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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 4957722" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 148: August 1989part 4/5TSR previews: D&D almost entirely takes over this month, in one form or another. They decide that using the little grey box to denote the most important release is going to continue, even though the corebooks are out. This time, it's the dungeon master's screen that gets the special attention. Since 4 bits of card isn't a very impressive product, they also include a mini adventure. Anyone play this one? The Forgotten Realms is still proving ridiculously popular, and getting the support to match. You saw the adventure last month, now read the novelisation of Tantras, part 2 of the Avatar Trilogy. See the people who will soon become gods do their stuff.  Meanwhile, thousands of miles away in Kara-Tur, we have OA6: Ronin Challenge. The setting is much more filled out than it used to be, and this module certainly intends to take advantage of this. Greyhawk gets a boxed set covering its eponymously named city. Greater detail than ever before! You still won't be able to match the insane level of detail the FR'll build up in a few years. D&D is also reaping the rewards of all that effort creating boxed sets, with Dawn of the Emperors. Thyatis vs Alphatia! For great justice! With Airships! Oh yes, that reminds me, the princess ark series should be along sometime soon. I'm definitely looking forward to that. We're also getting TM1: The western Countries. See the known world mapped out in a style imitating real world hiking maps. A typically amusing conceit that probably springs from Bruce Heard's mind. Our token unrelated product this month is the Deluxe city campaign set for Marvel Superheroes. New york, new york. What a great place to adventure in. Can you make sure it doesn't get destroyed and rebuilt as often as Tokyo? Luck of the draw: Interesting. This article is essentially the equivalent of an ecology of for this magical item, presenting us with some fiction of a group encountering them, trying to find out more, and having a little drama along the way. The writer answers the question of what happens if you try various rules exploits, and some cosmological questions that could be used as further plot hooks. He also demonstrates a delightfully cruel sense of humour, as the characters act in a very PC like manner. Yeah, this is pretty sweet. Yet more encouragement for me to include this kind of thing into my own games, sit back, and watch the group do it all to themselves for a while. I think I shall put the LP of maniacal laughter on the gramophone and let it run for a while while I go make a cup of tea. The game wizards: The Sniper! games obviously can't be doing too terribly, because it looks like they've got a computer game conversion. What's more, they're multiplayer internet ones as well. Looks like they use ascii visuals, which is rather amusing, but is probably needed for bandwidth saving reasons. As is usual for this column, this is a promotional piece, making people aware of their shiny new stuff, and talking about how it works, the changes that needed to be made for the new medium. Real time gaming is quite a different experience to taking turns, but the fact that you can stack orders should allow you to run to the loo and not die horribly straight away. As with Kesmai, we see that they're still trailblazing in their developments, and having to figure out the best way to handle different genres from scratch. Better pray your connection doesn't lag. Fairly interesting. Role-playing reviews: Looks like monsters are this month's theme here. In particular books concentrating on one or two specific ones. Another sign of the increase in fine detail in modern books, we've gone from statblocks of a few lines, to pages of ecology, to entire elaborate studies. But of course, detail is no indicator of quality. Let's see what Jim makes of this crop. Ents of fangorn is of course for MERP. Remember, they might have been on the hobbit's side, but these are scary guys when roused, and have some decidedly alien cousins. If your players play things wrong, they could easily wind up their bad side. But the book doesn't present that brilliantly, with the actual adventures being more orc infested dungeons than bosky shifting woods. Looks like the writers are sneaking D&Disms back into a property that inspired it.  Into the troll realms is for runequest. Like the previous one, it's more about the adventures than a detailed examination of the creatures, but that's because there already was a supplement on that (Reviewed in issue 67, and with a revision coming soon) But this time the adventures are pretty good, with inventive plots that aren't all hack and slash. Looks like Runequest is still fairly popular. GAZ10 The orcs of Thar takes a lighthearted, Paranoia inspired look at it's subject, giving the various humanoids a distinctive voice, as we saw in the Orcwars game a few months ago. Life may be cheap, but they still know how to have fun, looting, pillaging, and smashing their way through the nearby hooman countries. The various races all get 36 level progressions with optional spellcasting, and are balanced by the bigger ones being tougher at the start, but requiring more xp to advance, so they'll eventually fall behind. All are certainly a lot more effective than the optional rules given in this magazine for AD&D humanoids. It's all good whimsical fun, useful for both players and DM's.  AC10 bestiary of giants and dragons takes a rather different tack, being more a bunch of adventures than a detailed ecological examination. It does have some interesting visual aids and tables though. Overall, it seems like something to dip into, rather than use all in one go.</blockquote>

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