Let's read the entire run

[(un)reason]

The twilight empire is right in the middle of battle. The heroes seem to be losing.


Yamara has a rather more confusing and comical battle to contend with.


Dragonmirth runs the gamut of humours, from bloody to phlegmatic.


Snarfquest returns for an extra special full colour story. Not that we ever find out how he got there, as the plots left hanging four years ago when Larry had his breakdown are simply ignored. Instead, it's a full-colour standalone story full of goofy humour and silly voices. And lots of cheesecake outfits for Telerie. ChEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEsecake! I mean seriously. You call yourself an adventurer? A couple of precise rapier swishes and you'd be completely naked. Ok, so the vampire one is amusing and relevant to the plot, but the rest. :shakes head: Pure pandering. Enough!

 

[(un)reason]

Through the looking glass​

Robert consciously decides not to spoil our celebrations, but to give us the usual mixture of minis, plus a game review. Blood Berets is the game, a dark mix of sci-fi and fantasy that looks like it wants to muscle in on WH40k and Shadowrun's turfs. As with most of the reviewed games these days, it's simple enough to be picked up and played from cold in an evening. It doesn't seem to have done enough to merit expansions though.

On to the minis then. A whole bunch of floor areas for you to build your own dungeons with. A missile launcher and cannon designed to upgrade tanks with. A phoenix in the process of being reborn. Two more vampires, this time from the TORG crew. I wonder what unique statistical quirks they have. Two set of minis from Palladium. One of them gets the first result under 3 stars in aaaaaaaaaages from Robert, which means it must be pretty bad. Ral Partha have a whole bunch of mechanical thingies: two tanks, a battlemech, and a cyborg bear, of all things. And last, but certainly not least, there's a tie-in set of minis for the Dragon Mountain boxed set. This actually gets a better review than the adventure itself, with all the minis being of excellent quality. Only the dragon really disappoints, hardly having the stature of a proper D&D great wyrm. Who will make a dragon to really match the likes of Scorponok and Trypticon and properly menace our minis?


TSR Previews: Just about the only thing that isn't unusually large, next month sees things drop off as usual. Dragonlance gets a sourcebook and a novel. DLT2: Rook (sic) of lairs is another collection of small adventures to drop on your players. The swordsheath scroll completes the Dwarven nations trilogy. They still seem to be occupying a solid second place overall in terms of product numbers.

Ravenloft follows up on the recent van Richten's guide with RM4: Dark of the moon. Fight a werewolf. No further details are forthcoming, because it needs to be a surprise to the players. Raaaaar! Fooled you.

The complete series finally gets back to the classes, with PHBR11:The Complete ranger's handbook. Rick Swan shows you how to customise your wilderness lovin' guys even further. Not quite as broad as the complete bard's handbook, but not bad either.

And the Amazing engine gets AM5: Galactos Barrier. Swashbuckling space opera? Sounds like fun. Why did this have so many cool ideas, yet still die depressingly?

 

[(un)reason]

Conclusion​

Well, as a special issue, this has not only hit the bullseye, but gone right through the target and out the other side. There's just so many great things going on here that it's hard to pick out one to praise above the others. I guess it's going to have to be Ed that gets the gold again, since he did score another hat trick. And yet, somehow, this isn't nearly as adventurous in it's topics as issue 100, or even 150 for that matter. There's a couple of token stabs at more war and boardgaming coverage, but those are pretty weak compared to something like Dragonchess. Instead, the expansion is more a matter of sheer volume, colour and spectacle than having cool new ideas to give us. And when you factor in the substantial decline in readership over the last year, it becomes pretty obvious that if ever there was a definite jump the shark point for the magazine, this is it. A game attempt at really going over the top to turn things around, that they would never again be able to replicate due to declining budgets and closing horizons. I dunno, maybe they'll top even this in issue 400 or 500 just to prove me wrong. But I do know that for the physical issues, it's all downhill from here in terms of size. (and no more holographic covers either. ) Which means I won't be facing any more monumental challenges like this. I suppose I should just kick back and see if I enjoy individual issues as they come. After all, we might be past the "classic" eras now, but there'll still be plenty of month by month fluctuations to come. Some of them are bound to throw up great articles.

 

[jonesy]

Weird. I had to reload the conclusion part several times before it gave me video. At first I thought it might have been audio only.


I have to say this was a great review. You have a good voice which you use without hesitation. Some video reviewers I've seen start second guessing themselves and come across as unsure about what they are talking about. Your bold attitude is the mark of a good spokesman. Thumbs up.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 201: January 1994


part 1/6

124 pages. You know, I think this cover might actually be better than the issue 200 one. It's not quite as exquisitely photorealistic as issue 94, but it is both pretty and detailed, with a real sense of scale and depth to it. Guess we're back to reality after the high magic hijinks of last month. Course, that might mean a more consistently good issue overall, even if it doesn't have the extra size and budget. After all, they managed it in issue 51. Optimism, optimism, are you going to be crushed again?

In this issue:


Letters: A not too surprising complaint about the sideshuffling of mystara. This is putting too much emphasis on AD&D over the regular variety. Dale tries to sidestep the complaints rather than counter them, slipping in as much promotion for the upcoming products as possible along the way. Go on, tell us you're not happy about the move either.

A request for an indian setting. Like africa, you'll have to be content with an increased frequency of articles in the magazine for it.

A demonstration that roleplaying does indeed improve your writing skills. But then, we knew that already. Compare the level of discourse here with say, youtube comments, and there is very little contest.

Another query as to their online plans. They continue to be pretty conservative about this, keeping the web at arms length. And so they slip another small step behind the times, despite individual members of the company trying otherwise.

Another repeated topic, this time proper submissions procedure. You must still beware the no SASE ogres and their ravenous appetites. Grr, Argh.


Editorial: Kim may be the guy at the top of the masthead again, but he's not nearly as involved in day-to-day stuff as he used to be. From now on, it's mostly Dale that's doing the frontline work such as answering letters and writing the editorials. Well, he's still young and enthusiastic, and Kim was never really much of a gamer in the first place. He also has some pretty definite opinions on what he wants to see in the magazine, which doesn't hurt. More ecologies! More minis, non D&D articles and stuff applicable to any game! More detailed bits of setting! More advice on making your own settings! Stuff to grab the imagination, and be handy for all roleplayers, not just AD&D lovers. Not too dissimilar to Roger's aims actually, it's just that he hasn't been worn down by the responsibilities of the big chair and all the compromises and politics that come with it yet. This changeover isn't so much a fresh start, more a renewed determination to make their established formula work. Whether that's a good thing or not is a matter of opinion.


The city of lofty pillars: Most cultures have legends of some kind of shangri-la, a perfect secluded place where the troubles of the mundane world do not reach, fantastical things are commonplace, and time passes strangely. Often bound up with supernatural creatures such as fae, you can go there, but you may well have trouble leaving, and don't expect to be able to take much with you. Here we have an Arabian interpretation of that monomyth. The city of lofty pillars in the Realm of Dreams. Time passes at 10 times the normal rate there, and if you leave, you'll rapidly age back to catch up with real time, so extended stays are not a good idea as an adventurer. Jewels grow on trees, but of course melt away when you leave. And spirit creatures like makshi are the primary inhabitants, turning up and slipping away enigmatically. This is one of those articles that seems set up to provide a whole series of adventures, as it's a real struggle to get there, a real struggle to get back, quite possibly another load of hassle trying to return; and even if you do, chances are you won't be seeing much long-term profit from it, you'll just have a good story to tell in the bars afterwards. Which is very much in the arabian nights tradition, if not the D&D one. Even if I can see the formula, it's one that doesn't get used around here that much, (the last example I can remember is The Garden of Nefaron, way back in issue 53) and it's quite well done, so I welcome this. It's not quite one of their old plane revealing epics, but as a way to kick off an issue, it is well above average.

 

[(un)reason]

Weird. I had to reload the conclusion part several times before it gave me video. At first I thought it might have been audio only.

Blip can do weird stuff like that. It's still better than youtube from an uploader's PoV.

I have to say this was a great review. You have a good voice which you use without hesitation. Some video reviewers I've seen start second guessing themselves and come across as unsure about what they are talking about. Your bold attitude is the mark of a good spokesman. Thumbs up.

Still need to work on getting the hesitations out though. Writing in opportunities for cutaways so you can comp without it looking unnatural is one of those tricks you don't appreciate until you have to learn it firsthand.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 201: January 1994


part 2/6


Turkey's underground cities: From high fantasy to a look at the mundane middle east. Allen Varney shows us what he did on holiday last year, visiting one of reality's most impressive dungeon complexes. Not that it looks much like most D&D dungeons. As we've found before, caverns are rarely as neat as they appear on a map, with all kinds of odd-shaped, 3-dimensional rooms which developed organically in response to quirks in the geological composition of the rock. Ventilation is crucial for people to live down there, with large chimneys penetrating hundreds of feet down, ensuring a strong airflow nearly everywhere. It's all very interesting. The history which leads to it is also pretty fascinating. Originally they were just used as storage space, serious excavation and long-term underground dwelling only started in the early AD years, with the rapid growth and corresponding backlash against christianity. Yes folks, the early christians were one of the biggest groups of dungeon-dwellers around. How's that for massive irony, especially as we've already been through the fact that both founders of D&D were also Christians. It raises particularly interesting questions when juxtaposed with the tendency of D&D worlds towards polytheism, with the only people worshipping single gods some particularly obscure races. So this is useful, highly thought-provoking, and far less generic than the last article, taking us to the kind of place a single writer could never come up with on their own. There's a lot here for you to draw upon, and it's all presented with tremendous enthusiasm. This is exactly the kind of thing Dale said he wanted, as it is applicable to any system, and fills in info on an often neglected part of reality. A very definite 9/10er.


The evolution of a castle: A second dose of reality in quick succession. Somewhat less impressive, this is another reminder that in reality, things are created organically, and on a "this'll do for now" basis far more often than they follow some grand concept. Real castles are strongly shaped by the landscape features of the area, with their position chosen by where the resources are, and what bits seem most easily defended. They're frequently unevenly shaped, need expensive repairs that the owner might not have money for, and had things added on years after the original construction. Castles Forlorn, dealing in time travel weirdness as it does, has a great practical example of this. As this has pretty similar lessons to last article, only applied to a different topic, it does feel a bit like filler. Oh well, It's decent enough.


Seven steps to a successful castle: This, on the other hand, is another pretty darn impressive article. Rich Baker finishes the themed section off with a full 10 page special on building your own castle, with both sample base plans and a highly amusing illustration. Despite the size, this is of course far smaller and more accessible than a whole book on the topic would be, and as such, is pretty usable, presuming you can get up the money to use it, as costs will run into the millions of gold pieces if you want to build a really big impressive place to live after name level. Unless your DM is well and truly in the monty haul school, you'll probably have to club together to build a single fortress instead of drifting apart to become individual landowners under these rules. Or once again, build your castle in stages over a period of years, adding on extensions each time you finish another big adventure. You'll never be short of things you want to spend your money on next, making this a good one to return to again and again while also doing other things. This all seems relatively easy to use. Just spend quarter of an hour at the end of an adventure figuring out where the money's going to go and how long it'll take and you're away again. Just watch you don't spend more than you can afford and get in the debt trap like reality.


Sage advice: Can you use nonoffensive spells while wraithformed or invisible (To be sure, to be sure)

Do you have to roll a natural 20 to make saves while irresistably dancing no matter what buffs you have (yup. Not only is it exceedingly humiliating, it opens you up to further humiliation. )

How much damage does defiling regeneration inflict (No people, only plants. Die, filthy plants, spreading their filthy roots through the earth. )

What happens when a pouch of security's owner dies ( It bonds with the first person to show it a little affection. The craving for security runs both ways. )

Can nonevil goblinoids worship human gods (Only the non prejudiced ones. Racism isn't evil if it's justified. )

Can you tear a magic cloak in half and have two small creatures use it. ( No. Magic items are a bugger to destroy, and if you do ruin them the magic's lost, not shared. )

There are instances where the same spell shows up in different books at different levels. (oh noes. Go with the most recent one, or the one for the campaign world you're in. Precedence and all that.)

Can illiterate characters be affected by gyphs & symbols (yes. It's the seeing that matters, not the comprehension)

Can I worship a community deity in the forgotten realms (if your DM lets you)

Where are the rules for half-giant clerics ( What rules? They work just like any other race. Random alignment shifts are not an issue because Dark sun spirit patrons don't give a about that as long as you promote their element. )

How many stoneskins can you have on you (I think we need to properly implement the no stacking rule. Otherwise broken stuff happens)

We want more info on what tome of magic spheres various gods grant ( You don't even have to ask. Skip's not gonna forget his duty. Even druids are gonna feel some sweet lovin from skip, the private sage who puts the pages in the mages and the broomstick between the witches legs. Skips gonna be extra generous to the goddess of sweet lovin of the forgotten realms, giving her two extra major spheres. Mmmm. Major Spheres. None of those egyptian fuddy duddies can compete with that.)

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 201: January 1994


part 3/6


The dragon project: Sandy again proves that hiring him was a damn good decision by the editorial staff, with this little pendragon feature. Quite different from his CoC dragon, this plays up the pendragon principle of adventure as moral challenge as much as physical threat. Sure, the dragon may well wipe out an unexperienced whole party with a few casual swats, but fighting it isn't the main focus. Instead, there's quite a bit of effort put into the reason it was released, the way it approaches the world, and the people it's affected. Defeating it will probably involve another adventure beforehand to get hold of equipment that'll boost your odds of success. Even if you win, it may still have interesting after-effects on the campaign, for it's treasure is cursed. I think this counts as another success in terms of understanding and exploiting the themes of the game you're writing for, and bringing them to an audience that may not be that familiar with them. Embrace that mythological style, with all it's quirks and bitter ironies.


The game wizards: Promotion time again. Roger returns to try and give a shot in the arm to the historical sourcebooks line. Somehow I suspect they're not doing as well as the complete handbooks, and they'd rather like to clear now several years old stocks of the first books in the series. But they're hardly useless, and you can use them for games other than straight historical stories. Plus you have hundreds of external history books if you want more info. And articles from this magazine. This does all feel a bit forced. It's like he's got into his new office, had a browse through the accounts, and then gone oh , this area needs some serious shoring up. The result is completely unthrilling. Fastforward, fastforward, skip!


Forum:Eric Pollinger thinks that psionicists do not need nerfing. They're already unreliable enough as they are. Many of their powers even turn against them 1 in 20 times. That's a pretty ferocious balancing issue.

Another inadvertent Anonymous also argues in psionics favour. The main problem comes when one player uses it, but it's completely unintegrated, and none of the creatures or NPC's have any ability in it, or even knowledge of it. All obscure subsystems have that kind of inherent advantage, even if they are actually underpowered overall. It's the same principle that results in creatures transplanted to other continents having sudden population explosions and messing up the ecosystem.

Eric R. Filmer points out that Christianity plays a critical role in Pendragon. People wanting to incorporate real religion into their roleplaying could do a lot worse. Hell, they could hardly do better, given how awesome pendragon is. And it doesn't hit you over the head with it the way Dragonraid did.

Regina Larsen gives her experiences of last birthday's Dragon Dogfights. Even using little cardboard cutouts, it was surprisingly easy and fun, and not at all expensive either. More people should try it out.

James P. Buchanan has a rather odd suggestion. Cast silence on your silver bullets to shoot monsters. Ok. Seems rather oddly specific. There's a whole bunch of ways that could fall down.

Andrew Benson tells us all the ways his computer helps him roleplay. Character sheets, game logs, even dice rolls. The future marches ever ever on. Maybe we can take paper out of the equation altogether.

Benjamin E. Lake points out The Digital Dungeon. It really is that good! That kind of word of mouth'll probably shift a few more sales.

John Tomkins also talks about his new favourite program, as advertised in our sister magazine. Adventure Writer is both easy and fun. Yup, there's plenty of stuff out there. It just needs better promotion. Another reason I love internet search engines.

Christopher M. Cameron-Carey writes in to pimp his own personal mapmaking software, CARTOGRAFIX. Write in now to buy it! Take out an advert, dude.

Roger Smith finds it vaguely odd that RPG's are considered childish, when playing sports isn't. That's easily explained. When people are making obscene amounts of money from it publicly, that tends to stop those kinds of statements fairly quickly. The same applies to music. Dancing around in ludicrous outfits and doing pelvic thrusts on stage becomes a lot more respectable when you're raking in millions at every stadium gig you play. Until you can theoretically do the same roleplaying (wait, isn't that called being an actor) this will continue to be the case for us.

Amy Jones is among those who disapproves of cheesecake art. It's both ludicrous and pointless. Send those artists out into the world to learn about real female anatomy and dress sense!

Bryan Kirschner also thinks they're crap, especially since it's often so incongruous with the actual contents of the books, where sexual equality is exceedingly common. People do judge books by their covers. Marketing people should know that more than anyone.

Clarisa Fowler feels so strongly about this issue that she's created an amateur magazine for women and gaming. They certainly have plenty to talk about. As before, have fun trying to get hold of it. These things don't last very well.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 201: January 1994


part 4/6


Eye of the monitor: The 7th Saga is a somewhat FFish looking console RPG. Overhead map stuff, 3D fight scenes, you know the drill, although it's fairly new at this point. It also has tons and tons of side quests, which is another thing that's definitely on the up these days. Fashion come, fashion go.

Might & Magic: The World of Xeen are a duo of adventures which link up into a bigger one. It gets a so-so review. There's plenty of cool features, but also a few clunky and outdated ones. I believe this is the kind of situation they invented the word meh for.

Faceball 2000 does not get a very good review. It would have seemed impressive in the days of pac-man, but these days, endless maze-wandering palls rapidly, and the 3D aspect seems tacked on. Flicker and slowdown do not help things either.


Dragon Strike bogarts the centre pages with one of those double page, full colour spreads that so grab people's attention.


Role-playing reviews: Underground shows us what you can do with desktop publishing, becoming an obvious precursor to the modern age, where even books with tiny print runs like RPG's can be glossy and professional looking as long as they have a sufficiently dedicated designer. The game is quite interesting too, although it looks a bit dated now, being very much in the same paradigm as white wolf games, where your characters may have cool supernatural powers, but a lot of emphasis is put on the psychological effects of this, and the dark humour that often results. Still, government created superheroes who turn against their creators because they seem like the closest thing to 4-color villains out there? That seems more relevant than ever. Whatever happened to this game?

Magic: The gathering is greeted with great enthusiasm. Oh shiiiiiiiit. Allen loved the game, even before he knew it was going to be a huge hit. As a result, this review comes in two sections, written several months apart, as he discovered the world catching up with him with frightening speed. Not that it doesn't seem to deserve it, with Wizards of the Coast showing a dedication to customer service and pursuing new technology that makes TSR look positively moribund. A Challenger Appears! In a situation like this, where we know this is a significant historical step, we want plenty of context, and Allen does not disappoint, talking about the designers, the failed attempts to get something like this going in the past, and the social dynamics that are evolving around the TCG scene. It's all absolutely fascinating, if a bit scary. Just as notable is that White Wolf has already jumped on board, with the Jyhad cardcame in development as we speak. You can bet TSR is already planning their own attempts to break into this market. Watch this space!


The role of books: Ahh, double spacing. My eyes! Ok, I exaggerate a little, but seriously guys, this is a stupid formatting change. I hope you drop it soon. Anyway.

The well-favored man by Elizabeth Willey is a swashbuckler with surprisingly little actual buckling of swash, but plenty of fun storytelling regardless. Just as you can have an RPG with very little roleplaying, you can have a swashbuckler with little swashbuckling, and still have it work as an experience.

The black gryphon by Mercedes Lackey and Larry Dixon gets a pretty good review, with some cool dogfighting between the titular gryphon riders, and well-defined characters who interact together well.

The robin and the kestrel by Mercedes Lackey on her own doesn't do nearly as well, with poor pacing and an overdose of monologues, exposition and setting building rather than actual story advancement. The difference is so striking that John seriously wonders how much merit her creative input has. Maybe she's been casting protection from editors too much lately, so it's up to her husband to keep her in check.

Bruce Coville's book of monsters is a playful little anthology that's aimed at younger readers, but still has plenty of scares for our adult reviewer. The kind of thing to read to your kids with a flashlight and lots of overdramatic voices.

The dark moon legacy series by Cynthia Blair gets a good picking apart for the inaccuracies in it's real world details. Native americans aren't some homogenous um how shamanistic morass. And Oregon doesn't have a mountain range right next to the sea. This is lazy cash-in writing, trying to make a werewolf equivalent to the vampire diaries. Ah yes, what goes around, gets mediocre copies. Funny to encounter that, just as paranormal romance has got to the floods of lazy cash-in books stage again.

The rising of the moon by Flynn Connolly gets compliments for it's plotting and characters, but loses marks for bad sci-fi. He is in a niggly mood today.

The wizard's apprentice by S P Somtow also seems fairly familiar, juxtaposing modern media magic with the real thing. This results in an interesting mix of optimism and cynicism, as befits it's hollywood setting. The result seems fun but not too weighty.

 

[JLowder]

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.

The executive editor who took over the fiction program in late 1992 wasn't a big fan of the column and neither were many of the editors who were still working for the department.