Let's read the entire run

[(un)reason]

Making the most of a module​

Guess we're not completely devoid of filler, even here. Advice that you need to tailor existing modules to your players, and read them through properly so you're prepared, knowing what things are in there, how they relate to each other, and what tactics they will employ against the players? Issues 190, 157, and lots of other tangentially related articles say hi. This isn't a new topic at all. And with the use of modules as integral parts of people's campaigns fading somewhat, it does feel somewhat old skool in general, trying to lure people back into using and reusing the old stuff. This does not spark my interest at all, and feels like a bit of a letdown compared to the onslaught of special features we started off with. Oh well. We had to put up with things like V&V charisma in issue 100. We can breeze casually over this as well. Waiter! Serve up the next course!


Eye of the monitor: Last issue we saw Sandy give us his position on sex and gore in video games. This time, it's piracy's turn on the soapbox. Unsurprisingly, as someone who makes their living from the computer game business, he's against it. And to discourage us from it, he tells the story of the demise of the Atari ST, one of the most pirated systems of all time. With games so easy to crack, people had no hesitation in doing so, and eventually companies lost interest in making games when they could get more profit elsewhere. This reminds us of several things.

1: People will usually pay for things if you make doing so more convenient than stealing them, and those who don't probably wouldn't have become customers anyway.

2: What is and isn't considered acceptable behaviour is far more dependent upon social pressure from the people around you than what some rules and regulations say. (This probably contributes a lot to the general lawlessness of the early internet, as a lot of the time, it's hard to think of people you only meet on the net as real people. )

3: The asymmetry of production costs to reproduction costs is one of the great dilemmas of the information age, that we still have yet to come to a satisfying conclusion upon. The markups on things like computer games, CD's, movies, etc, compared to the cost of making the physical object are quite horrendous. Compare this to food, where they're often selling things for less than double the cost of production and getting to market, and some things, such as bread, are even loss leaders, and you can see another strong reason to consider the markups for easily copied luxuries somewhat unfair. And this is only going to get worse as more things become pure data, while the costs for gigabytes of storage space drop exponentially. This is hitting the music industry hardest, (probably because they were one of the slowest to react to the new distribution media ) but everything that can be turned into pure data has to deal with it. And when we really get the hang of 3D printers, even that distinction will get pretty blurry. Raw materials will always have a market, but capitalism will have real problems when most finished products can be copied in your own home for negligible costs. I seriously hope we can get there without vested interests suppressing advancement for their own profit, and find a way of organising society so the average person can live free of soul destroying drudgery yet still have something constructive to contribute to society. Normally I would have cut a soapbox piece like this off long ago, but hey, it is a special issue. If ever there was a time to indulge a bit of transhumanist utopianism, this is it.

Lands of Lore: The Throne of Chaos see Westwood strike out on their own with a rather good fantasy adventure. The usual class suspects, albeit without the cleric, must foil an evil witch via violence, magic, and puzzle-solving. Sandy isn't too keen on the amount of searching required, and you can do some sequence-breaking if you're cunning, but overall it's quite satisfying work.

Dangerous Dave is almost shockingly primitive for the era, and so gets poor marks. Get with the programming, man. You can't make a profit if the graphics don't grab casual shop browsers.

Monster Bashes 1-3 get a very short batch review. More so-so platformers, with sometimes fiddly controls. This is one genre consoles do a good deal better than PC's.

Soul Blazer seems to be somewhere between Zelda and Gauntlet in it's proportion of roleplaying to action. You play an angel saving the souls of people from monsters. As you do, the world outside the dungeons gradually fills up, which is a pretty neat way to go about it. It's not without it's flaws, but they seem forgivable this time. Make sure you save regularly and do a bit of grinding to level up.

 

[(un)reason]

Centrefold​

The centrefold of this issue is a big flowchart of the books you want to get to run a particular type of game. Splatbooks aplenty. Give us all yer money. This is then followed by similar charts for the various AD&D worlds. It's certainly not impossible for them to keep track of all the books they've released, even if you might find it so on the receiving end. Greyhawk and Dragonlance are notable by their absence though. Dragonlance is now pretty much novel only, while Greyhawk is falling into disrepair post-war.

Planescape! This makes this issue extra special. Our first hint that they're planning on really fleshing out the AD&D cosmology. And they already have the covers of 7 products to show us. (some of which are not the same as the final product.) The supplement mill is going to hit hard and fast with this one. People must have been sending them a lot of letters asking for more planar stuff.

 

[LordVyreth]

I remember that Soul Blazer review as being one of the things that annoyed me about Sandy at the time. Nobody, myself included, probably would rate it up there with Link to the Past, but it had very clever innovations and game play designs (like the whole "free souls to fix the world" thing,) not to mention the then excellent graphics and music. A few minor quirks like the Medicinal Herb thing wasn't nearly enough to dock it two points, especially when Secret of Mana has many more things that he complained about and he gives that five stars a few issues from now.

 

[(un)reason]

The even more complete psionicist​

A second set of kits to fill out obscure character options. The overall themes of the year are still being served quite nicely. Add these to the 4 from issue 191 and the 2 from 197, and we have 13, nearly as many as an actual complete handbook. If they add a few more sometime next year, they'll almost be caught up with the regular classes in terms of options. In any case, we probably have more options now than any one person will wind up playing, which is the important thing. Happy comparison shopping.

Mountebanks pretend to be wizards or clerics for profit and not being lynched by idiosyncratic inquisitions. Their kit has no mechanical benefits or penalties though, even on the proficiency level, making it pretty pointless to take though. Anyone'll have to fake it occasionally, no point specialising in it unless you really are in an oppressive regime full time.

Crystallites foreshadow next edition's psionic quirks. They bond with their crystal, giving them minor general boosts to their powers, at the price of having a focus object that can be stolen or broken, which results in penalties a lot more severe than the plusses. Whether this is a net benefit depends on how often you have intelligent opponents who do research and try tactics other than straight violence.

Dowsers get extra divination powers with their little rod, but suck at psychoportation and metabolism. As before, this will only be a net benefit if you're careful, and your DM doesn't put you in situations where you wish you had stuff from the interdicted disciplines.

Empaths get emotion sensing powers, but are sensitive to people's pain, and far more vulnerable to minding in general. If you're playing in a psionics heavy campaign, this is another one that may well be more penalty than benefit. Plus you'll probably have to deal with Deanna Troi jokes on a regular basis, which is the kind of thing which gets tiresome fast.

Manipulators are larcenously inclined psychics who get boosted ability to mess with the composition of objects, including psychic lockpicking. They aren't so great at the mental manipulation stuff though, but hopefully someone else in the team'll be covering that. Another one that's pretty well balanced, only becoming a net benefit if you play to their strengths.

Psychic Surgeons, on the other hand, get a massive boost in using said power, and no particular penalties apart from having their focus tightened. Since part of their bonuses is increasing the odds of others getting wild talents, this is one that'll be very popular amongst adventuring parties as a support guy.

Spiritualists contact the dead by ouija boards and the like. This gives them some decent extra powers, but very unpopular anywhere necromancy is regarded as weird and dangerous. They may have to do a little disguising of their nature as well.

A very tightly balanced set on the whole, with the bonuses neatly cancelling out the penalties. Only one real free ride here, the rest, you'll have to actually work to reap the benefits of selecting. So I have few objections on both the twinkery front, and the underpowered one. Well done for treading that tightrope with only a few minor wobbles.


Sage advice changes their header again, to a more blocky italicized shape. Skip likes to remodel every now and then. Keep the punters keen. Guess we had some extra budget for him to splurge as part of the special.

How long will it take to escape from the astral plane. Can you survive there. (Time works very slow there. Food will not be a problem. But there are soooo many other things that might be. Muahahahaha! )

What happens to a dual classed character who's original level is artificially boosted above their second one ( Complicated stuff. Don't worry your head over it. It's astronomically unlikely to happen in actual play. )

Can you film your adventures with a mirror of retention. Can filmed sunlight hurt undead ( No, you've gotta keep it in the diary room. No blogging on location with this device.)

What happens if you cast mirror image where there's not enough room for the duplicates (They overlap. Doesn't stop them from working.)

How many spells do dragons know. (Only what they can cast, apart from gold dragons. This is why they get associated with sorcerers next edition.)

What happens if you have two items which give you magic resistance (Take the best. On a 100% scale, the whole thing would break if they stacked.)

What's the chance a fireball has to hit (if you're in the area. It hits automatically. Wizards kick much ass. )

How do you make holy water. (recycled question. Kinda like the holy water Watch the colour. )

Do you lose a point of con if you die while regenerating (No, because you never died, just got hacked up for a while. Regeneration is nifty stuff. )

Do clerics automatically know all their spells (More recycling? Haven't had that in a while. Funny time to reintroduce it. Yes, they do. )

How long do powers from the wand of conjuration last (An hour. Level dependencies strike again! )

What can stop a wall of fire (Any solid barrier that won't be burned away. )

Can you cast a flaming sphere in the air (yes indeed. Useful little piece of kit.)

You're messing up words in your greyhawk products ( Well, isn't that the shame. Skip does apologize for the incompetence of our writers. It's been hard maintaining a consistent vision for greyhawk, with Gary gone. But we try. Yes sirree, we give it our best shot. :doffs hat: To make it up to you, here's the extra spheres for both the chinese and celtic pantheons. )

 

[(un)reason]

Minion matters​

Some advice on how to run large battles using minis? It's hardly on the scale of the experimental reaching out in issue 100, where we saw both a whole new boardgame, and an article about LARPing. it is, however, handy in showing us how you can organise your army statistics better. Instead of one centralised bit of paper, little chits placed under the minis can be a lot quicker and easier, especially if you aren't operating a system using large numbers for hit points and the like. Which I seem to recall being one of the primary rules quirks of Savage Worlds that makes it the Fast, Furious and Fun game it is. It's particularly good for large quantities of mooks, where you may well have to put out many identical minis that move semi-independently. Grab all those goblins from your Heroquest set, it's time to make those high level characters work for their supper! How often do name level fighters actually get to use their ability to mow down ≥ 1hd creatures to it's full potential in actual play? I guess it's another good reason to use Dragon Mountain. (not that they'll have an easy time getting to do that kind of head-on fight in there. ) So I think this is actually a surprisingly influential little article, moving on gaming design a little further. We have plenty of kudos to spread around this time, you can have your fair share.

 

[(un)reason]

Novel Ideas​

Novel ideas is a second column that ceases to be a regular going concern this issue. Not sure why, since if anything, the proportion of books they're publishing is still increasing. But despite not explicitly stating that, this still feels like a farewell of sorts, as it looks back over the early years of the book department. In it we discover exactly why our first two D&D books by messrs Norton and Holmes have been airbrushed from the company history. As they were released before the proper department was founded, quite possibly in conjunction with some other company, they aren't on the records in the same way. And we already know that their record-keeping in the early years of the company was a bit spotty. Its funny how the average gamer in the 90's, even those at the company itself, actually knew less about their 70's output than we do now. Anyway, it seems that their primary output in the early days wasn't novels, but interactive game books such as the Endless Quest line and all it's gimmicky spinoffs. Books aimed at younger readers, books aimed at girls, books aimed at transformers fans, they spent a lot of effort trying to diversify the market. But they only really started having bestsellers when they tied things in with AD&D, the Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms settings in particular. Curiously, they devote little time to that era, assuming we already know about it. (and we do know rather more, since that was after they started running previews in the magazine on a regular basis. ) This is actually rather interesting, showing there was plenty of stuff TSR got up too in the early days that never even got mentioned in the magazine, due to choice or department co-ordination issues. Just the thing to make obsessive collectors gnash their teeth and have more things to hunt down. Still, it's not all nostalgia. Endless Quest is coming back! A whole new generation get to pick a path. Course, now they have to compete with computer games a lot more. Good luck capturing kid's imaginations the way they did at first.

 

[(un)reason]

Role-playing reviews​

Adventure time again. Over the year, Rick has been doing quite a bit of playtesting of official modules. This means that while it may be a while after their release date, he does have more to go upon when reviewing than just his own opinion. And he's pretty harsh really. Even though these are supposedly the cream of the crop, none of them earn that coveted 5 star rating. I guess that makes sense, since the number and quality of them did seem to be declining around that period, pushed out by the bloat of splatbooks.

Dragon mountain is huge, impressively presented, and damn tricky. In fact, it may be a bit too huge and tricky, even for the levels of characters it's supposedly aimed at. The fact that a full third of the boxed set is devoted to the prelude is an issue to Rick, who thinks that's poor pacing. Since B2 took about the same proportion to get to the actual caves, and T1 devoted a good half of the module to the village, I am dubious that it's an inherently bad thing. It's more likely just the implementation in this case. The mountain itself has more than enough variety of encounters to maintain his interest through the difficulty level, although he's not sure about some of the goofier traps. I guess that kind of thing is a matter of taste. They're more serious than they were a couple of years ago, but whimsy and punnery is still a staple of the TSR writers even in serious supplements.

Shadows on the borderland is a rather good Runequest adventure from our other longtime reviewer Ken Rolston. The visuals aren't that impressive, but the plotting is, telling several good stories without railroading you into a fixed conclusion. Only the stabs of goofy humour again spoil the package. You know, a world where sentient ducks are a common PC race is never going to be able to maintain GRIMDARKness with a straight face for long.

Dorastor: Land of doom is another Runequest one. They've turned around their late 80's slump quite nicely. It seems to be as much an region supplement as it is an adventure, with plenty of info on the quirky creatures and dangers, but not a huge amount of plot.

The spectre king is a set of adventures for Pendragon. This is the one that wins top marks, with multiple adventures that fit together well, great writing, well researched historical detail, and interesting twists to the stories. That it wasn't even nominated for awards last year is shocking! Pendragon seems to garner nothing but praise, yet remain a very niche product with an unstable company history. It is a bit bemusing.

Honorable mentions this month go to GURPS Cyberpunk Adventures, Dragon Strike, Corporate Shadowfiles, and TWERPS. Two of them are notably simple and suited for introducing new players, while the other two are more sophisticated. None are perfect, but they all have something to recommend them to readers. He does tackle a pretty broad variety of games, although he seems to prefer slightly lighter systems. Well, I suppose they are easier to pick up and try on the spur of the moment, and then give a comprehensive assessment of. You always have to take practical considerations into account.


Social board games: Allen Varney follows Rick by contributing something that's about halfway between a review and a feature. So your game got abruptly cancelled, but there's plenty of people here. Let's get out a board game! But which one? Oh, the decisions. So here we have microreviews of 13 games, along with some general pontification about what makes a good multi-player competitive game. You ought to keep everyone involved most of the way through (by which criteria Monopoly is a failure) and allow for turnarounds at any point. Players need at least a moderate amount of personal agency, otherwise the game will soon grow tiresome. (again, snakes & ladders disproves that) I suppose this shows how detached serious gamers become from the mainstream, for although I've heard of some of these games, I don't own any of them, and the advice seems nice in theory, but not backed up by reality, where books like Twilight are huge commercial successes despite the obvious technical flaws in their writing and punk is popular precisely because of it's simplicity and sloppiness. Quality and commercial success seem to have a pretty low degree of positive correlation in actual situations. In the end, I am forced to simply shrug bemusedly at this article, as it doesn't seem to have much of use to me, and hope that maybe I'll get to try some of these games personally.

 

[(un)reason]

The dragon project​

Star Wars gets a turn in this column, fresh from it's spate of reviews last issue. Now, as Star wars is basically the heroes journey IN SPAAAACE!!!!, having a dragon somewhere along the line would not be out of theme at all. In fact, one could say that the Death Star took on that role, as a massive, tremendously powerful monster with a tiny weak spot only a highly talented hero could exploit. And that's exactly the tack they take in this article, statting out a warship called the Galaxy Dragon, and it's commander & inhabitants. By no co-incidence at all, the average troops aboard are members of a reptilian race, while the boss is a former Moff who became an independent warlord after the Empire's defeat. It's certainly a fairly creative way of interpreting the remit of this column, and the stats are a lot crunchier and more detailed than previous instalments, but the writing isn't that enthralling. I guess it's just ok then. It'll make a good adversary for an adventure or so.

 

[(un)reason]

Fiction: The best by Margaret Weis. ​

Another big name is pulled in to make sure this special stays so. It's set in Krynn, but not noticeably connected to the metaplot. The greatest heroes in the land are gathered together by a mysterious individual to kill a dragon. In most stories, this works fine. This time, it all goes horribly wrong, mainly because the dragon is the one doing the hiring, so the deck is horribly loaded against them right from the start. Although they aren't quite as machiavellian as Infyrana from Dragon mountain, but that would probably take a whole novel to play out, and we don't have the time even in this expanded issue. It's still an object lesson in proactivity as an adventurer. Mr Johnson will betray you sooner or later, so don't trust them an inch. They do regularly tell us to play dragons as smart and taking the long view as well, so this is good in that respect too. Don't fall for the hype though. It certainly isn't actually the best bit of fiction they've ever done though. Hell, with the wizards three in here, it's not even the best bit of fiction in this issue. But that doesn't mean it can't be both enjoyed and learned from.


Forum: Andres Zornosa spent time abroad, and is finding it's actually harder to get a new group together back in america, where most people have at least heard enough about gaming to develop a negative preconception. He's also encountering the issue that so many existing gamers have tired of D&D and moved on to other RPG's. It's almost like gaming is a disease, and the population is building up a resistance to one, while other variants still pass through the population. Very curious.

Joel Patton talks about the evolution of his gaming. He seems to have largely progressed beyond needing rules, changing them as needed for the storytelling to take precedence. We start in let's pretend, and that's where we end. It's almost zen-like, really.

S. D. Anderson has some more suggestions for helping out new players, following on from issue 194's article. Actually, he does a considerably better job than that, and in less space too. You have to learn to express your opinion succinctly here or get edited down, wheras they're more likely to pad it up via artwork and font size increases to fit the page count in articles.

Jeremiah Coleman is rather cross that gamers are so bad at returning books to the library. If you keep nicking them, they won't stock them, and that will remove one of the avenues for casual browsers to discover gaming. That is a real issue, and may be another reason why gaming has gone into decline. Stupid petty criminality.

Eric Burns thinks that lichdom is a dumb idea compared with using magic jar to bodyhop your way down the centuries. He presents a pretty good case too. I seem to recall that there are mechanical problems with that he's missed. I'm sure future forumites will point them out.

Jon Pickens suggests that you solve the tardy players problem by offering XP bonuses to those who show up on time. This little carrot worked quite well for him, although he did lose some players along the way. Well, substantial xp differences do present their own issues. This would wind up exacerbating that. One solution leads to another problem. I seem to remember us having flamewars about that on these forums.

 

[(un)reason]

Elminster's notebook​

A second regular column beginning along with the 2 ending this month? The issue becomes even more significant than it already seemed at the outset. Yet again it's made pretty obvious how popular and prolific Ed is, even though he isn't around as much as he used to be. Maybe that's going to change again, if this and the Wizards three remain regulars.

So we start off with a ghost story, Realms style. An old adventurer who's managed to reach the lordship stage, but then lost a lot of his enthusiasm when his sons were killed in Orc raids. Since then, he's become brooding and reclusive, and the castle is rumoured to be haunted by their ghosts. The truth is rather more complicated, as after all, we are in a place where magic is known to be real, and manipulated regularly on a professional basis. There is a haunting, but not the one you expect, and it doesn't seem to be particularly dangerous anyway. Certainly not to Elminster, who as ever, casually drops hints as to the many insanely powerful tricks he has at his disposal, and takes for granted his fame amongst the folk of the Realms. The artwork seems designed to add to the notebook feel, with a sketch that reiterates the important bits of the writing, and makes it a lot easier to remember than a straight wall of text would be. As an advancement in presentation, it's a success, and it also serves as an interesting demonstration of how real world legends become quite different once filtered through the Realms' cultural lens and laws of physics. It may not be quite as generic as it used to be, but it's still interesting and he's still got plenty of enthusiasm for trying new things while filling it in. I think once again, we have a winner here.