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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 4871664" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 132: April 1988part 2/5Bazaar of the Bizarre: Our token comical contribution this year is another little article from Stewart Wieck. The chainsword! For when manual hack-and-slashing just doesn't have enough power. This is a curious article, going into plenty of detail about the inconveniences of making the item, maintaining it, and what happens when it goes wrong. For all the inherent goofiness of the premise and punniness of the flavour text, this is one that's not at all overpowered, entirely legal, and could be put into a serious campaign with only a little adaption. And of course, it would be perfect for an Exalted game. Ahh, the joys of magitech. He may be subverting the genre, but that still makes for fun games. Role-playing reviews is also in a humorous mood, reviewing some of the more lightheated roleplaying games out there.Paranoia is now on it's second edition. Which in the reviewers opinion, is a considerable improvement on the first one, the mechanics substantially simplified so the game can be as fast, furious and insane as it's supposed to be with less GM fudging. There's a pretty decent number of adventures out for it by now, and you should be able to get a clear idea of the distinctive tone of the game from this. Are you ready to betray everyone you know, deal with the most annoying bureaucracy ever, and die repeatedly for fun? Ghostbusters is also a lighthearted game, but is much easier to turn into a serious one. With 4 basic stats, and highly streamlined skill, dramatic editing and motivation traits, it's another one that you can create characters quickly and easily for, and then play fun, highly dramatic games with. It's low on death, but high on goofy mishaps for your characters. And adventure designing is a breeze. It's another one that gets plenty of praise. Teenagers from outer space takes the cartoon aesthetic even further, creating a game with no actual death, just a little bashed around (they'll be right as rain next scene, although their clothes may not be.) The rules aren't quite as solid as the previous two, but it's still hardly a bad game. Beyond the gate of dreams: A decidedly weird new class, this is definitely cut from the mould of the bard and thief-acrobat in design. The Dreamer can be a split class like the ninja, or a single classed NPC. They get a whole bunch of divination and mind-affecting powers, most of which can only be used while asleep, so they won't be much more use than a normal member of their other class in combat, but can pull some pretty neat tricks given a bit of downtime. Like Rituals in 4E, this seems to be an attempt to separate out the plot device magic from the blasty magic. Which is a laudable goal, even if the power organization isn't the greatest. This is another one that's never going to cause problems the way a regular wizard getting all spell researchy will, so it's welcome in my game anytime, at least unless you wind up spending half an hour every sleep period doing solo adventure stuff, while the rest of the party gets bored. Resourceful sorcery: Runequest gets another magical article in relatively quick succession. Interesting. This is a rather cool examination of the mechanics of learning magic. It seems that once you've learnt a certain amount, if you do so in the wrong order, you can wind up slowing your progression to a crawl, as you don't have enough free points to learn more without danger. But if you load up on familiars, magic storage batteries, an assistant, and make sure you have long-term buffs up while in danger, you can not only be more powerful in individual encounters, but continue your more linear upward progression between adventures. Ahh, the joys of gaming the system. That seems to be another thing that's on the up these days. Not sure if I should approve of that or not. Still definitely an intriguing little article here. The second volume of the darksword trilogy is already out?! How fast do that pair write stuff? This is decidedly surprising. With all the trappings: Muahahaha. Trap design. It's been a while. Whatever happened to Dastardly deeds and devious devices? It only got 4 columns before dying back in the day, while the Dragon's Bestiary and Bazaar of the Bizarre lasted ages, and are now back again. Guess people prefer facing monsters to devices. Still, they definitely have a place in adventures, and here's 3 1/2 pages of advice not only on creating them and placing them well, but the economic and societal ramifications of doing so. After all, complex technical devices require skilled labour, and that does not come cheap. Plus if the owner intends to access the place being guarded, they need to have a method of bypassing the traps without ruining them. With a whole mini-dungeon of interlinked example traps as well, this is a pretty cool little feature, full of instantly usable ideas, and sparkers for your own imagination. Definitely one to return too if you find yourself short of ideas for your latest megadungeon.</blockquote>

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