Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 4648441" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Issue 89: September 1984 part 1/396 pages. There really should be 20 more, but the absence of the creature catalog from the dragon magazine archive is well documented. If anyone could direct me to somewhere I could download the missing pages, I would be very grateful. Still, plenty more stuff I can tackle right now. Lets hope we can sort out these little omissions later. In this issue:Out on a limb: Another letter asking for a collection of covers, which they have to sadly deny, for legal reasons. A letter from Merle Rasmussen talking about Operation Whiteout and the people who won it when it was used as a tournament adventure, plus lots of other cool tidbits.Some questions on the rakshasa article in issue 84. They're a funny bunch. Not really prime material or outsiders, they're actually able to fit in all over the place. An letter brutally picking apart the recent dragonquest article. This gets an exceedingly lengthy reply from it's original author defending it. Who do you believe? Are non-spellcasters inferior or not? A question on how paladins handle dragonhelms. They're perceptive enough to realize they're being <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=":)" />ed with. A letter asking for more scientific detail in the ecologies. Kim reminds them that they have to strike a balance between detail and not overdoing things. Balance balance, always with the balance. Go to the extreme for a change, it's much more interesting. The forum: Bob Kindel thinks that high level campaigns aren't as much fun, and you ought to slow down advancement to keep players at the manageable stage. Also, anyone using deities powers cleverly ought to be able to beat even really high level characters. Those campaigns where god-killing happens are Doing It Wrong™.Edgar W Francis IV (Oh, I say, old chap) also has thoughts on how to handle high level games, and transitioning from the old characters to some new ones. Just because you retire individual characters, doesn't mean the saga can't continue. Katharine Kerr has a tremendously lengthy contribution on the idea of playing evil characters. Group pressure can lead to people doing horrifying things they'd never consider individually. It ends with the conclusion that even fantasizing about committing evil acts is mentally unhealthy. Great, another writer joins the morals brigade. There may have been good things about 2nd ed, but it's already clear who the drivers of the bad points are going to be. David F Nalle finishes off this month's forum by talking about Ken Rolston, and his reviewing process. The things he calls out as flaws are sometimes intentional design choices, be it for aesthetic or financial reasons. You can't please everyone, I guess. Survival is a group effort: Another bit of sociological pontification by Stephen Innis. This is pretty cool, going into population growth, and how creatures with short lifespans can out-survive ones with longer lifespans, but also longer times to reach  maturity. Immortality is good from an individual perspective, but actually not that good in the long run for for a species. This is why elves and dwarves can wind up dying races against the goblinoids, despite massive individual superiority. He then gets even cooler, tackling the problems inherent in spawning undead and lycanthropes. What logical reason could there be for them not having overrun the game world already? Do they diliberately hold back to make sure they have prey in the future. Are they dumb enough that they prefer to kill rather than infect. Maybe there is none, and these creatures are new additions to the world that you'd better do something about or face extinction in a few generations. One of those cool articles that helps you build your own world better by gently stimulating your brain and directing your imagination. A strong start that definitely goes on my worldbuilder checklist. Six very special shields: You can probably figure out just from the name that this is one of Ed's Elminster articles, wherein he pontificates on a bunch of magical items from the Realms. Reptar's wall. Thurbrand's protector. Hawkstone's bulwark. Dzance's guardian. Shoon's buckler. Grimjaw. (Guess Ed's theasaurus ran out of synonyms for shield <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=";)" /> ) All have some surprising special ability beyond just deflecting blows, and most of them have a sting in the tail to their powers that can be inconvenient if you don't know how to operate them properly. (gee, what are the odds if you just find them on a treasure pile or take them from a dead enemy) By now I'm used enough to Ed's style that this doesn't have quite the impact it used too, but this is still a pretty cool article, that makes it's magical items seem properly magical, rather than just extra good utility items. As with the last article, this is showing you the way to build your stuff properly. Idiosyncracies are good. Nothing is identical in real life, and only abstraction and convenience makes it so in games. Heroes Unlimited! The most comprehensive hero game on the market! By Kevin Siembida! Buy it now! Looks like the war for best superhero game is very much on. Bring it! We can handle it.</blockquote>

Verification