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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 4619897" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Issue 80: December 1983part 1/284 pages. Another iconic cover from Clyde Caldwell that would be reprinted quite a few times here. We also find out that their circulation has now exceeded 100,000. Not long now until they hit their peak. Enjoy it while it lasts. <img src="http://paizo.com/image/product/magazine_issue/dragon/80/cover_500.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />In this issue:Out on a limb:  A letter praising the psionic articles, and asking if the new powers in there are available to non psionicists. They decide to leave that question open to individual GM's. It's all optional, dahlink. Ewerythink's Optional! :grandiose hand gesture: A letter from Arthur Collins giving minor corrections to the aforementioned psionics stuff. Curse you, Kim! :shakes fist: A letter pointing out that their dice probability program is flawed. They say they already admitted that last issue. Don't keep on. A question about king of the tabletop, which they answer efficiently. A letter pointing out corrections in the index, and asking how long it'll be before the next one. They really don't know. A letter about testing dice with the same number twice with the chi-square formula. The best way is to treat each side as a single result. A letter pointing a mistake in citadel by the sea. Thankfully, it's an invisible error, so it doesn't ruin the module anyway. A letter pointing out that they've been ending articles with the zodiac symbols for each month recently, and wondering about the significance. They reply that it's just for fun, y,know.  The psychology of the doppleganger: An ecology by another name would still smell  just as, well, pretty rank actually, for most of the creatures they tackle. But these guys can smell how they like. (unless you decide that that isn't the case, as a way to catch them out) This decides that dopplegangers are like cuckoos. They imitate humanity, breed with them, and think that they are human when they are young. Which as you should know, is a portrayal that sticks, simply because of the cool plots it offers. But like illithids (another race that would later become parasitic off the bodies of others,) they are far from human in their mentality, with mind reading and sheer intellectual power causing them to regard most races as mere cattle to be played with as they choose. How can you have an equal relationship with someone when you can read their every thought, probe their memories freely, and anticipate their every move. You'd come to think yourself superior as well and justly so. There's a world of darkness game in there, and I'm vaguely surprised they haven't made one about dopplegangers yet. All in all, this is a pretty good ecology, both in terms of fiction and interesting appendix detail. The creepiest things are those that hit closest to home. And dopplegangers can certainly do that in spades. How many coins in a coffer: Oh great. Another article picking apart the holes in D&D's physics. Don't you think it's strange that all the coins in D&D have the same weight and fill the same volume regardless of what material makes them up. This is incredibly unrealistic. So lets crunch the numbers, see what they really are. Much basic but weighty statistical stuff ensues, revealing several interesting real world factoids along the way. Remember, encumbrance is a far bigger issue in reality than it's made out to be in the game, and you have to take shape into account far more as well. A certain degree of fudging would probably be better for keeping the game fun and fast flowing. But it could be amusing to extrapolate outwards to build a universe where the universal constant is coin weight and volume, rather than the speed of light. So this is another valuable article in terms of showing us how to deconstruct game reality, and remodel it in our own post-modern image. I must remember to refer back to it when this kind of stuff comes up again. Amazing magazine has back issues! Get them now, before they're sold out! Five keys to DM'ing success: Huh. only 5? Lew gave us twenty, just a few issues ago. This seems a little redundant, not to mention uninspired, when you consider that. I have to wonder why they published it. I guess like class and race expansions, GM'ing advice is always both produced, and in demand. Taken on it's own, it's not a bad article. But in comparison to Lew's one, it really doesn't measure up. What was Kim thinking letting this through when they could have covered something new instead. Was the freelance article slush pile really that lacking in interesting stuff?Dungeon master's Familiar: Another computer program for speeding your game along. In theory, anyway. As ever, I'm sure we'll see complaints that it doesn't work for them. They really are surprisingly persistent given the number of failures they've had in this area. Eh. Better to play it too risky than to play it too safe.  Who lives in that castle: Katharine Kerr gives us more worldbuilding stuff, with a system free, but high detail essay on historical castles, and how they were inhabited, managed and supported. Useful but dry stuff, I found myself zoning out when I tried to read this one. I think I'll save it for when I actually want to build my own one. Come on, you need top make this setting building stuff sound exciting, otherwise people won't want to try it. Treasures rare and wondous: Another list of a hundred interesting items for treasure, mostly nonmagical, but some with minor special abilities. Ed once again manages to make even the normal ones interesting and flavourful. See, it's not all about the specul powerz. Also interesting is his observation that increasingly, DM's are starting to place treasure rather than roll for it, as this results in more story specific and balanced (at least, if you're Ed, and a game design genius) long term games. Once again, we see how the old skool methods are already fading away, to be replaced by more story based methods of gaming. And he's playing an important part in making this the case. One of those articles that's more interesting as a plotting of historical trends than for its own sake, as I can only stay interested in the nuances of gems and jewelery for a little while. Man, car wars has quite a few supplements now. Seems a bit much for a one joke game. I guess that like paranoia, it's a pretty good joke. Barnacus, city in peril: is a 12 page low level AD&D module. This is rather a retro feeling one. treating the city as just another dungeon, with a map, lotsa random encounters, and a site based final encounter. You'll have to do quite a bit of your own world-building to make this place feel real, because it's still pretty sketchy. You'll also face challenges considerably above your own level, and probably have to do some retreating as well. Definitely not one of their high points of design. Still, cities are always more reusable than dungeons, so even once the adventure is solved, the map could still be of use. File under slightly subpar.</blockquote>

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