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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 4476650" data-attributes="member: 27780">The Dragon Issue 21: December 1978 30 pages. Dragon is rushed to the printers this month, and consequently, is cut down in size slightly. The amount of articles is still about the same, just of shorter average length than the last few issues. With paper prices up, they hint that they may have to raise prices again soon. All in all, it puts a bit of a damper on what should have been a christmas special. |n this issue: Garys review of Search for the Nile gets a prompt reply from the creator. This is pretty dull, and has the danger of turning into an academic love-fest. Another example of things that would never make it in now, as it would be handled via the intarweb. The Tomb of horrors! Another classic module gets its release now. Prepare to die horribly, again, and again, and again. You don't kill too many characters, do you: A textbook example of a GM being a complete arbitrary bastard, changing things on a whim to amused themself and keep the players from ever winning. Another case of things that were laughed off then, but would cause massive amounts of complaining these days. Have we all gone soft, or it this a sign of improvement? Who can really say? What do you call a 25th level wizard? Eventually, the level tables run out of titles for class levels. Which means you're badass enough to make your own title. The longer and more floridly descriptive, the better. Another tremendously amusing article that seems very dated now. Review: The Dragonlords. Another review that is mostly description. Cure for the same old monster blues: A reminder that real animals, particularly insects and deep sea creatures have more than enough incredibly weird stuff to match the stuff from fiction. Just do a little research and stat it up if you're short of ideas. Inflation in D&D: Another thing that has always been a problem, particularly as these are before the days of treasure guidelines for level. If players come to expect a certain amount, it becomes increasingly difficult to take it away. So be carefull. Nothing unusual, really. Prophet Proofing: Another problem that has always been the case, and probably always will be. That of divination spells spoiling the surprise. This article is once again written from a very antagonistic viewpoint, where it is assumed that the players and GM will be using every resource to beat each other. Sensible sorcery. Another article on the same theme as the last 2, encouraging the GM to be carefull what they allow with spell research. Spells should always be equal or weaker than published spells of the same level, otherwise balance goes out the window. They really are pushing the player disempowerment this issue. More random encounters for boot hill. Encounters with personality: Finally, a wandering monsters table with individual characters with distinct personalities. Many of them are joke characters, so this may not be suitable for some campaigns. Still, its another sign of the penetration of roleplaying into RPG's. Review: Olympica. Another wargame, involving the elimination of a martian hivemind. Mostly a description, it does give me a pretty good idea what the game is like. The hall of mystery: A mini adventure (well, dungeon is still 8 years away, so I won't be surprised if we see more stuff like this for a while.) full of puzzles. Another thing that can be dropped into an existing game easily. Plus bad poetry. An extensive article for Rail Baron by Gary. Very heavy on the statistics, which makes it pretty impenetrable for those of us who don't know the rules of the game. Review: King arthurs knights! ( quite a while after its release, but hey, this was probably before comp copies became common,plus they had a several month lead-in time.) The direct boardgame ancestor of Greg Staffords pendragon. (another bit of history I am looking forward to eagerly) Another review that is mostly just a description, but still gives you an idea of the tactical setup of the game. Our first reprint (sigh, already.) The new character classes for Dungeon! get a recap, due to being used in the gen con tournament. I suppose they have increase circulation quite a lot in the past 2 years, so at the time most people wouldn't have them. Still feels odd for me to be seeing reprints only 3 weeks in. Does include some new material as well. Review: The Mutha<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />in SILMARILLION! bitch!! Let me rephrase that. In the beginning, Tolkien, the one, made middle earth of his thought, and so inspired an army of imitators. I'd forgotten that this was only published after Tolkiens death. Funny to think he died just around the time D&D was first published. If he had been around a decade or two more to see this and correspond with its creators, how different would the game, and middle earth be now? Not too surprisingly they complain its a bit dense, which you really should expect from a bible analogue. Really, there's no way I can give this one an objective review, so I'm not even going to try. Monty strikes back: The GM overpowers the ridiculously twinked characters, and sends them on a metamorphosis alpha crossover. Yeah. No matter how powerful your characters, if the GM really wants to they can just kill or ruin them without a roll. (unless you play something like burning wheel, or god help you, synibarr, that explicitly forbids GM fiat and has rules backing that up.) Bitter? Moi? Nah, I won't tell that story, because I know members of that group are registered here, and I have no desire to cause a flamewar by airing that bit of dirty laundry. Fineous fingers continues, but no wormy. I guess something else had to be cut to make pagecount, and that was it. Or Trampier was otherwise occupied that month. Not an exceptionally good issue, but a distinctive one, nonetheless. With big names, tons of reviews, a proper dungeon area and loads of stuff going on, they are certainly trying, but it isn't quite working for me. Maybe next year.</blockquote>

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