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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 4963424" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 149: September 1989part 4/5The dragon magazine subsciption page recycles some earlier cover art. Kesmai and beyond: It's been nearly two years since we heard about this early MMORPG. (see issue 128) Good to see it's still going and even growing, despite the costs of playing. (over $6 an hour. Nowadays people bitch about subscriptions costing $20 a month. You don't know how good you have things. ) Here we see them experimenting with new rules, new levels, new powers, and all that cool stuff. Once again, there are many elements that will seem familiar, but a few that didn't get picked up in later games, such as the way they handle upgrading to the advanced game. Grinding random drops and taking them to craftsmen to get upgraded equipment, boss monsters that are way too tough for any one person, no matter how experienced, they seem to be getting the hang of this medium's quirks. And despite the cost, there always seems to enough people online to have someone to play with. Another cool marker of how far we've come, and how far we still have to go. Makes me curious how long this particular game lasted as a vital developing world before being reduced to a sinecure and eventually shut down. I think it's googling time. From freighters to flying boats: Star frontiers getting an article as well? This is rather more non D&D stuff in an issue than they've had for quite a while. This is a fairly long article as well, covering boats in the system. This should synergise well with the underwater stuff in issue 110. So here's 9 new vehicles, plus lots of notes on adapting the combat system to water based escapades. Ramming, surface to underwater fights, explosives, specific damage results, escaping sinking ships, (a lot easier than surviving a spaceship's destruction) this all seems pretty servicable. Remember, under the ocean is still almost as mysterious as outer space. The oceans of other planets can be even more so. Getting it right first time: Oop. A (fourth, fifth? Something like that) guide to the handling of running convention adventures. Surely it would have been better to put this a bit before convention season, so it'd be fresh in the minds of the people about to try that grueling task for the first time. Perhaps Richard W Emerich just went though this crap himself, and that's why it's showing up now. Still, this takes you though in a sensible step by step manner, from the first preparations for your adventure, to the play itself; figuring out what works, what doesn't, what will speed up getting to the fun parts (extra important given tight time considerations.) communicating important details clearly to the players, running the adventure in a fair manner, and just as importantly, a whole bunch of things not to do. One of those articles that definitely shows the hallmarks of the years of refinement, as people have been creating and running adventures like this for over a decade now, and stress testing these ideas in reality rather than just theorizing about what ought to work, or not. And since many of these idea are also pretty beneficial when applied to standard home campaigns, and our writer has a fast-paced entertaining writing style, this is one time I have no problem with them repeating a topic. See you again in another 3-4 years, probably. TSR previews: Not one, but two products get the grey box treatment this month. The second monstrous compendium follows hot on the heels of the first one, doubling your selections of officially converted stuff to throw at the players. We're also getting the official packs of character sheets, for those of you who really want to waste money.  The second two trail maps are out this month TM2 covers the eastern countries of the Known world, while TM3 is for Krynn. Well, Ansalon is a pretty tiny continent. It doesn't need multiple maps like the others would. Greyhawk isn't being neglected either. On the module side, we have WG10: Child's play. Intended to introduce beginning players and characters to the brutality of RPGA play. Will there be evil dolls, or would that just be too obvious? On the books side, we get The eyes have it, another Rose Estes production. A flying ship drawn by pegasi? Methinks you may be confusing your Mystara and Oerth thematics. The novels continue, with two second books in trilogies. Kendermore is the second book in the dragonlance prequels. Tasslehoff gets to be the star. Do you want him to get married or not? Buck Rogers gets Hammer of Mars by M S Murdock. Things look bleak for Buck, as RAM squeeze him into a corner. Always darkest before the dawn, even in space. Spelljammer gets properly advertised. It's out of this world! :groan: I guess that fits the general tone of things in the setting. The role of books: Child of saturn by Teresa Edgerton is a pretty strong debut, mixing worldbuilding, intrigue, and strong visual descriptions. Now what she needs is some key gimmick to set her apart from all the other fantasy writers. Light raid by Connie Willis and Cynthia Felice gets a fail result due to taking too many unexplained liberties with the political situation and not engaging in future history worldbuilding in a logical manner. The result feels like a fanfic that has the characters act completely out of character. Wizard's bane by Rick Cook has one very clever twist that livens up an otherwise somewhat subpar fantasy novel. Still, strong research needs technical skill to turn into gripping stories. Faerie tale by Raymond E Feist also gets a mixed review. It has lots of cool elements, too many in fact, and tries to cram them all in, cluttering the story up and keeping the characters from getting the development time they deserve. Needs a good editor to streamline and focus things.  A study in sorcery by Michael Kurland is a fantasy/detective story, seeing him playing with characters and a world created by Randall Garrett. It doesn't do too badly at capturing the personalities of the existing characters, and sets up and demolishes the mystery elements quite well. Still a good idea to have read the earlier books though, as it doesn't explain all the laws of magic it references. The further adventures of batman, edited by Martin H Greenberg doesn't quite work, partly due to the editing, which fails to give them a consistent tone or any kind of continuity, and partly due to the change in medium from comics to prose, which hurts the character more than expected. Some of the individual stories are cool, particularly Issac Asimov's take on the setting, but as a whole, it's less than the sum of it's parts. Nightside city by Lawrence Watt-Evans is another sci-fi/private eye story. However it stands out, both due to the worldbuilding, the protagonist, and the ending, which refuses to settle into a status quo like so many of these series. Whether it'll get followed up and continue progressing is another matter altogether, of course.</blockquote>

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