Let's read the entire run

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 92: December 1984

part 1/3

100 pages. A second cleric special in the same year? How odd. And without even focussing on the other classes in between. Someone on the editorial team must really like clerics. They've been getting extra crunch in the form of new gods with distinctive special powers the whole time, while the other classes have been getting very little. And yet they're still probably the least popular of the core 4. Seems like a definite case of Shilling the Wesley to me. Ho hum. What are we to do about this? Keep reading, see if it changes in future issues, I guess.

In this issue:

Letters: We get more physics talk and formulae, as they further refine the calculations for realistic falling damage. They get more and more complicated as you factor in initial speed before falling, height of the creature throwing you, and other edge case modifiers. More stuff to put in the really not worth it files.
A letter asking why Ed's new bats have infravision when real bats are blind. A good question, albeit one that has since been discredited. They give the usual noncommittal the rules are what they are answer. So much for physics.
And finally we have three more letters asking about various details of gladsheim. Some are obvious, some obscure, and one potentially litigious. Damn you Tolkien's estate :shakes fist:

The forum: Katharine Kerr continues to be surprisingly controversial, with Cristopher R Kopec and Greg Meier providing their own opinions on her condemnation of evil PC's and the people who play them. One is in favour, and one is against, as is often their wont. Meanwhile, Mark Herman is unhappy about the way falling damage survivability interacts with level. Since level is all about combat training, the lethality of falling damage ought to remain about the same. That ..... would involve substantial system redesigns. Once again we see how some topics get raked over endlessly while others are ignored, in most amusing fashion.

From the sorceror's scroll: Gary puts his Official AD&Dtm Stamp Of Approval on the idea that clerics and druids of particular gods should have their spell lists restricted as well as gaining special powers. Balance must be Maintained! If they automatically had access to every cleric spell introduced in every available supplement they would be far more powerful than magic users, with their need to research spells themselves. A perfectly reasonable proposition, made more interesting by being explained in his usual florid manner filled with Excess Capitalization, and illustrated by a Most Excellent Example. I'm sure that these days he's writing like that to play to the crowd, because his mannerisms were nowhere near as exaggerated in the early years. Still, it makes for an interesting article where this could easily have seemed like a dull nerfing, and is more evidence that the sphere system of 2nd edition didn't come out of nowhere. Maybe it would have been handled differently if he'd still been in charge, but the basic direction would have been the same. That's definitely one for the historical footnotes.

First, spread the faith: Roleplaying advice. Whaat! Are people still playing clerics badly? Do they not feel they have enough role models for them in fiction? Did they miss the great fanboy rant about Archbishop Turpin a couple of years ago? Jesus? (and every other bibilical guy who God interceded for at various points in the book) Friar Tuck? Every pretentious shaman who ever went into a trance and gave cryptic advice in bad fantasy? This is primarily an encouragement for you to develop your cleric's god further, and make sure your cleric sticks to those tenants. Which of course includes trying to ensure the rest of the party doesn't violate them too much. Which if done wrong causes almost as many problems as the thief who steals from the other party members and the lawful dick paladin. There are plenty of ways that this stuff could hurt party unity. You've just got to make solving them part of the fun rather than an obstacle to it. Once again they provide advice that in hindsight is somewhere between obvious and discredited. This is not a good way to fill a feature.

The more, the merrier: Following straight on from the last article is the concept of introducing a mechanical system to the process of converting people to your religion. Charisma, Alignment, class, time spent trying, all sorts of stuff factors in. And if you do so successfully, you get XP. This could indeed be used to make a fun single player game, although a few mechanical kinks mean it's not as dramatic or versatile as it could be. Social mechanics are a controversial thing, and it's interesting seeing them show up like this. Another thing I'd rather like to test, see how it pans out in actual play. Could be cool, could be annoying, I don't really feel I can pass judgement just from reading. Anyone have any experiences with them to recount?

A better open, it figures: Once again the expansion of the hobby has resulted in more people entering the competitions at conventions, and a higher overall standard of entries. Judy Brown and Mike Jaecks show up again, each being highly placed in multiple categories. In addition, Larry Peters and Matthew Sturm make names for themselves this year. All the photos are very red and brown, and not that brilliantly done though. You really could be better presenting them to us.

Coming attractions turns up two months in a row, albeit with fewer products to plug this time. We get new mini's for the indiana jones game, and 2010 - Odyssey 2. The endless quest series gets two new installments, Blade of the young samurai and Trouble on Artule. And the marvel super heroes RPG gets it's own modulicious version of the secret wars plot arc. Now if anyones a railroader it's the beyonder. He seriously needs to suffer for this. No D&D stuff though. Goes to show, they were hardly a one product company.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 92: December 1984

part 2/3

Gods of the suel pantheon reaches it's end. It finishes off with a fairly pleasant bunch of gods. Lydia, goddess of music, light and daylight. Bralm, Goddess of insects and industry. Jascar, god of hills and mountains. Even as lesser gods, they all have tremendously impressive screwage attacks that'll inconvenience even high level adventurers trying to deal with them. Len also continues to hone his clerical designs, to the point where they seem pretty slick. Put them all together and you have a pantheon that is fairly varied and not archetypical. I may not always have liked them, but he does deserve credit for doing this stuff, and influencing future generations of game designers. And that's the end of the priestly portion of this magazine.

Let the horse buyer beware: A single page article elaborating on the horse buying process and reducing the randomness in the D&D system. Surely characters should be able to tell roughly how good a horse they're getting, because the sellers would, and adjust their prices accordingly. Gary would probably say that you're defiling the Sacred Balance of the Official AD&Dtm Game at this point, but I don't think you care about that. Interesting in that it points out a problem that would become more focussed upon in later editions, that a mount's power doesn't scale with the rider, so they become increasingly a liability in combat unless you trade up for rocs and dragons and stuff. While it doesn't solve the problem, now at least we know it's a commonly known one. Hopefully soon we'll have a beastmaster class along to try and fix that.

The ecology of the ettin: Ahh, ettins. Such delightful creatures. Despite having two heads, they most definitely are not very good at thinking. Or much else besides smashing stuff up and being incredibly stubborn even against mind affecting magic. Their slovenliness would give even the most odious chavs pause, and any treasure they may have is best left where it is, for having rot grubs crawling in through your hands and up your arms is exceedingly gross. Ed is relatively light on the footnotes this time, with the most significant entry being on how they handle losing one of their heads. (pretty well, considering) Certainly no great fresh perspectives provided this time. If they gave a damn, they would complain about being defamed by this article. He must be a bit worn out from last month's spectacular.

Pages from the mages III: Or maybe not. Once again Ed proves his prolificness with a little help from his friends, as Elminster reveals some more stuff about other wizards of the realms, the cheeky monkey. We get 4 new spellbooks, and 9 new spells, 4 of which can be traced to specific authors. They're a clever bunch suited to situations you'd expect a wizard to encounter at various points in their lives. Even the blasty spells have unique quirks that mean they're all distinct and may be better or worse depending on the situation, and all the books have Ed's usual loving descriptions of their appearances and histories. As I often do, I find myself wondering how the hell he does it. I find myself regularly exhausted writing at this rate, while he takes it in his stride, and produces truly exceptional material much of the time. I am filled with awe and envy.

Off the shelf also loses it's name and become simply Book Reviews. Seems like they're genericising quite a few things. What's behind that decision?
The name of the rose by Umberto Eco has been both critically and commercially acclaimed, and now it gets recommended in Dragon as well for it's depth of historical research, making it a great resource for anyone playing in a pseudomedieval setting, and a good example of how to weave philosophy, mystery, and all sorts of mundane details into your plots. If you like that high crunch style, get it.
The riddle of the wren by Charles de Lint may not be quite as famous, but it gets just as much praise. Particularly important from a gaming perspective is the way he keeps the perspective firmly shaped by the characters knowledge, not giving away OOC details which might spoil the plot. Striking that balance between providing plenty of descriptive detail, without obviously showing your intent is another important part of good GMing. Narrative choice and player freedom requires the kind of detail that gives people information to make decisions with.
Castles, by Alan Lee & David Day, would have fit right in with Lew's book review in issue 89. A combination of artwork, and talk about the myths and stories of various historical eras, it shows just how many variations these places can have. You want places for your characters to go, whether to talk or to kill & loot, this'll help out with that.

The sword of justice is this month's module, an 8 pager. Designed for starting level characters, it seems a good one for starting up with a more story focussed tone. It does have a few silly elements, but the overall plot is a solid way of getting players used to the idea that sometimes killing is not the solution to your problems, and the personalities can be more important than the environment. Thankfully it manages to do this without falling into the trap of railroading the plot. This is quite pleasing, as it shows that they are expanding their criterea for acceptable adventures some more as time goes on. Definitely a good one to use as a warm-up for a new campaign.

A big list of the retailers participating in the TSR 10th anniversary sale.

New heights(?) in silliness: A review of TOON! A rather distinctive one at that. Drawing on a demonstration play given by the game's developer at a con, this shows the ways it brilliantly emulates the source material, and the areas in which it doesn't go quite far enough, still being a little too tied to the conventional RPG model. Compromises, compromises. Use the officially sanctioned house rules here to shake that off and make the game even more gonzo and fun. This is definitely another signpost towards the diversification of the hobby. One one front they're producing high crunch games like rolemaster. On another they're putting greater emphasis on plot, characterization and storytelling. And here they're getting increasingly radical in their attempts to simulate a particular kind of reality and story style. All the sides of the big triangle are here, and hopefully you can find a game that'll please you. Anyway, this is a fun review. I could definitely enjoy a few more context heavy ones like this.

 

[LordVyreth]

Ah...Toon. I used to love that game, even if the only players I could find were not the most enthusiastic. On the other hand, it's one of my Gen Con staples.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 92: December 1984

part 3/3

Getting up and getting wet: Dragonquest's popularity is rewarded with another article. For some reason, the game provides no provisions for climbing for non thieves and swimming in general. This must be rectified! etc etc. So we get one of those efficient page long articles that does exactly what it says it does, no more, no less, no mess, no fuss, hopefully not breaking to the game for allowing it, and leaving me with nothing more to say about it. That's a positive, by the way.

Fiction: The multidimensional caper by Mark Acres. Or, the NPC's escape the game and start running the show. Starts off as a mystery story that takes an abrupt left turn into meta comedy. Could really have been spun out a little longer, as the format means there isn't really enough time to build up the tension, but still an entertaining read nonetheless. Leave me wanting more. Then I'll pay attention to whatever you do next.

The six million dollar mutant: Bionics for Gamma world. We haven't seen that since way back in 1978, with it's sister gameline Metamorphosis alpha. Surprised they haven't incorporated it sooner. It should be noted that fitting and maintaining these things takes skill and equipment, both of which are at a premium in a postapocalyptic wasteland. In fact, more word count is spent on the problems than the cool powers you can get as a result. Curious. The powers granted are probably a bit on the muted side as well, trying to stick fairly closely to what you could realisticly achieve with this stuff. Someone's playing this game in a less out-there manner than Jim and co. Still, I suppose it's easier to dial these things up than to tone them down again. You don't need to shout and rant. Just play it cool like president Ahmadinejad. With bionics you can be a real bad :rest of post deleted for random insanity:

The marvel-phile: This month's featured supercreatures are the heralds of Galactus. The silver surfer, obviously; plus Nova and Terrax. Everything apart from their intelligence is at seriously superhuman levels, as you would expect. Powered by galactus, they are put in a very morally ambigious situation, getting to influence which worlds live and which ones die. Now there's a gamable situation. Who will you choose to satiate your dread master's hungers? You'd better make the decision fast because if you don't, he'll eat whoever's nearby. Jeff continues to write with a pleasantly amused tone, having recieved enough requests to keep him in work for years. He's got enough cool source material to make his job an easy one. So that leaves him with plenty of time to think up his own material as well. Fun fun fun.

Ed joins Penny for this month's StarQuestions, as some of their questions refer to his recent creation, the Zethra.
What do you mean by the costs for shipping cargo. (Complicated economic stuff. You need to use the tables to determine how much profit you make on each trip. )
How do my players start an interplanetary business (Same way you do in real life. Make a plan, try to carry it out, and face all sorts of obstacles on the way. It's up to the GM to keep it interesting and challenging. )
Will we ever see a timeline for the star frontiers game. (Soon. Very soon. Oh yes. :rubs hands together
What are the stats for the zebulon and K'tsa-Kar systems (Wait and see. We only have 16 pages a month, so we'll have to do this stuff in installments)
Where are the primary races original homeworlds ( Have patience and keep buying our stuff. All will be revealed.............IN TIME!!!)
What are the stats for flamethrowers. ( 6d10 points of burnination. Perfect for frying aliens with.)
Some of the duplicates in the battle of ebony eyes overlap (yes. That just makes it all the more confusing.)
Can PC's be pirates, robots or cybots ( Why not be robot pirates? Then they can fight dinosaur ninja. Oh yeah, that whole pesky free will thing. Star frontiers doesn't have sentient robots. Boo)
What's the stats for shuriken and nunchuks (I wasn't serious when I said about ninjas. Let's just say that these are not optimal weapons compared to disintegrators. )
Are there mutants in Star frontiers (not often, and certainly not with the kind of unrealistic superpowered mutations you see in gamma world. Sorry to be a party pooper. )
I though starships landed nose up. An illustration shows them on their side. ( Artwork has never been known for it's accuracy. Where shall I start? )
Are there stargates in star frontiers (No. Once again, this is not a kitchen sink setting. Do not mess with the game themes and balance.)
How many races are there (17, officially. More may show up in the future )
Can ships get above size 20. (Only at great expense.)
How can zethra match colors if they can't see it? (Same way you can sing in tune even if you can't say exactly what note is being played. They can percieve them, just not in the same way we do.)
Why is metal so good at disrupting zethra electrics. Metal is a good conductor. (Technobabble. If in doubt, technobabble. Convince the universe it's good technobabble, and it'll believe you and let you solve the plot with it.)
How do zethra convert matter to energy. How often do they need to eat. ( Good question. Ed has as usual written more on this than we could ever publish, so here's a mini-ecology for you. Hope you enjoy it. )

The dreaded old ones ooze their way into the palladium fantasy RPG.

Wormy is also dealing with the problems two-headed creatures face. Dragonmirth is very festive indeed this year. Snarfquest introduces one of the most amusing beasts of burden you'll ever ride.

Another huge issue. With it's proliferation of small articles, it took a lot of work to complete. Still, most of them were pretty enjoyable. If I had time to read them at a leisurely pace I would probably have enjoyed them even more. But no. I can't take a full month to do each issue like you could at the time, but have to get several done each week. Done, done and onto the next one. Done, done and onto the next one. Anyway, this is another excellent quality issue, full of interesting and usable stuff. Not quite sure why they made the november one extra large and cool, and then kept this one normal size. But it's not that much of a let-down really. If the next year is as good as this one, I won't complain (much) We're half way through the 80's now. Lets do our damndest to clear the rest.

 

[el-remmen]

Dragon Issue 92: December 1984

The sword of justice is this month's module, an 8 pager. Designed for starting level characters, it seems a good one for starting up with a more story focussed tone. It does have a few silly elements, but the overall plot is a solid way of getting players used to the idea that sometimes killing is not the solution to your problems, and the personalities can be more important than the environment. Thankfully it manages to do this without falling into the trap of railroading the plot. This is quite pleasing, as it shows that they are expanding their criterea for acceptable adventures some more as time goes on. Definitely a good one to use as a warm-up for a new campaign.

I have run (variations of) this adventure many times. Great stuff.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 93: January 1985

part 1/3

100 pages. A non hawt weretiger? What is this heresy! Someone get that girl a makeover stat! We also see our first price increase in ages. (way back in issue 37) So far, they've only increased their subscription prices. But an all round increase probably won't be far off, given the cruelty of the economy. Was there ever a concept so annoying as inflation. Forcing you to keep running just to stay in the same place. Just another method by which ordinary people are kept under control. In a lot of ways, D&D adventurers have it easy. They're generally physically powerful enough to tell the taxman to go themself (but not scribes ) and doing the same to death is entirely within their reach. In such a situation, bucking the system and performing acts of extraordinary heroism is easy. Lets hope the magazine still has enough good stuff to make it worth it.

in this issue:

Letters: Someone confused about how a potion of explosions works. It's like real world nitroglycerine, sir.
Someone asking about realistic stats for all the various elven subraces. You can not expect every article to cater to every non core PC race. That would eat up so much extra space as to render them nonviable. Our format has limitations.
A letter asking why so many other letters sent here go unanswered. To stimulate debate and encourage you to send in articles answering them, my dear. We can't make this magazine without you guys.
A letter asking what the hell crystalbrittle does. It was printed twice in this magazine. You must be a newbie. Guess we'll just have to print it again until it gets a permanent home in Unearthed Arcana.
Finally, a letter asking why Ed didn't use the history from the politics of hell in his 9 hells articles. Frankly, my dear, it's because he didn't like it, and it was pretty explicitly noncanonical right from it's release. We don't think everything in this magazine has to tie together. Why the hell do you?

The forum: David F Godwin shows up again, to continue the debate on morality in D&D. By what standards are you judging good, evil, law and chaos. Modern ones? Medieval ones. An artificial set of standards that has little to do with reality? Morality is a complicated business, and can be picked apart endlessly. Just how far are you willing to take it?
William Huish weighs in with a scaling system for falling damage, making it almost as deadly no matter how high level you are. Complexity is increased somewhat. But not enough to make a whole new article, thank god.
Paul Montgomery Crabaugh also shows up again, to provide a little more fuel for the Adepts vs Non-Adepts battle in Dragonquest. You've failed to take the advantages you can get by completely ignoring a stat you don't use anyway. Things are more balanced than you think.

From the sorceror's scroll: Well well. This is interesting. Gary finally gives us the rules for druids above 15th level. Having ascended to become the ruler of every druid in the entire world, where do they go from there? To loftier concerns than mere temporal politics. Able to change shape and travel the planes, hierophants look after the wider balance of nature in the multiverse, and set in motion plans that may span worlds and take centuries to resolve. And spend years asleep. Hey, they've earned it. Plus it's genre appropriate, and explains why they don't constantly get in the way of their lessers. This explains a lot. It's no wonder druid's abilities seem so piecemeal when they were developed in sections years apart. Fascinating. This certainly opens them up for epic play in a way that few other classes can match. Once again we see AD&D reaching in it's haphazard manner for things that would be properly codified, standardized, and mechanically done better in later editions. I'm very pleased indeed to discover this stuff. Gary's definitely been thinking hard about all the cool stuff he wants to introduce to the game during his absence.

Thinking for yourself: Gary also provides a tiny little extra in the form of an exhortation to do things about the religious reactionaries attacking D&D. Show them that your hobby is harmless, fun and has definite educational benefits. Yawnaroo. You'd be getting better results if you were actively courting controversy, not trying to play it down. You of all people should know that.

The making of a milieu: Arthur Collins here again, folks, with more worldbuilding advice for all y'all. How d'ya like your worlds. Lightly done, stir fried, or a bit of everything. Will you start with people, maps or concepts. How blatantly will you steal real life cultures and ideas? Remember, the things you leave out are as important as the things you put in. Remember that this is a world for gaming in, so design it accordingly. Put conflicts in there, things that the players are expected to solve. And above all, have fun. Yes, it seems that we're getting another long talk on how to build your world. We've seen them before, and we'll probably see them again. Unfortunately, this one fails to push any boundaries that Katharine Kerr didn't push recently, so this is more a fortification article than a trail-blazer. Are you keeping up with the latest fashions in design? Or are you taking a different approach? Don't think you have to do it the way they say you should.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 93: January 1985

part 2/3

The ecology of the Eye of the Deep: Ed Greenwood gives us a look at one of the less commonly used beholder subraces. (mainly because they can't go up to shallow waters, so only groups with water breathing spells'll be able to get to them) This goes into plenty of detail on their mating habits (very weird) their powers(quirky as any beholder), and how they interact with other creatures of the deep.(not very well, really) The amount of extrapolation from the original entry seems to be increasing in this series, which is pleasing. Guess the recent statement that they care not about that has increased Ed's confidence in just making up. Once again he defends his title as the king of world-building. Not too sure about the picture though. Looks like it's cowering from the camera. Well yeah, not many people who are going to disagree if you say Don't look at me, I'm hideous! Can't win them all.

Short hops and big drops: Seems like returning writers really are taking over. Stephen Inniss is back, to fix the problem that there are no solid rules on how far a character can jump. Another case where I'm surprised no-one did something sooner. (well, gary did thief-acrobats, but they're obviously intended to be exceptional.) Can you guess how he's going to handle it? If you took invent a completely new subsystem for 5 alex, then you win. The result is surprisingly predictable, with only a few feet of leeway provided by the dice. Thankfully, it's another single pager, so it shouldn't be any great problem to use. As long as you remember where it is, like all the other subsystems scattered throughout the many many issues. This is where loose leaf cutouts come in handy.

A Pronunceayshun gyd: Frank Mentzer provides us with some amusing fiction, featuring the interplanar consortium of nebulous sages, before filling four pages with an A-Z of various D&D creatures and personages, and how to pronounce their names properly. The V-Z letters get surprisingly little play, considering how often they produce problematic creatures. This is another thing that could have been dull very easily, but is held together by it's use of fiction to educate us without directly explaining, and humorous asides. He really ought to do more articles here, because he makes this stuff fun. Gary has taught him well. This is definitely something to bookmark for later, because this is the kind of question that comes up again and again. People will always forget how to pronounce xvart or shillelagh, and this way you can quote an authoritative source.

Coming attractions: Marvel superheroes get the lions share this month, with modules MH 4 & 5, Pit of the viper and cats paw. Play canada's greatest heroes. Hee.
D&D gets module B8, Journey to the rock. What secrets lie within it?
AD&D gets C3, Castanamir. A tournament module, exploring a mad wizards place, where you face the gingwatzim, it sounds like there will be random screwage involved. Is my impression correct?

Agencies and alignments: Oh, this is amusing. Alignments for the top secret game. These have three axes, each with 5 different alignments on them, for a total of 125 combinations. Political gets democratic, republican, neutral, authoritarian and autocratic. Change gets radical, liberal, neutral, conservative and reactionary. And Economic goes capitalist, unionist, neutral, socialist, communist. That's considerably more nuance than D&D alignments get unless you use the alternate system from SR6, but you could still probably pick apart their definitions and who should be placed where on the axes endlessly. This is a definite case of a D&Dism applied where it doesn't quite fit, which could be exploited in ways not intended. And if you transplant it back into D&D, you can play the fantasy game of class and economic struggle, with secret alignment languages for each side. I am entertained, if probably not for the reason Merle intended.

Twilight 2000 gets three full page colour ads right by each other. They obviously want to push this one hard. Man it sounds brutal. Once again we have overtaken the future. Funny how that happens.

The gypsy train is this month's adventure, although it's hardly a standard one. 8 pages of character detail, plus a centrefold that lets you build your own mini gypsy wagons for use with a game. Less a challenge to be defeated than something to be interacted with, to add flavour to your game, as each of the NPC's is given several hooks. And as they're a traveling camp, you can drop them pretty much anywhere. I can definitely see the uses for this one. It may not be as impressive as Great stoney, but it's another good example of them pushing the envelope and trying new combinations of their old tricks. And lets face it, since there are so few truly original ideas in the world, that's probably the best shot you've got of surprising people.

 

[dylan8405]

Thanks!

Thanks for posting these recaps. I started playing D&D with the basic rules in 1982 or so at age 9 and then morphed into playing AD&D a year or so later. This has been a great trip down memory lane and I love reading about Dragon circa issues 80-120, which was my heyday of buying the magazine. I remember eagerly waiting for the latest issue and then devouring it all in on sitting. I especially appreciate the editorial content (like commenting on "High Gygaxese"). I too am amazed at how much the Internet has changed things. I think that we're a lot less patient now than we were back then - waiting a month to get an update on a comic or the letters column seems archaic now.

Keep up the good work!

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 93: January 1985

part 3/3

Fiction: Eira by Josepha Sherman. Fairy stories. Here we go again. A definite attempt to replicate that mythic there and back again journey. Unfortunately it gets a little too precious with the froofy celtic elements, and fails to live up to it's ambition. Not that this magazine would publish unbowdlerised fairy stories, that'd be too dark compared to killing things and taking their stuff. Guess it's another month, another bit of so-so fiction.

The marvel-phile: This month's profiles are two more of the Avengers. Mockingbird, another product of trying to replicate the super soldier serum; and Shroud, who seems like a textbook example of a dark and edgy anti-hero, with his martial arts training, handicap which isn't really much of a handicap, and undercover criminal activities. Once again we see a distinct conflict between the growth of that writing style, and the fact that the Marvel superheroes game was designed to emulate the wholesome stories of the previous couple of decades. Not that it stopped the game from being successful, but it continues to be jarring in retrospect. Comics may be set in this static sorta history, but they've still changed quite a bit over the years. Jeff continues to deliver reliably on this front, just as Ed does with the ecologies.

New ships for old: Space opera gets some much desired increase (at least, by the writer ) in it's variety of starships. Weapons, power plants, and reaction drive strengths. Plus a house ruled damage variant that seems thrown in for no apparent reason, and some talk about the tech levels various things are allowed at. Rather a grab-bag article. As is often the case, the usefullness of this article really hinges on the balance of the crunch, which unfortunately I'm not qualified to judge in this case. So I'll have to leave an open verdict on this one.

New brotherhoods: Gamma world continues to get a fairly healthy showing here with a collection of new alliances.
The friends of justice are a group of mutants who imitate the heroic behaviour of mutants in ancient comic books. Hilarity ensues. The people in the game may not get the joke.
Mental Warriors are an organization of geniuses and psychics who want to ascend to become creatures of pure mental energy. They do engage in unpleasant behaviour to the "less gifted", so they're probably best used as villains.
Searchers try and find the base which was responsible for causing the apocalypse. A little late for that, doncha think. They've evolved from a tactical team into a weird religious cult, which is amusing, but probably also realistic.
Spoilsports are teams of elite soldiers, trained by a slightly defective supercomputer. This results in a distinct uncertainty over what they should actually use their powers for.
Voyagers want to get off this crazy mudball and find a new planet to call home. Given what happened to starship warden, this may not be a safer alternative to staying. Still, it gives you a difficult but concrete goal to aim for, and it won't finish the game if you actually win.
Another article that has a good grip on the mix of humour and seriousness that a good Gamma World game can have, and steals it's ideas from the best sources. It may be ludicrous, but you've got to play it straight and remember that this is serious stuff for the people living there. Is it any wonder they wind up believing strange things, given their environment. I am entertained on multiple levels by this article, which is definitely a good thing.

Rare wines and ready cash: What's worth more than gold in space? Fresh food! After all, gold can be mined anywhere, but good food requires a ridiculous infrastructure to create, and goes off pretty quickly, so if you get it to somewhere where it's scarce at warp speed, you can make a pretty tidy profit. If that's the case, ten why are the profit margins on furs better than things like fish and vegetables. Fantasy economics strikes again, with a dull little article for Star Frontiers. Definitely a case of put the boring stuff near the back where you'll see it last.

Wormy sends irving to hire a crew for his wargame. Snarfquest drives recklessly. Dragonmirth continues to be limerickal.

Another strong issue, and also one that was much easier to get through, with an unusually high quotient of stuff that has a humorous edge to it. If anything, it's better than most of the april fools issues in that respect. As it's also full of stuff that's quickly and easily usable in your games, even if you want to put it in a different game than the one it was originally designed for, this is another very definite high point for the magazine as a whole. Bringing the whole hobby together and educating and entertaining us all, they haven't really been doing that since 1981. Lets hope they keep it up a while longer before D&D pushes everything else out again.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 94: February 1985

part 1/3

100 pages. Oh, now this is one of the most iconic cover pictures ever. Near photographic levels of detail, plus hawtness & cuteness without being excessively cheesy and impractical = epic win. This is one that gets reprinted several times, and deservedly so. We also get an editorial which hints that they may be increasing their coverage of non TSR games further in the near future, as Greg Stafford asks about the viability of putting runequest stuff in. And to top it all off we're getting our second Creature Catalog (not left out this time. ) This seems very promising indeed. Can they keep this run of awesome issues up? I look forward to seeing.

In this issue:

Letters: Once again, their failure to properly centre a module leads to complaints. They try, honestly they do. But when you have deadlines to meet and stuff being changed around up to the last minute, it can't be helped.
Two letters asking for more ettin education. Multi-limbed creatures are better able to survive the loss of some of their parts than humans would under the same situation. Sealing off is useful.
A letter asking how the dwarves in Gladsheim can be magic-users. The answer is of course, because NPC's are not bound to the rules PC's are. Norse myth has tons of dwarvish enchanters. We need to break the rules to properly emulate that. No, you cannot do the same.

The forum: Kurt G Barringhaus thinks that D&D really ought to have a wound penalty system. Will that make the game more fun? Good question. But it'll certainly increase realism.
Tim Nye thinks that dwarves should be heavier than Stephern Innis does. They need to be bulky, because otherwise they have a combat disadvantage that does not combine well with their favoured class. However, halflings should suck at grappling. Ho hum.
Katharine Kerr continues to believe that playing evil characters is unhealthy behaviour indicative of some underlying problem with the players personality. Yes, you, Christopher Kopec and Scott Hicks. : points finger: Why do you enjoy pretending to do nasty things? What's the source of your mental damage, huh? Dear oh dear. We expect this stuff from Gary, but still, this is not the way to garner respect. I'm very disappointed in you.
Steve Pajak has his own variant system for determining success in ability rolls, and would like to share it with us. Thanks for that. Everyone loves a good variant rule.
Ralph Sizer also has thoughts about using ability rolls as a catchall. Remember that different tasks have different difficulties. By using % and a mutiplier to your score based on hardness, you have a situation where even incompetent characters have a chance, albeit a slim one.
Roy Cozier thinks that the magazine should be in no danger from the Tolkien estate for using the name Dwalin, because that name was taken from the Elder Edda in the first place. Ha. If a corporation wants to be an and has way more money to throw at the problem than you, technicalities like that will not protect you.
Gary A Nelson reminds us that bats are not blind, they actually have pretty good eyesight. Silly folkloric sayings, spreading misinformation. A lot of the time the ancients didn't have a clue what they were talking about.

From the sorceror's scroll: Having seriously added to druids last issue, Gary now gives the ranger a nice little extra. An entire new system for tracking, taking into account level and lots of situational modifiers. Which may be an increase in complexity, but sorely needed in this case, and not a huge increase in time taken to use. An expansion to the creatures that qualify for giant class bonuses, since several new monster manuals have come out since the corebook. And just so it isn't all bonuses, a slight restriction on weapon proficencies. Two of these changes would become standard in 2nd edition. Oh, the power he has. I guess these ones all make sense. But they're certainly not as spectacular as the druid ones. Once again the primary spellcasters wind up seriously overshadowing everyone else at high levels. At this point, that problem seems insoluble. Guess it comes with the territory. You play AD&D, that's the way it's gotta be.

An army travels on its stomach: Katharine Kerr contributes another extensive article on realism, logistics, and how to achieve big results in a relatively realistic way. Feeding armies is a nightmare. Travel goes substantially slower than a small group can manage. Roads in medieval places suck. Look after your animals. A rather grim article that exists largely to remind you to throw lots of obstacles in your players way, should they decide to do anything big. Someone definitely prefers their fantasy with quite a bit of grit in it. This could definitely have been done in a far more positive manner. You need to talk about how you overcome the obstacles, as well as what they are. Otherwise it's just a dampener on our adventuring spirit. Definitely not very pleasing contributions by her this month.

Same dice, different odds: Statistics! Doncha just love them. :crickets chirping: Just me then? Straight distributions, bell curves, normal distributions with standard deviation, exploding results, exponential decay curves, and lots of combinations. With a bit of creative application of modifiers, you can solve problems that plague designers through the ages. The classic problem of over lethal housecats can be fixed by rolling two dice and dividing one by the other, allowing for a tiny average, with the possibility of a substantial hit still there. Similarly, things like rockslides are better modeled with this kind of roll on a larger scale. A clever idea, and one I don't remember many games doing. Is basic division really too hard for people? This is definitely an idea I intend to incorporate, as it seems so obvious, yet so little used. Allowing for longshots like this increases the swinginess of the game. And that makes for more drama, which is generally a good thing. Another abandoned gem I'm pleased to have unearthed.

Reptiliad attack wins big: Our final bit of photography from the cons last year is a full scale diorama with tons of stuff going on. Unfortunately, once again, their photographic techniques do not work very well at capturing fine detail on such as small scale. Ur technology, it needs improving naow. Sigh.

The ecology of the chimera: Elminster gets into the ecology business. Well, if he hangs around with Ed that much, it's not surprised he gets roped in. This talks about not only the chimera, but also it's abominable relations, such as the Gorgimera and the Thessalmera, which take the idea of hybridisation several steps further still, with results as ridiculous looking as they are terrifying. This is another case where Ed really doesn't write enough to satisfy. Each of these creatures could easily fill several pages, but instead, they're all crammed together in only two. You had the chance to really elaborate on the hybridisation process, how it happened, and possibly even formulas for splicing together other creatures, which would provide endless hours of fun. A definite wasted opportunity compared to the things my imagination conjured up when I saw the title. Even our top writer can't hit a home run every time, unfortunately.