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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 4568905" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Issue 60: April 1982part 2/2Gaming magazine. This years april fool is presented as a generic alternative to Dragon. It's rather more sensible than the previous couple, with most of the content still useful for a game despite its flavour. No filking, either. Maybe next year. Flight of the boodles: Another complete little game. While humorous in its visuals, this is a perfectly playable little game for one or two players. Yet another fun thing to try out if I get the chance. The jester: Oh dear god no. Not another version of this class. Be very very afraid, because these ones are statistically legal, and really rather scary. I guess they have to be to survive, given the suboptimal tactics they have to use. Use one as the big bad if you want your players to enjoy beating them way too much. Darmuids last jest: Heard the saying I died laughing. Well, now you can make it happen, with this optional special bard power. Not recommended for use in actual play. Midgets in the earth: Ha. This month's generic parody characters, not based on real people or tv shows at all, no siree bob; are Idi Snitmin the kobold commando, Eubeen Hadd the halfling thief guildmaster, and Morc the orc. These guys are far less twinked than their serious offerings, which I find very ironic. Idi in particular is a good example of how even kobolds can be pretty terrifying if they have the right equipment and tactics. We'll be seeing that topic again several times, only taken seriously. Artist of the month: Phil Foglio gets fulsome praise from Kim. Which is then immediately undermined. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> Nice to see they can still poke fun at their own reputations. Dragon's bestiary: More cartoon creatures to give your players nightmares. The green giant, (who could be absolutely horrifying if played straight) Donald duck, Taz, Marvin the Martian, Baseball Bugbears, and the dreaded Werebeaver (with Wally) Most are just about statistically usable, as long as you can stand the things your players'll throw at you for inflicting them upon their characters. Outfitting the new agent: Back to the serious stuff. Or is it? I can't be sure with Gary's writing. This could almost be a parody of the standard questions list you ask about your character, such as eye colour, hair, date of birth, etc. It is rather dry. This is the kind of stuff people should do automatically if they like roleplaying. And if they just play to kill stuff, they don't need to go to all the effort of thinking up details like this. Meh. The trojan war: Glenn Rahman gives us a slew of variants for his new game. He is a busy bunny lately. More flexibility is often a good thing, and this is as well thought out as most of his offerings. Pooka: Oh god. Speaking of bunnies. Not another unkillable pain in the ass trickster monster. If you're gonna give us these, you could at least stat them out fairly, not make them more powerful than most gods. And they bring time travel into it as well, which is also a massive pain in games. Make it go away.Figuratively speaking gives us three dragons, plus a set of elementals, Orcs, lizard men, dwarves, and buildings. Nothing scores below 5 as usual, but they are generous enough to give out one 9 this month. A view of the nine philosophies: Is it that time again? Yes, it is. What time is it? It's chico:bang!: You die now! :sound of record player being smashed, crickets chirping:Sorry. Where was I? Oh yeah. It's alignment debate time. This is the one that delineates the Good-evil axis as the moral one, and the law-chaos one as the ethical one. Which I guess is fairly significant. This is a fairly non controversial article as they go. It's most controversial point is probably that specific laws are not neccacarily Lawful, (and indeed, a badly designed legal system can actively result in a chaotic society) and breaking external laws is therefore not neccacarily chaotic. It also subscribes more toward the neutral as balance seeking rather than neutral as disinterest in moral matters or self-interest. But it does not view alignment as a straightjacket, and actively promotes the idea that most people are not going to perfectly fit into one. It's a measurement of the sum of their actions, not a set of sides people actively choose. I don't have a problem with this. The dragon's augury: Spawn of fashan! Oh boy, this is a doozy of a review that I remember seeing reprinted elsewhere. The reviewer winds up concluding that this game is a diliberate parody of RPG's, as that's the only way it could make any sense. Reading the actual play is far more fun than actually trying to play the game.  Comedy gold, if not in the same league as F.A.T.A.L. (but then again, Darren's review would eat up a whole issue. I don't think they'd allow that.) Wormy once again goes off on a completely insane tangent. What's new summons cthulhu. Dragonmirth is missing, but not missed as they have more than enough jokes in the rest of the magazine, thank you very much. A slightly understated issue compared to some april fools ones. But it does have some genuinely funny stuff, such as the fiction and the review. Plus more official stuff that would continue to be used in many books to come. It's certainly not a bad one for the period.</blockquote>

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