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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 4758570" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Issue 112: August 1986part 4/4Q is for Quasi-elemental planes. One of the very interesting things for me has been seeing how the planes have gradually evolved and built up over the years in the magazine. Along with alignment, this is where the normally fairly vague pseudomedieval setting of AD&D becomes very specific and unique. And while huge swathes of the multiverse still only have a few pages on them, this continues to change and evolve as the years pass. They've already produced several classic articles on the planes, and I look forward to seeing what future issues bring on this matter. R is for Rehash. We've already had several takes on quite a few topics, and it seems likely that the proportion of reappearing ideas will only increase. So it goes. All stories are from around 7 plots and a dozen character archetypes. Most music is made up of just 12 notes. It's all in how you combine them, and in what order. Boredom is in the mind of the beholder. S is for Sage advice. While it has yet to reach it's glory days when Skip will reign for what seemed like an eternity, it's already been pretty entertaining reading. I've missed it since it went on hiatus in issue 79. When will it be back? Good question. I'm certainly awaiting that eagerly, so I can get my snark on again. T is for Traveller. The non TSR owned RPG that's somehow managed to get the most coverage in the magazine, including a couple of specials focussed on it. Interesting how much it pioneered both rules technology, and things like splatbooks that are common products these days. Another game that richly deserves more credit in the history of the magazine, and gaming in general. U is for Unearthed Arcana. Another case where we got to see a book gradually built up in pieces in the magazine. (and then erratad afterwards in it as well.) A commercial success, but critically very divisive. I suspect we may see further repercussions from it's release in the magazine. V is for Vampires. They get everywhere, and D&D is no exception, with the biggest selling module ever being a vampire one, and plenty of weird vampire variants showing up in the magazine. Since ravenloft will go on to become a full setting campaign, and making october issues horror focussed becomes more common later, I expect we'll see plenty more. Honorable mention also goes to Valley elves. Of all Gary's more ill-thought out creations, these are probably the most effortlessly mockable, as the filk showed. W is for witch. Born from a mysterious article that is still uncredited as far as I know, it has since undergone a couple of revisions in the magazine plus appearing in a best of, thanks to demand. It's the closest they've come to putting a different slant on spellcasting. It's also for Wargaming, and it's checkered history in the magazine. Originally, the magazine was formed as part of their efforts to deliberately separate RPG's and wargames, then after Little Wars was merged, they made regular appearances from 79-81, before disappearing again. They tried to get them back in with the Battlesystem, but that failed. Will they try again before giving up for good? Guess there's only one way to find out. X is for Xochiyaoyotl. This is devoted to all the unpronounceable and ridiculous names that people have come up with over the years. Be they from other cultures, based off bad puns, or simply made up by stringing random syllables together, there's been no shortage of these in the magazine. Much amusement can be derived by mocking them. As I've said before, this may not be entirely a bad thing. It keeps people thinking about your work more than if all the facts were there, understood and accepted without comment. Y is for Yefar's Magic Mirrors. This is really an opportunity for me to praise all the wonderfully quirky magic items that they've put in the magazine over the years. It's also a commentary on the way certain writers slip stuff from their own personal campaigns into general articles. Ed Greenwood is once again the biggest offender, but plenty of other people have tried it with varying levels of success. As with monsters and modules, there are probably enough to outfit an entire party over a campaign, but it would be a rather odd D&D campaign. Z is for Zethra. Notable primarily for being one of Ed's few misteps so far, they've obviously stuck in my mind for precisely that reason. This is another case where we don't really have much to choose from, so that's the best I can come up with for this letter. Dire invasion: Enough reminiscing. Onward. As Kim promised, though the Ares section is gone, they're still putting the stuff that would have gone in it in about the same place. Jeff is busy this month, so he cedes the Marvel contribution to William Tracey, who has decided to tackle Rom and the spaceknights of Galador. Earth was being infiltrated by yet another shapeshifting alien race, and it fell to him to deal with them, having been sworn to combat them wherever they may rear their ugly heads. (as if the skrulls weren't bad enough. What happens when the Dire wraiths try and infiltrate the Skrulls and vice versa. Nothing would ever get done with all the quadruple crosses and scooby doo reveals. Anyway, we get stats for Rom, Both Starshines, Cindy Adams, The Dire wraiths, Rocketeers, Hell hounds, and Hybrid. We also get character generation alterations for those of you who want to play a spaceknight yourself. Which is rather more player-useful material than Jeff usually gives us. Nice to see different people putting their own spin on this gameline. One person doing everything is not the way to make a well-rounded universe. For a fistful of credits: Our final article this month is a star frontiers one. It suffers from the problem of being incompatible with their latest supplement, which is a bit embarrassing. Still, as with UA, not everyone wants to update their campaigns to take account of every new supplement, and they still want crunch. So here's a whole bunch of new equipment to upgrade your characters with, if you have the money. This is pretty useful stuff, so there may be a certain amount of power creep involved. As ever, I am faced with the problem that I can't judge the precise details of the crunch for games I don't have, only steal the underlying ideas. Still, they are pretty good ideas,so that elevates this article from the dull, to the realms of so-so. Still not the best way to finish off the issue, though. Dragonmirth has plenty of actual dragons in it. Snarf gets to meet a spaceman, and humorous misunderstandings are had yet again. Wormy reveals the dark side of wargaming, and just why it is illegal. Now this is an amazing issue. As both a closer to the old era, and an introduction to a new one, it succeeds spectacularly, with a real change of tone, overall, from recent issues. It has a whole load of classic articles, and reminds me of lots of the old ones as well. I'm not entirely convinced by their new goals as stated, but if they can keep this up, then they should continue to entertain until their next editorial shift. Lets hope they can get the good articles they need to power the machine with.</blockquote>

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