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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 4875362" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 133: May 1988part 1/5108 pages. Roger takes the time to give a nod to the other magazines in the field in this month's editorial. Now he's an editor himself, he can appreciate the work that goes into them all the more. Be they big or small, there's something to learn from all of them, even if sometimes it's what not to do. And he doesn't mind recommending a few of them either. A fairly promising start which shows that they're staying in touch with the rest of the hobby. No special feature this time, but that hasn't proved too great an indicator of quality. As usual, let's get to work. In this issue:Letters: A question about them doing an art collection. They must not have been paying attention, because they answered that a few months ago. They are indeed doing one. Still, never hurts to promote it again. A letter suggesting that instead of setting up their own BBs, they should just set one up on compuserve. It'd be cheaper and more accessable. Roger agrees with this point and tells us that he already does some forum surfing and question answering. An early adopter, I see. And yet I don't recall him being a regular forumgoer in recent years. Is he still involved in gaming in any way? A letter with 4 questions, mostly about future releases. All are answered with ease. A letter from someone who's suffering burnout. Take a break, or make a change. There are tons of other systems out there. Forum: David Godwin thinks advantages should always be balanced with disadvantages. Super-powerfull familiars break that balance, particularly if you get them at low level. They shouldn't overshadow their master. S.D. Anderson on the other hand, thinks that at the moment, familiars are more of a liability than a advantage. They need a little redefining, to be more magical. Interesting. It could work. Denise L Voskull is in favour of sorting out monty haulism by taking away adventurer's stuff, and disallowing unbalancing rules from supplements. If your gaming group disagrees, take a vote on it. That way, less than half of your group will walk out on you <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=";)" /> Jason Greff thinks that there's nothing wrong with the odds being stacked against magic-users at low level. What's life without a bit of challenge? The ecology of the carnivorous ape: Back to the detached sagely pontification this month, with a fairly mundane creature. After all, there could be carnivorous apes in reality. It would only require a few minor evolutionary adaptions. The rest of this article is largely extrapolative as well, with lots of details stolen from real world animals. They don't hesitate to make sly King Kong references either. However, the lack of drama in the fiction bit, combined with the lightness of the footnotes, means that overall, this adds up to one of the less impressive entries in the series. They could definitely have done more with this one, as modules from this era (and much of Terra Primate) show. Where's Stephen Inniss when you need him? Bazaar of the Bizarre turns it's attention to magical quivers. Why should bows and arrows be the only parts of the equation that makes a really badass archer? Frief's magical quiver has the ingenious trick of making magical arrows multiply into lots of arrows of a slightly lower power. A a quirky trick, but a rather useful one. An item that is very exploitable by clever adventurers, but also has a hidden drawback, this could definitely spice up your adventure.  The Quiver of arrow storing is normal sized and weight, but can fit up to 200 arrows without causing any encumbrance. Just the thing for lengthy treks. Now your biggest problem is finding the right one in an emergency. And then it's back to the arrows. They don't actually give us any magical arrows, instead giving us a load of mundane ways of customizing them, such as flaming arrows, grappling ones, and nasty barbed ones that do extra damage when pulled out. But then again, magical arrows are stupidly expensive for the amount of use you get from them, and not worth making most of the time. These, on the other hand, can make any archer quite a bit more versatile, and are cheap enough for you to restock. Quite a clever entry really. You can definitely use this one to the benefit of your characters, as it'll mesh nicely with their other enhancements.</blockquote>

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