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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 4943992" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 145: May 1989part 5/5Role-playing reviews: 2300AD is the new edition of Traveller 2300, renamed so as to reduce confusion and annoying flamewars. They've revamped the visuals, advanced the setting a bit, and finally have an experience system. It all seems to be a considerable improvement. That's nice to hear dear. Colonial atlas is a supplement for 2300AD, expanding on the various extraplanar colonies. Since it's covering 29 planets in 96 pages, the level of detail can't be that great, and it has a hellofa lot of authors, but it's more than enough to make them playable, with statistics, histories and adventure ideas. And it's definitely a lot more than could fit in the corebook. Now the stage is set for even more specific books. Kafer Dawn is an adventure centering around the many-mandibled monstrosities. Figure out how not just to win the straightforward engagements, but also the resource war, and come to understand the enemy and their decidedly odd behaviours and tactics. It's a decent starter, but certainly not the final word on the subject, as having proved popular, they have more sourcebooks on the way. Aurore sourcebook is one of those, covering the same planet as the last book, in more detail. With lots of history, NPC's, environmental details, adventure hooks, etc,  it certainly seems to flesh out the setting nicely on a closer scale. Mission Arcturus is the second Kafer based adventure. Your characters are now experts on the chitinous menace, and venture to a new planet to figure out what happened to the expeditionary base there. The review doesn't spoil the ending, but says it's pretty good. Do you have what it takes to handle both the combat and problem solving? The Kafer sourcebook gives us yet more info on these guys. Seems like they're being set up as the primary antagonists for the game. Still, with a well thought out psychology, and more than enough info to use them as PC's, should you be so inclined. If you're not, don't let the players read it and spoil all the cool surprises they should experience during play.   Invasion builds upon all these previous books to give you an epic campaign as the Kafers sweep through star systems, conquering and destroying. They really seem to have thought this one through. Lets hope the players can bring their best game in response to make a difference in the war. Finally, the Ground vehicle guide isn't directly connected to the war, but of course the stuff contained within will be damn handy if you want to fight battles using hard rules. Whew. That was certainly one of the more impressive review sections. Good to see other gamelines with supplement treadmills turning furiously. Through the looking glass: A guide to painting various emotions? We sure aren't in 1981 anymore. Another guest writer definitely brings the 2nd ed spirit to this column. Obviously, quite a bit of the emotion of a figure will be determined by the existing model, and it can be tricky to get decent definition on small and cheap models anyway. But the colour scheme you choose can make a big difference, and subtleties of shading on the face even more so. For something like this to work, you need decent illustrations to demonstrate the more complex details. Fortunately, this column does not disappoint, with the photography being excellent, and the illustrations being both detailed and amusingly exaggerated. While there is a bit of obvious advice here, this is still an excellent little article that also managed to surprise me slightly. Looks like they're still trying new stuff in this department. Fiction: Cornwoman by Steve Rasnic Tem. A trip into primal myth territory here. Everything is magnified, anthromophicised and given extra symbolism. The woman who brought corn (and implicitly, the whole idea of cultivation. ) to the human tribe must rescue a stolen baby from Raven and his flock of crows. This is pretty scary for them, but each triumph they make codifies a little more of the world, moving it away from dream logic towards reality, and making the monsters out there a little less scary. Reminds me somewhat of Neil Gaiman's takes on mythical stuff in American gods and Anansi boys, which is definitely a good thing. With a distinctive, well crafted atmosphere, this is another memorable little story. Dragonmirth has decidedly mixed messages about modern technology. Yamara is losing both the battle, and the war of who's funniest. Snarfquest ends it all on a cliffhanger of authorial self-insertion, instead of resolving the plot. Really Larry, you need to manage your time better. This is only marginally better than wormy's departure. Overall, another pretty good issue, both in the themed section and the reviews. They once again seem to have a strong freelancer base to draw upon, and enough submissions that they can reject the obvious dross. The main problem now, is keeping the both the quality control and speed of production up, which as I know, is not an easy business. Just how great will the rate of turnover be? Gotta complete 'em all.</blockquote>

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