Let's read the entire run

[(un)reason]

I was just being snarky! I got a kick out the idea of those guys over there going up in flames about some of the comments on the classic issues.

I don't even post there, I just know the forum by repuation.

Ha. Well, now you can see if reality lives up to your imagination or not. The worst that can happen is bannination.

Edit: Yup. I've already drawn an accusation of 4E fanboyism. Given my actual opinions on the latest edition change, I find this very amusing.

 

[Orius]

Paul Griffin thinks the alignment system is stupidly written. Where's the room for pragmatists who do whatever is most convenient at the time, or people who try to be good most of the time but cave and betray their friends when things get tough? This badly needs fixing.

It's called True Neutral, sheesh.

Then again too, this IS 1e, so there's that silly "I did a good act yesterday so I must be EVIL today!!!!" concept going with some people. To be fair, 2e got even sillier with alignment though, that was nearly the official explanation of True Neutral, and don't even get me started on Chaotic Neutral Stupid.

Ha. Well, now you can see if reality lives up to your imagination or not. The worst that can happen is bannination.

Edit: Yup. I've already drawn an accusation of 4E fanboyism. Given my actual opinions on the latest edition change, I find this very amusing.

Looks like most of the comments are in favor though.

 

[Dyson Logos]

Dragon Issue 118: February 1987

By this point I had already stopped subscribing to Dragon. But I was still reading them from my friend John (who had picked up a sub when I let mine expire, and who I then bought his entire collection off of when he stopped having room for them.

A lovely cover from Dennis Beuvais here.

Yeah, I love the series of chessboard covers. Some excellent work. That's what I think of when I think of this era of Dragon.

Another letter asking them to cover more non TSR games (BRP is getting a lot of love. ) and maybe do miniatures reviews again. Roger is once again cautious. You gotta send that stuff in if you want us to cover it. We also intend to keep Dungeon strictly D&D for the time being. All this is subject to change due to demand.

Which is why I stopped subscribing. I'm a multi-gamer and I loved the old days of Dragon when it was multi-game. 1982 was a very good year... 1987 less so. By this point I had already dropped AD&D1e as my primary game, going back to Moldvay B/X.

Paul Griffin thinks the alignment system is stupidly written. Where's the room for pragmatists who do whatever is most convenient at the time, or people who try to be good most of the time but cave and betray their friends when things get tough? This badly needs fixing.

The alignment debates have always amused me. I've always played that you can CHANGE alignment based on your actions. Of course, the pragmatist is Neutral or maybe even Chaotic, probably X-Neutral with Good tendencies.

Peter C Zelinski thinks that multiple weapon specialization shouldn't be allowed at 1st level, as it's too unbalancing. Only higher level slots should be applicable that way.

Yeah... playing in an AD&D1e game again, I have to agree. The weapon rules for BECMI are one of the few things I brought over from BECMI to Moldvay B/X.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 118: February 1987

part 2/5

Illuminati! All these conspiracies to control the world. Who will win? Now with new friends and enemies in the expansion set.

Surely, you joust!: Fast forward a few hundred years, and gladiatorial arenas are no longer in fashion, but instead guys in heavy armour get on big horses and do their best to knock each other off with lances. Course, in D&D, you can take a short trip from Karimekos to Thyatis and do both no problem. But without rules for weapon breakage and unhorsing, it'd just be a standard fight. So here's another fairly extensive article to turn tournament fighting into it's own minigame. Cavaliers are of course the stars of the show, with their slew of riding related bonuses making them better than any other fighter at the same level, but that doesn't mean you can't at least compete. Another pretty good article, even if it does fall into the trap of creating nonunified subsystems to handle each situation, and it's obvious that the writer hasn't read either of the survival guides that roll out nonweapon proficiencies for general use. It happens, especially when an article has probably been in the slush pile for months waiting for enough other stuff on the same theme to build up.

A day at the faire: Once again we follow on fairly logically. You now have rules to fight in a tournament. But plenty of fun can be had simply as a spectator, especially if you already have an in with the upper classes and can engage in a little shopping, betting and politicking while there. Here's a fairly quick article that gives us some descriptive fluff to help you set the mood, a set of map elements for you to take and use, some sample NPC's, and half a dozen plot hooks involving them. In other words, this cuts all the crap, and gives us one thing after another that's useful in actual play with very little work. If anything, it's almost a sample adventure. Which is pretty damn awesome, actually. Even more than the last article, this really makes a good bit of tournamenting seem a fun and accessable option for a session. Very pleasing indeed.

On target: And if you're not too keen on arena fighting or jousting, there's always archery, which allows you to demonstrate your skill with rather less bloodshed, particularly on your part. And once again, we are faced with the abstractions in D&D's combat system, which while normally beneficial to our play, make running a competition like this very hard if you don't houserule. And once again Leonard Carpenter is here to provide said houserules. Once again, he isn't fully integrated with previous books and articles (Completely ignoring the Archer class in a discussion on archery? Shocking. I don't care if it was 6 years ago, and you don't have a copy of that issue ) but most of it makes sense on it's own terms. A solid but unexceptional way to finish off what has been overall, a very good themed section.

ARRRGH!!!: What a header I'm amused already. This is all about PAIN! Wound penalties are one of those things that certain people keep trying to put into the game, but so far, it's never stuck. Mainly because for most people, it's more bookkeeping for less fun. And massively escalating hit points combined with it produce odd results. But here we go again, into the AARRG, my FOOT!!!! territory. Which while it has it's superficial temptations, is nowhere near as nice as marlboro country to live. If you want to add an extra roll and a couple of extra bits of bookkeeping to every single hit, be my guest. But even though these seem pretty solid, and don't neglect the idea that some of D&D hit points are actually narrative avoidance, I still have no desire to actually use them. It also gets cut off at the end without saying where the final few lines are and I can't find them anywhere. Sloppy editing. Curse you, Roger! :shakes fist:

Nibar's keep: CC Stoll pulls an old game out of his files and finally gets it published. Not really a full-on special feature, this is a quick little game where two players summon various creatures and compete in an arena to settle disputes. They ought to sue nintendo There are 9 different types of counters, all with their own strengths and weaknesses, giving you a level of emergent tactics on a similar kind of level to chess. With an optional advanced version, it should survive a few plays. This fits the theme of the issue well, and since it has a fairly generic rationale for existing in a larger setting, you could insert Nidar and his keep into an RPG campaign, and use this as a minigame who's results have effects in the larger continuity. Which I might well do, if I get the chance. Nice.

 

[Dyson Logos]

Yeah, after my post last night I actually flipped through the magazine and wondered why my copy was so abused.

ARRRGH!!!: What a header I'm amused already. This is all about PAIN! Wound penalties are one of those things that certain people keep trying to put into the game, but so far, it's never stuck. Mainly because for most people, it's more bookkeeping for less fun. And massively escalating hit points combined with it produce odd results. But here we go again, into the AARRG, my FOOT!!!! territory. Which while it has it's superficial temptations, is nowhere near as nice as marlboro country to live. If you want to add an extra roll and a couple of extra bits of bookkeeping to every single hit, be my guest.

And this is why.

We used those rules in the majority of our AD&D1e games after this issue came out. It didn't add an extra roll to every hit, you just had to track how much damage it took to cause a "wound" and then take the penalties for being wounded. It was simple and effective and gave us what we wanted at the time which was a death spiral effect.

You know, I'm suddenly struck by the urge to write up a simpler version of this system for the various retro-gamers out there... Quickly man, to the Blog-Cave!

 

[Dyson Logos]

Re-reading that article (ARRRGH!!!) had me notice one of the RPG ads that had caught my attention so much during my teenage years - I went hunting for this game at my local gaming stores on more than one occasion (after buying every FGU game off the shelves). But from what I'm reading now, it seems I wasn't the only person who never saw a copy of it.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 118: February 1987

part 3/5

Fiction: Across the fog-gray sea by Lois Tilton. A delightful tale of incest, genocide, ancestral curses, and secret heirs to the throne, set in a wild, somewhat viking flavoured land somewhere in the polar regions. This is the kind of thing that shows why you shouldn't take half measures when oppressing a country, and keeping slaves of a different ethnicity is a very bad idea. They will resent you, and it will come back to bite your ass sometime in the future, often in a way you don't expect. So a surprisingly unbowdlerised little morality play here. Mature themes do not have to involve gratuitous cheesecake. I approve.

Sage advice welcomes Mike Breault onto the team. This month, most of the questions are focused on the Dungeoneers survival guide.
The proficiencies system makes no sense. The better you are, the harder it is. (yeah, we made an editing error. Reverse all the modifiers and it'll make sense. )
Does blind-fighting help you fight invisible creatures. (Yes. Are you gonna fill your valuable slots with the fluff skill choices anyway? We'll all be sing at you.)
Can you fire a bow while riding? ( You can only fire bow from a moving horse if you have the proficiency. That hit and run power is very much worth the investment. )
Can a loud noise disrupt the verbal component to a spell (no. Magical energy is HOP not HAP in D&D. It can hear the components and respond appropriately even if no-one else could unless you're magically silenced.)
Can you use hold person to hold a person underwater (No. It only prevents them from moving. They're still bouyant. This may not save them, of course, depending what side of them floats to the top.)
How do I make a bigger map than the blank maps allow.( Photocopy it enlarged and draw new lines between the existing ones. Or buy lots of graph paper. )
What's the cutoff point between shallow and deep descents? (15 degrees. Don't ask us about the level of resonance. I'm a rocket scientist, not a musician.)
Aren't grappling hooks too expensive. (what is this, a modern setting? Have you examined our price lists? Oh, alright, just for you, an 80% discount. I'm not going any lower, though.)
Isn't it too easy to smash a boat to bits underground (no. Crunch our numbers, I think you'll find them quite reasonable. Underground waterways are risky places. )
How do I turn my paladin into a cavalier-paladin if he doesn't fit the requirements or social restrictions. (Don't worry too much about it if you're not playing tournament rules. Gary's left now. You don't have to listen to his pontifications about the one true way to play AD&D anymore. )
Why can't a dwarf pummel a human. (Because they're too short for the basic rules. You'll have to use the expert ones. Shocking sizeism, really.)

A hero's reward: Oooh. Hero points. Narrative coolness finally arrives for D&D! You want to be able to make a choice to put some extra effort into a particular roll? Or have divine favour or the luck of heroes, making your game more cinematic. Well, now you can. In typical D&D fashion, they escalate directly with level, so normal mooks aren't much better, but big heroes are considerably more able to influence their fate. However, these ones only let you influence your own fate in terms of boosting numbers or giving enemies penalties, rather than plot twists, dramatic editing, and other cool stuff that later games would do with this concept. Still, even if it's not brilliantly implemented yet, you do usually have to go through rough versions before you get the really cool polished products. Hopefully several aspiring young game designers got their mind expanded by reading this. As ever, if you are one of those people, I'd love to hear from you.

Out of the stone age: Hee. Neanderthals. One of the monsters that appears in both basic and advanced D&D, they blur the line between human and nonhuman in a similar way to the demihuman races. Only with the additional weirdness that comes from them maybe having existed at some point in reality. Albeit not in this form, which is packed with weird D&Disms, like using rituals to advance their powers. Still, it's not often we get new PC races specifically for BD&D, so this is a welcome occurrence. Like the barbarian cleric, they balance out badassedness with high XP costs and a whole bunch of social requirements. Since their xp costs and max levels are similar to elves, I think that'll actually work out this time. In any case, this was definitely a fun little article to read. They do seem to be having a lot of those this month.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 118: February 1987

part 4/5

The dragon's bestiary: Opilonid are a swarm hunting breed of underground arachnoids. They get a whole bunch of quirky exception based powers and ecological stuff. Definitely one of the better thought out entries in here.
Spider cats(!) are exactly what they sound like, hybrid predators that stalk you, web you, and string you up for later. Mad wizards get memetastic. Just be thankful none of them have unleashed lolcats on the forgotten realms. That'd mess it up even worse than the spellplague.
Pheonix spiders take the tenacity of cockroaches and make it even worse, as they reform, bigger and badder every time you kill them. Now that's the kind of thing that provokes HOLY CRAP! reactions in players. I so want to use these. If anything'll make even the dumbest kill everything that moves party stop and think, it's these guys. They also have instadeath poison that still does damage if you save, so even at their smaller sizes they'll still mow through an uninformed party. If you were to take the cap off it's growth, and vary it's weakness to a form harder to find and use, one of these could rival the tarrasque as a country destroying monstrosity that drives an entire campaign arc. Muahahahaha!!!!!!
Polar spiders, like polar bears, are big furry things that camouflage themselves against the ice, and hunt you down. Yet another apex predator in a world absolutely swarming with them.
Giant bolas spiders throw a sticky glob at you and reel you in like a hooked fish. Good luck breaking free before they grab you and apply the standard instadeath poison. To top it off, they're smart enough to be malevolent, and can detect magic by touch, which definitely seems like it could have plot purposes.
Definitely a well above average bestiary this month, with several awesome entries. Their diabolical imaginations are working at full steam, adapting stuff from the real world to their ends. I approve.

The game wizards: Zeb Cook continues to clarify his plans for the next edition. This month, it's the crucial decision of which classes to include. Fighters, wizards and thieves are a shoe-in, although they may be tweaked slightly, and the thief abilities subsumed into the skill system. Too radical a change? Maybe the edition after then.
Clerics are probably staying, although they do have some vocal opposition, and if they weren't essential for healing, might be ditched (just make another class with healing powers then, so they aren't essential anymore ) We still want to differentiate clerics of various gods more. This will also have the effect of making druids less unique, and they'll likely be rolled into the general speciality cleric rules.
Assassins are definitely going, we're trying to be a family friendly company now, and they've just caused too much hassle.
Bards are getting completely reworked, to make them more universal, and less mechanically wonky.
Monks are going to be relegated to the oriental supplement where they belong. Barbarians and cavaliers are also likely to be relegated to a splatbook and seriously rebalanced, and maybe paladins and rangers will join them. Or maybe not, as we want to have a few unambiguous hero types.
Illusionists are to be rolled into wizards and new types of specialists created, and thief-acrobats will similarly be constructible using the proficiency rules, and therefore redundant as a separate class.
So his plans as stated aren't too different from Gary's original ones from issue 103. (Although I'm pretty sure the new classes from UA would have got a better deal if he was still around, since they were his babies.) For all his statements that your letters are vital to their decisions, they already seem to have come to a consensus on most of the big issues. Probably the thing that stands out most as a dropped ball was their failure to enhance the skill system, and make it fully integrated with class features, giving all the classes a much greater degree of flexibility, and their various abilities more universal resolution. Guess inertia won out over good intentions on that one. But then again, even the radicals in their office have no desire to make the kind of changes that we saw in 3rd and 4th ed, partly due to inability to conceive of ways the game could be done differently. Another interesting bit of fuel for the flame wars, that I'm sure we'll see responses to in the forum.

TSR previews: D&D is still on an epic kick, with IM2: Wrath of the immortals. Course, it isn't quite as epic as the first immortal adventure, but probably more accessable. Kick the asses of those who dare to meddle in human affairs directly. Woo.
AD&D gets I11: Needle. Frank Mentzer sends the PC's on an epic adventure to retrieve a macguffin and rescue a spider princess. How very amusing. We also get C6: The official RPGA Tournament Handbook. Want to write your own convention legal modules? Now you can without having to pay a load of subscription fees. Technically AD&D, but actually pretty system free, is Leaves from the Inn of the Last home. Tons of stuff to fill out Dragonlance as a setting, rather than just the backdrop for a specific set of adventures.
Marvel superheroes are getting MA3: The ultimate powers book. That sounds like the kind of thing which sells well. Everyone loves new official powers.
Our adventure gamebooks are up to number 12, Curse of the werewolf. Can you cure your lycanthropy before you become nothing but a monster?
Carwars gets it's third gamebook, Dueltrack. All the usual hazards, plus an unreliable experimental robot that's supposedly on your side. I suspect this may be used for comic relief. :shudders:
Another new imprint kicks off, the Windwalker books. The first is Once upon a murder. A detective is bodyswapped and sent back in time. Can he find out what the hell is going on and get home? The second is Bimbos of the Death Sun. I remember that name! I get the impression that this may be a line of less serious books. What was all this about then?
Finally, we have the Chase family board game. Another attempt to diversify, this had a short independently printed run which was a resounding success, and has now been picked up for widespread distribution. Anyone played this one?

 

[Arnwyn]

Anyway, once again, we're getting a big batch of stuff from the ruins of Myth Drannor. (What's the betting that when FR becomes a full setting, that'll be one of the first places to get a supplement dedicated to it.)

It would be a very unwise bet to make!

It took 6 years for the Ruins of Myth Drannor box set to be released (1993) from the original publish year of the Old Grey Box (1987).

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Issue 118: February 1987

part 5/5

Unfriendly fire: Top secret goes military this month. Yes, it may be tricky being a secret agent in areas with an ongoing outright war, but when the stakes are highest, the benefits you can provide for your country are as well. Plus you have a chance of getting to use the really cool toys to blow stuff up that you couldn't normally get away with. So here we have both cool crunch, and GM'ing advice on how to handle it, and build adventures building it. Now you can try and survive mass combat, and die horribly from chemical and biological weapons. A pretty decent article with plenty of actual play applications.

The warlock redux: Jeff takes a break from his Phileing to pay more attention to his planar work. So it's up to someone else to provide us marvel stuff this month. Adam Warlock, Pip, Gamora, and Her. One of our more cosmically powerful heroes and his rogues gallery. Themes of finding a purpose, responsibility, good intentions gone astray, and the general problems of a universe with time travel, fairly frequent but unreliable resurrection, and an animistic Death. Heavy topics, but they don't forget the comic relief. As with the last time Jeff took a break, more attention is paid to the actual play of these characters, and creating games with a similar style. Curious. As with Ed and the ecologies, this is evidence that even when you have top writers on the case, a little variety is still welcome, producing an overall stronger body of work on a property. After all, the marvel universe is now broad enough that you don't really have to worry about ruining continuity and dilution of themes. So another pretty decent showing all round on this front.

The role of computers: OrbQuest is an adventure game, where you quest to reunite the seven pieces of the shattered macgufin. /so you can enter ganon's tower/ Explore cities, wilderness, and dungeons. (rather easier than in most games, because they've had the innovative idea of making your character head for the point on the screen your mouse clicks on. ) Fight monsters. Reroll your attributes untill you get good ones. (exactly the same as D&D attributes, but not on the same scale. ) While some of the ideas may have been new then, it seems pretty generic now.
Roadwar 2000 is a postapocalyptic survival game. Build a gang, scavenge vehicles, and compete for resources and territory in a burned out future that is now in the past, amusingly enough. It seems to push most of the buttons you would expect a game like that to hit, and certainly covers a pretty wide scope, as you can roam the entire states, and both tactical combat and strategic resource management are crucial to success. Sounds like fun.
World Builder is a general map creation program. This is exceedingly useful for GM's, as it allows you to build 3d environments, show them from any angle, and include descriptive text to go with it. (which you will need, because this is 1987, and the graphics aren't that great. If you have the time and energy to learn a programming language, then you can get quite a lot out of this, or one of it's descendants. If not, just leave it.

Snarf is rapidly getting bored of being king. But loose ends from last adventure will be back to bite him. Dragonmirth is all armored up.

Bloodbowl! The game of fantasy american football out soon. Now where have we seen that before? Oh yeah, back in issue 65. TSR oughta sue .

Spacemaster! Rolemaster in Spaaaace! Another newish game to enjoy.

Looks like Len Carpenter is the real star of this show, in an issue that manages to not only fulfill it's theme better than most, but introduces several other very interesting ideas. This shows that it's usually better to keep track of what's in the slush pile and put together the best stuff you can find, even if it takes a while to build up enough, rather than always existing month to month. The more you buffer the easier things become, even if you're outputting the same amount overall, the ability to smooth out internal fluctuations and engage in longer editing cycles definitely helps. Anyway, this is one of the best issues I've read in a while, in all aspects apart from the editing. Tsk tsk Roger. You're doing too much. Get more help before you burn out.