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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 4783408" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Issue 117: January 1987part 4/4The role of books: Windmasters bane by Tom Deitz gets a pretty positive review. It manages to combine celtic fantasy with a solid grounding in modern day ohio, with only the protagonist able to see both sides of the equation. Sounds like a good bit of reading for changeling players.  The architect of sleep by Steven R Boyett is the story of a man transferred to a parallel world inhabited by giant telepathic raccoons. (Run with us, etc etc.) This actually produces a surprisingly serious and well developed world, with extensive attention paid to history and sociological details. Only trouble is, there's so much worldbuilding to do that not as much plot happens as it could. Maybe the next in the series will get straight to the action. The last knight of albion by Peter Hanratty thoroughly confuses the reviewer.  It may appear superficially to be a tale of post arthurian britain, in which Percivale is tracking down sir Mordred. But there are all manner of anachronisms, presented in way which makes him think that the writer is trying to make some kind of political allegory. In the end, unsure of what's going on, and not that keen on the distant writing style, he is cautiously negative. A multitude of monsters by Craig Shaw Gardner is a rather funny tale of a group of monsters attempting to form a union, and find a wizard to act as a spokesman. Plenty of stuff occurs that is both fun to read, and could be easily stolen to put in your game. The reviewer looks forward to reading future books in this series. The troll's grindstone by Elizabeth Boyer is the 5th book in another series. In this case, experience has indeed honed her skill, making her characterization and plotting stronger than the previous ones, and her supporting characters memorable and nuanced. Remember, even if you aren't that good at something, the more you try, the better you'll get. Her majesty's wizard and The warlock is missing are two new books from Christopher Stasheff. They get a mixed review, as the reviewer is starting to find him predictable, but is still enjoying his work nonetheless. He needs to develop or he'll get stuck in a rut. The game of fox and lion by Robert R Chase is a sci-fi story of big business intrigue, as genetically enhanced constructs scheme against their creators. Plenty of Xanatos gambiting takes place. Can you figure out who's really manipulating who before it's revealed? Silverglass by J F Rivkin is a rousing tale of adventure, politics, sorcery and bed-hopping, (all presented in the best possible taste) with just enough of an undercurrent of weirdness and philosophy to keep the reviewer off-balance. This time, he cautiously recommends it, but still isn't absolutely certain if he should. Is this kind of weirdness going to appeal to ordinary people or not? Profiles: A pair of alliterative profiles this month, for some reason. Clyde Caldwell is another of our most notable artists, responsible for lots of covers in the past few years, plus a couple of cases of authorial insertion. A well educated fella, for him, the route of least resistance somehow led to freelancing for TSR, and then getting a full time staff job. But it seems he would likely be doing art even if he couldn't make a proper living at it. He advises you not to go into an artistic job unless you really love what you do as well. Being a bitter failure is not cool. We also get to find out the name of the model used on the cover of issue 94 (Why am I not surprised that one was painted from life) and the recent Red Sonja module. Intriguing. I wonder if they still have the outfits <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" />Penny Petticord seems rather a perfectionist. Graduating at 15 and going on to get two degrees, she managed to achieve a level of rules mastery in a week that many players never manage. She then rapidly went on to become one of the top convention GM's in the country. (while also having a day job as a rocket scientist) It's no wonder that she's been handling the rules questions for the magazine for the last few years. That kind of precision may not be as essential in roleplaying as it is in aerodynamics, but it certainly doesn't go amiss. I have mucho envy for her talents. TSR previews: Lazer tag! Hell yeah! I used to love playing games like that as a teenager! Our pole position product is another incredibly cool live action game. Join the official club and shoot people safely and with style. Now this is a company experiment I can get behind. Another really weird experiment out next month is the Cheers family game. Of all the things to license. What exactly were you supposed to do with this one, and what were the rules like? For D&D we have X12: Skarda's mirror. Marauding bandits? Surely a lower level group could handle them. On the other hand, marauding bandits with a magic mirror. Hmm. Interesting. What could lie within. AD&D is still giving Oriental Adventures plenty of support with OA3: Ochimo, the spirit warrior. Is it an honorable wronged spirit, or a scummy tricksy one? Either way, you'd better lay it to rest. Gamma world gets GW7: Beta Principle. Venture to a preapocalyptic amusement park and enjoy the easter eggs as the adventure from GW6 develops into a more epic story. Hmm. Combined with the new edition, is this leading to a resurgence for the property? Finally, we have two anthologies. Amazing science fiction releases a best of covering 1926-35, it's early era. Includes stories from luminaries such as John Campbell and H P Lovecraft. Way to remind us, dude. If you want something more recent, Snarfquest has just finished it's first arc, and gets a compilation of the story so far. Now you can read it all without having to flip from one magazine to the next, spreading them all out on your bed to get a proper feel for the continuity.  The game wizards: Another format change. With Gary fully gone now (not that they've actually said so yet. ) they need a new column to communicate the intentions of the company top brass. Of course, the new very top brass (Roll of thunder, stab of organ music) is not inclined to dirty her hands by communicating directly with the hoi polloi that buy the products, so that means Michael Dobson, Jeff Grubb, "Zeb" Cook, Doug Niles and Jim Ward all contribute their own scuttlebutt. Mike handles the personnel news. Tracey Hickman and Margaret Weis are back from computer game land, and ready to rock our settings again. Warren Spector has been poached from Steve Jackson games to work as a new editor. (and top secret is getting a new edition, which is also his first project. ) Jim Ward has also returned to the fold after freelancing for a bit, and Harold Johnson has shifted positions. The usual round of reshuffles then. You can check out any time, but you can never leave. Jeff reports on his progress through the writing of the Manual of the Planes. He's trying to keep the sense of wonder and infinite scope the planes should have and not explain them too much. If he gets a good response, he'll do a column containing stuff cut from it for size, or thought up afterwards to supplement the material in there. I think this project is in good hands. Zeb is of course in charge of writing the second edition of AD&D. Send letters in saying what you want! Lots of them! We can't revise it for the better unless we have an idea of what you consider better. Nice to see them still listening to their fanbase. Doug Niles is also hard at work  on the new top secret edition. Now with a greater emphasis on actual investigation rather than commando raids. Last word in State of the art? Ha. You can always make more improvements. Jim Ward is most vague of all, with a heavily redacted statement that reveals very little, but hopefully will stoke interest in whatever he's up too. Well, I guess they're never really going to be able to replace Gary, but they're certainly trying to maintain an air of fun in these missives, with jokes, hints and asides aplenty. Maybe with the superstar writer/CEO gone, the game'll feel like more of a team effort. Maybe it'll give them more chance to establish their individual personalities. Maybe it'll suck. In any case, it seems pretty likely that the vitriol count will be way down compared to the old days. Lets hope they continue to give me something worth talking about in future installments. Oh noes! Havoc Con III has been canceled. However, Dundracon, Orcon, Folie-con and King Kon <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f644.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":rolleyes:" title="Roll eyes    :rolleyes:"  data-smilie="11"data-shortname=":rolleyes:" /> are still going ahead. Once again their names cause me amusement. Snarf slays the dragon and gets a happy ending. Until next month anyway, when they start a new storyline. Dragonmirth gets newstandalicious. Wormy has a plan to deal with the giants. Although not longer in actual length than their other recent issues, they really seem to be getting the hang of packing more into each one. With tons of small articles, and relatively few adverts, this really did feel like a mammoth issue, and has produced a mammoth sized review in response. Some of the articles are good, some are bad, and some are merely meh, as is standard by this point, but in this one, I definitely preferred the more crunchy articles. Also interesting is the fact that in some ways they seem to be regressing, reverting to formats not seen since 1981. Guess they meant it literally when they said they were going to try and recapture the spirit of the old issues. All in all, the range of stuff covered here has been so broad that I can't really say if overall it was good or bad. I think I'll return a mildly positive one, as they are definitely still developing and doing new things, even if it is mixed in with lots of routine crap. And once again I am left wondering just how much bigger my reviews will get before this journey is over. The magazine is still going to get bigger, and if it stays this efficient, then each one could wind up going to pages more. This is actually pretty scary. One article at a time. Just keep telling yourself that. One article at a time. That's the way to get through this.</blockquote>

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