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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 4692529" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Issue 99: July 1985part 2/3The role of books (they're flip-floping on the title of this series. What's up with that?): Crewel lye by Piers Anthony is as punfull as the rest of his xanth books. He seems to have learnt from the criticisms in recent reviews, toning back on the sexism and moral ambiguity. While other reviewers may slate him, this one doesn't seem to have much objection. Stormwarden by Janny Wurts features weather magic as it's primary macguffin. The plot gets a little overcomplicated, presumably leaving lots of loose ends for future books, but the characterization is pretty good. One to enjoy for the journey, rather than the destination. Witchdame by Kathleen Sky jumps on the current trend for english flavoured romantic fantasy. With deus ex machinas, completely undisguised real world analogues, and vague historical mooring, the reviewer manages to sell me off the book even as he praises it. Hey ho. Enchanters end game by David Eddings is the final book of the Belgariad, Eddings big tolkien /rip-off/ homage. It hits lots of buttons, but doesn't really integrate the various types of writing very well. But it's still good popcorn reading for fantasy fans. Talking to Dragons by Patricia C Wrede gets another review that starts with the negatives, but then winds up praising it. Only this time, the good bits outweigh the bad, in a genuinely funny fantasy romp full of near indestructible wizards doing horrible things to one-another. If you want to put humour that doesn't feel tacked on in your games (and that doesn't rely on dreadful puns like Piers Anthony. ) this is a good example. The Magic cup by Andrew M Greely is an updated irish epic with lots of arthurian parallels. Remember, behind the legends, are people struggling to find their place and accomplish something important to them. Can you be both a person and an archetype? There's certainly plenty of interesting reading to have in tackling that question. History of a game that failed: Ha. Ahh, the joys of taking the game all the way to it's limits, to the degrees where it starts to break down, where no monsters can touch you without rolling a natural 20. Most of us have done it at some point, rushing through the levels to obscene power and more items than you can keep track of. But it has to be said, the published modules really aren't much better in this respect.   If you just use the treasure tables as written, the system'll break down without any special effort from you. So how are we to get the system to behave. Let me count the ways. Fudge. Change the modules. Be stingy with treasure and watch out for synergies. Don't give away info they have no way of knowing. Don't allow ability score increases. Mess up their wishes. Nerf shapeshifting to buggery. Never miss an opportunity to have things backfire. Keep the XP awards down. Deities are not for killing under any circumstances. Don't let one person play multiple characters, for they will abuse the knowledge they get and co-operate in a manner that breaks verisimiltude. Don't be adversarial. (Have you just listened to your previous bits of advice <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> )Oh, and don't allow nukes under any circumstances. Oh man. Where to start. This is a great example of how they have to exhort people to play nice with the system, because it just doesn't stand up to rough treatment. Very annoying on multiple levels, both that they give advice like this, which is a definite fun-spoiler when put against many people's playstyles, and that they need to do so in the first place. A most depressing read, overall. Reviews: Gems for Death is another system free module. Like so many of those at this point, they have to find other things to put where it would be. This includes incredibly detailed descriptions of the mechanics of traps, so you can disarm them by roleplaying, plus the usual characterization stuff and timeline. It has enough guidelines that it shouldn't be too hard to convert it to whatever system you want to use. Just don't put it into a hack and slash game, because the players might miss the point and ruin the adventure. Another case where just how much things have changed, not always for the better, is made obvious. We get some more entries in the world gamers guide: Australia, New zealand, Germany, Japan, Venezuela. D&D has penetrated all around the world. Must take quite a lot of effort to co-ordinate all that subscription mailing.  Coming attractions: Amazing Stories celebrates it's 60th year. Pretty damn impressive. Will D&D make it that far? Dragon may not have lasted as a printed entity, but at least it's still alive in some form. Can we beat that run? It'll be the story of our lives. AD&D gets a Battlesystem module, H1: Bloodstone Pass. Take high level characters, and organize an entire village into a force to take on 3,000 enemies. Epic. It also gets Lankhmar, city of adventure. Once again, Fritz reinforces his close relationship with the game, having been away for a few years. If you want some help with urban adventures, this certainly can't hurt. And if that's not enough, Dragonlance is up to DL8: Dragons of war. Once again, the new mass combat system gets an airing, so you can get properly epic. This series is certainly building up to something. D&D gets two rather less impressive products. Dragontiles II: The revenge of Rusak. Lots of fold out card thingies. And they say D&D isn't a mini's game. We also have CM5: Mystery of the snow pearls. A high level solo module. Don't see those very often. Once again, you have to do some serious puzzle solving. Well, you can fudge combat on your own, but puzzles. If you don't actually solve them, you can't go on to the next section. The Indiana Jones RPG gets IJ5: Nepal Nightmare. Once again, Fold-up cut outs show up. Guess they were this years gimmick, like putting CD's in would be for Mystara a decade later. I roll my eyes. Super endless quest gets book 3: Escape from castle Quarras. Take the role of Derek Shadowwalker (Hee. Those two names do not fit together) and save the kingdom. And finally, we have a standalone. Proton fire, the roleplaying game of designing and fighting your own robots. Another thing that I've never heard of before, and assume disappeared into obscurity. Any stories to share on this one?</blockquote>

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