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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 4864092" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 131: March 1988part 2/5Even Ghostbusters has three supplements out now. They're lying when they say ghostbusting is big bucks by the way. That's just to sucker you in. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> Illusory solutions: As I noted last month, this should have been there, but presumably last minute reorganizations caused it to be cut. Oh well, better late than never. Once again, the writer tries to regulate the power of illusionists by granting their opponents saving throw bonuses if they try and imitate things wildly above their experience level. No longer can an 6th level illusionist convince an 18th level wizard that he is their superior with a bit of creative spellcasting and good roleplaying. And for a third time, we have a new way of handling this process. This is a quite substantial nerf to what is already one of the less powerful classes. Let's hope this is the last of these for a few years, and people are satisfied by at least one of the explanations. This is no fun at all. Fantasy first class: What. People are still playing PbM games when they now have the technology for basic MMO's? I guess the rolling out of progress is usually slower than you expect, and there are always going to be a few holdouts. So here's another overview of an epic multi-player game that'll take you over a year to complete, and eat up quite substantial amounts of money each month playing it. Alamaze is a fantasy strategy game, where you have to build up armies, explore the map, spy on the other players, and battle them for victory. There can be only one winner! The usual selections of classes and races are available, both battle and diplomacy are important, and you have to do lots of resource management if you want to win. There are still a few bugs, but the programmer is proving pretty willing to fix them when they are pointed out. A review that is pretty much completely useless to me now, but still reveals a little more about the current trends in gaming and design. And they keep up their strong standards in terms of reviewing style. So this becomes a pleasant diversion rather than a total waste of time. To the center of the Oerth: Mmm. Welcome to the start of the underdark special. The logical extension of having all those underground dungeons everywhere. Link them up into one endless, miles deep uberdungeon that you could spend years exploring and only see a fraction of. And the first thing they do is give us some sample areas, followed up by rather old skool random tables and design advice. Well, you can't be expected to map up miles of tunnels all by yourself, can you? This is the kind of thing that is pretty much instantly useful for any game, and is another definite sign of progress on the worldbuilding side as well. D&D's implied settings just got a bit more solid and a lot nastier. I squee in delight. You goin down, adventurers. Oh yeeeeeaaaaaaah. Just remember, choose your targets wisely. Going down on Drow might work. Going down on aboleths ..... really doesn't bear thinking about. Caution and keeping track of your supplies and escape routes is, as ever, strongly recommended. Because getting lost and winding up dying from starvation rather than actual enemies is not a good way to go. A pretty darn awesome way to kick off this themed section. What lies beneath YOUR city, just waiting to be unearthed? Renegade legion BLOOD & STEEL! Now that's an attention grabbing advert for you. The svirfneblin point of view: It's been a while since we had one of these articles. Yay for new PC races. One of the more powerful options, they have to be given the power and unpleasantness of most of their neighbours. This leads to an excellent example of good not nececerally being peaceful or trusting, and their gnomish love of practical jokes is twisted into a decidedly lethal form, focussed against their racial enemies. You've gotta be ruthless and closely co-operative to survive when faced with so many powerful, smart and decidedly diabolical neighbours, especially when you have a low birthrate, so you can't afford to be cavalier with the lives of your fellows. A fairly decent piece that takes care to hit all the various class and race interaction checkboxes. Not brilliant, but not too bad either. The ecology of the aboleth: Speak of the devil. It's the creepy fish things that are born with all the memories of their parents and transform your skin into a transparent slimy membrane. How's that for idiosyncratic powers. Like sahuguin, the fact that they are aquatic and underground based means you can justify them having massive empires that dominate huge areas of the world, and the only reason people don't realize how hopeless their situation is is because we're beneath their notice. And this ecology does exactly that, creating an entire hierarchy of even more scary aboleth subraces, right up to the Grand Aboleth, the most powerful one on the planet, with it's city sized entourage of lesser aboleths and slaves easily a decent match for demon princes, demigods, and maxed out parties of adventurers. Like the order of the dragon article in issue 110, this turns what was previously a singular fairly badass monster into a social even more badass society of monsters that make suitable adversaries for an epic campaign spanning years. If you wanna be a big hero, you've really got to step up your game, because once again, this article shows just how massive and challenging you can make the opposition. And so this themed section continues to kick ass.</blockquote>

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