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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 4916266" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 140: December 1988part 5/5The dragon's bestiary: Ed is in fine fettle again this month, with another assortment of cool monsters that would later appear in Forgotten Realms books.  Glyptar are the souls of Maedar trapped in formations of crystal. Since they've often spent millennia doing sod-all underground, they are often of dubious sanity when found. Since they do have some quite neat abilities, freeing them might pay off, or might not. It'll be a lot of fun finding out. Magebane are magic eating parasites that attach themselves to wizards and make their spells malfunction. Like rust monsters and brain moles, they won't do any direct damage, but this becomes very irritating, and rather dangerous if there's another pressing threat at the same time. Quezzer are scarily fast alien bug things. Definitely a horror movie in there, given the way they behave and the odd way they move. Unsurprisingly, you can harvest their bits for magic items involving speed. Scythetails are another odd thing that don't have a particular earthly analogue, but are almost natural animals, with a few unique realmsey touches, and lots of tricks that make them more dangerous than many creatures of their hit dice. And as usual, they are a delight to read about. Xantravar are even stranger looking, with their closest relations probably somewhere in the beholder family, or possibly Pelins. Maybe flumphs. No, I can't untangle D&D's creature families. How does he come up with these things? How would players react confronted with them? (kill it with fire! Baaaad idea.) Should be fun finding out. Through the looking glass: Several columns in, and Robert is learning the hard way what the Lessers had too a couple of years ago. Piracy may take a different form in mini's than it does in computer software, but it's still very much an issue, and can reflect badly on the reviewers if they fall prey to it or appear to condone it. Plus, people have an irritating habit of writing in in vitriolic fashion, and much as you'd like too, you cannot reply in the same way. We also get some advice on planning projects, several reviews of scenery for your battles, and Robert's personal experience of this year's Gen Con. Looks like all the promotion paid off. Still fairly entertaining progression on this front. The role of computers is also dealing with the effects of convention season being upon them. This means lots of new games to tackle. F/A-18 Interceptor & Chuck Yeager's Advanced Flight Trainer are a pair of flight sim games that get a joint review. Actually, they're owned by the same company, and there doesn't seem to be a huge amount to choose between them. Basically, it depends which system you own, and if you want the big name attached. Global Commander is the opposite of a wargame, where you have to figure out how to prevent and defuse conflict between the various UN nations. This amuses the reviewers, but it still makes for a fun and tricky game. Monitor communications, engage in diplomacy, and if all else fails, shoot their missiles from the sky. Now, if only someone could make an RPG that encourages similar kinds of play. Road Runner is of course, a game based on the cartoon. You play the bird, avoiding the coyote and trying to get round the tracks in the time limit. This is fun for a bit, then starts to pall. Another so-so conversion. Might and Magic goes mac. This is not without improvements, and they spell out the differences between this and the previous versions. Is this really worth a full review?Penguin Land is a typically quirky sega classic. Rescue your eggs and guide them through the mazes while avoiding the hungry bear. You can even build and save your own custom maps.  PT-109 is a torpedo boat sim. They do review a lot of sim games in here. Guess that's another genre that has since lost a lot of it's adherents. Role-playing reviews goes back to the forgotten realms. It's been around for over a year now, and has a good few supplements, so let's sort between the good, the bad, and the ugly. FR1 Waterdeep and the north works well as a guide to the city itself, but details of the lands surrounding it are still rather sketchy. It concentrates more on providing atmosphere and sample characters than detailed maps and locations, which means the DM will still have to do some work to run adventures in it. Still room for plenty more supplements filling in this region. FR2 Moonshae gets a more evenly distributed treatment. This may be a problem for low level parties, as the random encounters include creatures of all power levels. Better be ready to run. Doug has done a good job of making the isles somewhat separate from the main continent in tone, but not completely so, and you can play it either as a sandbox, or join in the local iteration of the epic battle of good vs evil. FR3 Empires of the sands is the same size as the other two, but covers a much wider area, so there is considerably less detail. Even so, some of the bits have the air of filler material. The three countries are very different, but all have plenty of room for adventuring in. Money, magic, and wild frontiers. Which will you hunt for most eagerly? A couple of interesting tidbits are also found in the short and sweet section. Jim rebutts a comment by Greg Stafford on his recent review. Just because Runequest already has rules for unarmed combat, doesn't mean ninjas shouldn't get more kewl powerz in that area in their supplement. Quite the opposite in fact. Hee. Ars Magica also gets a small but positive review. The quality of the game is recognized, but it's future success does not seem to have been anticipated. Another one worth noting. Dragonmirth reminds us that it's the type of armour you're wearing, not how much of your body it covers that counts. Fea gets a familiar in Yamara. Snarf attracts the attention of claimjumpers. Well, he was warned. A fairly average issue, with both good stuff and bad stuff aplenty. It would probably register as better to a new reader, who hadn't seen the previous coverage of many of the topics. Once again, the reviews and previews are some of the most interesting parts to me. Hopefully the coming of the new edition will put fresh spins on the various ideas they repeat, and bring in some new ones.</blockquote>

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