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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 4644198" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Issue 88: August 1984part 1/3103 pages. Oh man, more litigious crap. This is what happens when companies pick similar names. Avalon Hill has been sued by Monarch Avalon, whoever the hell they were. And the settlement they've come too looks bloody stupid. I do not approve. And to top it off they use this as an excuse to remind us that they'll sue our asses as well if they think we're getting too fresh with their intellectual property. It's a hard life, being a big company. You've got to keep people on your side without them thinking you're a pushover, or they'll just take and take until you've got nothing left. So what are we getting for our money this time? In this issue:Out on a limb: A letter asking if the people from TSR would really send an unsigned personal reply on normal paper. Kim replies that the answer to that is hell no, someone's trying to trick you. You were quite right to be suspicious.Some nitpicks about the unarmed fighting system in issue 83. It's supposed to be a simpler variant. Putting extensive lists in it would spoil that. A letter complaining about the lack of stats in the legacy of hortus article. I quite understand. Some more questions, this time on the new magic items from issue 86A question about dragon deities. Who the hell do neutral dragons worship? Kim encourages you to fill out the dragon pantheon yourself. The AD&D multiverse is a big place, and there's still huge wodges of it that need filling in. And finally a question on if stuff in the magazine is official. Yes, most of it isn't, but what about all the stuff Gary trumpets as Official AD&D Material. Kim replies that while it may be more official than other stuff in the magazine, even that isn't truly tournament official stuff. You're still restricted to the three corebooks if you go to a convention and play a game there, which keeps everyone on a level playing field, no matter how much they've spent. ) The forum: Sam Chupp doesn't have a problem with high level characters. Once you get to that stage, you have to really start individualizing them, and creating plots and challenges customized to the character, instead of endlessly throwing bigger and badder dungeons at them. It's a big world out there, and you've gotta expand your scope to deal with it. Kevin Deevey & Richard Emerich have some extensive thoughts on the nature of illusions and how to handle disbelief. This topic isn't going away any time soon, is it. Adam Zar is entirely in favor of high level adventures where you take on gods and arch demons and things. Saying that you can't kill them because it'll upset the cosmic balance is like saying monsters don't exist to be overcome by the heroes. It's like saying the universe ought to suck, and you shouldn't even try and change that. Which frankly is both pessimistic and unambitious. These things were given stats so they could be beaten. So let's go and do epic heroey things. Hurrah! Brian M Oglivie explains how the planes can work in simple terms, using some classic books as his sources. Expand your mind and get cosmic, man. Or better still, take it logically, and even the impossible can be rationalized. It's a tremendously useful human ability, (abeit one responsible for lots of stupid religious dogma. ) and so it should be used. Chris Wayne puts his own spin on the Star law police force for his game. Any setting can be customized, and that does not imply that the canon setting is deficient. James Brewer is shocked that the RPGA puts so little emphasis on the actual fun had when it comes to scoring tournament play. After all, it it's not fun, why play? It's not as if there are big cash prizes for winning AD&D tournaments. Kevin Lawless thinks that the idea of dragon clerics, particularly worshipping beings as weedy as Bahamut and Tiamat, is a totally stupid idea. Both the idea of tithing and parishes are grossly inappropriate to their nature, and that's not even getting into the alignment problems with chaotic creatures worshipping lawful gods.    Take that, Alan Zumwalt. Now someone hurry up and make a proper dragon pantheon, with gods you can really believe in. Gods of the suel pantheon gives us Syrul, Fortubo and Wee Jas this month. Two long forgotten, one much less so. Syrul is the hag goddess of deceit, and a thoroughly nasty piece of work in general. She's certainly a good target for high level characters who want to try a little godslaying. Fortubo is essentially the lendore isle's dwarf god, as his portfolio covers mountains and metal. He's a bit dull really, being exactly what you would expect of someone with his portfolio to be. Wee Jas, of course, is another kettle of fish altogether. Somehow she manages to have not just one, but two really powerful portfolios, plus a bunch of minor associations as well. Ruthless, but not outright evil, clever but still beautiful, highly disciplined but with her chaotic bit on the side lover who she'd really rather wasn't mentioned in polite company, and with an interesting special benefit for her clerics, it's easy to see why she became so popular amongst a wide section of the population, both in and out of the game. She's far more three-dimensional than the majority of D&D gods, and in a pleasing way. And so we get to see D&D's implied setting build itself up some more, in it's slow and haphazard way. Take the best, leave the rest behind. Physics and falling damage: Oh great. Not this annoying issue again. Have we not established that trying to make D&D realistic is like trying to fit an elephant into a mini. Neither side ends up very happy, and even if you do somehow find a way to do it, the thing runs so slowly you might as well not have bothered. Give it up, embrace the gamism. Anyway, we get a detailed analysis of acceleration rates vs air resistance, and the curve that follows to get us to terminal velocity in the real world. And then the author introduces an enormous fudge factor so as not to change the game too much after all that. Which satisfies neither my gamist or my simulationist side. Bored now. Next please. Kinetic energy is the key: Great. More falling physics pontification. Bzzzt. Epic fail. I said next please.</blockquote>

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