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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 4884649" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 136: August 1988part 4/5Through the looking glass is kicking off by giving us some reviews. Given this year's real push to promote wargaming at the conventions, it's no surprise that lots of companies are bringing out stuff to coincide with this. From small indie companies like Stan Johansen miniatures, to the established giants of Games workshop and Grenadier, everyone's got stuff to sell. Plastic or lead, at various scales, all in one or needing some assembly, the choice is yours, etc etc. The reviews are fairly conservative, with the lowest score 2 stars, and the highest 3 and a half. More interesting is a lengthy rant on all the things that can go wrong in the design and distribution chain. Have a little sympathy for the poor shopkeeper, for they can't control it if a game is late, or only available in other countries. Like bullying, ranting begets more ranting, and so the cycle continues. As long as people keep having unrealistic targets and deadlines, it is no wonder that there will be painful disappointments on a regular basis. TSR Previews: Starsong apparently got delayed, for it is first out the gate this month  as well as last month. Or is it just a formatting error? Hmm. Not hugely important, anyway. AD&D gets the new Greyhawk Adventures hardback. Now redesigned to be compatible with 2nd edition, and more differentiated from the Forgotten Realms. Now with 100% less Pluffet Smedger! Talking of the Forgotten Realms, we get Ruins of Adventure, the back conversion of the recent AD&D computer game. How very amusing. That's like doing a novel of a movie. Will it be improved or messed up by the format change? The Forgotten Realms also gets another novel. Doug Niles and R A Salvadore have already made their mark, now Ed Greenwood gets to show these new arrivals just what the creator of the world can do, with Spellfire. There may be twinkitude involved. Dragonlance isn't neglected either, with a new boardgame based upon it. Find the Dragonlance and save the world! Is it Tuesday already? Buck Rogers, of course, has to go one step further. Their boardgame isn't just about the fate of the world, it's about the entire solar system! Overthrow that tyrannical dictatorship! :roll of thunder, stab of organ music: Erm, or maybe not. Got to have something for the next generation of players to struggle against too. Marvel Superheroes tops even that, with ME3: The left hand of eternity. Oh, the elders of the universe are in so much trouble now. WHAM! THWOK!! KERPOW!!! and all that. Finally, we get to see Tom Wham's latest stroke of genius, Mertwig's maze. The usual madcap boardgaming fun ensues. Damage control report: Star frontiers continues to get occasional support here, despite being a dead gameline now. A new damage system for space combat, with a little more variety in which systems get damaged in an attack, reducing short term lethality, but increasing long-term annoyances? Seems a reasonable enough change. After all, no-one likes having a TPK result from a single hit, as is a problem in space combat. And troubleshooting unexpected faults can become an adventure in itself. A short article that leaves me with little to say about it, this is very much in the old Ares section tradition. New kicks in martial arts: Len Carpenter tries to rebalance the OA Martial art system, so you can create custom styles that are balanced with each other, and come closer to the official ones from the book. It's still not too great, not being nearly as flexible as it could be. This is really still an area that needs a complete rebuild rather than just patching. I don't think I'll be using you. The game wizards: Top Secret/ S.I. has been out for a year now. Feedback time! Not only are we going to try and provide all the realism you wanted, we're also going to take the game further out there as well, providing multiple different settings for all your modern day espionage needs. When we overhauled the system, flexibility was one of our design goals. So supplements will be coming more frequently, and they will not all be compatible with one-another. Very interesting. Seems like they're trying to make it into more of a generic system. A risky gamble. Is this what kills it? They never had much luck with generic systems, as we see again with the Amazing Engine and Alternity. Hmm. This is definitely worth thinking about.</blockquote>

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