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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 4979500" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 152: December 1989part 3/5In a cavern, in a canyon: Mining! One of the biggest producers of both valuable materials and future dungeons for adventurers to explore. Where would we be without it? And amazingly enough, this is a topic the magazine hasn't covered before as well. This is promising. But could also be very dull. Curiously, it manages to be both, capturing both the months of grindy tedium, and the interesting bits that happen during that time, as you find cool stuff, monsters find you, you have to deal with collapses, pockets of bad gas, seams running dry, and the omnipresent legal crap from other people when you actually try and sell the stuff. Seems like the kind of thing that would be good to incorporate when you've got to the domain management stage, and can skim through several years in a single session building up a history with the aid of a few dice rolls. Once you've done your share of killing things and taking their stuff, you've got to give back to the community, ensure that future generations have things to kill and take the stuff of. Not a classic, but certainly not a bad article either. Good to see them fill in another avenue for adventuring in a fairly plausible manner. The wanderers below: More random encounter tables? Now taking advantage of the stuff in the Dungeoneers survival guide. This time tailored for specific regions of the underdark based upon what major features and dominant humanoid creatures are in the vicinity. I can get plenty of use out of that. A two page article that does what it says, no more, no less. The underwater one is a bit sketchy, but that's proably because there's not enough aquatic underground creatures to draw upon. Otherwise, the 9 tables are interestingly interconnected, and cover a decent range of creatures. Just be ready to run if you're a low level character, for monsters of all power levels occupy the same regions, not divided into neat depth levels like some dungeons. So much for the safety gloves, muahaha. Reichstar? I don't remember that. Anyone have any info on it?Role-playing reviews decided to go modern military this month. Tactics, all sorts of cool weaponry, and evil dictators to kill. For dungeon crawlers, it's like a home away from home. Just remember, you don't have magic healing to save you.  Twilight 2000 is another possible future that is now well into the past. WWIII is not going particularly well, and your soldiers are stuck behind enemy lines. This leaves your characters free reign to take any actions they choose to survive, advance the cause, and get home. This highly focussed premise lets you get into action easily, and the design, using lots of little booklets in a boxed set, helps avoid so much flipping slowing things down. It's built up a whole load of modules in recent years, expanding on the setting options quite considerably. It definitely puts it's own spin on combat heavy modern roleplaying. Commando is the millitary sourcebook for Top Secret/ S.I. If you want to get in, your characters need to be the best of the best. But fear not, this is not material for twinks, the enemies will be similarly badass, and both sides will have pretty scary equipment. Pleasingly, the reviewer not only points out errata, he also consults the designer to get an official response for said errata. That's one advantage of working for the same company. Brushfire wars is a set of little adventures for said Commandos. Since they are heavily military oriented, they're only really useful in an appropriate campaign. And they are pretty tricky. No froofy narrativist stuff here. Let's get planning, then hit 'em hard and fast. GURPS high-tech is actually focussed on modern day and near past weaponry, and other equipment. It has the same reliable clarity and detail as the rest of their supplements. No adventures here, but it shouldn't be too hard to convert them from the other games covered with these tools. Heroquest imitates D&D by putting out an advanced edition. Games workshop like making lots of money. Servants of the jeweled dagger: What would one of these themed bits be without an examination of some of the natives. We had Drow in issue 129, and Svirfneblin in 131. Mind flayers got attention just a couple of issues ago. Goblinoids are well covered. So Duergar seem like a good choice for a humanoid race that needs a little depth building. Superficially, they may seem slightly more similar to regular dwarves than Drow do to regular elves. But with their acceptance of trickery, magical abilities, and near complete lack of any kind of sense of humour or affection make them rather less pleasant to spend time around. This is another of those ones that seems pretty familiar to me because most of it's ideas were repeated in later 2nd ed books mentioning them. Add to that the fact it's not very long, and my world is very much not rocked. Yawn. Looks like diminishing returns is already becoming a problem for this topic as well. Fiction: The first notch by R A Salvadore. So the master hack (if that isn't a contradiction) gives dragon magazine some fiction. Set in the Realms, what seems like a basic dwarves vs goblins scenario becomes a more complicated one, in which both sides have to work together to survive an ettin. He manages a nice line in both banter and dramatic combat sequences, establishing individual personalities, and resolving things quickly and efficiently. A quite palatable little read, and one that hews closer to D&D than most of their fiction. I actually rather like this. Let's hope he can keep the schlock-o-meter from going into the red.</blockquote>

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