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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 4998030" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 155: March 1990part 5/6Role-playing reviews is another busy section this month, tackling the Star Wars system. In the two years since it first got reviewed, it's accumulated a hell of a lot of supplements. George Lucas does seem rather good at handling his merchandising spin-offs. Star wars sourcebook was the first thing released, and is basically just a grab-bag of stuff that didn't fit in the corebook. Stats for characters from the movies, new gear, maps of places, minifiction. Once you've got it, it'll be hard to run the game without it. Just the thing to snare you into stepping on that treadmill. Star wars rules companion adds a whole bunch of new crunch, and revises existing stuff in light of more playtesting and reader responses. It adds to the game, but along with the errata, does tone down the cinematicness a bit. The battle between trying to emulate the movies and "what's that guy's story" pointing to some boring schmuck in the background has already begun. Star wars campaign pack is a GM screen, and another booklet with a little grab bag of stuff. GM'ing advice on running long term campaigns. A starter adventure, and a bunch of outlines for some more to keep you going. Not quite a full module's worth, but it'll help until you get some actual modules, which there are also plenty of. Tatooine manhunt draws heavily from the first movie, taking you to Luke's home to save a hero of the rebellion from shitloads of bounty hunters. Course, your attempts to find him might be used by them to get him, ironically sealing his doom, but that just makes things more fun. Screenshotalicious. Strikeforce Shantipole sees you working for Admiral "It's a trap!" Ackbar to evacuate a base being invaded by imperial forces. PC's, running away? Surely not! Should be interesting to see if they play along. Starfall is tailor made for if things go south in another adventure like the last one. Thrown in prison, it's up to the players to escape from a star destroyer. Map based, as well as plot based, since this kind of adventure requires lots of player ingenuity, and designed so it's reusable, should they be dumb enough to be captured again, this definitely seems like the designers thought things through before making it. Muahahaha. Battle for the golden sun, on the other hand is the first module to step away from the events of the movies, and gets a mediocre review. Head to a water world and use the force to follow the railroad. Yawnaroo. Otherspace, on the other hand, does make an interesting change of pace, although it introduces an alternate dimension I don't remember being used anywhere else in the EU canon. Course, that means you'll have to actively engage your puzzle solving abilities instead of blasting your way out. Hopefully your players won't complain about being bait and switched. Scavenger hunt gets a rather less favourable from Jim than it did from Ken last issue, as he finds it somewhat scattershot, with signs that diminishing returns may be setting in, and that the various little episodes aren't perfectly stitched together. Hmm. Since Ken wrote some of the other modules in this series, I wonder who to side with. Riders of the maelstrom sees things return to the status quo, with another fast paced, somewhat railroaded adventure. Even rebels have to deal with Space Pirates, and once again, you'll have to do as much sneaking around as you do combat. Guess that's just the way they like it. Having ploughed through all that, Jim is probably pretty tired, and does the Galaxy guides 1-3 as a batch review. Each elaborates on the places and people from the films. It's a big universe out there, but it still needs a lot  of filling in. Let's get a few more novels and video games and prequels out so we have more to build on, instead of having everyone winding up in the same grotty cantina. The role of books: Sword-maker by Jennifer Robertson continues to build up her world and characters, including the relationship between the hero and his intelligent sword. That's certainly a topic that can be useful for gamers, and the story is pretty strong too. The lost years by J M Dillard is another instance of fail in Star Trek fiction, as it tries to tie together a bunch of continuity events, and gets nitpicked to death by the reviewer over it's inaccuracies. Sounds like you ought to be doing the line editing for the series then. <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" /> Laying the music to rest by Dean Wesley Smith sees another debut novelist with a refreshing and distinctive writing style get good marks. Whether he turns out to be a one trick pony or future works become more homogenised remains to be seen. Rusalka by C J Cherryh draws upon russian folklore, but way the elements are handled feels rather more similar to her previous novels than anything from those stories. The supernatural creatures are also kept mysterious and poorly defined, and the result isn't among her best work. The shining falcon by Josepha Sherman, on the other hand draws from the same sources, but with more depth and faithfulness. The character are more fun to read about, and the stuff would be easier to use to convert creatures for gaming. Gate of darkness, circle of light by Tanya Huff steals a song from Mercedes Lackey, and uses it to create a quirky, lighthearted bit of modern fantasy. Now that's referentiality for you. Please don't sue. People of the sky by Clare Bell draws upon Hopi myth, of all things, in another fantasy/sci-fi story set on another world, but with connections to this one. Like Tekumel, it's very distinctiveness and depth might make gaming in this world a little tricky. Still, once again, they're pretty positive about it as a book. Once again, as a result of our novel's references, we are exposed to the dread world of filk in the shorts section. Curse you once again, Mercedes Lackey. :shakes fist: Other than that, it's pretty much business as usual. Big names fall, new names rise, the cycle of existence continues to turn.</blockquote>

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