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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5051793" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 164: December 1990part 6/6Novel ideas: Looks like these guys are in theme this month, as they decide to talk about the Horde series of novels. Zeb Cook, Troy Denning, and James Lowder have all been immersing themselves in Oriental culture, to varying degrees and levels of ease. As usual, we get some interesting behind the scenes info. Zeb really isn't a natural fiction writer, despite having tons of info to draw upon. Troy on the other hand, does seem to be, producing more work in an hour than I usually manage in a day. But even he had to hone his craft and get over his insecurities about the quality of his ideas. Another article that helps to hammer in what a production treadmill TSR has become, with deadlines mapped out well in advance, and writers put under considerable stress to achieve them. If you want to work for them, you've got to jump on board the running train and hang on like hell until you find your balance, then keep going until you burn out. Not a very tempting option, really. Dragonmirth reveals how you get lawn gnomes. Replica artifacts become fashion statements in yamara. The characters fight in miserable weather in twilight empire. Through the looking glass: Ooh. Another very interesting topical event from the realms beyond gaming in here as well. The great attempt to ban lead from miniatures (and lots of other stuff as well, but that's not important <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" />.)  Robert is not happy about this at all, and encourages you to stand up, organize, and complain vocally. This is a spurious ban, and one that will do huge amounts of damage to the hobby for minute environmental benefits. How very alarming. I seem to recall this one dragging out for years before ending with a whimper, and it should be another interesting little subplot to track month-by-month. The usual bunch of reviews for figures of all sizes are here as well. Witches, sorceresses, anti-paladins, chimera, firbolg, to fill your general fantasy cravings. Blue Ardua from Talislanta for those of you who want something more specific. Jabba the Hut and his entourage, if you're feeling a little sci-fi. The HMS Victory, if you want to go historical. And some more textured terrain for if you want to represent the hassles your miniatures are going through to get to the battle. Until the ban actually takes place, they aren't going to let it spoil their fun. With diversions into psychology, composition and law this issue, this has been an unusually wide ranging and interesting collection, even if the themed section isn't that great. The writers are full of cool ideas, even if some of them are rather goofy, and not all are very mechanically rigorous. But even so, there's plenty of usable stuff to pick out this time round. I think this is a fairly positive end to the year. Let's see if next year can top it.</blockquote>

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