Let's read the entire run

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 239: September 1997


part 5/8


Fiction: And a ship to sail by Chris Pierson. Poetry attack!! Well, this is a romance. I shouldn't be too shocked really. And as a romance, it does have a certain number of cliches. A high born lady being forced into a loveless marriage and planning suicide to escape it. A young working-class man who falls in love with her, and isn't sure how to deal with this. Some comic relief sidekicks. And a grand gesture of the kind that only works if everyone is willing to chip in. (which incidentally proves your social value and smooths over any questions of the class gap. ) Obviously I can't speak for the magazine's female readers, all I have to go on is do as you would be done by. And I can say that a gesture of this style and magnitude would be a pretty strong persuader in letting someone do me. So I'll give this story three and a half Oh yes, baby's ……… out of four.


Network news: A little negative advertising here this month. Join the RPGA because unlicenced convention games suck! Too many people, too few, nepotism, the DM hitting on players, poor organisation, railroads, lack of continuity. You know, those can all happen in official play too, from what I've heard. The main difference is that you have someone to complain too when things go wrong. (although in the case of nepotism, it probably won't help ) Still, it seems likely that the average convention play experience is more civilised than it was in 1978. And with the living campaigns, you can play characters repeatedly and have them advance despite not having the same DM and companions each time. So this is one of the few articles with any real bite this issue, along with Ed's one. Like the fights for equality by various minority groups, this isn't a war that will ever have a definitive ending, but there have been real improvements, and more can be made if we keep trying. Just got to keep at it, not get complacent.


Dungeon Mastery: This column is in theme this month, with more tricks for the sadistic DM to spice up their plots. Most of them should be pretty familiar by now, making the primary value that they're being collected into one place. This is another one that's sufficiently rehashed that I can't think of much to say, but is sufficiently polished enough that I can't be too critical either. Just bland really. I just hope we don't get too many more articles that are too bland to comment on in the immediate future.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 239: September 1997


part 6/8


Bookwyrms wins the battle of the novel columns. Seems like John Bunnel is another of the people who decided not to stick around after the company changed hands. From here on in, it's all fricken recommendations. This is definitely cause for grumpiness on my part. If you don't provide a target for my bitchiness, you will become the target yourself.

Ignition by Kevin J Anderson & Doug Beason is basically Die Hard - IIINNNN SPAAAACCCEEEEE!!!!!. Yeah, that's about it for the description. This will either sell you instantly, or not. Now, how do they get a movie adaption going so they can rake in the megabucks.

The tranquility alternative by Allen Steele is basically Die Hard - ON THE MOON!!!! The staff are obviously in the mood for some fact paced popcorn action books to consume. Well, when you're twiddling your thumbs for months uncertain of your job, you want fantasies of playing the big hero barreling around the place solving problems, don't you.

The waterborn by J Gregory Keyes changes gears, starting off slow, but building into a fairly complex plot with characters that are well-developed, but not always likable. Therefore they mark him as an author to watch. Right back atcha, if I remember correctly.

Sorcerers of Majipoor by Robert Silverberg is another story set on his enormous fantastical world with sci-fi underpinnings. This is one of those recommendations that's pretty much a no-brainer. Gotta reach out to those new fantasy readers.

Reliquary by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child seems to be one of those sequels where they have to turn everything up a notch, with a substantially higher body count and larger scale. Fortunately, it doesn't do it at the expense of the science part of the fiction. One for Michael Crichton fans, apparently.

Millennium 1: the frenchman by Elizabeth Hand is a fairly straight conversion of one of the TV series' episodes. This does mean you can skip some bits that were ponderous in the actual show, but otherwise, meh. Once again, I am pretty unsure why they would bother to recommend this.


Sage advice: Can you combine deity specific kits and regional kits. (Skip recommends not. Just because one writer breaks the rules, doesn't mean you can.)

What HD do crusaders use (d8)

How long does a horse take to grow up (3-5 years )

How do true dweomers & quest spells interact with the spell point rules (they don't. They are entirely independent special subsystems)

Why do firbolgs get such good weapons (Good question. We may have to alter this for the sake of game balance. We also need to fix giant sized weapons in general.)

What xp chart do shamans & witch doctors use (Cleric ones. Yeth, thath tho unfair.)

Can witch doctors be elementalists, wild mages, or some other special school (probably)

I thought you said 30th is the maximum level. Faiths and avatars lets you get up to 40th level (Gods of different worlds have different levels of generosity. The Krynnish gods dispose of you if you get above 18th, while the toril guys and gals let you get up to level 40 because they like watching twinky bastards messing things up. All you can do is suffer their whims, since we don't let PC's challenge gods anymore, no matter how high level they get. )

How do you determine your odds of blind-fighting successfully (9)

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 239: September 1997


part 7/8


Forum is cut down to a single page. Fluctuations, reorganisations.

Remy Verhove reminds us all the rules are optional, even the ones they say aren't. He's having much more fun now he's realized that. Houserule it into unrecognisability, you know you want too.

Mark Fitzpatrick doesn't want to kick out his problem players, because his group is too small. That shouldn't deter you. Kick them out and recruit new ones.

Paul Crowe is yet another person heaping disdain on the players option rules for inviting min-maxing and other twinkery. They cause far more problems than they fix. Guess I'm not at all alone in my distaste for them.


KotDT has the tables turned. Sometimes the players will add up all the clues and come to the right answer. Dragonmirth brings in the clowns and other cartoonish hijinks. Swordplay is being held up deciding on outfits. The magic 8 ball says floyd's future is about to get rather topsy-turvey.


Role-playing reviews: Witchcraft is CJ Carella's very own WoD clone, trying to combine the atmospherics of White Wolf and the flexible point buy system of GURPS. Course, this is CJ Carella we're talking about here, the author of Rifts South America and Nightbane, the king of power creep. What starts off as an interesting empowered humans in the shadows game with some neat mechanics that make the magic flexible, thematic and co-operative rapidly became filled with near invulnerable metahuman types and exceedingly breakable combo tricks. Still, those certainly don't stop the game from being versatile and fun, even if characters actually become more fragile as they advance, as one of the actual plays I've done indicates.

Netheril: Empire of magic finally gives people what they've been begging for for years - a proper official spell point system for AD&D. Such a shame it was buried in a relatively obscure sourcebook and came out around the time the company wasn't in a position to promote it, or it might have got more traction and been a bigger influence on the next edition.

How the mighty are fallen is the tie-in adventure for the netheril books, letting the players participate in ruining things for everyone and ensuring the gods limit everyone to 40th level and memorising their spells. Or not. But then, how hard would that be, changing time against the forces of historical inevitability?

The book of crafts brings us some more down to earth arcane groups for Mage: the Ascension, drawn from real world cultural stuff. This of course gives them plenty of opportunity to show you how to construct mythological spells within the Sphere framework. It's an easy target, but it may well draw in a few more people not interested in making the power of belief central to their games.

Serenades: the first book of powers covers the music magic of Immortal. Once again, Rick finds the jargon a bit impenetrable, but the specific spells are fun. Maybe you should steal them and transfer the ideas to another system. After all, Rick's done it often enough. Looks like it's all positive reviews here as well. Guess that's already one bad thing I can say about this changeover.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 239: September 1997


part 8/8


TSR Previews: Things have just about stabilised here. They detail september, october and november. The first two of these are just the same as they appear in last month's issue, so I shall have to just do the one two months ahead.

November has The last tower, Four from Cormyr, and Elminster in Myth Drannor rescheduled to here, leaving only 4 new products to cover.

Night of the Shark sees the Sahuagin continue their deadly assault. If you don't stop them, the whole kingdom is under threat.

Birthright gives us another splatbook. The book of Priestcraft shows us how their clerics and druids differ from the norm. I bet they don't get as many cool new bits as the wizards did.

Planescape follows straight on from the great modron march with Dead Gods. Another annoying metaplot module where canonically, the PC's lose, this sees Orcus return to active service in the AD&D multiverse. Gods in D&D are about as easy to finish off for good as Marvel Superheroes.

Dragonlance has Tales of Uncle Trapspringer by Dixie Lee McKeone. Tasslehoff, a respected elder? Dear god, what is the world coming too. :shudders: Haven't we suffered enough? Do we need to hear how he's mates with demogorgon again, ever more exaggerated? What else has he got up to in the intervening years?


The current Clack has finally caught up with actual current events as well. WotC has not only bought D&D, but Legend of the 5 rings as well. Will there be a crossover? Many of you already know the answer to this. A little more surprising is a tale of incompetence involving Aaron Allston being booked to do Star Wars novels, but not actually being told until the deadline approached, and having to do some serious overtime to catch up. Editors eh? How do you get them to do their jobs? Plus HARN gives it's corebook away for the price of shipping, hoping that'll drive sales of the supplements, and a cthulhu punk filk band manages to release their second album, showing there's a real audience for this stuff. Companies may be struggling, but that just makes the news all the more interesting. Let's hope they're still managing to get product out there despite all this trouble.


Once again they play it safe this issue, with lots of repeated stuff, and exceedingly boring and timid reviews. They are still improving quite a bit in terms of organisation, with only a couple of out-of time adverts, and are starting to fix up the presentation as well. And even if many of the articles are rehashed, the info is still very useful. While it doesn't hold up particularly well as a whole package, the individual parts would each contribute to your game just fine in actual play. Well, they're trying to make a new start. I shouldn't be surprised if the continuity goes to hell. Anyway, let's see if they've finished rebuilding next issue.

 

[jonesy]

Dragonlance has Tales of Uncle Trapspringer by Dixie Lee McKeone. Tasslehoff, a respected elder? Dear god, what is the world coming too. :shudders: Haven't we suffered enough? Do we need to hear how he's mates with demogorgon again, ever more exaggerated? What else has he got up to in the intervening years?

Not Tasslehoff. Not even his uncle. A kender called Trapspringer Fargo, who didn't seem to have much anything to do with anyone. It wasn't even clear whether he was telling the truth. The novel wasn't that good, but I quite liked the interesting dimensional creatures (which sadly had like two or three pages out of the whole book). The rest of the book felt like: "roll the dice to see where you'll be going next".

 

[(un)reason]

Not Tasslehoff. Not even his uncle. A kender called Trapspringer Fargo, who didn't seem to have much anything to do with anyone. It wasn't even clear whether he was telling the truth. The novel wasn't that good, but I quite liked the interesting dimensional creatures (which sadly had like two or three pages out of the whole book). The rest of the book felt like: "roll the dice to see where you'll be going next".

Oh, that's sneaky. Bait and switch by vague advertising and unreliable narrators.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 240: October 1997


part 1/8


124 pages. Well, we've finally made it to the 2/3rds point of this journey, even if it has been more than a year since the halfway mark. Woo. Actually, it doesn't feel like much of a landmark compared to the recent company changeover, or the upcoming 250th issue. Just them trying to get back to business as usual. Although things are still messed up enough that they've decided to tone down the usual october horrorfest, and instead go for a little mystery and suspense. Still, I don't object to variety. I'm sure it'll be back next year. Let's see if they can build up a little tension and anticipation.


In this issue:


The wyrms turn: Another editorial full of reorganisation and staff changes. They've replaced 2 of their editors and their subscriptions person, and added a new face to their advertising team. That's a good 50% turnover. Much of this is because they're upping sticks and moving those TSR staff who want to stay on all the way over to their own offices in Renton, on the other side of the country. That's a pretty big upheaval, and I'm not surprised that more than a few people would bow out because they don't want to leave their current lives and family. And just think of the transport costs for all the paperwork, equipment and archives. It's no wonder they'll want to liquidate a great chunk of the unsold stock that was a big factor in bringing the old company down. So this is another handy snapshot in showing what progress they're making getting things back on track. Really, things are already a good deal better than they were a couple of months ago, when they still weren't sure what they were doing. That's worth rather a lot.


D-Mail: Bafflingly, we lead this month with exactly the same welcome back letter we did last month. Editorial sloppiness, or simply the only letter about their absence that wasn't vitriolic. Either way, that's the kind of dumbass mistake everyone's going to notice.

A letter supporting the dungeon crawl above all that plot stuff. We want puzzles to solve and monsters to kill! Do not forget it.

In typical contrast, a letter from someone who prefers roleplaying detail over dungeon crawls. Of course, the magazine has to figure out how to cater to both if they want to remain viable, don't they.

Some nitpicking about the nature of dogs, and what it's hard or easy to train them to do. What they do naturally doesn't map to an obvious power level structure.

And finally we have a bit of errata from Bruce Heard regarding his lupin breed article. Something with that much concentrated crunch is harder for editors to examine, because as long as it's technically legal, it could also not be what the author intended to write and still get past the radar.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 240: October 1997


part 2/8


Forum: Christopher Manning is vaguely negative about the dragonlance saga rules, and wants to see where general opinion lies. Since it's long discontinued while D&D still lives, I think I can guess what the majority of replies will be.

Mike Wilson is another person who thinks humans don't live long enough to get really good at multiple things. Since many adventurers go from 1st to 20th in a matter of months, not years, I again laugh at this. High stress situations make people learn FAST, as I can attest from reality.

Greg Gartland tells us again that a wizard's greatest weapon is not their spells, but their mind. Well, the truly innovative ones anyway. The others'd still panic and be screwed when their spells suddenly stop working.

Wayne S. Rossi reminds us that the existence or not of resurrection matters not if players are not attached to them, and can just roll up a different character of similar power. You've got to make them care before ripping it away will actually hurt. Oh, cruel fate and DM's. Why must you torment us so.

Phil Page thinks that players tend to be blase about everything. No point being too stingy with magic, they still be just the same once they have it. Yeah, humans are pretty good at losing our sense of wonder about things we're regularly exposed too. Get a different race for players if you really want magic to stay magical


Sage advice: How do you determine the rogue skills for a thief/gypsy bard (add together the points each class level gives you. This is indeed a twinky combo that breaks the usual game rules.)

Do thieves have to spend a slot on thieves cant (no)

Can you cast find familiar for someone else (no)

What counts as a proper surface for tensers floating disk (good question. Skip recommends twinky players be suitably punished.)

What does a zombie lord's weakness power do. (Hmm. Skip thinks some fudge would be tasty around now. Reverse of the strength spell'll do nicely)

Does stoneskin protect you from critical hits (yes)

What happens if you combine stoneskin with fire shield (if you suffer no damage, none can be reflected. Basic logic.)

What happens if a wizard gets animate dead as a priest spell (Ahh, players option. See the problems you cause us. Terrible business. )

What happens if you cast inverted ethics on a dragon. ( A sexy party! : cue benny hill theme music: Or possibly part of the Cleric Quintet. Your choice. )

Delayed magic missile contradicts itself (No it doesn't. See. That's a contradiction. The example you just cited, on the other hand, isn't.)

Can you resurrect a headless character (Sure. No problemo! Assuming you have 7th level spells. You do have 7th level spells, don't you? )

What is evil magic (magic cast by evil creatures)

Are 9th level characters immune to death spell. Does this also make them immune to a beholders death ray. (yes, and probably not. )

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 240: October 1997


part 3/8


The murder Medieval: Ahh yes, murder mystery. Now there's a topic that really needs a bit more attention, especially given the difficulty of making it work in D&D, where shortcuts are found aplenty to those with a bit of magical skill. Ironically, most of the examples here are from more gritty historical series, which there are actually a surprising number of. Actually, this is nothing but examples, listing both book series and their main protagonists, with rough synopses of their adventures and what makes them interesting characters. I'm left ambivalent by this one, as it basically gives you a whole bunch of reading, and then does nothing itself. Like turning the novel reviews into mere recommendations, I'm not sure this is how I want them using their page count. It just feels lazy by comparison.


Mysterious cities: Here comes a tie-in. James Wyatt has already sent in a previous Gothic Earth article. Now he proves that this is a personal favourite of his with another one based off the new supplement for it. 11 cities that the gothic earth gazetteer passed over from all around the world get short descriptions, along with hints at what lurks beneath the surface. Many of them are exactly what you would expect if you had a basic primer in world mythology already, but there are a couple of surprises, with exceedingly obscure monsters referenced, and a couple of new statblocks. This is certainly more useful in and of itself than the last article, but it still feels like a pointer towards bigger, better books than a full product and leaves me unsatisfied. It's like they're putting the filler articles at the front this time, which is a rather baffling editorial decision.


John Manabi's Capricorn. Well, this is a different looking bit of advertising. Looks like our new staff are already starting to make a difference in that department as well.


Goddess of shadows, Guild of thieves: Ah yes, gods of thieves. Bridging the gap between what are on the surface the least connected classes. Here's a good look at the Birthright implementation of this idea. Cleverly, she doesn't even represent herself as the goddess of thieves to the general population, allowing her church to put on a legitimate front as shadow-worshippers and avoid harassment that way. As with illusionists who don't let people know they're illusionists, that makes a hell of a lot of sense. They do have a relatively small sphere list, but with a well built up social setup, several neat new spells, a reasonable amount of thief skills, and tons of money as a result of their larcenous activities, they're hardly underpowered. They're perfectly suited both as villains and PC's (presuming you don't have to share the party with a holier than thou paladin) so you could have this either as a backdrop setting element, or as central to a political plot. And as it doesn't seem too hard to adapt to other settings, it hopefully won't get complaints from the people who want all generic stuff either.


Saga of the mists: More tie-in stuff. Doubly so, in this case, as it's about converting Ravenloft to the SAGA system. Interestingly, since Ravenloft already has it's own card deck as part of the old boxed set, that gives them an easy in to allow the system to be translated to the setting's quirks. And the setting is more suited to lower magic, character driven adventures than many, so that makes them a good match on another level. There are quite a few changes made to the rules, but they're logically done, and seem like they'll further make the rules support the mood you should be going for. Morality matters, magic works closer to the way it does in D&D, but constructing spells is still a different process that'll force you to specialise in the type of magic you use. I rather approve. This is useful for both people who already have the 5th age game, and those that are still on the fence and need more proof that it's applicable to other settings to buy into it. That seems like another good use of their page count.

 

[M.L. Martin]

Dragon Magazine Issue 240: October 1997
The murder Medieval: Ahh yes, murder mystery. Now there's a topic that really needs a bit more attention, especially given the difficulty of making it work in D&D, where shortcuts are found aplenty to those with a bit of magical skill. Ironically, most of the examples here are from more gritty historical series, which there are actually a surprising number of. Actually, this is nothing but examples, listing both book series and their main protagonists, with rough synopses of their adventures and what makes them interesting characters. I'm left ambivalent by this one, as it basically gives you a whole bunch of reading, and then does nothing itself. Like turning the novel reviews into mere recommendations, I'm not sure this is how I want them using their page count. It just feels lazy by comparison.

Curiously, Dave Gross identified this as one of his favorite articles in the interview done for last month's Dragon. I have a lot of fondness for his work and his handling of the magazine (for obvious reasons ), but while this article was a fun read and full of inspiration on places to look for material, I'm not sure how gameable it is.

Mysterious cities: Here comes a tie-in. James Wyatt has already sent in a previous Gothic Earth article. Now he proves that this is a personal favourite of his with another one based off the new supplement for it.

Not quite--the Gothic Earth Gazetteer was a December 1995 release. It wasn't even the newest MotRD supplement at the time--A Guide to Transylvania was a September 1996 release. It's a supplement to the GEGaz, but I wouldn't call it a 'tie-in' except in the broadest sense, given that it's connected to a product nearly two years old at this point.

Saga of the mists: More tie-in stuff. Doubly so, in this case, as it's about converting Ravenloft to the SAGA system. Interestingly, since Ravenloft already has it's own card deck as part of the old boxed set, that gives them an easy in to allow the system to be translated to the setting's quirks. And the setting is more suited to lower magic, character driven adventures than many, so that makes them a good match on another level. There are quite a few changes made to the rules, but they're logically done, and seem like they'll further make the rules support the mood you should be going for. Morality matters, magic works closer to the way it does in D&D, but constructing spells is still a different process that'll force you to specialise in the type of magic you use. I rather approve. This is useful for both people who already have the 5th age game, and those that are still on the fence and need more proof that it's applicable to other settings to buy into it. That seems like another good use of their page count.

Thank you.