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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 4689700" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Issue 98: June 1985 part 3/3Authentic agencies, part II: Guess this was too big to fit into a single article. Merle fills us in on the allied international agencies this time. Be they single country based or comprised of many like NATO, they're here, they're there, they're everywhere, and they're monitoring you! Or something. Once again, we have a long dry list which doesn't leave me with much to say about it. Will they cover the enemy agencies next month, or is this the end for this topic? We shall see. Fiction: The forging of fear by Ardath Mayhar. Looks like the magazines most slated writer is back. This time she's delivering some medieval fantasy. And once again, I'm not sure which bits of it are funny intentionally, and which bits are funny simply due to the pretentious phrasing. She steals from a real english myth, and then follows up on it, before delivering a rather morally dubious ending. This is a definite case of something being entertaining because of the things that are technically wrong with it. Her works should be fine subjects for a little MST3King. The volturnus connection: So modules in this era are generally rather sketchy on the matter of setting, context and character motivation. Star frontiers is no exception. So this is an attempt to build in some extra setting detail to the recent module series. Lots of historical and political exposition follows. Once again they do something they haven't done before, that I find a bit surprising. I guess this is the first precursor of the articles expanding on Paizo's adventure paths in the last years of Dragon. An intriguing development, that leaves me wondering if we'll see it again any time soon.  When history goes awry: Ooh. Timemaster is getting an article. Always interesting to see a new game get some attention. This one concentrates on alternate parallel timelines. Fortunately, you have tons of novels to draw inspiration from, sherlock holmes, three musketeers, robin hood, and various other fictional characters to make real, and so forth. This is some pretty solid advice on how to handle developing alternate worlds and histories, working from the points of divergence, and going from there. Ripple effects, internal consistency, mythic resonance, this is cool stuff that's easily stealable for other systems. We haven't done much time travel stuff yet, and it has yet to be properly explored. Despite the challenges involved in time-travel games, there's lots of fun to be had in this kind of game. So another neat article. Alone against the asteroid: One of those articles that does exactly what it does on the tin, showing you how to turn Against the Asteroid from a 2 player adversarial game to a solo one. This is accomplished pretty efficiently, with just a page of rules needed to control the challenges you face fairly randomly. Some of them can even be ported back to the regular game. Even not knowing the rules, this is pretty entertaining reading, letting me know about the quirks of the game's characters. Once again, they're tackling a new system, and coming up with things that are fresh and amusing to me. Definitely good promotion for the game. Return to the vipers pit: Another module expansion in the same issue? Curious. This is rather less interesting than the last one, being another single pager full of corrections and things that got cut for space. Even the best editor can't fit everything in to everyone's satisfaction. Meh. StarQuestions heads back to one of it's regular stops, Star frontiers. Is there supernatural stuff in star frontiers (We recommend that there is only science that hasn't been explained yet. Truly magical magic would be out of theme)What do you do after maxing out your skill. (get more ones. Being a hyperspecialist has it's drawbacks, so now you fill them in. )You got a sample damage calculation wrong (Why don't you write in when we get it right. Seems like that'd be a more notable occurance.)The amount of money you get varies between the basic and advanced games. Which is right. (Both are. Do you not understand the concept of different strokes for different folks. )Can both your skills be from the same PSA (Yes, but they don't have to be)Where are the stats for whips (page 43)Can you put heavy lasers on a fighter ( I believe heavy is the limiting word here. No ) Can you trade ship designs (Sure, but negotiations may take a while)Does starmist have moons or not (no. The artist was in their own little world)How long do the repairs in SF3 really take (1 day)What do extra crew members beyond the essentials do (Make things comfortable. Having to be perfectly efficient and austere all the time to keep things working is incredibly dull and exhausting. )The marvel-phile: No new super-heroes this time. Instead, it's index time. With half a dozen modules, a year of marvel-philes, and a bunch of other products, it might not be impossible to keep track of who's already been statted, but it certainly can't hurt. It would be a bit annoying if two different writers did different stats for the same character, and ranty fan letters would be sent. So from Absorbing man to Zsaji, all 263 previously mentioned superheroes (and mooks, villains and other stuff) get alphabetized and their locations revealed. That's quite an impressive list. And just think, it's just a fraction of the amount of silly second rate characters that populate the Marvel universe. It'll be interesting to see how this grows if given a few more years of articles and products. Not sure if it's Jeffs writing or the strength of the source material that keeps even the index interesting, but somehow it manages it.Wormy continues the tale of the bear and the minotaur in the big city. Snarfquest has still more romantic misadventures, and faces up to racism. Honestly, just fit a vibrator attachment on the robot and let it marry the princess. Everyone'll be a lot happier, at least until they start worrying about the lack of heirs. I think the watchword for this issue is surprise. It manages to be fresher than anything reaching it's 9th year has any right to be, particular in the later articles, which are full of surprises. Once again they renew their commitment to covering all sorts of systems, particularly in the Ares section, which is really jam packed with stuff and punching well above it's weight. Goes to show. Just when you think there's nothing new in the world, something comes out of what seems like no-where to surprise you again. I very much approve. You can still surprise me, and I look forward to the next time you do.</blockquote>

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