Let's read the entire run

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 184: August 1992

part 8/8


Audible Glamour: As usual as we near the end of an issue, it's time for the obligatory filler to ensure the page count lines up neatly. In this case it's one on making sure you describe rooms properly. Sight, sound, smell, touch. Hopefully not taste. If you do it right then you provide them with valuable clues as to what lies ahead, so they won't scream bloody murder when killed horribly by your latest deathtrap because the signs were there for them to avoid if they'd thought about it. Course, doing this for every room will multiply out your design time quite a bit, much of which will be wasted if the place is even slightly non-linear, which is why I've found myself actually doing this less in my most recent game. Quite frankly, I do not have the time. It's regrettable, but there you go. Perfectionism is for those who don't have constant deadlines breathing down their neck and a ton of other things they want to do with their life. And with that, I shall move on.


Son of pen power: Man, they really are pushing the survey stuff this year. This one is all about themes. What type of themed articles do you most want to see next year? Ones on our campaign worlds? Historical periods. Races, classes. Humour, undead, wilderness/dungeon/underground? Something new? Go on, suggest something new. Roger'll thank you for it. Once again we see the struggles trying to please their audience they have to deal with, especially after so long and covering so much already.


Dragonmirth is slightly more technologically advanced than usual. Ogrek is once again full of ideas that exasperate Yamara, but would probably actually work pretty well. The plot seriously thickens in Twilight empire.


Through the looking glass: Off to the conventions we go. This means this column is relatively uninteresting, but with the promise of cool new stuff next month, quite possibly from companies they don't normally get to cover. Just like gaming, there's a whole bunch of stuff that never gets into the standard distribution chains.

Plenty of variety in minis this month though. A nicely looming set of undead that demonstrate that 3mm can make quite a difference in minis scale. Two dragons and a hippogriff. Yet another demonstration of what happens if you get on the wrong side of wizards with polymorphing magic. A rather interesting Dragon powered zeppelin manned by dwarves, which seems like an awesome encounter idea. A mech for battletech. A street samurai for shadowrun. And three new ships for the Silent Death game. Mostly variations on familiar themes with the odd cool bit here and there.


Trading cards are certainly on the up at the moment. How long before they start making games specifically for them.


A pretty dull issue really. When the most interesting bits are the promotional articles and the editorial, something is a little amiss. I'm not sure if that's because too much is just very familiar, and I'm getting roleplaying advice fatigue again, or because there's an actual drop in quality. In any case, the buzz I got from reaching halfway is gone, and I am left very aware that I've probably got another couple of years of this to go. Hopefully the recent survey gives them the inspiration to find a few new topics and get enough articles to do them justice. Otherwise I may have to take a break for the sake of my sanity.

 

[Echohawk]

Otherwise I may have to take a break for the sake of my sanity.

Much as I enjoy reading your tour through the history of Dragon magazine -- and I check this thread most days -- I would completely understand if you needed to take a break from it for a little while

 

[(un)reason]

Much as I enjoy reading your tour through the history of Dragon magazine -- and I check this thread most days -- I would completely understand if you needed to take a break from it for a little while

In one of those great ironies that comes from having a decent buffer, that was written just before I started this current slowed down schedule. The fact that I'm just about to go back to regular speed tomorrow is somewhat amusing in light of this.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 185: September 1992

part 1/6


124 pages. A nice dark sun cover adorns this months issue. By no co-incidence at all, this is also this month's special topic, exactly a year after it first got unleashed upon us. I wonder if they're going to try and make a regular thing of this. Surely not, when even the Forgotten Realms hasn't managed that kid of privilege. Maybe I'll be interestingly surprised, maybe not. In any case, let's see how the gameline has developed over the past year.


In this issue:


Letters: A letter asking why TSR don't release their games on Atari formats. Not profitable enough mate. Don't want to throw good money after bad by supporting a dead system.

A letter asking one new question and two old ones. Roger uses this as an opportunity to once again drop subtle hints to upper management that we are well overdue another best of. The demand is obviously there, why will you not authorise it? It's easy money for old rope.

A letter from a Rifts fanboy saying Dragon sucks for not covering palladium stuff, and their reviewers suck for being so harsh on it. Comedy gold, enabling Roger to give a level-headed yet sarcastic response. You keep your facts away from the froth. Let's not even mention what happened when White Wolf tried to cover their products in response to a similar letter.

A letter suggesting that maybe the time is now right for them to put a hologram on their cover. All the cool comics are doing it. Roger gives a cautious response. Maybe for issue 200. Maybe. Not making any promises. Don't send complaining letters if we don't.


Editorial: The annoying letters apparently continue at a rate high enough that Roger can't print all of them. He can however give them a good rebutting. Flying space whales are an entirely viable form of fantasy! Not every cover has to involve something badass staring at the camera going Raar. AD&D 2nd edition is not dumbed down! If anything, it takes even more effort to keep track of and incorporate everything. Similarly, 1st edition is not some perfect holy canon. The number of things left open or inconsistent is quite considerable, and we've filled in quite a few of those gaps in the meantime. And finally, gamers can be any age, race, religion, sexuality, political affiliation, etc that they like. As long as they can create a character and roll them bones, they can join in. Assuming other roles regularly should breed tolerance and empathy. Well, it seems that they still have their share of vitriolic lamers writing in. Don't sweat it. It shows that they're invested in the game, and also keeps you from getting complacent. Plus, comedy. It's much better than bland positive stuff.


The Arena Master's Arsenal: More weapons! More ingenious and often rather ugly weapons with special tricks beyond just inflicting damage. Another case where this may not catch fighters up with spellcasters in the amount of new crunch they've got, but certainly doesn't hurt. While intended for Dark Sun, I'm sure you can slip these into your exotic cultures on other worlds.

Bard's Friends are multipronged knife things that are easily used from concealment and make good parrying weapons. They look like each one is likely to be a bit different, customised to the hand of their maker and whatever sharp things they have to lash together.

Cahulaks are halfway between nunchuks and grappling hooks, and can be useful both in hand to hand and short range combat, for purposes of pain and grappling. As both a tool and a weapon, they definitely seem like a good one to carry around just in case, particularly for rogues.

Crushers take the principles of leverage and momentum and seriously exaggerate them. 25' long poles? Not getting that in many dungeons. On the other hand, in a wide open field, this can let you attack lots of things at once. Interesting idea though. I wonder how they came up with that one.

Datchi Clubs are huge spiky honeycombs of pain, the worst kind of phallic metaphor. Rotate them when attacking for extra larceration based agony. And you thought corncobs and pineapples were bad.

Dragon's paws have blades on both ends and the middle, like klingon batleths, only more practical. You can use the ends as protection from the sides while attacking to the front.

Gouges are big axe/polearms with shoulder straps to give you leverage and reduce the risk of disarming. You can also do flashy spin attacks for double damage if you have the space. Very PC'ish.

Master's whips have special barbs designed to contain poison. If you're really good, you can have a different one applied to each lash and control which one gets the enemy. I must admit that sounds both awesome and fairly plausible. The themed tricks you could pull would be quite considerable.

Tortoise blades are a good example of using what you can get. Take the shell and bones, and use them to make a two-in-one blade and shield combo that makes for great dual-wielding and parrying action. If anyone's going to have a chance against Drizzt, it's a gladiator from the big desert.

Weighted Pikes have a sharp bit on one end, and a spiky club on the other. They're most effective on large creatures, but their versatility of damage types means they're good as a primary weapon. After all, you never know what'll be resistant to one but not the other.

Widows Knives are double pronged nasties that can be spring-loaded and used with great precision both in hand to hand and ranged. Now there's one you'll need at least a little metal to craft. Still, it's a good end to an awesome collection.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 185: September 1992

part 2/6


Mastered, yet untamed: More Dark sun monsters, and official permission to use a few more from other settings as well here. This time, the theme is stuff that you can domesticate. Even in a place as hostile as Athas, people can learn to work together with various animals for mutual benefit. And then eat them when supplies get low. Just watch they don't get you first, for they're no pushovers.

Baazrag are one of the few Dark sun creatures that isn't big and scary. In fact, they're almost cute. They might be only 2' long, but in packs they can make surprisingly good draft animals, like huskies with armour plated heads.

Heavy Crodlu are considerably less cute than chocobos, but serve about the same role. The athasian equivalent of draft horses, they can be pretty nasty, with a full 5 attacks per round. Train them to fight and any bandits attacking your merchant train'll have a rough time of it.

Drik are enormous, foul-tempered, flat-shelled turtles. This means you can set up little structures on their back easily, but also makes them a serious hazard to their handlers. Everything has to be a little more badass in Athas, doesn't it.

Jalath'gak (bless you. Get well soon dear.) are enormous flying insects. They don't make that brilliant draft animals, but the thri-kreen obviously prefer them to the reptilian ones earlier. And they still can work perfectly fine as flying mounts for combat. 7 attacks? That could strafe a whole party effectively.

Ruktoi are basically silt-based crocodiles. They do the old ambush predator thing of floating just below the surface, then grabbing you and pulling you under to suffocate. The lack of water in athas certainly doesn't keep these nasty tricks from working. Another one you can theoretically domesticate, but good luck not becoming dinner if you slip up. Rather a recurring theme really.

Watroaches are simultaneously a giant beetle, and a ton of little beetles that form a hive. This is pretty interesting really. They can't be tamed, but hollowed out undead watroaches are another nasty mobile siege engine that can really make a mess of the enemy's defences, since building materials really struggle to keep up with the creatures around here. Everyone ought to move into bioorganics, because stone weapons just can't cut it against these creatures.


Twenty tricks for castle defense: An article that obviously springs from the recent forum debates. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Roger probably finds it quite nice when someone sends in something forum related that can be broken out and make a full article in itself. It provides a continuity to the magazine that just including whatever seems cool at the time lacks. Mixing magical and mundane tricks, this is primarily intended for the defender, but many of the tricks would work just as well from the other side too. Staying on top of things while keeping the enemy off guard and reacting to you is always a wise choice to make. Hitting them in the infrastructure, breaking morale and using assassins rather than head-on fights also seems more likely to win, and with less bloodshed for both sides too. (and people say paladins are the good ones. ) This is a good one, compressing lots of useful stuff into a small package, while coming up with some of it's own ideas. Sun Tzu would be proud.


Fiction: Water and ashes by Allen Varney. The story of the founding of the Veiled alliance. Since Allen just wrote the sourcebook on that, this smells like cut material, as for whatever reason, the editors decided not to include a short story this time. Not that I blame them, as this isn't the most enthralling little bit of writing they've included. In fact, it all smells a bit anvilicious, with very little actual agency demonstrated by any of the main characters. The founding of the alliance comes to look like more of a quirky accident that was run with than a deliberate attempt by anyone to oppose the sorcerer-kings. And the way morality is handled is oh so very D&D and unnaturalistic. It looks like the skills needed to be a good game writer and reviewer, and fiction writer do not always correlate. So we have here a textbook example of bad gaming fiction. Don't like this at all.


The voyage of the princess ark: Bruce makes up for last month's laziness with quite a long and interesting adventure. Heading north, the Ark encounters the three very different nations of lizard people. Shazaks, Gurrash, and Cay-men. Haldemar gets captured, again, and is going to be sacrificed to the Gurrash's monstrosity. Which turns out to be a Neh-Thalggu, played for laughs as it suffers an attack of multiple personalities from it's contained brains. We get more hints as to the upcoming big metaplot events. Haldemar remains skeptical. Mystara, losing all it's magic? surely not. This would ruin Alphatia. Even if they're lying, it would probably be a good idea to investigate further.

Unsurprisingly, OOC, we have more history on the races of lizard men and stats that make them playable as PC's. Uplifted by the Herathians to serve as slaves, and then kicked out when they proved not useful, they've built their own little cultures in the swamps and forests. Not very impressive ones, mind, but a definite improvement on regular lizard men. They have rather interesting stats, with negative levels, intelligence that starts off really low and increases as they gain levels, and yet another different way of handling things if they become spellcasters. Bruce does seem to enjoy experimenting with these exception based race/class combos. And so once again we have some cool new stuff opened up for us to experiment with. He does seem to be doing that more and more frequently. Guess it's what the people want. You know, by this stage it would be simpler to have separate races and classes like AD&D.

 

[amysrevenge]

Twenty tricks for castle defense: An article that obviously springs from the recent forum debates. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Roger probably finds it quite nice when someone sends in something forum related that can be broken out and make a full article in itself. It provides a continuity to the magazine that just including whatever seems cool at the time lacks. Mixing magical and mundane tricks, this is primarily intended for the defender, but many of the tricks would work just as well from the other side too. Staying on top of things while keeping the enemy off guard and reacting to you is always a wise choice to make. Hitting them in the infrastructure, breaking morale and using assassins rather than head-on fights also seems more likely to win, and with less bloodshed for both sides too. (and people say paladins are the good ones. ) This is a good one, compressing lots of useful stuff into a small package, while coming up with some of it's own ideas. Sun Tzu would be proud.

This is another article that I remember "using". We didn't ever use the rules in an actual game, I think, but we did design and redesign castles and keeps during lunch hour at school in the way that only obsessed high-school kids with no other interests can manage.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 185: September 1992

part 3/6


Magic in the evening: And then there were two wizards regularly visiting poor Ed. As part of the drive for increasing amounts of crossover between the worlds. Elminster invites Mordenkainen over for dinner, so they can discuss events, and exchange magical knowledge. Which means Ed gets to combine fiction with new game material in a manner quite different from Pages from the Mages. World spanning cosmic knowledge mixes with childlike glee at the culinary delights earth offers. Elminster has long ago put aside the fear of being underestimated or seen as immature. Mordenkainen is a little more cagey, but still has a sense of humour about recent events, and an appreciation of the finer things in life. Ed also uses this as an opportunity to comment on recent metaplot events in Toril, Krynn and Oerth. Lots of awesomeness, and more than a little silliness, and even he can't control it all. Not that they'd want to either. They both recognise that you need to keep minor bad guys around so the good guys have a target to healthily take out their aggressions on. (which neatly answers why he sets you quests that he could solve with a couple of judicious 9th level spells before breakfast)

Even more than PftM, the spells in here are both quirky and well integrated into the setting, showing signs of people who are familiar with previous generations of spells and designing their ones specifically to counter or one-up them. Curse of the grinning skull is just perfect. Spelldream is both effective and evocative. Thundaerl's universal taster is a handy utility effect of the kind we could do with more of, and moonweb gives you a justice field which can be very handy indeed. Both enjoyable and useful, this is classic Ed material. He's still got both the touch and the power.


Role-playing reviews I: The theme of this set of reviews is boxed sets. Another reminder how much more common they were back then. They're releasing enough on a regular basis that they can take them for granted, not every one is a big deal. If anything, they're about to reach their peak over the next year or two. We should be seeing this topic again.

Dark sun boxed set sees Rick once again give 4 +1/2 stars where most other reviewers would comfortably award 5. It's not that he doesn't like it, but he is aware of it's shortcomings. These are mostly in the areas it doesn't go far enough. They should have got rid of alignment, put a bit more emphasis on the ecological disaster spin, and included more adventure seeds and NPC's. A few supplements'll sort those second two right out. Course, you may not be happy with the answers they give.

Horror on the orient express is for Call of Cthulhu, and it DOES get 5 stars. It's as brutal on the investigators as a good CoC game should be, while maintaining a sense of fun about itself that should keep them from getting too pissed about their horrible deaths. If any game product can aspire to art, it's one like this.

Solaris VII is a regional sourcebox for Battletech and Mechwarrior. It seems slightly more aspected towards providing a good backdrop for the human level interactions, but with both frontier and city underworld stuff, there's plenty of excuses for both mech duels and proper political conflicts. Once again, Rick thinks it needs some more specific supplements to fill things in, but it is a massive improvement on their previous attempts at setting building. You'll just have to hope enough people buy this to make supplements worth their while.


The marvel-phile: Kree kree! Our second set of superpowered alien punching bags are back. And they've been copying other superheroes powers. Captain Atlas. Dr Minerva. Kordath the Pursuer. Shatterax. Supremor. And Ultimus. (methinks those last two are trying too hard) Most have energy manipulation abilities, and some degree of body armor, making them seem fairly standardised as antagonists go, but each has some trick that sets them apart from your run of the mill kree mook. They may be a genetically moribund race, but they're not dead yet by a longshot, no sir. This lot'll make good adversaries for a whole superhero team, and even if you beat them, you know there'll be more where they came from. More useful than some entries, this is nothertheless another rather dry collection of stats and histories I can't get too worked up about. Now what we need are a good bunch of Skrulls to put them up against. See you next month.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 185: September 1992

part 4/6


Sage advice: The alertness proficiency doesn't conform to 2nd ed rules (yes, the writer of the complete thief's handbook was quite the incompetent. Skip already sorted him out last issue, so worry no more about it. )

The complete fighters handbook breaks the rules on specialization. ( No it doesn't. Buy a new PHB, it will be in agreement. The canon police will be along shortly to erase your memory of the old flawed books with their psychic hamsters. And so the complete fighters handbook will always have been correct.)

Why do bards get reduced thieving penalties for armor, but fighter/thieves don't (The magic bard training faeries say so. Don't complain too much, or they'll revert to 1st ed rules)

Can energy containment be maintained. (no, It's a reactive power used when needed, not activated beforehand)

Is there a save against ID insinuation. (no. It's like ranged touch attacks. They already have to penetrate your mental resistance. Getting another roll to avoid it afterwards would make it too weak. )

Can you develop new psionic powers (yes, but it aint easy. )

Does the complete psionics handbook replace the powers monsters got before (no)

What can hurt a character in ectoplasmic form (anything that can hurt ghosts. This is a bigger selection of powers than you'd think. Also, running away from your comrades mid-fight may piss off the other players. )

Can you use a spell and a psionic power simultaneously. (no. Types of actions per round rules, we need them. You can maintain already activated powers though. )

What happens when you fail a system shock roll (You're dead. CPR and cure spells will do sod-all. You need a cleric with raising powers to get them back)

Can you escape ravenloft by exploding an extradimensional space or a prismatic wall. (No. They've already planned for that trick. )

What happens if people from different prime material planes see a colour pool while astral. Does it look a different colour to each (yes)

-3 THAC0?! How the hell do you get that (by being really really badass. It is within high level PC's reach. )

Can you use more than one psionic power with a preparation time of 0 in a round (no. Action type rules, again. Skip is developing some. Soon they will be official. Oh yes.)

What armour & weapons can vikings have. (whatever's left after the 800 pound gorilla got first pick )

Are undead cut off from the negative energy plane in the phlogiston? Does this mean they lose energy draining powers (no. Undead are a bitch to deal with. Like ravenloft, simple tricks that should logically work like that will do sod-all. )

Can psionicists use illithid series helms (no. They work off their magical powers anyway. Psionics are different, remember. )


Role-playing reviews II: Two review columns this month? What, couldn't Rick and Allen agree to take it in turns like usual. Are they really such a popular part of the magazine? Perilous line, my dears. Anyway, along with his fiction contribution earlier, Allen Varney has decided to stick his two cents in about the cyberpunk genre. It's a troublesome one, in that far too many of the things in it actively undermine the original message of it's originator, making dystopia and loss of humanity cool instead of a warning. Like the World of Darkness being played as superheroes with fangs, this may be fun, but isn't going to make the world a better place. What are we to do with them.

Cyberpunk 2020 falls prey to the excesses of pretentiousness rather badly. Big guns and attitude, these are the things that are good in life. It also has some inconsistencies and way too many typos. On the other hand, it's a vast improvement mechanically over the first edition. Mike Pondsmith may be a magpie, but at least he's stealing from good sources.

Night city is the big setting expansionbook for Cyberpunk. Like Marvel and DC, Cyberpunk and Shadowrun seem to have taken opposite tacks on the real/imaginary city question. It goes into quite ridiculous amounts of detail, with little entries for every single city block, and tons of building layouts to make running adventures a snap. It really useful not only for Cyberpunk, but any modern day game.

Hacker: The computer crime card game gets one of their odd context heavy reviews. It's actually Allen's baby originally, so reviewing it feels a bit odd. That said, he freely admits Steve Jackson Games have improved substantially on his original submission. But it's still not really good enough to compete with Illuminati. Send it back to the development labs!


A storytelling game of savage horror! W:tA gets it's byline. And the system gets it's name. Well, when you only have one game for a system, you don't need a generic name for it.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 185: September 1992

part 5/6


The game wizards: Not content with trying to make the old basic rules more accessable in a new boxed set, TSR are now trying to get into some of that lucrative HeroQuest market by making Dragon Quest, another game that bridges the boardgame and RPG classification, and hopefully will make a good entry drug for young players. As you might expect, this is the usual mix of behind the scenes and promotion. Buy it for your kids, or your little siblings! Hope they actually bother moving on from it instead of just playing a few times and losing interest. Hrm. Like the Collectable Card stuff, this feels like a slightly forced attempt to expand their scope and get into new markets. Good luck with that. And with a little googling, I see that that impression is actually rather disingenuous, as it's actually a resurrected SPI property that they only did token promotion on. Or maybe that's the last edition, and they just slapped the name on an unrelated product, it's hard to tell. In any case, my skepticism level is rather high here. I shall watch with interest to see if this disappears without a trace.


The role of books: Jaran by Kate Elliot gets a positive review for it's interesting take on worldbuilding. Complex cultures are created, set in conflict, and then our normal human PoV character is dropped in the middle. Y'know, some people would make it accessible enough that you don't need that gimmick.

Dragons over england is a set of short stories from the TORG setting. It doesn't get a very good review. The design feels more like a sourcebook than a novel, and the stories lack any kind of consistency. The problems with a kitchen sink setting is that it can wind up not feeling like a setting at all, and the editing certainly doesn't help that. You can't just plop in whatever cool stuff your writers come up with, however good the ideas might be individually.

Jumper by Steven Gould is of course a book that has gone on to be a movie a few years ago. And from the sound of this review, it quite deserves it, as it succeeds both on a character-building level, and in how he logically exploits and develops his teleportation powers. Sci-fi doesn't have to be all high concepts and rayguns. And psychic powers don't have to turn into a kitchen sink of mind control and telekinesis.

Court of shadows by Cynthia Morgan is a swashbuckling elizabethan espionage romance. With memory loss, dueling, and a strong chemistry between the female lead and the main villain, it also seems good fair for a movie conversion. Can't happen to every good book, can it.

The Catswold Portal by Shirly Rousseau Murphy gets a negative review for trying to juggle one plot too many for it's length. Not a bad attempt, but needs a better editor.

Sahara by Clive Cussler gets a mixed, but overall positive review. Yes, it's terribly formulaic as a spy thriller, and doesn't quite have that bondesque elegance, but it does demonstrate how the espionage genre has a future in the post cold war era. Keep the popcorn popping, and the airport shelves full.

Fire in the Mist by Holly Lisle, like Jumper, is a first book from a new author that scores quite well by putting a distinct spin on familiar ideas. Gender segregated spellcasters and prodigies with incredible but not fully controlled powers certainly aren't new ideas, but when the delivery is at the right pace, and the worldbuilding is good, the reviewer isn't going to complain.


TSR Previews: So much stuff coming next month that they drop the this month ones completely. This is gonna be another loong ploughthrough.

The Forgotten Realms is focussing on the Drow this month. Menzoberranzan gets a big boxed set letting you adventure the hell out of it. Whether you play as Drow, infiltrator, or adventurer trying to attack (bad move if you ain't epic level) there's lots of stuff for you to take advantage of. Meanwhile, Menzoberranzan's most famous prodigal son is doing so well, his latest book gets published in hardcover. The Legacy sees Drizzt about to have his newfound happiness shattered, again. Onward, building up ever more Aaaaangst!

Al-Qadim experiments with the formula of it's supplements. Mini boxed sets. Slimline, with all sorts of odd bits and pieces. The first on is AQ1: Golden voyages. Follow in Sinbad's footsteps and lose your ship repeatedly. Invest your treasure wisely and leave it at home, for losing all your stuff is very annoying.

Dark Sun expands some more on the veiled alliance, in DSR3. The degree that all the city states have become rotten and ready for a good revolution becomes increasingly clear. The preservers are all over the shop, just waiting for someone to get their acts together. Are you that someone? It also gets The Amber Enchantress, book 3 in the prism pentad. Wait, what? Cleric quintet vs prism pentad. Settle on a name for your 5 book series. Not sure what to think about this.

Dragonlance gets a second introductory level module, DLQ2: Flint's axe. I suppose it fits with their obsession with prequels. You can still move onto the original epic module series from here, I hope.

D&D is quite busy this month, with several very different products. The Haunted Tower adventure pack sees them concentrate on undead, with another bunch of mini adventures assisted by a ton of gimmicky props. Now there's one that would be a lot less thrilling if I downloaded it in .pdf. PC4: Night howlers makes werecreatures available as PC's in D&D. Been quite a while since they had new stuff in this series. Cool. Not so cool is their saying the first D&D novel is out. Um, are you forgetting Quag keep and Trollshead back in the 70's? Looks like the current management have either forgotten about the early years of the company, or are a bunch of lying liars who lie. Anyway, The minted Sword by D.J Heinrich is the start of the Penhaligon trilogy. This is rather a mixed blessing to the setting. Do we really need more metaplot mucking intruding here?

Gamma world gets the Gamma knights boxed set. Wear powered armour and pilot giant mecha! I remember when Jim did an article on that, back in issue 101. Hoo boy. That's a substantial change from the normal playstyle. And it includes a boardgame too. This may be contentious.

Marvel superheroes celebrates spiderman's 30th anniversary by releasing a supplement devoted to him. A bit trickier thinking of stuff to fill this out than for the X-men or Dr Doom. Oh well, he's got lots of plotlines and a big rogues gallery. I'm sure you'll be able to get some useful ideas out of this.

Finally, it looks as though Buck Rogers' gameline is still limping along at the moment, with Nomads of the sky by William H Keith jr. RAM are still trying to dominate the solar system, and not having an easy time of things.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 185: September 1992

part 6/6


Forum: Alex Skrabut finds that the sense of accomplishment gained from worldbuilding pales in comparison to the amount of bloody work needed. He'd much rather just make it up on the spot as much as possible. Or so he says. Since he also wrote a computer program to generate a world's topography, I think the man doth protest too much.

Matthew W. Grieco points out that even most of the articles for specific campaign worlds are easily adapted for other games. This is particularly true of the forgotten Realms stuff, which is pretty generic anyway. People grousing about them having no place in the magazine are just being lazy.

Kevin Costello thinks people are overestimating how hard it is to design a setting. Just draw a big map, make rough sketches of what's where, and then only fill out the areas your players seem likely to go to. It's easier than you think, and then you won't have to worry about players knowing whats coming up. (unless you leave your notes lying around.)

Jeff House reminds you that most campaign maps have plenty of empty space that you can fill to customise them with without departing from canon at all. Even a single city can provide enough interesting stuff to do for a lifetime in reality. There's just so much more detail you could add.

Barry White loves using both his own world and pregenerated ones, and the characters in his campaign regularly flip from one to the another. It's all good baby. We're versatile.

Lawrence Hurley is one of those in favour of using official campaign worlds. It cuts through the boring design bit and gets straight to the fun playing. It's also easier to improvise off a solid base.

Ross A. Isaacs would feel like he was cheating if he used a prefab campaign world. Stealing stuff from sourcebooks, even non D&D ones and making it your own, on the other hand, he highly recommends. Integrity is such a tricky thing to maintain, and everyone has their own line they don't want to cross.

Jim Gonzalez has two big problems with prefab campaign worlds. 1: Other players read them and know what's coming. 2: TSR blatantly favours some worlds over others. Yes, that's because they sell better. How hard is that one to understand? They are a business, remember. If you don't like it, just don't buy them.


Dragonmirth makes a dreadful mess. Be glad you don't have to clean it up. Yamara's enemies make a pleasing discovery. Oh paladin, what art thou good for? Meanwhile we have more romance in extremis in twilight empire. Couldn't you just go on a rollercoaster or something.


Through the looking glass joins in with the theme, unusually. Ral Partha give us some official Dark Sun minis to have a look over. Sadira, Neeva, Rikus, and a whole host of classes and races including the new ones like gith and mul are covered. They get 5 stars, being very faithful to the illustrations and lacking in ugly molding artifacts. Seems like another positive step in building up their multimedia empire. Now all they need is a computer game.

Lots of other stuff, as usual. A Griffon. A tower keep which looks like it may be the start of an epic castle for your minis to fight on. Some banquet tables with included chairs (that none of your minis will be able to sit on) and various bits of ornamentation. A rather cranky looking pair of middle-aged nobility that could well make good antagonists. A full selection of skulls on spikes to put around your evil overlord's base. A winged skeleton with a scythe that should put the willies up inexperienced adventurers. A whole company of goblins riding giant spiders, including a spellcaster. They also seem like a good market for skull on spike decor. To take care of the spiders before they hit you with instadeath, there's a company of elf archers. But they too will fall before the Formless Spawn of Tsathoggua. As will some basic orcs which look rather boring in comparison to the last few. Funny how that works out. In any case, this is an above average selection to read about.


Drizzt finally gets enough prestige to go hardcover. See kids. This is what making angst glamorous can get you. Keep your eyes on the futility prize.


With the start of a classic column series, and lots of other cool bits and pieces, this is once again an upswing after a couple of rather dull issues. The focus on specific campaign worlds is fairly welcome and useful this time round, rather than being just promotion. And since the survey seemed to indicate lots of people like this stuff, we may well be seeing an increase in it's frequency. Roll out those changes folks, you won't regret it.