie Huff is another person who is being affected by sexism problems. Mind you, complaining that there aren't enough female classes and kits is a bit erroneous. I can think of far more kits that are female only than male only, and classes are all unisex. That bit shouldn't be a problem.


Sage advice: You've changed the ranges for infravision again. What are the right ones? (Whatever we say in the latest book. Buy it and implement it, or you'll no longer be playing an Official AD&Dtm Game)

Do drow really get to keep their Special powerz under Players option rules ( Sure. Retconning down the road, system blasting. We don't care how many players we drive off! Booyeah! )

You've messed up the paladin spell progression ( Skip will try and fix it. Unfortunately, Skip has been slacking on Skip's formatting training lately, and Skip will screw it as well, only in a different way)

Shouldn't table 46 have another entry (yup. )

Have crossbows been buffed (Yup. Len aint working here anymore. No-one's trying to keep them down. )

How do you determine a monsters mental AC ( Assume wis is equal to int unless stated otherwise. This may result in some stupid results, but works better than nothing.)

What happens to characters with multiple specialisations from the old rules (They lose them. Retcon, retcon, merrily down the stream. We don't care if we're pissing on your dreams.)

How do you decide if a grenade hits (by rolling to hit, just like any other weapon. Scatter only maters if you miss)

What are the costs for fighting proficiencies (Don't worry, Skip's got it. And Skip's not going to mess it up this time. )

Which class of a dual or multiclassed character gets the benefit of a green ioun stone. ( The current or highest one)

What spells are elves resistant too (Recycled question. Charm ones, like Skip said before)

Does exceptional strength boost ability checks (only as a tiebreaker)

Can a cloud of purification kill a tinified character (First, tinified isn't a word. For that rank stupidity, Skip will deny your request. Get outta mah office.)

How often can priests change their spells (each time they memorize them)

What happens if you try and teleport while carrying too much (Nothing. Better shed a little, tubby)

Isn't polymorph other too powerful (Probably. But it is also very thematic. We will have many debates on this before deciding to nerf it.)

How many creatures are affected by hold person (Not enough. You'll always wish you could get a few more. )

 

[Orius]

Michael C. DeRosenroll defends TSR's modules and points out that the dungeon crawls are also frequently guilty of being over linear. That's pretty crap too you know, and I shouldn't tolerate it either.

Amusingly enough, he also pans the Marco Volo modules Rick Swan was raving over earlier in the issue.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 223: November 1995


part 7/8


Here we see this years statement of ownership. And in the past year, it seems they've shed another eight and a half thousand readers, with an average of 71, but a last month total of 68. They haven't sold this little since 1981. The number of free copies given out also continues to increase, although they obfuscate that by splitting it between free posted stuff, and stuff given away to in house staff, at cons, etc. Ahh, nepotism, freebies and bonuses. Another thing that seems harmless, but can bleed a company dry if not kept in check.


The right monster for the right adventure: Call of Cthulhu coverage comes to an end with a rather long article on choosing what adversaries to throw at your players. There are now a lot of mythos beasties out there, and they have very different abilities and habitats. You need to keep track of that is you want to maintain a sense of reality. So this is mainly adventure hooks, with a little bit of ecologising thrown in. I'm not sure if it's aimed at experienced GM's who are dry on ideas for a session, or newbies who maybe haven't read the original book too extensively, (which isn't hard given that it's now an open universe with all manner of different authors adding to it without any kind of central clearing house. ) but it does seem useful, and packs a lot of information into it's page count. It has a surprisingly large number of decent illustrations as well. It all makes for a classy and elegiac goodbye for coverage of third party games. So long, eldritch mind-shattering horrors. We no longer practice affirmative action employment for your sorts. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.


Floyd is indeed in over his head, and narrowly escapes becoming dinner. This wizard gig isn't all it's cracked up to be.


Fiction: Winter's Knight by Mark Anthony. Dragonslaying time again. It seems almost an anachronism these days, with the things given so much weight, but rarely encountered in actual games. And interestingly this story takes advantage of that tendency, presenting dragons and the knights that hunt them as in decline, and the kingdom suffering from this fact. The twist here is that the dragons, as forces of tremendous vitality, bring renewal to the land when their blood spills upon it. Which leaves the story open for a happy ending of the kind you don't get to see in reality, without it feeling unduly given or a deus ex machina. Since we've been having quite a bit of darkness lately, that is a fairly welcome contrast. Plus it feels thematically appropriate given the recent release of Birthright. The fiction is maintaining it's usual high standards quite comfortably despite the troubles around them, just like the ecologies.


Libram X reaches a climax. Possibly. It's certainly progressed a lot faster than most of these comics. Dragonmirth features PETA girl. No, seriously. And no, she isn't hot either, before you ask. Swordplay features things from the point of view of the monsters. Only don't call them that. Persey has to get the hang of being human in Yamara.


An interview with the Dragonlance team: Dragonlance has had rather a lot of embarrassing episodes in it's history when you sit down and look at it. Some of them were intentional, while others really weren't. But they don't shy from either in this interview, acknowledging both that new books may piss off longterm readers, and that the writers have made terrible mistakes that ought to have been spotted in editing, as well as revealing how banal and whimsical many of the inspirations for characters and events were. I'm not sure if they're trying to sell us on or off the setting, given how mixed the messages being sent are. In any case, they're being honest, which does count for quite a bit. I guess it's like a family. Everyone knows that jimmy's had a drug problem for years, and mum's having an affair with the gardener, but they still stick together and stay civil because they still love each other and the alternative is worse. And the soap opera provides interesting gossip for the whole neighbourhood. Which means this is an advert for their big things to come, that also shows us just how goofy and flawed Krynn is. Yet it still holds together somehow and has millions of fans. They must be doing more right than they are wrong. So this remains intriguing yet frustrating reading. I do wish I could stomach this setting.

 

[jonesy]

An interview with the Dragonlance team

Who were the people interviewed for that?

Edit: doing a little checking seems it was W&H. So, the Dragonlance team.

 

[Nagol]

Who were the people interviewed for that?

Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 223: November 1995


part 8/8


TSR Previews: December, as is often the case, is jam packed. Birthright, for a second time, gets a ing mental 4 supplements in one go, rather than spreading it out like a sensible gameline. It's like they're trying to make it tricky for people to keep up with it, unless they have tons of disposable income. Ariya and Talinie get sourcebooks, giving you prefab domains with set up plots for your players to take control of. Cities of the sun takes you off to the coast to show you how to combine domain play and naval stuff. And Warlock of the Stonecrowns is an adventure which puts you up against an Awnshegh who's draining your country's powers. Team up and kick his mutated ass.

The Forgotten Realms revisits the idea of splatbooks, in Wizards and Rogues of the Realms. Really, this is getting ridiculous. Who's going to buy this one? Well, I guess if we put some even more twinky kits and spells in there, they'll have to or fall behind their buds who did. Talking of twinks, Ed fills in some more of Elminster's history, in The Making of a Mage. What did he do to earn all those XP?

Planescape reaches some balance at last, with Planes of Conflict. Another one that occupies pride of place (and lots of tea stains, because that's the one I'd always rest my mug on while reading in bed) in my collection. I'd never sell it, but apparently this one goes for quite a lot on ebay.

Ravenloft realizes that this Gothic Earth thing is good for more supplements than a one-shot, and gives them a gazetteer with more info on victorian times, and the monsters that lurk around the world. Good to see them giving successful products a line on merit, rather than throwing tons at one for a year, and then dropping it when it disappoints, losing a load of money in the meantime.

Mystara gets it's own annoying IC narrator. Joshuan's Almanac continues their tradition of yearly updates here, only with a bit more copycatting of the forgotten realms. Bleh. What happened to niche protection?

Our generic stuff this year is moderately interesting. slade (who has now completely lost his name and capitalisation) completes the Encyclopedia Magica. Now you have the tables to randomly determine which of these hordes of items to give out. I hope you like rolling D1000's. Another big expensive boxed set that eat up months of play is The Night Below. Venture into a massive underdark realm, and try and survive without seeing the sun. I hope you brought your collapsable 10 foot poles. And finally, play yet another type of Shaman. A decidedly weird little supplement with a premise that can take over an entire campaign. I'm still not sure if I like this one or not, over a decade later. It'd probably work better as a white wolf game.


An issue that starts out pretty horribly, and then improves a bit as it goes along, but still never really catches fire, this continues to see them use up old stuff, and bring in new, cheaper looking features to replace them. They're caught between wanting to stop repeating themselves, and not having the money or submissions to do so as well as they used too. Which means they're probably not enjoying themselves in the office as much either. It's all pretty unpleasant really. Let's move on, see if they can still afford some decent presents for christmas then.