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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5104660" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 173: September 1991part 3/6The voyage of the princess ark: A rather different entry this month. Instead of the usual load of misadventures, we have a report on Hule by Raman. A decidedly nasty, expansionistic state, it's led by the Immortal of lies, Bozdogan. (aka Loki. ) The whole place is built on circles of deceit, with each step in the hierarchy lying to all the ones below for the greater glory of Bozdogan. They'll use any methods to get you to convert, or if they don't think you'll be amenable, to swindle you of everything you've got. Don't trust them an inch. In short, the whole place seems built specifically to serve as a good villain in known world geopolitics. Y'know, if you're going to lie all the time, the last thing you want is a reputation of being a liar. A little more subtlety would probably be a good idea. I know D&D is all about the moral conflicts, but do we really want a human nation this unambigously nasty? Oh well, the change of pace is nice, even if the thing it's describing may not be perfectly designed. We also have lots of letters this time. Lots of people are worried what the new basic set and rules cyclopedia mean for the D&D game as a whole. Bruce does his best to assuage them. Very little is going to change ruleswise, merely the presentation. We also finally get the name of the planet the Known World inhabits. Mystara. Not that impressive a reveal, but still nice. Lots more stuff coming. Seems like basic D&D stuff is selling quite healthily these days. Out of your chair, into the action!: Looks like LARPing really is on the up, with a second article this month. Say hello to the New England Roleplaying Organisation. Looks like they take the sandbox approach to their playing, setting up the situation, and letting the players provide all the drama for themselves. Which most of them do in spades (although since there were 300 attendees, there were probably a few left out, simply by math. ) You fight using boffer weapons, and cast spells by throwing packets of corn starch at each other. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> If you do well adventuring, you can become nobility, and intrigue your way through your new associates, and hire assassins to take them down. So this is a good demonstration that this not only works, but has a pretty substantial established fanbase, and can run extended games without the drama llama ruining everything. Between this and the editorial, we should be seeing quite a few people try out LARPing for the first time in the near future. Get ready for some substantial demographic shifts. Get your priorities straight: Hmm. Another attempt to improve upon the alignment system. As we've found before, it's not hard, and there are a number of ways to do so, depending on what aspects of morality you want to draw attention to, and possibly encourage in your game. Here's one that takes quite a different approach to the norm. Instead of some vague ideal like the standard 3x3 grid, or slightly more specific ones in SR6 or issue 24, it works by establishing your character's hierarchy of loyalties. Obviously, most evil characters put the self above any higher principles or attachments, while lawful good ones try and hold true to comrades, family, state and god simultaneously, and may well find themselves having to make hard choices. It doesn't integrate perfectly with the existing system, with some permutations not mapping to D&D alignments at all, but it does show how, for example, the githzerai can be chaotic neutral while still holding a few principles to a fanatical degree. Actually, I think it would probably work better replacing the existing system, rather than running alongside it, and could easily be slotted over some game other than D&D. In fact, it would make a good alternative to say, Pendragon's passion system or the NWoD's virtues, vices & morality, and would probably reward further tinkering with itself. A very interesting design experiment indeed, and one that pushes forward the idea that what statistically defines your character influences the way you play, and by changing the stats of the game, you can slant people towards certain choices and playstyles. Quite a few designers could learn from that. I like this article quite a lot. The role of computers: Death Knights of Krynn is another of SSI's solid conversions of AD&D, allowing you to bring in your characters from previous games to kick Lord Soth & his cronies butts. This is one of those reviews where they give you a lot of hints, because the game isn't easy, and will probably take quite a bit of grinding and resource management. The biggest reminder, as is often the case, is to save at every opportunity. Man, you'd think people would start putting autosave apps out. Space Quest IV also gets a good review, and is a lot funnier as well. Travel into the past and the future of the series to save your son. Full of humour, and with tons of things to discover, it looks like a good one for those who like lighthearted, snarky games. Zarlor Mercenary completes a hat trick of 5 star reviews. A shoot-em-up for the Atari Lynx, it has multiplayer networking for up to 4 people, and remains fully functional even with that many playing. Now the tricky part'll be finding 4 people who own atari lynxes. <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" /></blockquote>

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