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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 4835984" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Issue 126: October 1987part 4/5Fiction: Well bottled at slab's by John Gregory Betancourt: Well well. It's the second appearance of our put-upon barkeep in the magazine. (see issue 105 for the first) Uleander may find slab a pain in the ass a lot of the time, but when faced with the prospect of losing him to a vengeful wizard, determined to put him in a bottle, he decides the devil you know is better for business. Another fun S&Sish romp, with mischevious and alien ghosts, an earnest but not too bright wizard's apprentice, dim henchmen, and a nice sense of humour. Definitely a good fit for our halloween issue without being too dark and horrific. Bazaar of the Bizarre: My, oriental adventires is getting quite a bit of attention in here. Most products, they give it one issue of special focus, and then leave it to sink or swim. People not only like this, but are unusually willing to write in with new stuff for the milieu as well. This is a grab bag of a dozen items, covering most of the big categories. Many of them aren't really that OA specific, but I suppose that just makes them easier to use in your games. While there's no Greenwoodesque strokes of genius here, these items do have some useful tricks, and aren't all combat focussed. Another solid but unexeptional entry I'd have no objection to using stuff from. A ghastly grimoire: An article for call of cthulhu. Well, this is slightly surprising. Very fitting to the issue's theme as well. Hopefully this marks the beginning of them allowing more articles on third party games in again. This is a collection of 8 spells, some of which are obviously stolen from D&D, but all of them have a delightfully flavourful horrific twist, as befits the game. Feigning death has you caught in a nightmarish dream state for the duration, blur involves some eye hurting geometry, and stinking cloud gets a suitably graphic makeover. We also get the clever idea of allowing investigators to face an ediolon of an elder creature, rather than the full thing. With Avatars and Aspects of gods becoming common in later editions of D&D, I'm not sure where the idea came from originally, but it's interesting to see it show up here. So this isn't just a token non TSR article, it's actually pretty decent. Let that be an encouragement to other writers. They can't publish it unless you try. The dragon's bestiary gives us a load of gamma world monsters. Now that's mixing it up. Once again, they are not up to date, as these are 2nd ed stats, despite 3rd ed being well out by now. Doesn't seem very promising. Buzzbirds are intelligent mutant hummingbirds. They have sonic blasts and bursts of light to defend themselves, which seems sensible enough given the environment. Try and befriend trhem, as one would make an excellent scout for a party.Dagmits are another of your basic goblin-esque tribal marauding humanoids.  These one's gimmick is that they have permanent density increase on them, making them a lot heavier and tougher than their size would indicate. This can probably be exploited. Giggle bugs look so utterly ridiculous that it's nearly impossible to look at one without laughing. This is actually a pretty effective defense mechanism. They're pretty inoffensive, but laughing yourself to death is no laughing matter. As usual, Gamma world has the goofy going on in spades. Molnangs are giant snails that instead of just sliming, leave a track of dead earth wherever they go, messing the ecosystem right up. If you see one, steer well clear, because they also shoot lasers from their eyestalks. Seems a very mad wizard thing to create. Reptoads are another attack of the pun names. Thankfully, the rep in their name refers to repulsion, not replication. They're grumpy bastards as well, enjoying trapping things in forcefields and watching them slowly starve to death. Get a sleeth to hunt them down. Stuhumphagas are giant telepathic tortoises. They're nice guys, and will transport you through radioactive wastelands safely inside their shell. A bit goofy, but certainly a welcome relief after facing all the other creatures in this feature. Very much business as usual around here, even though it probably shouldn't be. Come on, you need to move with the times, or everyone'll lose interest. There are ways of making you talk: Top Secret's article this month is all about the various social skills in the game. What they do, the best time to use them, and suggested modifiers based on situational matters. You do of course need to use your GM discretion, as there's always going to be other things they haven't though of, plus people will react differently based on their own personality, and who else is around. While generally in favour of better defined social mechanics, I did find this article somewhat dull. It's one of those cases where I've seen this kind of advice given before, in considerably greater depth than a 3 page article can do, and it being for a system I don't have doesn't particularly help. Bit of a filler article really.</blockquote>

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