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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5107035" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 173: September 1991part 5/6The same advert on three consecutive pages? Interesting way of doing things. Probably costs quite a bit too. The role of books: The rocketeer by Peter David does fairly well for a film conversion, adding to the story nicely while maintaining the pulpy feel. As usual, they can both get into the characters heads more, and show bits that were cut. Time/space constraints do seem much less serious in books, for some reason. Fallen angels by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle & Michael Flynn gets a fairly negative result, like the last one a couple of issues ago. For this reviewer, it works neither as a serious story or satire, and some of the plotting makes little sense. The brain eater is hard at work here. Choose your collaborators wisely. Hawks flight by Carol Chase gets a pretty good review on both the worldbuilding and story fronts. Not drawing on any particular earth mythos too obviously, and full of depth, it's one that obviously took quite a lot of work. Unravelling everything may be a similar challenge for less experienced readers though. I think if we can handle Tolkien and Gygax's writings, we can get our heads round this too. The fantastic adventures of robin hood, edited by Martin H Greenberg, is another of his anthologies that show a whole range of spins on the legend. This does of course mean there are huge jumps in tone and characterisation, as we're dealing with a vague public domain legend in the first place. Feels a bit like a cash-in on a certain obscenely profitable recent movie. Street magic by Michael Reaves is one of those books that's too short, and splits it's attention too many ways for you to really get attached to the characters or world. Which is a shame, because what there is is pretty good. Never easy to get the length right, is it. Extreme paranoia: Nobody knows the trouble I've shot by Ken Rolston sees the reviewer become the reviewed, in highly amusing and somewhat meta fashion. As an example of proper Paranoia play turned into a story, it succeeds brilliantly. As a conventional novel, it may be a bit too wacky and punful. Obviously depends on your tastes then. Jandar Sunstar. The good elven vampire trapped in ravenloft. Oh, the angst. AAAAANNGGGST I say! Oh well. He can have yaoi buttsecks with Strahd and they can both whine about their respective lost loves for a while or something. Hee. That'll get the fangirls in. <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" /> Forum: Matt Barrett picks apart the argument that what assassins do is always evil. Killing things that are going to kill you if you don't get them first is entirely justified, even if you use stealth and take them out while unsuspecting. As Gary himself said, good doesn't have to be stupid. But the ends do not justify the means. Slippery slope, dude. Michael Kellam bites on the Batman's alignment debate hook. I knew someone would. Given his current level of [strike]whoreswhoreswhoreswhores[/strike] darkness in characterisation, it's debatable if he's even good, and certainly not lawful. Once again, we are painfully reminded that Thiiiis IIIIiiis theeeee 90's! Mark D. Krieter has to deal with the problem that one player is far cleverer and more motivated than all the others, and thus tends to outshine them and get more stuff and spotlight time. Yeah, that's a tricky one. You want to reward involvement, but at the same time, you don't want the other players feeling left out. An issue that I'm still struggling with myself. John H. Goins thinks that vampire PC's, at least temporarily, and particularly if they're seeking redemption, is not a bad idea at all. And a heavy-handed horde of celestial being removing them from play is neither fun or fair, given the number of powerful evil things wandering around canon modules unmolested.  Robert W. Heym ponders the morality of raising mindless undead. Is the body no more than a sack of meat once vacated? Is making them them as turning training acceptable behaviour for good clerics? Since they do say it's evil behaviour, I'm guessing there are some issues. Means and ends once again come into conflict. W. N. Knierim, Jr wonders how it relates to issue 164's editorial if you like to play lots of different characters. It means you can't make up your mind, duh. <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" /> Elizabeth Caetta has written a 5 volume set of stories based on the adventures of her characters, that can never really be published. Now that's dedication. Also a good reminder of how things can be huge for one person, but absolutely minute in the overall scheme of things. Makes you wonder why we bother sometimes. It's all going to be eaten up when the sun goes, and we won't even be a footnote on the cosmic scale. I'll bet those 25 pounds of typed paper have already been lost or destroyed by something. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f641.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":(" title="Frown    :("  data-smilie="3"data-shortname=":(" /></blockquote>

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