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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 4932568" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 143: March 1989 part 3/5Out of the textbook, into the game: A slightly more familiar bit of advice here. Everyone steals from others in creating their own worlds. The question is how well you do it, and who from. And remember, if you take inspiration from real life events, they can't get you for plagiarism. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" /> This shows you that it is remarkably easy to reskin them for your game, even if the scenarios seem superficially very different. And if they start deviating from the real world scenarios once you've set them in motion due to the actions of the players, then that's all for the better, really. Another pretty solid article, even if I'd encourage people to skip the commonly covered bits of history, and go for more obscure ones to steal from. Telling it like it is: From world building to adventure building. A subtle change of focus, but an important one. From stealing from history, now we adapt play structure to the ends of roleplaying. Even if you're playing a sandbox game, and not a closely plotted adventure like this article seems to assume, controlling the pacing of a session so the players encounter plenty of interesting things to do is critical to keep them coming back. Even if there's months of game time between each important event, the action should keep flowing for them. This article manages to take a quite different tack to the previous ones we've seen in the magazine, encouraging you to learn voice control, public speaking techniques, and distinct voices and emotions to develop the mood of your campaign. Stuff which would become common advice in later supplements, particularly white wolf ones. The 90's is just around the corner, and all the balls are lining up. And this is certainly whetting my appetite for those days. Very interesting indeed. The highs and lows of fantasy: Yet more progress here. The split between high and low fantasy, and how the high fantasy people are increasing in proportion in the D&D fanbase has already got the odd mention in the letters and forum. But here, they really try and codify the divide, which of course means it's being drawn to the attention of people who were just getting on with playing, and not bothering so much with theoretical stuff. And as with any single axis system, particularly one described in only a few pages, it oversimplifies, lumping together several traits that do not always co-incide. And they put Conan squarely in the high fantasy side, which shows that this writer has a rather stricter view of what is low fantasy than current common opinion. Interesting, but not entirely pleasing. There is also going to be a good deal of pretentiousness and windbaggy debate over the next decade that I suspect will soon grow dull. Oh well, at least it'll be a different form of dullness. That has to count for something? To be continued: Or "Welcome to Second edition. Please keep your hands and heads inside the train at all kinds."  Actually, that's a bit disingenuous, as this article actively tries to prevent you from falling into the traps of railroading. Remember, you can set up a scenario, but you can't control how the players react to it, or how the dice will fall once you get into encounters. You should make sure that a game isn't dependent on a single person being present, for you never know who is going to die or quit the game. On the other hand, you should make sure your world is filled with plot hooks aplenty for the characters to grab onto, many of which are too big and complicated to solve by just wandering around killing things. Similarly, in the real world, solving problems often sets up new, different problems (Or the good old "You killed my father! Prepare to die") so success is no reason for the game to end. Overall, a pretty good article, this is nevertheless a foreboding of things to come, including several official modules which do not heed the advice here. Still, a strong ending to a strong, and very appropriately timed themed section. TSR Previews: D&D's Gazetteer series has been so successful they're continuing it beyond their original plans with GAZ11:The republic of Darokin. Another real world time period is juxtaposed on the Known world, while somehow it's advancements do not spread elsewhere. Still, you can have plenty of fun playing merchant empires engaged in Machiavellian schemes. AD&D supports their novel lines with FR7: Hall of heroes. Now you can see just how much the characters from those stories break the rules. As if that wasn't enough for you, you can play out the removal of a whole bunch of classes, as the rules of the universe are changed IC and OOC in WG8: Fate of Istus. Byebye Monks. Byebye Assassins. Byebye Barbarians. Byebye Cavaliers. Convert or die. There is no place for you in the new order. Man, that sounds like the kind of thing that many players would rebel against if run through. Top Secret gets TSE1: Web of Deceit. Start another module trilogy in seedy San Christobal. Where will it take our intrepid agents next? And on the novel side of things, in both senses of the word, we have Illegal aliens, by Nick Pollotta and Illustrated by Phil Foglio. Aliens, space marines, mutants, and comic misunderstandings, oh my. Sounds like fun.</blockquote>

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