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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 4581274" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Issue 65: September 1982part 1/286 pages. It's convention season again. Which means off they trot to meet up with the growing legions of fans. What stories will they have to tell this year? What backstage shenanigans will take place. Things are already getting interesting in that respect. We have some stuff on that, and it looks like there's more to come. Plus another full helping of crunch, reviews and games. The D&D train chugs onwards. In this issue: Out on a limb: A letter defending Ed's firearms article, pointing out that the weapons in it are still far less damaging and reliable than spells, so the game is hardy broken by their inclusion.A letter pointing out a bunch of errors in the jester class. It was a joke. Do you really expect perfect mechanical rigour? A letter expressing confusion at the D&D is satanic crowd. This gets a long-winded reply from kim. You don't have to explain it to us. We're on your side. A letter talking about the troubles they had with using the umbra as a monster, and the logical problems shadow-fighting presents. A letter saying ecological stuff, particularly dietary information, should be mandatory for monster descriptions. Dragon rumbles is written by Gary this issue. It is a fairly lengthy piece about the competition between Gen con and Origins. So you're now the head of by far the most successful company in your field, to the point where other companies are simultaneously sniping at you and imitating you. Just because you've been overtaken that's no reason to pull out and only go to other conventions. That's not a way to produce a unified hobby, or to make money from the conventions. PS. Boycott them if you agree with me <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=";)" /> So it's another classic Gary editorial full of hyperbole and hypocrisy. What would we do without them? <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> Blastoff!: TSR's got a new game out, Star frontiers. Which means it's promotion time. This is their attempt to do for space opera sci-fi what  the basic D&D set did for fantasy gaming, making a more accessable and less gonzo game than their previous two attempts. Which means it's doomed to failure, as this smacks of a game developed around marketing decisions, rather than love. I could be wrong. It could enjoy years of decent sales and play. But Gamma world and Metamorphosis Alpha certainly seem to be remembered more often these days. That's what happens when you forget to put the fundamental weirdness as the foundation for the gloss. You can't make a pearl without grit, after all. From the sorceror's scroll: Gary turns his eye towards new classes. He has quite a number planned for inclusion in future issues, some which made it (cavalier, thief-acrobat) some which didn't. (savant, mountebank) He also reveals what's at the top of the druid heirachy. (The grand druid, the only 15th level druid in the entire world, with huge personal powers, plus 12 special followers, who's job it is to look after the balance of nature over the entire planet. Now there's a job that would get in the way of regular adventuring. Still, it's not as if you'd be short of things to do in that situation.) He also gives barbarians a new special power so they have a fighting chance against magical creatures, encourages giving your characters proper personalities, and gives Frank Mentzer a promotion. Plus more bitching about the competition. So, he's still got lots of big plans. But how long before he finishes them, flitting between so many projects at once? This is why creative types need a firm editorial hand and deadlines. Greyhawk's World: This month, the spotlight goes on the south-east and the lendore islands. What lies beyond the limits of the known map? All sorts of legends of dooooom, for none have returned to tell the tale. Meanwhile, Nyrond masses it's army to defend against Ivid's depredations. How much success will they have? Wait a few years for the next edition to come out and we'll see. Nothing special to see here. Leomund's tiny hut: Weapon quality. Another experiment in differentiating weapons and armour by minute amounts based upon how well they were made. Which involves lots of tedious tables, and even the best ones provide less benefit than a simple +1 weapon. As is often the case with his rules mods, this is really not worth it and needs some serious refining and streamlining.  Weapons wear out, not skills: Weapon proficiency groups. A good idea they really need to get round to implementing canonically. This article make another attempt to generally improve the proficiency system. It does, but not nearly enough. And I suspect we'll be seeing many more of these attempts before third edition. Hopefully some'll be weird enough to be interesting. Featured creatures is introducing more good guys to the game roster: Baku are magical mini elephants from elysium. But as they have planar travel, they can turn up in the oddest of places. And frankly, the thought of an invisible elephant in the room should scare most evildoers. Phoenix are thankfully no longer singular, nor do you get tortured to death and sent back in time to stop yourself by the gods for killing one. They're even more disgustingly powerful though, with another laundry list of powers that'll rarely be used properly in play. Gary does love overpowered good guys, doesn't he. If only he could find a more elegant way of making them so. The missing dragons: The colour wheel theory. Now there's a dumb idea. Well, if you lived in the D&D universe, where attempts at rigorous science fall apart as the researchers go insane trying to make sense of the results, it'd seem like a perfectly reasonable hypothesis. So anyway, we get another set of yellow, orange and purple nurple dragons. Which bear no relation to the previous set, or future sets. Well, they are pretty lame. Is it any wonder people thought they could do better. We also get more "sages believe" pontification. We want names, damnitt. Academics is all about individuals seeking knowledge, not some nebulous monolithic collective. I think we can consign this one back to the shelves of history without regret. The RPGA bulletin advertises the R series of modules, only available to members. This includes R2, which is the module Frank Mentzer designed, that won him the the 1980 dungeon masters competition. So it ought to be pretty good. Anyone played these? Timelords: Ahh, doctor who. You have a lot to answer for. Not that these guys have much to do with the Dr who conception of them, being more like specialist psionicists with lots of different time manipulation powers, powered by a point expenditure system. (Proper stimulation of the chronal glands? Really? How do you do that then? ) Fortunately, Lew avoids giving them powers that break the game, such as traveling back in time and stopping aging, and while certainly not weak, there's no way they can compete in overall versatility and blasting power with standard clerics and wizards. I doubt they'd ruin the game if they were allowed as PC's, although they might upset the tone a little, especially if the other players kept making jokes. Still, more options are rarely a bad thing, especially when they're ones that break new ground, rather than just being hybrids and variants of existing roles like bounty hunters or swashbucklers. Once again, Mr Pulsipher wins me over with the quality of his writing.</blockquote>

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