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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5045754" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 164: December 1990part 1/6116 pages. From one very familiar special topic to another one, in our third oriental special issue. 121, 151, and now this, with plenty of issues in between featuring oriental articles as well. Just can't escape it, can they? Still, last issue they managed to justify their repeated subject with new ideas. Can they do so again? As ever, I live in hope. In this issue:Letters:  A letter from people who seem to have assumed D&D = satanic = religion or something. Roger tries to explain, with much bemusement. Our sole purpose is to make money by selling stuff. Religion and philosophy do not come into it. A letter asking where the new classes, adventures and places are. We have published quite a few of the first recently, with another one this issue. The other two are Dungeon's remit. You'll have to buy that. (PS. Death Masters, dangerous? Ahahahahaha!!!!! A wizard of equal level trounces them effortlessly. What are you on Roger? Did you ever playtest them at all? ) Editorial: Hmm. This is an idea we haven't had since 1985, from a different perspective. The concept of analysing people based on what kind of characters they most frequently play is an interesting one, but not something that works as well as armchair psychiatrists think. For a start, people frequently choose roles that actively contrast with their most common real life one, as a means of release and exploring different personas. For another, it's surprising what a few events early in a character's history can have on the way you portray them, often in ways originally unintended. And let's not get into the whole playing members of the opposite gender issue. While there are a few exceptions, such as the guy who insists on playing catgirls at every juncture, I think we can safely rubbish Katherine Kerr's theory that playing evil characters means you're a bad person in reality. Most people have a little more breadth and nuance to their personality. Just watch out for the ones that obsess on one thing, and bring it into whatever they do, even if it's inappropriate. This has been a nicely thought provoking little editorial. Flying feet and lightning hands: We kick off our themed section rather literally, with a bunch of new MA maneuvers, including a new kick. <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" /> Most of our articles in this vein have been on new styles combining different permutations of the existing maneuvers. Looks like Len wants to push things a little further. Just as with the core ones, there are several techniques that are obviously supernatural mixed with the physically achievable ones, showing how blurred that particular line is in D&D. Some of them are compiled from other articles in the magazine, where they were class specific abilities. A couple of them are really scary, but most aren't that impressive. So it does nothing for the overall balance of MA as an option, while setting a few more traps for the mechanically unwise player. Purchase with caution. You know how limited your slots are, and every one counts.   Things your sensei never taught you: More MA moves here, and a little advice on building your own styles containing them. MA styles shouldn't simply be bunches of random moves, but a themed collection with definite strengths and weaknesses. No great surprises here. What is slightly more surprising and irritating is that a few of the moves are pretty much the same as the last article. Since that seemed to be compiling stuff, having one immediately following it that not only makes it out of date again, but also introduces redundancy in terms of moves to buy is rather poor organization on the editing staff's part. You could have merged these first two into a single article, and both would have been rather better off for it. Wakey wakey Roger.</blockquote>

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