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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5095330" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 171: July 1991part 6/6Sage advice: Can you make more than one image at once with phantasmal force ( Probably not. The singular nature of the description makes the force bit of the title a bit of a misnomer) Does Fly end when you land (Nah. That would be so easily got around it would be a joke)Can you use at will abilities as often as you like (no, They generally still use up your standard act... oh, wait. Damn, there's Skip's precognition kicking in again. Skip hates it when that happens)Psychic crush sucks (yeah, but it's the only attack mode that does real damage. We have to make it a bit less likely to work to compensate) What does X mult mean (We have to make sure that their other powers scale with HD. Otherwise we'd be no better than 1st edition )How much do siege weapons cost ( Whatever the market will bear. But we can't be having with adaptive economics around here. The guild cartels would throw a fit. And with the assassin's guild gone, who knows how they'd deal with you.)How do you design a spelljammer from scratch and determine the cost (Too Complicated! Too Complicated! Skip cries uncle!)Who is the attacker if two ships play chicken and ram each other (whoever wins initiative. Reroll ties. )What happened to the new proficiencies for spelljammer (Drat. Must have fallen behind the sofa. We'll put them in a supplement. )How much are weapon's ranges reduced by atmosphere. (lots) How long do you keep your own gravity if you enter a bigger one. (until you touch the surface. More evidence of just how frickin weird AD&D's physics actually are. You could really exploit this. )How long does it take to regain spells after spelljamming (At least a good nights rest. This is why you fly using multiple mages working in shifts) Can a creature with a breath weapon foul it's own air envelope. (Yes, but only if it's not immune to it's own powers. That actually leaves out most of them.  ) 101 surprises in a bag of beans: Ahh joy. This is one of the things that introduced me to the idea of random screwage by player consent as fun. As such, it'll always hold a special place in my heart. It doesn't hurt that this is one of the larger and more wide-ranging tables of this sort, full of items that are good, things that are bad, and lots that are decidedly mixed benefits, that may be useful if properly exploited, but also have very real dangers, such as monsters with cool magic items, portals that'll close after a while, pandora's box, dragon eggs, and flying islands. You could spend months just planting these things and dealing with the fallout. Putting one of these in your game can let the DM sit back and laugh while the players bring about their own demise. Which I'm fully in favour of, because it means less work for me. Worldbuilding takes a lot of time, and the busier I am, the more I come to appreciate shortcuts and efficiency increasers. i won't hesitate to use this if I get the chance. Dragonmirth screws up the tropes again. Yamara gets the note about her wishes too late and has to be bailed out. Twilight empire has action, drama, and comedy, as per usual. Look like a loyal palladium fan (o rly? How do you do that then?) at gen con this year and you'll get free palladium bucks!. Only redeemable at the palladium stall, for palladium books. Okey dokey. Through the looking glass: Another bit of evidence that minis are a decade or so ahead of RPG's in their product cycle here. Robert talks about the problems companies are having making a profit due to people expecting discounts at conventions. Too much undercutting can actually mean you wind up making a loss. Which in a different way is an issue that online stores have made much worse, and has contributed quite a bit in the fall of games shops over the past decade. Supply and demand may be an important principle, but so is ensuring your business is sustainable. Making a loss on one thing on the gamble that profits from other sources will fill it is a dangerous business. Another life lesson applicable to any money-making venture. Our minis this month are a rather large fairy designed to sit on your mantelpiece, a dinosaur with a lizard man rider, elves, undead, a full 4 pack of elementals, a unicorn, and a castle construction kit. This is all fairly standard, and I can't muster up any particular nostalgia over this article. Dark sun reveals it's name, and the basics of the setting. Overthrow the decadent sorcerer-kings and save the desert wasteland. Lest you forgot, the metaplot was hard-coded into the setting design, and it was intended to evolve rapidly right from day one. The wisdom of this decision may be questionable, but they carried their brief out with aplomb, leaving no part untouched.  They also give us another set of trading cards. This is another thing that's left out of the scan. Another array of characters, monsters and items with very abbreviated stats on the back, many of which I'd never heard of at the time, and was curious to find out more about. Of particular note are Alias and the Bebilith which both hinted strongly at larger things I had yet to explore. I guess they did their job then. Well, they say you never forget your first time, and that's definitely true here. I do seem to find myself more positively inclined towards most of the articles in this one, than the previous issues, with specific memories surrounding a decent fraction of them. Not sure if it's actually better, but I do note that this has more non D&D articles than the average for this period, which I generally seem to have found myself in favour of. In any case, many of the articles still hold valuable advice that's still significant after several edition changes and applied to other systems, so it's a better jumping on point than many. It's nice to be here, but it'll be even nicer to finish this, so enough wallowing. On we go again.</blockquote>

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