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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 4720711" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Issue 105: January 1986part 2/3The role of books: Deep wizardry by Diane Duane gets pretty high praise. It develops the characters in the previous book further, and puts them through some rather tricky underwater adventures. It manages to sucessfully raise the bar and develop them personally. The reviewer looks forward to seeing where he takes them next. Liavek, edited by Will Shetterly & Emma Bull is a set of shared world stories in the city of luck and wizardry. It does considerably better than Ikthar (see issue 103) thanks to it's editing, which manages to interweave the stories with common characters and plot threads despite the different authors. It also has a good, consistent magic system. Interesting to see two series in direct competition. How will they fare? Mustapha and his wise dog by Esther M Friesner is an arabian nightsesque tale of a man stripped of his inheritance by his jealous brothers, cursed with shapeshifting,  and trying to make his way in the world. As is typical of the genre, there are layers within layers, and some threads are hinted at and left undeveloped. Maybe we'll see them dealt with in later books, or maybe not. Children of the dragon by Rose Estes is a strong attempt from one of our Endless Quest alumni to go into regular books. While aimed primarily at children, it still has enough depth to be of interest to the folks that read this magazine. Will she succeed in breaking out, or will it be back to the gaming pit with her. A gathering of gargoyles by Meredith Ann Pierce continues on from The Darkangel.  Looks like another trilogy again, and what seemed fixed is only the beginning of their challenges. The author is torn between liking it, and being cynical about the tropes it uses. A feeling I am all too familiar with by now. Masters of glass by M.Coleman Easton is a surprisingly low-key book compared to the world spanning trilogies that are so common around here. It needs another pass through the editing process, but it's still a neat idea, that would be relatively easy to convert for gaming. Plus a whole load of snapshot synopses of the latest books in various series. So many books, so little room. You'd need a whole magazine to really cover everything that's coming out all the time. A well equipped victim: Hmm. Once again we have a load of random tables to determine what treasure a random victim has, should the players decide to engage in a little pointless thievery and slaughter. We had one last month. How odd. However, this time it's an Ed Greenwood production. And as we know, he can make up for a multitude of sins with his combination of light humor and incredible attention to detail. It also meshes well with the encounter table earlier on in this issue. The results from rolling on this will probably be less lethal and a lot more realistic than last issue's. Which one you use is up to you, depending on what playstyle you want. It's good to have alternatives. Mechanoid invasion returns. More palladium fun. A world of difference: Parallel worlds. It's been tackled from different perspectives twice in the Ares section, but evidently, it's a popular enough to get another treatment from a more D&D-centric perspective. Well, infinite worlds, infinite takes on a subject. And this is indeed a quite different take to the previous two, encouraging you to create wildly differing parallel universes that change not only the people and creatures, but also the basic rules of the universe and shape of the world as well. Remember, D&D shaped fantasy can be a tremendous straitjacket on your imagination, especially if you don't realize just how it's constraining it, and going to another universe gives you freedom to make the rules different. Not everything should work between dimensions, but that means you can give them new cool powers while they're there, and then take them away again once they go home without too much trouble. This is pretty well thought out stuff, which encourages you to really mess around with your game, and get the players strongly involved. Another definite approval here. Betrayed! is this months centrepiece module, a 10 pager for a group between level 3-5. A search and recover mission, this has a nicely tricky antagonist, and a good amount of freedom in how you resolve it. This is one of those one or two sessioners that won't change anyones world, but is easy to drop into your game when you're short of ideas. Nothing earthshaking, but an above average example of the breed that I wouldn't object to using. Spy's advice: Are weapon weights for when they're loaded or empty (Empty. You'll have to calculate encumbrance for the shots separately. Oh woe. )Why does such a tiny difference in ammo caliber mess up weapons (Guns are precision devices. Just being realistic.)Why are high explosives better against vehicles than armor piercing shots (Good question. My bad. )How fast do .45 caliber M3's shoot ( 4 shots per phase. )If your modifiers take you above 95% before penalties, are the penalties subtracted before or after you determine the maximum. (before)How much should you describe enemy guns (depends how good their senses are)What are the stats for air guns (half normal, due to their nonlethal nature) How many AOK's can you have (Lots and lots. Advancing them all individually is a real bookkeeping chore.)What's wrestling value (We've had this question before. Obsolete stat from 1st ed, dropped in the streamlining. ) The TMNT RPG celebrates it's sales. (over 7000 in three weeks. Not really that impressive by most standards. Still, I guess it's enough to live on.) TSR previews: Another month, this time slightly more full, but still not enough to make up a whole page. Dragonlance is getting the most attention this time, with DL11: Dragons of glory, another collection of epic battles showing off their new system. (at least it is getting plenty of support) It's also getting the first novel of it's second trilogy, Time of the Twins. Raistlin may be gone, but his legacy lingers like a bad smell. Guess it's up to the remaining heroes to fix things again. Ravenloft gets converted into a solo adventure gamebook. You are invited to Strahds castle for a pleasant evenings dinner. Or is that to be dinner. Guess it's up to you. D&D gets AC6: the updated PC record sheets. Ho hum. Marvel superheroes gets MHSP2: Secret wars II. Play out the stories you saw in the comic. Let's hope it's not a railroad like last month's module, and you can change the outcome. And Barbarosa and Terrible Swift Sword are finally out. Will they sell, or will they flop? We also get a second page of stuff out in february, but I'll skip that until next month. Don't want to repeat myself too much. We also get another apology for the price raises. Oh, poor you. Don't feel guilty about needing money to survive.</blockquote>

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