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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 4684894" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Issue 97: May 1985 part 3/3Authentic agencies, part I: Merle fills us in on the real life secret agencies. CIA, NSA, FBI, ATS, and the rest of the alphabet soup, with a strong emphasis on american agencies. Man, there really are a lot of them, probably all working at cross-purposes, and not sharing information properly. You could build a lot of intrigue out of these lot, even without inventing more fictional agencies. Obviously, there isn't a huge amount of data, because they're, y'know, secret agencies. But it's certainly a start. And I'm sure you could look up some more. This raises the case for playing historical spy games, as you can get the declassified stuff from 30 years ago, and find out what was really going on. So the article may be dry, but it's inspired some cool ideas in my head, which makes it ok. Fiction: Catacomb by Henry Melton. A rather meta tale of adventuring within a MMORPG text adventure game. (very interesting in itself from a historical perspective. How common was computer networking back then? ) And they already have gold farmers. How prophetic. The anachronism of it being text based aside, this really does feel like it could have been set today. The human drama side of the writing is pretty solid too. It's not quite a full-on classic, but I'm really rather impressed by this. Sometimes, they manage to get things spot-on. Have some kudos, if you're still around. The ares section finally gets a colour cover. Guess they've proved themselves a valuable part of the team over the past year, so a little extra money is in order. Cool. Hopefully that means they're not doomed anytime soon. Rogues of the galaxy: Ahh, traveller. Seems to be custom designed to allow for lots of expansion material. This time, it's the career criminal that gets an expanded lifepath especially for them. This is definitely a path many adventurers will want to follow. You can make lots of money, meet fascinating people, learn cool things, and visit exotic locations. But there are risks. You may find yourself mouldering in jail for several years, not actually learning very much. Them's the breaks. Thankfully, it'll still only take a few minutes to make another one. Welcome to the team. You'll make a valuable traveling companion as long as you don't start using your larcenous skills on the rest of the party. Starquestions: Do you need skills to use a weapon. (Do you want to have a horrible accident? I suggest you learn.)Shouldn't automatic rifles shoot more bullets than pistols ( it's not size, it's how you use it. )Can you use a bullet belt on an automatic rifle. (only with expensive jury-rigging)Do dralisite suffer two weapon penalties (yes)Shouldn't dralasite be able to ooze under a wall (You can only compress so much. That's too much for them.)How do you make encounters with pulsars, black holes and exploding stars (not easily. They're a bit too powerful for PC's to mess with. Instadeath for one failed roll sucks. )How many rockets fit on a rack. (not enough.)Can ordinary ships carry mines (no) How often are new systems charted (As often as there are brave and bold adventurers willing to go boldly where no-one has gone before.)Do the sathar fight deep-space battles (not often. They prefer subtlety)Can you modify a starship to land in water (Only if you never want it to take off again.)The marvel-phile goes canadian. Ed'll be so happy. We get the stats for Talisman, Box, and Guardian. Not particularly good names, but at least they're not as crappy racial stereotypes as certain other nationalities suffer. As usual, they have a weird and varied set of special powers, and equally varied backstories. One of them is dead, but whether that slows him down for long remains to be seen. Jeff is his usual efficient self, despite all the other stuff he's been up to lately. The artwork is pretty good this month as well. No complaints here. New tools of the trade: Gamma world details yet more modern day equipment. Funny how that works. Pistols, rifles, plus some hypertech stuff developed in the future from now, but before then. This time there's a nice balance between the realistic and the advanced stuff. Not many actual tools though, as it's mostly weapons, the title's a bit of a misnomer. I guess for adventurers, It's not that important. But I would prefer weapons that can also be turned to uses other than killing. Turnabout is fair play, given the improvised weapon stuff and all. Wormy goes into the airmail business, with limited success. Snarfquest has more romantic misadventures. I.C.E bumps MERP off the back cover, but puts spacemaster on there instead. While recent issues have been illustrating the changes in the hobby, this one feels curiously old skool, full off stuff you don't see anymore. Still, it's generally pretty cool stuff, so I'm not complaining. Add in the prophetic MMORPG fiction, and whole host of amusing touches in various articles, and we definitely have a pretty cool package. Seems like last month's spirit of humour has been retained. Lets hope they don't start taking their fantasies too seriously anytime soon.</blockquote>

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