Let's read the entire run

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 247: May 1998


part 7/8


Roleplaying reviews welcomes Chris Pramas to the fold. What's with this rapid reviewer switching? When that happened to the computer column, it was just a year before they got cancelled. This does not make me confident. So let's see how his voice and opinions differ from our previous incumbents, and if they'll be swapping back in subsequent months. Unusually for a new reviewer, he doesn't bother introducing himself, and gets straight down to business. But they do take the time to revamp the appearance, and bring back the 1-6 pip rating system. The show must go on!

Tribes of the heartless waste is a region expansion for Birthright, with a player and DM book. Obviously, it's off to the barbarian lands, to see if you can face down the gnoll hordes, take care of the Awnsheigh, and unify the squabbling domains. It has a pretty decent set of new crunch appropriate to the culture and climate, and enough adventure hooks and bits left open for a DM to spring plenty of surprises on the players over the course of a campaign. So that's most of the obvious bases covered for the line. Shall we move on?

Earthforce sourcebook is for the Babylon Project, and improves quite a bit on the artwork of the corebook. The writing is still rather dry though, and the new crunch just makes the system even more complicated. Chris does thoroughly enjoy the ship & space combat rules though, which keep PC actions significant while scaling up nicely. Overall, he does recommend it, and hopes the line keeps improving.

Lordly domains is for Pendragon, and of course is about managing any land your knight may own. If you do it right, you'll expand your holdings and pass it down from generation to generation, making it as important as the actual characters. As with most pendragon books, it gets an excellent review, and adds plenty of depth and setting detail to a game that can already span a pretty epic scope. It even includes a decent prefab adventure, which most domain management systems don't really manage. Once again they come up trumps.

Libellus sanguinus 1: masters of the state is for Vampire: the Dark Ages. They don't think that the historical lines merit full splatbooks for every clan, so they're condensing them into 4 packs of 3, each clan getting 30-odd pages. It does suffer from the tendency to assign vampiric influence to many historical events, and Chris is uncomfortable with the idea of playing Tzimisce as represented here. They're all monsters, that's part of the fun. Let go of your humanity. Embrace the darkness.

Crisis of faith is for Heavy Gear, and puts all the timeline advancement in a single book, instead of scattering metaplot gumph all over the place in unrelated sourcebooks, as has happened in AD&D settings. Now that is a sensible idea. The presentation is pretty good as well. Course, there is the usual question if this'll make the setting less accessible to newbies. Guess they'll just have to risk it, or the line won't survive anyway.


The world of darkness kicks it's metaplot into high gear. The time of judgement is coming and the blood is growing thin. Soon ravnos will rise, and he will be ravenous.


Re:Views: Stuper Powers! sees Lester tackle a game with a nonstandard format for a second month in a row. A simple comedic superhero game using a comic book format? With dubious and often scatalogical powers? Oh I can so see that working, although it might be hard to find a parody power that hasn't been used seriously at some point. The system is simple, easy, and gets out of the way, and there's enough adventure ideas to get you going for a few issues. Seems like a good one to introduce young boys to roleplaying with.


The knights of the dinner table are not in the same boat as bob marley. Hoody Hoo

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 247: May 1998


part 8/8


TSR Previews: Some fairly substantial yet distinctive releases coming in july. AD&D gets a CD character generator, including all the corebooks and several supplements. Accelerate your ability to build and keep track of characters quite considerably. Our other generic product is the complete opposite. Return to the Tomb of Horrors sees them start to seriously cannibalise their old adventures in a search for more profit. See them try and jam together old skool meatgrinder and modern plotting with limited success.

The Realms gets a triple bill this month. Mostly rehash though. Murder in Cormyr and the Dark Elf Trilogy get reprinted. And the Villains lorebook brings more characters from novels into your game, should you be so inclined to give your players a chance to kill them. Yawn.

Greyhawk continues to kick off again with The Adventure Begins. They try and make the adventures more customisable this time round. Down with the Railroads!

Dragonlance can't resist getting prequeliffic again, with Spirit of the Wind, part 1 of the Bridges of time series. See what happened between the time periods covered in detail so far. Riverwind gets the spotlight again. Meanwhile, the 5th age gameline continues, with Citadel of Light. More info on Mystics and their new centre of learning. Should be helpful.

Alternity kicks off it's first campaign setting quickly, wanting to get all the critical stuff out before it gets cancelled. StarDrive gets both it's core setting book, and it's monstrous compendium. They really are following the same format as the D&D books a lot more closely than they did with Buck, Top Secret or the Amazing Engine. They live in hope that it'll work out this time.

And finally, we have another intriguing double bill. Xena and Hercules get interlinked Endless Quest books. Sounds like it could be fun. They are pretty perfect material for roleplaying.


Profiles: Jeff Grubb is our second returning profilee. (see issue 111) He's done a lot more since then, and the focus of the profile is much more on his game work than on his earlier life this time round. He's created Spelljammer and Al-Quadim, but his real fame and popularity (especially with other game designers) is due to his ability to write in other people's worlds, producing fun stuff that fits in with the wider universe and it's themes. A skill which is much more in demand than simple creative talent. Combining your logical and creative abilities can be tricky sometimes, but it is crucial for producing the best work. He's still happily married to, and sometimes co-writing with Kate Novak, the lucky git. Definitely an interesting profile, both in the facts it reveals, and the way it phrases them.


This issue definitely seems to be an attempt to go back to the old school, with a new class, new unconnected subsystems, and several revisitings of old topics and characters, some more welcome than others. The result is reasonably entertaining, and the reviews are better than they've been in a while as well. Of course it does trouble me that this means they're going to be even more repetitive in the topics they cover in the future, but I can survive that. At least now they know where they're going.

 

[jonesy]

Dragonlance can't resist getting prequeliffic again, with Spirit of the Wind, part 1 of the Bridges of time series. See what happened between the time periods covered in detail so far. Riverwind gets the spotlight again.

Riverwind schmiverrind. I don't even remember what he did in it. This is the kender book, for anyone who wants to see them used well, or write them well, or play them well. It's the kender war against the invading ogres.

Also the only memorable book from the Bridges of Time.

 

[David Howery]

Alternity kicks off it's first campaign setting quickly, wanting to get all the critical stuff out before it gets cancelled.

Yeah, Alternity really went... nowhere. The one and only thing I ever bought in that whole line was a guidebook for adventuring in alternate history timelines. I've been a fan of alternate history for a long time, and one of the message boards I hang out on regularly is dedicated to AH. The Alternity guidebook was rather... dull.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 248: June 1998


part 1/8


124 pages. Another birthday rolls round. They still aren't saying how old they are, but there's no doubt that it is their birthday, with more dragon related articles than they've had in quite a while. And a slightly goofy cover picture that still manages to be more practical and sensible than bareback riding with a Dragonlance. You have a flying creature, the best way to enhance it is with an attack that has an even longer range than it's natural breath weapon, and strafe enemies from the air. Pew pew pew! Time to take potshots at this month's articles.


In this issue:


The wyrms turn: Why'd it have to be Dragons? Because it alliterates in a snappy manner, and because it's one letter further in the alphabet than Castles & Crusades. Actually, I wonder how much deep thought went into Gary & Dave's choice of the name, how much brainstorming and arguing went on before they settled on that as a title. But anyway, the important thing is that they're big, scary and alien. D&D started off with a lot of weird monsters, and while it has accumulated more over the years, the ratio of weird stuff to more conventional humanoids and human antagonists has gone down over the years. Sometimes, you don't really want an enemy you can negotiate with, or at least, not in good faith, you want a monster you know you're trying to trick, hunt, and eventually kill. After all, we have to keep our murderous urges satisfied somehow. Who knows what might happen otherwise? People say computer games RPG's etc etc cause violence, but really, we have far less physical fighting than we did a few centuries ago, so all this distraction and education must be doing something right.


D-Mail: We kick off with some pretty extensive commentary on recent issues. This then digresses into a complaint about wizards being stereotyped, and a load of extra recommended reading that the articles missed out. This gets a pretty positive response from the staff, plus a note that you can now talk to them online with a scheduled chat. The net begins to bring audiences and creators closer together.

A second, mostly positive bit of commentary. Their emphasis on immediately useful articles is definitely pleasing some people.

And finally, another praising letter, this time on the fact that the April issue was humour light this time. No silly letters, and the articles were all usable. They say they intend to continue in that vein. WotC is a less goofy company than TSR in general. Eventually people will start missing that though.


Nodwick gets some small satisfactions. Such is the life of a henchman.


Forum gets onto the thorny business of alignment. Even more than psionics, this is likely to result in some heated debate in a few months time.

Scott Hall goes back to issue 66, and suggests weapon damage should be a function of class, rather than weapon. A Narrativist! Burn him! Yeah, I think this is a bit out there for the general gaming public.

M. Kant thinks weapons that are superior IRL ought to be superior in the game. And isn't that a can of worms in itself. I don't feel optimistic about getting interesting responses to this one.

F Matthew Fagan wants the DMG supreme again. Oh, and don't duplicate info between the two. That's just a waste of pages.

William De Franza wants gnomes removed from the core, multiclassing eliminated and simulated by hybrid classes, and detailed riding rules. A bit out there, but 2 of those'll turn up in 4e. Hmm. That is a strange one historically.

 

[jonesy]

Scott Hall goes back to issue 66, and suggests weapon damage should be a function of class, rather than weapon. A Narrativist! Burn him! Yeah, I think this is a bit out there for the general gaming public.

Does he specifically talk about narrativism there? I could see how this might make sense from a rules crunch perspective. Someone better trained in melee weapons would do more damage with them. You could transfer all weapon traits to the character sheet. But I think this approach would make the mechanics of combat way too complicated. Kind of like how the grapple rules got messed up.

M. Kant thinks weapons that are superior IRL ought to be superior in the game. And isn't that a can of worms in itself. I don't feel optimistic about getting interesting responses to this one.

The big problem being that the makers of the game would need to start testing weapons in the real life to determine which of them actually are superior. Sword injuries as an occupational hazard for RPG writers?

 

[Ed_Laprade]

Dragon Magazine Issue 248: June 1998


part 1/8The wyrms turn: Why'd it have to be Dragons? Because it alliterates in a snappy manner, and because it's one letter further in the alphabet than Castles & Crusades. Actually, I wonder how much deep thought went into Gary & Dave's choice of the name, how much brainstorming and arguing went on before they settled on that as a title.

Wasn't it Gary's daughter who came up with the name? (Or was it his wife? I'm too lazy to go check! )

 

[David Howery]

Does he specifically talk about narrativism there? I could see how this might make sense from a rules crunch perspective. Someone better trained in melee weapons would do more damage with them. You could transfer all weapon traits to the character sheet. But I think this approach would make the mechanics of combat way too complicated. Kind of like how the grapple rules got messed up.


The big problem being that the makers of the game would need to start testing weapons in the real life to determine which of them actually are superior. Sword injuries as an occupational hazard for RPG writers?

the real problem is that different weapons do differently against different kinds of armor... maces are great against chainmail, not so good against plate, etc. etc.

just gimme a one-size-fits-all number range, works for me...

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 248: June 1998


part 2/8


Out of character: Peter gets in on the birthday theme with an article on making dragons suitably cunning and prepared for the players. When they're on the ball, you are well and truly screwed, particularly once they've built up their spellcasting and magic items. So this is one of the many articles from this period that's good in isolation, with Peter's writing style making it fun to read, but oh so very rehashed when taken in the wider sweep of the magazine, where there have been a wide variety of articles and forum letters saying much the same things. And as before, I have to remind us that there are young dragons around, and many of them won't get the chance learn these lessons and survive for centuries, and also that spending decades asleep can wear down those preparations quite a bit. It should be possible to catch them off guard, especially if you're living in a world where there aren't that many adventurers, so dragons can go years without getting any significant challenges and have the chance to get lazy. So hey ho, this isn't particularly consequential. As with cutting the april fools material, I worry about this because it means people are less likely to remember these articles. You do need a certain number of off the wall ideas along with the sensible stuff to maintain attraction, and they are not providing them.


The return of the missing dragons: Or maybe they are. Jesus christ it's a blast from the past get in the car! The color wheel dragons were one of the less impressive add-ons from the old days, originally appearing in issue 65. But very little dies forever in D&D, especially now we're developing computer versions of books, and extra especially when the original writer is still around. And that's exactly what happened here. Richard Alan Lloyd returns 16 years later to convert his creations to 2nd edition. All get the usual extra amounts of ecological detail and general powering up you would expect from the current formulae, but remain pretty faithful to their previous versions. His writing has improved quite a bit in the meantime too. The combination of this and the nostalgia factor means I definitely like these better the second time around.

Yellow (salt) dragons get the chance to permanently blind you, plus water and weather control powers. Since the sea is one of the biggest sources of salt, but also absorbs it pretty well, this means they incline towards coastal regions. They make plenty of practical uses of the real world properties of salt.

Orange (sodium) dragons are even more interesting chemically. Again, the applications of real world principles are cleaned up a bit mechanically, and they're surprisingly fond of water. ( boom badaboom) The info on their eating habits is quite good.

Purple (energy) dragons, as before, are the scariest of the three. Their concentrated lightsaber energy weapon now has the power to inflict semipermanent injuries, and their fire based & hypnotic powers make them quite able to come ahead in negotiations. There are far worse big bads out there.

 

[(un)reason]

Dragon Magazine Issue 248: June 1998


part 3/8


Building a better dragon: Such as a dragon using these optional rules. Having had our requisite dose of machiavellian planning advice, we now have some more mechanical variations for them to make sure your players don't get complacent. Pick or roll randomly from this list of 50 powers (what, couldn't find enough for the full 101? ) , and then stack that on top of their regular abilities. Most of these are from mythological sources, and so feel appropriately draconic, and are simple enough in their mechanical implementation. And it's not all bad for players. You could get permanent magical abilities from drinking or bathing in their blood, and even more cool bits and pieces from their body. (of course, you could also wind up being transformed into a dragon yourself, which might be considered a good or bad thing. ) Given the level of sadism here, I find myself enjoying this article. Sure, not every dragon should be unique, just like not every magical item should have a name, but some should. And this is sufficiently different from previous articles on this topic to merit it's place.


Crystal confusion: Back to the old school again for an article on gemstones. These last got significant articles on them in issues 72 & 83, making this a fairly forgivable bit of rehash. And it's their equal in length, so I can't bash it on that ground. However, I can criticise it on grounds of artwork, which manages to be inferior to both of the previous ones in quantity and quality despite the recent increase in colour pages in the magazine. Plus one of the old ones was done by Ed, who of course took the opportunity to add a ton of fantastical details that made it so much more interesting to read. On the plus side, this does cover more varieties of stones than the old articles, but that means it goes into less detail on each. So when I add it up, the degree of overlap isn't so great that this is useless, but I certainly wasn't entertained by it, and it shows up some areas that the old magazines did better. They certainly never had pixelated jaggies in their artwork like this one. :bleah:


The dragon of Vstaive Peak: Birthright gets a unique dragon detailed again this year, just as with the last few birthdays. Since the line recently got cancelled, I suspect this'll be the last time barring the occasional nostalgia article. Still, they go out with one that's both impressive, and has a certain degree of pathos. A dragon that's fused with a mountain, so his power is vast, but his mobility is also seriously limited. (plus usual deleterous effects to the sanity, nach.) A cautionary tale for birthright rulers as much as anything, given their connection with the land. With a rich description, plus plenty of detail on the history, treasures, and political ramifications of him becoming active again, this is pretty specific to the world, and would take a bit of work to convert to elsewhere (except perhaps Ravenloft ), or even to another region, if the PC's domains are far away and they have to reason to go near Vstaive peak. But at the same time, it is very enjoyable to read, and the fact that he's trapped gives lower level adventurers a chance to engage with him without being instantly destroyed. It all adds up to a good bit of adventure design for a world that needs it's plot hooks kept fairly open-ended.