(un)reason
Legend
Dragon Magazine Issue 154: February 1990
part 3/5
The making of a paladin: Great. More on this irritating subject. :sigh: A relatively short article that feels more like an extended forum piece, this rebutts some of the recent controversies around them, with some talk on their training, and how they differ from clerics and regular fighters. The writer takes the approach that getting into classes is not an easy business, requiring years of training from youth rather than being derivable from divine inspiration or picked up on the job. Not the best approach from a dramatic story point of view, and also one that fosters the view of Paladin as elitist detached from everyday problems and compromises. Not very keen on this one, as it very much does not solve the stereotyping and characterization problems that bedevil the class. No help here. Moving swiftly on then.
All in the family: Heraldry! There's something we haven't seen covered since 1981. And since this new article draws heavily on the new proficiency system, there's vary little rehash involved. Unfortunately, this leads to a textbook case of supplements spreading slots too thin, with 8(!) needed to get all the skills involved. Not a very well considered bit of mechanics. No-one's going to bother with that. Well, not unless the guild has it's own draconian enforcement methods to keep the nobles in line and employing their services, which this certainly presents hints towards. Overall, it's an entertaining but decidedly problematic article, with lots of cool little flavour bits, but decidedly dodgy crunch meaning they may not work out well when applied to your game. Y'know, Roger, as an editor you're supposed to spot and fix issues like this. I guess the system's still new, they haven't had time to see the bugs develop yet.
John Denver says plant a tree for your tomorrow. More crap completely untargeted advertising. Go AWAY! We get enough of this from Michael Jackson. We do not need sensitive acoustic guitar playing on top of the eco crap preaching. And don't you even think about joining in, Ozzy. For the supposed prince of darkness, you don't half have a bunch of soppy preachy ballads in your back catalogue. I'm watching you. Erm. Sorry about that folks. We now return you to your scheduled reviewing.
For king and country: Hmm. Army based gaming. There's something you'd think we'd have more on than we do. We've had quite a bit of stuff on playing and managing an army from the top down, since D&D does have extensive wargaming roots, and the name level stuff presents that as a default option. We've had several editorials from Roger about gamers within the real world military. But roleplaying as a standard grunt or a special forces troop within an army? Somehow we've managed to get this far without the magazine mentioning the idea, save in relation to Top Secret, a few reviews of modern games, and as your backstory in Traveller. And it's such an easy setup to create adventures for, because you have someone actively issuing your characters with missions without the railroading complaints. This article takes a fairly gritty simulationist approach to the topic, with tables where you roll to enlist, to find out your odds of promotion, what duty you're assigned too, and what happens during a particular year. You may want to fudge these a bit to ensure the group can stay together if not playing a solo game. It also sticks closely to the medieval fighter-centric view of armies, where they don't take advantage of the awesome benefits having magical healing and artillery in your arsenal to win wars. So it's a well written article on it's own terms, with plenty of detail, that is at the same time, very poorly suited to D&D worlds and campaign gaming. There is a good campaign to be had with this idea, but you'll have to find somewhere else to draw from if you want to avoid an awkwardly disjointed experience.
The deathgate cycle, the new heptology by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. They can really churn them out.
How to win wars and influence people: Thomas M. Kane gets a second article in on the theme. This is another one drawing heavily on realism issues, pointing out that logistics are usually a bigger enemy to overcome for an army than the supposed human foe. Disease, horrible terrain, disorganised command chains, morale issues, this is why zombies really revolutionise fantasy warfare. With plenty of quotations by Sun Tzu and other noted generals, they once again remind us that real battles bear very little resemblance to D&D ones, and are more commonly exercises in who can get the drop on the opponent and break their spirit rather than head on fights that end when one side is all dead. It's no wonder that adventuring party seems a far more glamorous option than army grunt. So with all the themed articles this month being at mediocre or below, this has not been a good issue so far. Let's hope the other features manage a bit better.
part 3/5
The making of a paladin: Great. More on this irritating subject. :sigh: A relatively short article that feels more like an extended forum piece, this rebutts some of the recent controversies around them, with some talk on their training, and how they differ from clerics and regular fighters. The writer takes the approach that getting into classes is not an easy business, requiring years of training from youth rather than being derivable from divine inspiration or picked up on the job. Not the best approach from a dramatic story point of view, and also one that fosters the view of Paladin as elitist detached from everyday problems and compromises. Not very keen on this one, as it very much does not solve the stereotyping and characterization problems that bedevil the class. No help here. Moving swiftly on then.
All in the family: Heraldry! There's something we haven't seen covered since 1981. And since this new article draws heavily on the new proficiency system, there's vary little rehash involved. Unfortunately, this leads to a textbook case of supplements spreading slots too thin, with 8(!) needed to get all the skills involved. Not a very well considered bit of mechanics. No-one's going to bother with that. Well, not unless the guild has it's own draconian enforcement methods to keep the nobles in line and employing their services, which this certainly presents hints towards. Overall, it's an entertaining but decidedly problematic article, with lots of cool little flavour bits, but decidedly dodgy crunch meaning they may not work out well when applied to your game. Y'know, Roger, as an editor you're supposed to spot and fix issues like this. I guess the system's still new, they haven't had time to see the bugs develop yet.
John Denver says plant a tree for your tomorrow. More crap completely untargeted advertising. Go AWAY! We get enough of this from Michael Jackson. We do not need sensitive acoustic guitar playing on top of the eco crap preaching. And don't you even think about joining in, Ozzy. For the supposed prince of darkness, you don't half have a bunch of soppy preachy ballads in your back catalogue. I'm watching you. Erm. Sorry about that folks. We now return you to your scheduled reviewing.
For king and country: Hmm. Army based gaming. There's something you'd think we'd have more on than we do. We've had quite a bit of stuff on playing and managing an army from the top down, since D&D does have extensive wargaming roots, and the name level stuff presents that as a default option. We've had several editorials from Roger about gamers within the real world military. But roleplaying as a standard grunt or a special forces troop within an army? Somehow we've managed to get this far without the magazine mentioning the idea, save in relation to Top Secret, a few reviews of modern games, and as your backstory in Traveller. And it's such an easy setup to create adventures for, because you have someone actively issuing your characters with missions without the railroading complaints. This article takes a fairly gritty simulationist approach to the topic, with tables where you roll to enlist, to find out your odds of promotion, what duty you're assigned too, and what happens during a particular year. You may want to fudge these a bit to ensure the group can stay together if not playing a solo game. It also sticks closely to the medieval fighter-centric view of armies, where they don't take advantage of the awesome benefits having magical healing and artillery in your arsenal to win wars. So it's a well written article on it's own terms, with plenty of detail, that is at the same time, very poorly suited to D&D worlds and campaign gaming. There is a good campaign to be had with this idea, but you'll have to find somewhere else to draw from if you want to avoid an awkwardly disjointed experience.
The deathgate cycle, the new heptology by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. They can really churn them out.
How to win wars and influence people: Thomas M. Kane gets a second article in on the theme. This is another one drawing heavily on realism issues, pointing out that logistics are usually a bigger enemy to overcome for an army than the supposed human foe. Disease, horrible terrain, disorganised command chains, morale issues, this is why zombies really revolutionise fantasy warfare. With plenty of quotations by Sun Tzu and other noted generals, they once again remind us that real battles bear very little resemblance to D&D ones, and are more commonly exercises in who can get the drop on the opponent and break their spirit rather than head on fights that end when one side is all dead. It's no wonder that adventuring party seems a far more glamorous option than army grunt. So with all the themed articles this month being at mediocre or below, this has not been a good issue so far. Let's hope the other features manage a bit better.