Let's read the entire run

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 235: November 1996


part 6/8


Forum: Rick Bruner flaunts his noncanonicality, and invites the jackbooted TSR enforcement that may come. We will face it with pride, and fight them using optional rules. They'll never take us alive with these bleeding out rules!

Rasmus Juul Wagner suggests another thing the next edition will take up. Get rid of exceptional strength. It'll make things so much easier. Athas already shows us how. Follow eeeet. Follow eeeeeeeeet!

Keith Houin goes back to another hot topic, that of transferring PC's from one campaign to another. Surely you can come up with some IC reasons why they lose powers or items, rather than just fiat retcon, and only change the bits that'll actually be a problem. The personalised approach is usually best.


The ecology of the troglodyte: Another inventive ecology here. Last time, we had a rather neat tale of uncontrolled body invasion. Here, we have another riff on that theme, that of a wizard who in the course of his researches, gets stuck in the body of the creature he was investigating. Still, he gets to find out a good deal about them, and why they are such backwards, smelly, unsophisticated seeming creatures. Having senses that are too acute can actually be a pain in the butt, as it prevents you from using certain kinds of technology. In the footnotes, we also get the spell used to do so, which is rather powerful for it's level, but also exceedingly risky to use. Ahh, the fun of experimental technology. It also puts quite a few more interesting new spins on the creatures, making them seem increasingly plausible and usable as a culture. While not quite as good in sheer impact as the roper one, the footnotes are considerably better, and the whole thing is much cleverer in both design and pacing. Seems like we really are in a golden age for ecologies, even as everything else goes wrong. Guess stress can do that for you.


Arcane Lore: A third set of spells this month? Another good example of how they're falling back on the regular columns a lot more these days. This also feels heavily reminiscent of the recent set of Dragon-only spells. Spells for the various reptilian humanoids, dependent on their physiological quirks to work? That'll be mildly irritating to players when they loot their enemies. I'll bet they're just exaggerations of things actual reptiles do in real life as well.

Barble lets you grow extra long vicious spines for offence and defence. I'm sure we already have a version of that usable by everyone, probably in one of the forgotten realms books. Yawn.

Serpent Tail turns your tail into a snake capable of independent attacks, chimera stylee. It'd be more fun if you could do it to your enemies, but I'm sure I can figure that one out on my own.

Camouflage is another one I'm sure there are generic variants of. Chameleon skin is just too obvious a power to miss for rangers and druids.

Scale Blade turns a reptile scale into a weapon with special powers based on the creature it came from. You should be able to get a few hundred components from a good dragon to power this for a while.

Skin of the Salamander makes your skin burst into fire with painful results for your enemies. We've already had two variants of that in the magazine. This is just too ing tedious.

Moltings lets you turn your shed skin into a mini-me. You can then use it as a slave, or engage in self-cannibalism to restore your HP. Finally, something a bit interesting. The rest of this is still rubbish though.

 

[(un)reason]

*looks at all the typos and the comment about Skip getting drunk*

Were you getting a wee bit drunk yourself when you posted this?

Nah. Just a bit of method writing, trying to replicate the mood in the office. I did the last 24 Sage Advices of the TSR years in a single day, so I was pretty tired at this point, and deliberately rolled with all the typos to go with the mood.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 235: November 1996


part 7/8


Dungeon Mastery: Game getting boring and you feel like aborting? Get up and do something! One of the quickest ways to revive interest in players is to give them a hook. Bring out your inner LARGE HAM! and stride across the room gesticulating and getting in the player's faces. They won't dare to take their eyes off you. Even if they laugh, that's a lot better than going to sleep. And if you do it right, they'll start joining in, and the game becomes a lot more fun for everyone. While slightly exaggerated for comedic effect, this is a good reminder that roleplaying is descended from acting as well as wargaming, and there is a lot of fun to be had in adding a little more physicality to help out everyone else's imagination. Just remember your boundaries folks, especially in mixed company. One over the top gesture without paying attention and someone else can be sporting a nasty black eye.


The Knights of the dinner table clean up the town at the expense of the plot. Is swordplay going to get anything done? Maybe. Dragonmirth has a surplus of horned helmets. Get them while they're cheap. Floyd's world is getting ever more messed up. Some extradimensional creatures really need a primer in proper shapeshifting etiquette.


Role-playing Reviews: Woohoo! The CCG craze seems to be settling down to a stable level, instead of growing insanely and eating up everyone else's floorspace like it has the last two years. Which means Rick can get back to actually reviewing roleplaying games like the sign on the door says he should. This is another case where he's a month late as well, as it's time for another horror themed review. Well, conventions do keep one busy, and it's not as if he could write the reviews on a laptop between events like I can now. It is nice living in the future sometimes.

The golden dawn is a sourcebook for Call of Cthulhu. As it covers an occult secret society, there's a lot more magic accessible to the PC's than in a normal game. But of course, it's still not without it's dangers, and there's plenty of adventures included for you to lose your characters in. It's good to see the game still stretching itself after more than a decade.

The london Guidebook, on the other hand, is a bit boring, with way too much info you could find in any mundane guidebook, and not enough mythos coolness. Not much point getting an RPG book if it doesn't have RPG specific material.

In the shadows is a pretty decent trio of adventures. Rick's main complaint here is that it seems very dated compared to other companies in terms of layout and graphic design. Chaosium, like palladium, aren't really moving with the times and will eventually be left behind at this rate.

The Mythos card game gets a fairly positive review, boosted a little more because the booster packs do really add to the game. It's fun and easy to learn, as a CCG should be, and the booster packs add plenty of scope to it. Just don't expect to feel genuinely scared like you can in the RPG.

Chronicle of the black labyrinth is for Werewolf: the Apocalypse. It takes you into the history of the Wyrm's nastiest servants, the black spiral dancers, through purely IC fiction both grim and at times hilarious. (Sherlock Holmes parody FTW!) Rick finds it wilfully eccentric and at times incomprehensible, which is quite reasonable since it's being done by an unreliable narrator of dubious sanity. This is one you really need to be heavily versed in the game already to fully appreciate. Ahh, old school white wolf. Always a joy to go back too.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 235: November 1996


part 8/8


TSR Previews: A fairly empty month next month, so they move to covering two months in advance. You shall have to wait until next issue to see that though. In addition, all of the products are novels. Not a single gaming book. How very strange and disconcerting. That may get a few complaints.

Birthright gets The Falcon and the Wolf by Rich Baker. Another young ruler has to deal with usurpers and rivals. You gotta make sure people respect and fear you.

Dragonlance goes back in time and shows us Lord Soth's history. Edo van Belkom, whoever he is, fills stuff in. Will it be consistent with his brooding on his past in the Ravenloft novels?

The Forgotten realms gets Council of Blades by Paul Kidd. The description is so short I have nothing to work from. Blah.

Blood Wars also finishes it's novel trilogy. The protagonists have had children, and they're also intimately connected with the ugliness of the war. Can they do anything to make a difference?


The current clack: This month sees Allen talk about two big things that would turn out to be vaporware. White Wolf's original attempt to go sci-fi, Exile; and Runequest's 4th edition. Mark Rein·Hagen's attempt to make an open source polymedia property was a cool idea, but stalled and messed up in such a way that he sold all his stock in WW and got out of the gaming industry completely. Must have been some serious drama going on behind the scenes for that, given how profitable WW was at the time. Or maybe he was just sick of all the fanboys. Meanwhile, Runequest:Slayers was cancelled when Hasbro bought out Avalon Hill. Still, at least they didn't hold onto the IP forever and not let anyone else publish Runequest stuff. And in the meantime we got the rather interesting rules experiments of Hero Wars/Quest, and the psychics, superheroes and pulp adventurers of the Aeon Trinity games. Neither can really be described as terrible, so it wasn't a total waste. Really, this is just a good example of how life rarely goes exactly as planned. The best thing you can do is be adaptable and keep your eyes open for opportunities, especially when times get tough.


With only 2 articles that aren't regular columns, and quite a lot of rehash, this issue is waaaaaaaay too formulaic for my tastes. If the last couple of issues managed to strike a nice balance of edge and crunch, this overshoots too far into providing crunch, with not enough context. It's exceedingly tedious and grindy to get through, and finishing it is a huge relief. Let's hope they don't make the same mistake next time.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 236: December 1996


part 1/8


124 pages. Christmas time, a time for giving. Or is it a time for counting your blessings? Appropriately enough though, it's time for another cleric special in here. Ho ho ho. Give us your faith and be thankful we don't smite you, puny mortals. So yeah, it's a topic we've seen before and it's way too easy to be cynical about. I'm yet again left wondering if they have anything new to say. Let's roll the dice and hope we get lucky.


In this issue:


The wyrm's turn: Naming the editorial The Dying Game? SYMBOLISM!!!! OMGWTFBBQGENIUS!!!!! If the birthday issue was them begging for help to turn things around, this is them practically throwing their hands up and admitting they're now in deep and know it. Actually, the editorial isn't actually about that, but another story of how the editor's early characters got sent through a meatgrinder and died in quick succession. Which is not only less entertaining than Roger's old editorials on the same subject, but also most of the First Quest series as well. Dave Gross continues to bore me with his writing style. Screw this. Onto the letters.


D-Mail: One of those letters that comments on nearly everything in the issue 2 months ago. Guess that's still their lead-in time. Oh, and do more greyhawk articles. Yeah yeah, we know it still has a strong fanbase by now. Where were you in 1993?

A letter from someone who wants to write books. Oh man, they just can't get away from their legal issues and responsibilities in this area. They once again have to figure out how to let someone down gently. You'd think they'd have a stock response prepared by now.

A letter from an army guy who finds Dragon is one thing that lightens up his otherwise rather cut-off existence. Haven't had so much of this since Roger left.

A letter from someone who really likes the SAGA system, and would like to see all their other worlds converted to it. I don't think so, somehow. Nice try.

Some praise for the creepy lich-focused magical items. Ahahahaha!!!!! A pleasure doing business with you. :steeples fingers:

A letter complaining Al Qadim is gone, and it looks like Mystara has fallen to the same fate. Campaign worlds are going at quite a rate, and it does not make people happy. Only the magazine keeps them alive! It is sad, isn't it. But they can't argue with sales figures. You wouldn't want them to go out of business, would you?


Heroes of faith: For a second issue in a row, we start off the articles with more Skills & Powers expansion. Fortunately this is a good deal shorter than last month, with a mere 2 pages of new options for speciality priests to buy with their character points. Quite a few of them are from other classes, given the usual excuse that they might be worshiping gods of magic, or thievery or whatever. And of course you can now get mechanical renumeration for the strictness of your god's tenets, which in theory will make characters more balanced, but in practice results in people picking restrictions that they would have done anyway, and twinking out like a mutha. So this might improve the game, but only under plenty of DM oversight. I'm once again left a bit grumpy by this.

 

[Orius]

Heroes of faith: For a second issue in a row, we start off the articles with more Skills & Powers expansion. Fortunately this is a good deal shorter than last month, with a mere 2 pages of new options for speciality priests to buy with their character points. Quite a few of them are from other classes, given the usual excuse that they might be worshiping gods of magic, or thievery or whatever. And of course you can now get mechanical renumeration for the strictness of your god's tenets, which in theory will make characters more balanced, but in practice results in people picking restrictions that they would have done anyway, and twinking out like a mutha. So this might improve the game, but only under plenty of DM oversight. I'm once again left a bit grumpy by this.

Well, in retrospect around this time I was tinkering around a lot with S&P and PO not realizing just how unbalanced the stuff could be if one got careless. So I found some of these magazine articles to be useful as it gave me more material to work with. I don't know if I'd feel quite the same way today, but Dragon seems like a good place to put these ideas since I'm not quite sure new PO based splats would have sold well. I mean there wasn't really a lot of support for the stuff except for Gates of Firestorm Peak. Since we're practically on top of TSR's crash here, I think probably WotC didn't bother to give much support to the line after they bought the game. Possibly they looked at sales figures or consumer surveys and saw the stuff wasn't popular or something, I don't know. Or maybe it was just the fact that TSR didn't really make much use of some of the optional crunch that was accumulating and just left it all in the laps of DMs.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 236: December 1996


part 2/8


The seldarine revisited: And here we go with some very intentional rehash, albeit the kind that actually builds upon and improves previous articles. In issue 155, they added a whole bunch of new elven gods in an article. However, I wasn't very impressed, in large part because they didn't include speciality priest details for them, despite being well into 2e by then. Well, this fixes that problem, along with adding a couple of new deities on top of that. The specific names still feel a bit like a random syllable generator was let loose on the elvish language, but the writing is rather more palatable than last time, and the sphere selections and granted powers are on the upper end of things, but not utterly obscene. So this is an interesting revisting that goes quite some way to redeeming & justifying the original article, which I rather approve of. Still doesn't mean they'll get a place in official future supplements though.


Elemental summoning gone wild: Hmm. This is more like it. Adding a bit more sadism to Athas, which is already rife with it. Athasian cleric's elemental summoning abilities are ok, but not great compared to the granted powers some speciality priests get. This adds a bit of wild mage style fun to this, by adding the potential for all sorts of variations, from being eaten by a grue, getting a bonus spell effect, or para-elementals hacking your signal. Most of them are bad, but you might luck out and get healed or temporarily transformed into an elemental avatar ready to spectacularly kick the butt of whatever's troubling you. In short, this is one of those articles that makes your times more interesting, and keeps players from getting complacent in their playing. After all, things might go smoothly 95% of the time, but that 5% is more than enough that they won't take them for granted. Muahahahaha, and all that.


Mystic, Miracles & Meditations: Featuring one of the hardest to make out headers they've done recently. Once again it looks like their graphic designer was too busy mucking around with the computer filters and forgot about practicalities. Anyway, this is a couple of new kits for Masque of the Red Death, and associated extra proficiencies. The kind of crunch there's always room for, even if we struggle to find the time to use it all.

Exorcists are in the business of getting rid of evil spirits, which is obviously a major growth industry on gothic earth. This means they get reduced odds of punishment for using necromantic spells in the line of duty, but if they abuse their powers, hoo boy. Sounds like a path of what I was going to do anyway thing, but hey, it's less of an issue than paladins.

Enthusiasts are more capable of moral ambiguity, being the kind of preacher that goes around getting a congregation by being loud & doing miracles. Hallelujah!!!!! They aren't that well educated in proper magical theory though, and often wind up being the target of scientific debunkers. That seems like a setup that leads to lots of interesting adventures.

While the kits are ok, the new proficiencies are horrible. Meditation abilities that you use to grant bonuses to your ability scores? Representation of your degree of contact with the church hierarchy. Supernatural presence that only affects monsters, and makes them more positively inclined towards you, and appears more an innate gift than a learned skill. This is not only unbalancing, but a fundamental misapprehension of what nonweapon proficiencies are supposed to represent about your character. I object quite strongly and am baffled how that got past editing. Do they not examine mechanics and how they fit with the existing game at all? WTF man? This becomes extra baffling when you consider it's by James Wyatt, who is going to be pretty significant next edition. Father, I am disappoint.

 

[David Howery]

The Forgotten realms gets Council of Blades by Paul Kidd. The description is so short I have nothing to work from. Blah.
If you were thinking about perusing the used book stores and finding this, don't bother. From what I remember, the book turns a part of the Realms into a counterpart of the Condottieri era of Italy, with a bunch of warring clans who are too scared to really risk losing their soldiers in combat. Not a bad concept, but not that well done....

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 236: December 1996


part 3/8


The ruin of adlersberg: Looks like we're getting a lot of setting specific articles this month. Now it's birthright's turn again, with this rather nice little adventure location. With plenty of setting specific details tied into the larger history of the place, and stat conversions so the things mentioned interface with the domain systems, the location doesn't feel spurious at all. And there are some rather clever bits. Undead that only arise on specific days of the year, so there's a good reason for the challenge to vary substantially between parties and the place to be near impossible to completely clear out. Bickering humanoids that add a secondary threat before you even get to the main location. And an additional threat that the Gorgon might decide to come back, push on through to attack the lands beyond. This scales in and out very well indeed, and also has quite a nice writing style that packs in plenty of information. And it doesn't seem like it would be too hard to adapt to another setting either. I think this definitely counts as a success on most levels.


Arcane Lore: Still doubly in theme here, with a whole load of spells specifically for demihuman priests. Some are even exclusive to individual gods, just to give them a little more niche protection. Guess they get a little more spotlight from the magazine that birthed them. I quite approve, as long as they don't fall too deep into comedic racial stereotyping.

Weapon of the Earth lets you turn a bit of rock into your god's favoured weapon. And somehow I doubt you'll be short of those when you're a dwarf underground. Choose the material components to your spells wisely, for it makes a big difference.

Mark of Brotherhood let you give someone a secret sigil to show they're part of your gang. Betrayers will be automatically expelled and made very obvious. Then you can join Caine and wander the earth angsting.

Abbathor's Greed lets you figure out how valuable an item is. Course, given the nature of this particular god, he might decide to step in and take your hard-won valuables for himself. And when you're his priest there's not a lot you can say to that apart from pass the lube. Life's a bitch when you serve an evil god.

Crypt Ward is the source of a lot of those dwarven zombies defending their tomb. Course, they don't call them zombies, but you say construct, I say potato. The difference is immaterial to everyone except the clerics that try turning them.

Berronar's Favor lets a dwarven community in dire straits get a handout from said god. PC's on the other hand can forget about it. No free money for you. Don't know why they bother listing this stuff.

Animal Animosity moves us onto elven specialities. And if there's one thing they enjoy doing, it's being more connected to nature than you. This is no exception. Get ready to deal with lots of cranky animals.

Faith Arrow essentially gives elven clerics their own automatically hitting Magic Missile variant. Wearing full armor while casting spells, and now their clerics stepping on their wizards. They just keep breaking the normal niche protections, don't they.

Probe Enemies invites slashfic cracks like there's no tomorrow. Tee hee. Still, spotting which enemy is the most badass is a useful skill for the arrogant fighter. Death or glory!

Assume Gaseous Form is one that really ought to be in the corebook, given the frequency which the corresponding potion shows up. At least this version lets you take your clothes with you. A little dignity is a precious thing.

Faerie Flames looks like faerie fire, but actually burns you, and is about as hard to put out as phosphorus or sodium fires. Very nasty, especially if you've encountered the regular variety plenty of times before.

Garments of Elvenkind let you create a temporary set of boots and cloak for if one of your buds needs to get stealthy. Well, despite how it seems to adventurers, not every elf can afford multiple magical items as a matter of course.

Sejogan's Armor moves us onto the gnomes. It lets you make a suit of armour out of plants and iron filings. That'll be a bit trickier to assemble in a hurry when trouble knocks on your door.

Burrow gives you a dig speed, completely unsurprisingly. Badger badger badger badger mushroom mushroom. Yawn.

Analyze Contraption, also unsurprisingly, draws upon the tinker side of the gnome heritage. Find out exactly what the complicated and stupid devices other people have made do, if they're worthy of love, fame, or just a quick merciful smashing.

Shades of Rhontang makes your hammer flaming, just like your god's. Don't let it criticise your choice in footwear.

Mantle of Baravar helps you see through illusions. A deceiver should not be fooled by the lies of others. Perfectly standard stuff, really.

Reed Staff turns a blade of grass into a quarterstaff. A nice bit of sympathetic magic I could see coming from actual mythology. Yoink.

Weapon Shift is rather more boring, due to it's strong limitations on what weapon can be turned into what. A little more fantasticality would be nice.

Stealth of Brandobaris lets your priest steal the thief's role for a while. If they're not multiclassed already, as clerics of this god often are. All you really need in your group are speciality priests and multiclassed bards

Call Hounds is of course for Urogalan's priests. Two big sinister black doggies at your beck and call. Not to be used for playing fetch on a sunny day.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 236: December 1996


part 4/8


Tracking the faith: Ha. A system for mechanically quantifying just how pious you are, and offering mechanical benefits for those with sufficiently high faith scores. Thought I'd see something like this at some point. And amusingly, it's the kind that if you get too high in, your character ascends from this mortal plane, thus "winning" the game and taking them out of play. Not that it'll be particularly easy to get to that point, since you need 256 and can only get 4 per session at most. (not counting martyrdom, which nets you a good 10 ) But still, rewards that really aren't can be an awkward business. And on top of that, it's just as easy to lose them as it is to gain them, which means religious prohibitions will really have some teeth compared to normal games. Overall, I think this is interesting, but will increase the amount of paperwork you have to do tracking gains and losses, so it's only going to justify itself in a game where faith is important. Let's just say religion is a sometimes topic, and leave it at that.


Network news: This column is once again all about selling the RPGA. But wheras last time it was trying to persuade you to join by pointing out all the cool stuff, this time it's doing so by reminding us how much it sucks to be an insular group, never knowing just how common geeks are in the rest of the world, or how to replace members when they leave. Essentially applying the stick after last month's carrot, which I do find rather interesting from a marketing point of view. Still, there is a lot to be said for being able to advertise for new players, especially if you want to play a less common game of some kind. And while Dragon long since stopped doing stuff like this, facilitating actual play is pretty much the job of the RPGA, so they're not about to outgrow that anytime soon. So this does seem like negative advertising, but that makes it all the more interesting to read from a bitchy point of view. Yes, many geeks do have social issues, but will reminding us of that like this persuade many people to avail themselves of your services? Very worth thinking about.


Wyrms of the north: Well, we finally have a non-chromatic dragon in Ed's wanderings. And hey ho, it's a silver dragon which spends quite a bit of time in human form. Aka a great big paternity lawsuit waiting to happen. Not that it's specifically mentioned, and indeed, he has a proper partner, which a little skimming ahead shows is a gold dragon, so it's still interracial sex FTW. Guess Ed is still managing to slip some rather naughty stuff under the radar. Indeed, given all the shapeshifting and identity swapping action that's taking place officially, I would be very surprised if there wasn't some kinky partner swapping taking place at some point. This one is also unusually well connected with a whole bunch of important NPC's of the realms, regularly interacting with and assisting Alustriel in particular. And the tricks they get up too are a perfect example of Ed's mastery of high level tactics. So this one really reminds me how pervy you can get with high level D&D spells & shapeshifting monsters. For that, I have to give it credit.