Let's read the entire run

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 236: December 1996


part 5/8


Fiction: Legendary heroes by Ben Bova. Finally, we get back to proper fiction in here. And by a proper regularly published author at that, with a story in his established universe & continuity. Actually, continuity is a very interesting issue for the Orion series, for it's brilliantly designed to produce standalone stories that can be read in any order. The immortal hunter gets incarnated into various times and places with orders to kill or protect certain people and thereby change the course of history for his godlike masters. This is complicated by the fact that he hates his master and goes against him where he can get away with it, with help from the other "gods" who are playing political games with the whole of history at stake. This premise allows things to make sense (or not) in nearly any order, (especially as Orion suffers a degree of memory loss between incarnations,) and even revisit eras, as the nature of time travel means the timeline can go into flux repeatedly and different issues need to be solved to get history on the right track each time. Plus you get to use historical figures as characters. It pretty much rivals Riverworld as an incredibly flexible tool for the author to draw upon various material and feed it through the lens of his imagination to make new stories.

But that's enough exposition. This time, it's the legend of Beowulf we're revisiting. Now handling stuff like this can be tricky, because there's the danger of having your own hero upstage the original protagonist, revealing they were actually a fool, oaf or lucky braggart. Fortunately, this is not the case here, and Ben manages to strike the right balance between making beowulf competent and badass, but also flawed, and Orion useful, but not show-stealing. He then sets things up for further stories weaving other legends together with amazing smoothness. In short, after the annoying nature of the 5th age material, this makes me go YEAH!!!!! AWESOME!!!!! vmv Let's hope we'll be seeing more of you in the magazine.


Oh look, it's survey time again. This time with the potential reward of a poster if you fill it in. We didn't need that the previous times, so I'm not sure why they need it now. Once again with the little signs of desperation.


The role of books: Mosaic by Jeri Taylor is a star trek novel about the early life of Janeway, from the person who created her. It gets rather a critical reception, as from the way she is described here, she is not a good candidate to be put in charge of a starship, and would completely mess it up. One of those things that proves many of the flaws in Voyager stemmed right from the original writers, rather than just poor execution of those concepts.

The glass cat of oz by David Hulan continues this sprawling series well after the original author's death. And it manages to draw upon and stay consistent with both the established setting details and characterisation of minor characters while continuing to introduce new ones and build upon Oz lore. This is another one that a bibliophile could spend years researching the expanded universe of.

Kingmakers sword by Ann Marston starts another trilogy. Fortunately, it's the kind that's mostly self-contained, and has well constructed worldbuilding. This seems like another of his generic mostly positive reviews that appears every few columns.

City of diamond by Jane Emerson seems to be a soap opera - IIIIINNNNNN SPAAAAAACE!!!! (that never gets old, does it. ) The number of subplots may sprawl out, but the pace keeps up, and the various viewpoints are handled adeptly. Don't let the labels put you off.

And peace shall sleep by Sonia Orin Lyris is a Magic: the Gathering novel. It's a rather interesting one though, that doesn't fit the normal mold of gaming fiction. High tension, and full of politics, I suppose it shows what it's like when the whole setting is being used as a battleground for a game. John hopes that WotC won't stop producing books like this in the wake of the CCG craze's leveling off. Looks like it's all positive reviews this time. That's no good. After you've started alternating with ones that are more like pure promotion, you ought to put a bit more effort in to differentiate yourself.

 

[Orius]

He then sets things up for further stories weaving other legends together with amazing smoothness. In short, after the annoying nature of the 5th age material, this makes me go YEAH!!!!! AWESOME!!!!! vmv Let's hope we'll be seeing more of you in the magazine.

Oh yeah, the epilogue does set up some future stories. There'll be a series of stories in the next few years of Dragon that continues this storyline. They're good enough that I keep meaning to check out his other stroies with this character.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 236: December 1996


part 6/8


The statement of ownership is once again hidden in the middle of the magazine where it was a bugger to find. Quite deservedly as well, as they've really been in freefall this year. With an average of 61k, and a last month total of 57, they've been shedding nearly a thousand readers every month. And though it's similar number, it's a much bigger proportion than it was during the 86-7 slump. Less than half their peak, they're really in trouble now. How much further can they go before collapsing altogether?


Children of the night: Hello? It's time for another article drawing on details released in a recent supplement and taking them in another direction. A bunch of interestingly unique vampires for the Forgotten Realms setting, using the expanded rules from Ravenloft. Two popular settings, so hopefully this crossover won't be too niche for the average reader.

Morg is a vampire hill giant shaman with a rather interesting past. He's taken full advantage of his vampiric state to get revenge for his mistreatment while alive. Now he's a real scourge upon the countryside, as his greater size means a correspondingly larger appetite. His minions and lair are detailed pretty well too, given the space available. It all seems very well designed to make a good adventure for PC's.

Saestra Karanok is a vampire thief who hunts mages, and will create a witch hunt when none are available to ensure she has plenty to eat. It's the kind of racket that'll unravel sooner or later, especially with the whole not ageing thing. Vamps gotta learn to think long term if they want to survive. In the meantime, this should make for some quite interesting political/sleuthing adventures.

Saed, Beast Chieftain of Veldorn, has managed to survive a few centuries, on the other hand, and made a pretty decent unlife for himself as the ruler of the kingdom of monsters. Not that he's particularly happy in his current position, for he is the kind of vampire who is consumed with angst about what he has become. Once again, he has a really cool set-up, with minions, treasure, and interesting personal abilities. So that makes this article both interesting, entertaining and useful on all counts. That pleases me quite a lot.


Starshield sentinels. Looks like Margaret and Tracey have another trilogy out.


Forum: Amy & Ryan Biggs become our 4th internet contributors. The snowball is gathering pace. They remind us that medieval books did indeed have ridiculously thick pages in comparison to modern stuff. You take for granted just how good you have it, how much technology has advanced.

Devin Ross says much the same thing. Go to an old library, and you can look at the things, get physical proof if you ask nicely. Do not nick the books and use the pages as toilet paper.

Wayne Rossi reminds us that wizards do have their drawbacks. Yes, but they're one of the classes most able to compensate for them, especially if they get into spell research. You have to watch out for that.

Larry D. Hols discusses the level limits thing with a fairly balanced contribution. You need to give humans some advantage to compensate if you remove demihuman level limits. Hey, is that history calling I once again hear?

Chris Leon reminds you that if you remove magic for the players, you also have to make sure you aren't attacking them with any monsters or puzzles that are impossible to solve mundanely. Actions have knock-on consequences, often quite significant.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 236: December 1996


part 7/8


Sage advice goes SAGA. Is this the last straw for skip! Or a chance for him to demonstrate his rules mastery again? Tune in for this month's exciting instalment of sage advice!

Does physique decrease with wounds (Of course it doesn't. Does strength decrease with hit points! What kindacrap idea is that? )

Can you use elemental magic to destroy that element (If you must. It's a very crass way of working)

There's no way to kill without making people unconcious first How undramatic is that? (Yeah, It totally sucks. Skip blames the ing editors)

How many extra spell points should you put into overcoming resistance ( Is skip the arbiter for your success? Give it a little ing time. It's a brand new game. You've gotta make up the conventions as you go along, twat. )

When do you use Va, and when do you use Vc (Va, unless it's inapplicable)

What happens when one player casts a spell against another (Big drama. Both of you are in big you dirty PvP'ers )

Why can't bows fire faster than crossbows (abstraction. SAGA is even less realism based than D&D. Don't you DARE weigh it down with the years of fun spoiling crap you put into D&D, you wankers!)

Are there rules for Swinging frying pans (improvised ing weapons. Someone always wants improvised weapons, even though they know they'll be crapper than the regular ones. We'll give you ing rules for improvised ing weapons! And then we'll beat you over the head with the book containing them as a practical demonstration. How d'ya like them improvised weapons! )

We want to convert all the cool new stuff in the SAGA system back to AD&D. Please give us conversion guidelines ( No. Skip worked hard making this system different, and the first thing you want to do is turn it back into an AD&D game?! the hell off. Skip does not need this. Skip is the private sage! TSR has been making a joke of that over the last few years. Skip says No More! Skip Quits! Nothing you say can bring skip back! :Rumble of thunder, ominous organ music: And that means you, too, Lorraine! Nothing you could make Skip do could possibly be worse than what you've already made Skip do!!! Skip is sick of listening to your threats and rantings. Skip is not going to wear purple spikes any more. They make skip look like an overweight gay evil flower. Skip will never forgive you for this. You took a job Skip loved and made it into torture. Skip is outta here. Skip is so pissed off Skip's not even going to close the bracket behind him. Enjoy your grammatical deathtrap, ladies.


KotDT fits a thousand orcs into a 20 by 20 room. This won't end well. Swordplay gets a metallic wedgie. Dragonmirth has more heroics, both smart and dumb. Floyd needs to find an excuse to avoid dinner fast.

 

[Orius]

Vamps gotta learn to think long term if they want to survive.

That's vampires for you; always consumed by their depraved appetites. Liches now, they can keep things under control and plan things out for centuries, well unless they're Xykon.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 236: December 1996


part 8/8


Role-playing reviews: Deadlands gets moderately praised by Rick. The character generation and combat systems are pretty interesting and suitable for the game's wild west flavour, but the setting is still very sketchy. It does read very much like they want to produce lots of supplements to fill in various bits and pieces in upcoming years. (which will be the case, thankfully) Better get ready to spend that disposable income.

Neverworld gets praised for it's character generation system, which again is full of flavour and detail. But the rest is either boring or confusing to him. In the end, that probably doesn't make it worth playing. You want something to do after finishing your character, unless you're a charop wonk who's more enamoured of theoretical number crunching than actual play.

Infinite domains is another one with an excellent character generation system, and simple but effective mechanics, but the rest could do with some development. Mind you, it is an attempt at a universal system. Those do need a good deal of supplements to really prove their versatility. Even if the corebook shows potential, you can't truly cover every genre without adding some serious page count.

We have rather a lot of interesting short reviews this month as well. Mage: the Ascension & Star Wars get new editions. Mage justifies the repurchase with the improvements it makes, SW doesn't. Meanwhile, I Tyrant, GURPS Goblins and The Planewalkers Handbook all keep Rick interested with their idiosyncratic approaches to their topics. TSR is still putting out some pretty interesting stuff even though sales are dropping.


TSR Previews: Another fairly light month next time. We finish the beholder trilogy of adventures, with Eye to Eye. Do you have what it takes to win a war against them? Actually, they may be individually deadly, but it seems to me that multiple ones in an engagement would be rather less than the sum of their parts, as one's anti magic eye would be where another one wanted to shoot, and more than one would try and kill the same enemy in the same round, resulting in powers going to waste. And they've never been that good at co-operating without the spelljammer variants to glue things together.

Dragonlance takes us to Wayreth in The last tower: The legacy of Raistlin. He may be gone, but we can still learn about the new magic using his methods. For those of you unhappy with the 5th age, the novel this month is prequelariffc yet again. Vinas Solamnus by J Robert King tells the story of the founding of the knights.

The Forgotten realms completes it's 5th visit to undermountain. Stardock sees the PC's asked to save Halaster! Better the evil you know, I guess. And he does play a vital part in ensuring more adventurers get to reach high level and save the world. Their novel this month is also magic related. Realms of the Arcane is a collection of short stories, many of them set back in Netheril. Is time travelling going to become the new continent exploring?

And Dragon Dice gets their second novel as well. Army of the dead ties in with the recent expansions, as they often do. Is there any real setting behind this latest money grab?


The current clack: Allen talks quite a lot about licenced games this month, asking some interesting questions. Does the value of a licence in terms of sale outweigh the costs and inconvenience of getting it? Quite possibly. Actually, in these tough times, it seems like the proportion of licenced games is increasing, because they're a lot more likely to get proper distribution in stores. This can of course lead to accusations of creative moribundity. It's the same problem as hollywood in microcosm. It's not that there aren't plenty of cool new ideas out there, it's just that the sequels, remakes and spinoffs of proven successes are more likely to get greenlit, even if they're obviously crap to a discerning eye. Name value is important, and this is yet another annoying reality that has to be dealt with.

Our other big bit of news is the attempt by HERO games & R .Talsorian to merge their systems and create the Fuzion system, easily compatible with both and appearing in both company's books. Another amusing experiment that would eventually fall apart, while the original systems survived. It's like a big comics crossover in game mechanics form.


I actually like a pretty high proportion of the articles in this issue, and once again, the bad bits are often bad in interesting ways. So despite some rocky bits, I am forced to conclude 1996 has been a better year overall than 1995. And they've finally got rid of the annoying 5th age stories. Course, it's not over yet. They've now added an annual onto their workload. That could turn out all sorts of ways, maybe good, maybe bad. Let's hope that either way, it's not more of the same, as that would just be boring.

 

[Orius]

TSR Previews: Another fairly light month next time.

Yes, January 1997 was rather light for TSR, wasn't it?

Course, it's not over yet. They've now added an annual onto their workload. That could turn out all sorts of ways, maybe good, maybe bad. Let's hope that either way, it's not more of the same, as that would just be boring.

So you're doing the first Annual next. They originally got released between the November and December issues. But doesn't matter that you're putting them at the end of the year, anyway, that's how I keep them stored.

 

[(un)reason]

Yes, January 1997 was rather light for TSR, wasn't it?

Spoilers [/river song]

So you're doing the first Annual next. They originally got released between the November and December issues. But doesn't matter that you're putting them at the end of the year, anyway, that's how I keep them stored.

Yup. Just seems neater that way. This will continue to be the case up to 2001.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Annual 1996


part 1/8


124 pages. Hmm. So we've reached the extra product. I wonder how this will differ from the standard issue. For a start, despite having the same pagecount, it costs $5.95. Was there any bonus stuff to justify this extra cost? Or was this just to make up for the fact that subscribers got it for free. The cover is slightly different, with a border around the cover image in the style of the early issues of the magazine. The contents page seems much the same as usual though, although most of the regular columns like sage advice, letters, forum and and reviews are missing. So instead we'll be getting more game content. Cool. Wait, that means less variety in what I'll be reading than usual. Now I don't know what I'll make of this. If they've put extra effort into picking the best articles it could still be an improvement.


In this issue:


The wyrms turn: Since this is their first time doing one of these annual thingies, the editorial is a fairly basic explanation of what they're trying to do here. And yeah, it looks like they're trying to pack it with a greater proportion of game material, and give us more of the same stuff that they felt worked over the last year. And lots of material for specific settings, including their now quite substantial selection of dead ones. So this does feel very much like catering to their core audience to keep them from leaving rather than trying to expand things. Which is very symptomatic of their overall approach this year, and probably isn't helping if their sales figures are any indication. How is a game about adventuring actually becoming less adventurous? Doesn't feel right, somehow.



Advanced Dungeons & Dragons game: This little descriptive piece before the articles tries to illustrate just how far AD&D has come over the years, yet at the same time, how little the core of the game has changed. The rules are still pretty much recognisable as the same little pamphlets we saw way back in 1974. And they are having to strain a bit to sell that as a good thing. Yeah, they admit that once you add some supplements, the game gets rather bloated and unwieldy at this point, but in theory you can still choose which ones you use and leave the rest out. And the talk about the modern world being more complicated than it used to be is just rose tinted glasses. In 1974 you had Nixon engaging in corruption sufficient that he was forced to resign, the cold war hanging over people's heads, all kinds of economic instability, and disco music. In 1996 the worst you had to deal with was the Balkan states squabbling, britpop invading (and mostly failing) and Clinton shagging everything that moved. The late 90's actually look like a pretty decent part of history in hindsight. So yeah, this shows up the problems in both the ruleset and the company's attitude towards their game quite clearly. Makes you want to give them a good kick in the pants and tell them to buck their ideas up.


The ecology of the wyvern: Brendan Farwanderer makes his 4th appearance, more than 3 years after the last one. He's not very prolific. And he's still the closest thing the ecologies have to a recurring character. This, of course, is all the more annoying precisely because his stories are such good ones, made all the more interesting due to the now well established banter between Brendan and his charges. Wyverns may not quite be full dragons, but they're still quite scary, able to swoop down and kill you with their poisoned stingers, or carry you away to feed to their young. Indeed, a lot of attention is paid to their stingers, and the way they use their poison as a territory marker, means of fighting for dominance, and way of ensuring nothing else eats their food. With plenty of detail on it's lifecycle, and also some more cool tricks you can pull with the creature, this is another one that's both a good read and useful for actual play. Let's hope we'll be seeing these guys again sometime.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Annual 1996


part 2/8


Wyrmsmere: Well, this is nice. I get to see some modules again, as these annuals are outside the regular Dragon/Dungeon continuity divide. It's a reasonably substantial one too, at 10 pages long, which definitely contrasts with the one from issue 200. It's quite an involved one plotwise as well, with some quite interesting NPC's and potential for open-ended interactions between them. While in theory you could ignore that, and run this as merely a straightforward dungeon crawl, you'll get a lot more out of it by playing up the various characters and roleplaying their encounters. Indeed, since they mention some bits that aren't directly statted out, and which would require rather higher level characters than to main part of this adventure, there's a lot of room for follow-ups. That makes it pretty good value for money.


Arcane lore: Having given us tons of elemental stuff over recent years, for this special, they decide to get paraelemental on us. Unsurprisingly, it's ice magic that gets first go. Cold magic is already comfortably third place behind fire and electricity in the blasting stakes. This keeps it so, while also adding a few utility bits and pieces that may well actually have it overtake electricity in the overall number of spells stakes. It's not neglected by any stretch of the imagination.

Arctic Spray is burning hands with a different energy type. Since more things are immune to fire than cold, this is probably a step up. Take those nasty yugoloths down with a good zap.

Icy Missile is a cold based magic missile which is otherwise identical. Since more things are immune to cold than force attacks, this is probably a step down. Funny how that works.

Shiver imposes moderate penalties on the victim. A basic debuff on a similar level to the likes of Bless/Curse. Another good one for ice mages to fill their extra slot with at low level.

Deep Freeze encrusts whatever object in magical ice that'll take other magic to melt. This is one that has lots of versatility, as a preservative, as a doorstopper, to break mechanical devices, or even to create firm blocks for you to jump on megaman stylee. You won't regret memorizing this one.

Freeze Tag paralyzes whatever part of the enemy's body you touch, also in an unpleasantly chilly way. Good thing this isn't reality, as gangrene would be likely after it melted. Even so, using it on your genitals so as to prolong lovemaking is not recommended.

Frozen Ground is an elliptical method of replicating pass without trace under the cold theme. Freeze the ground so no tracks are made. Y'know, this'll be rather a giveaway itself in warmer climes. Perhaps not the most optimal method of doing things.

Ice Floe summons a barge made of ice to ferry you around. Obviously this lasts longer in colder climates. Please sit still while the vehicle is in motion.

Ice Trap makes a fragile bit of flooring to serve as concealment for whatever nasties lurk beyond. People still fall for this basic stuff, because you can't check every single bit of floor before putting your weight on it.

Snow Cone is one that could in theory have become a staple low level blasty spell to rival fireball and lightning bolt. Enjoy your icy AoE blastiness and watch out for your friends, as usual with these things.

Cold Shoulder fails to live up to the punny potential of it's name, merely being another damage and penalty inflicter for your combat oriented characters.

Hail fails to scale and so won't be taking fireball's place in my arsenal anytime soon. Yawn.

Ice Bolt, on the other hand does scale properly, taking lightning bolt's place quite nicely if you're that way inclined. It even eliminates the bounceback problem, which'll please some people.

Snowblind is another one that isn't nearly as useful as it's regular equivalents light or cause blindness. I don't think I want to stick this closely to theme for that.

Snowman is another one that has interesting visuals, but is so suboptimal compared to it's corebook equivalent hold person that no-one with basic mathematical skills would touch it with a bargepole. What has happened to basic comparative analysis? All down the toilet.

Hypothermia is yet another one that doesn't seem all that optimal when you crunch the math. It tries to do two things, and winds up not being that impressive at either.

Northwind is a bit better, being basically gust of wind with added damage. I think the issue here is that it's gust of wind that's not very impressive in the first place, being very context sensitive. In an arctic environment, don't miss the chance to blow your enemy off mountaintops or into freezing water.

Blizzard is one of our lower level, less versatile weather controllers. Seen this kind of thing before in the sea magic stuff and it's decent enough powerwise, but still yawn-inducing.

Avalanche gives you mass freezing paralysis. No, can't work up any enthusiasm for this either.

Icicles is yet another decidedly unimpressive zappy spell. Since you have to make a hit roll with this, and wizards suck at those, this may well wind up being less effective than the 1st level magic missile variant. Lame.

Dancing Shards, weirdly, manages to be even less impressive despite being higher level. It's like the power levels were just picked randomly out of a hat. Roll on the next edition please.

Winter Flames, on the other hand, does have the potential to cause the devastation an 8th level spell should, but only in very specific circumstances. Not one for casual memorising and unleashing still. I can not say I'm impressed with this collection, with it's serious power level issues. What were the editors thinking, letting it go through like this?