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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 4666683" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Issue 93: January 1985part 3/3Fiction: Eira by Josepha Sherman. Fairy stories. Here we go again. A definite attempt to replicate that mythic there and back again journey. Unfortunately it gets a little too precious with the froofy celtic elements, and fails to live up to it's ambition. Not that this magazine would publish unbowdlerised fairy stories, that'd be too dark compared to killing things and taking their stuff. Guess it's another month, another bit of so-so fiction. The marvel-phile: This month's profiles are two more of the Avengers. Mockingbird, another product of trying to replicate the super soldier serum; and Shroud, who seems like a textbook example of a dark and edgy anti-hero, with his martial arts training, handicap which isn't really much of a handicap, and undercover criminal activities. Once again we see a distinct conflict between the growth of that writing style, and the fact that the Marvel superheroes game was designed to emulate the wholesome stories of the previous couple of decades. Not that it stopped the game from being successful, but it continues to be jarring in retrospect. Comics may be set in this static sorta history, but they've still changed quite a bit over the years. Jeff continues to deliver reliably on this front, just as Ed does with the ecologies. New ships for old: Space opera gets some much desired increase (at least, by the writer <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=";)" /> ) in it's variety of starships. Weapons, power plants, and reaction drive strengths. Plus a house ruled damage variant that seems thrown in for no apparent reason, and some talk about the tech levels various things are allowed at. Rather a grab-bag article. As is often the case, the usefullness of this article really hinges on the balance of the crunch, which unfortunately I'm not qualified to judge in this case. So I'll have to leave an open verdict on this one. New brotherhoods: Gamma world continues to get a fairly healthy showing here with a collection of new alliances. The friends of justice are a group of mutants who imitate the heroic behaviour of mutants in ancient comic books. Hilarity ensues. The people in the game may not get the joke. Mental Warriors are an organization of geniuses and psychics who want to ascend to become creatures of pure mental energy. They do engage in unpleasant behaviour to the "less gifted", so they're probably best used as villains.  Searchers try and find the base which was responsible for causing the apocalypse. A little late for that, doncha think. They've evolved from a tactical team into a weird religious cult, which is amusing, but probably also realistic. Spoilsports are teams of elite soldiers, trained by a slightly defective supercomputer. This results in a distinct uncertainty over what they should actually use their powers for. Voyagers want to get off this crazy mudball and find a new planet to call home. Given what happened to starship warden, this may not be a safer alternative to staying. Still, it gives you a difficult but concrete goal to aim for, and it won't finish the game if you actually win. Another article that has a good grip on the mix of humour and seriousness that a good Gamma World game can have, and steals it's ideas from the best sources. It may be ludicrous, but you've got to play it straight and remember that this is serious stuff for the people living there. Is it any wonder they wind up believing strange things, given their environment. I am entertained on multiple levels by this article, which is definitely a good thing. Rare wines and ready cash: What's worth more than gold in space? Fresh food! After all, gold can be mined anywhere, but good food requires a ridiculous infrastructure to create, and goes off pretty quickly, so if you get it to somewhere where it's scarce at warp speed, you can make a pretty tidy profit. If that's the case, ten why are the profit margins on furs better than things like fish and vegetables. Fantasy economics strikes again, with a dull little article for Star Frontiers. Definitely a case of put the boring stuff near the back where you'll see it last. Wormy sends irving to hire a crew for his wargame. Snarfquest drives recklessly. Dragonmirth continues to be limerickal. Another strong issue, and also one that was much easier to get through, with an unusually high quotient of stuff that has a humorous edge to it. If anything, it's better than most of the april fools issues in that respect. As it's also full of stuff that's quickly and easily usable in your games, even if you want to put it in a different game than the one it was originally designed for, this is another very definite high point for the magazine as a whole. Bringing the whole hobby together and educating and entertaining us all, they haven't really been doing that since 1981. Lets hope they keep it up a while longer before D&D pushes everything else out again.</blockquote>

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