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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5123694" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 176: December 1991part 2/6Forum: Terry C Parlett praises the idea of manoeuvres for fighters. Giving people more of a feel of control is a good thing for the game in his opinion, and allows cool descriptions to really mean something. Now all it needs are a few clarifications. Dave Wile tells us that if we set boundaries for our players, and we need to have consequences when they break them, otherwise they won't work. If they're incompetent, they should die. If they're psychotic, the law should be on their tracks. Simple as that. Michael Kellam shows us the way to stop players from engaging in random slaughter. Make sure the people they kill have connections to other people who will miss them. They can't kill everyone, can they, and if they do, more will come of increasing power. Tony Quirk points out that killing the wrong people will have mechanical penalties for quite a few classes. Byebye cleric & paladin powers. And without magical healing, a party will have to be much more cautious in picking their battles. Mare Blanchard also reminds us that the only way to stop characters from slaughtering NPC's at the slightest provocation is to make sure there's consequences for doing it. Another one we've heard before, and likely will do so again. It's a lesson we have to learn even in real life, and it's one we have to learn again separately for internet interactions, for some reason. Ahh, the joys of a compartmentalising brain.  The voyage of the princess ark: Looks like this christmas, it's a step into full on western gaming as the Ark reaches Cimaroon county. They go to a saloon, endure the bawdy entertainment, watch a gunfight, and go a-prospectin for cinnabryl. There they face goblin desperados, enjoy a wagon-chase, and rescue a village of oppressed tortles from exploitative miners. Meanwhile, the Ark is trapped above the clouds by stormy weather, and faces several Heldanic warbirds. While amusing, I think this a is a step too far into direct pastichery for my tastes. You're supposed to pick and combine real world elements to make something new, not just steal straight and plonk something in without attention to the stuff around. I mildly disapprove. Rather a grab-bag of crunchy stuff this month as well. We have deck plans and stats for Heldanic warbirds. We have info on Cimaroon. We have stats for their six-shooters, and a whole load of related skills such as staredowns and quick-drawing. As with the story part, this is entertaining, but not quite up to the standards of recent issues, as they get a bit silly. Not the series' best instalment. V:tM gives us the anarchs cookbook. Row row fight the power, watch out for the sabbat boogeyman. Soon you'll be sidelined as people prefer to play the genuine rebels, not brats who talk big and run back to hide behind daddy's cape when things get tough. Propping up your campaign: Hmm. This is a topic they haven't really covered before. While in LARPing, the use of props to enhance the mood is pretty much standard, it doesn't get much attention round here. About the closest is probably issue 135's reviews section, where Ken did go into detail on products which come with visual aids. So another cool idea that seems obvious gets a good filling in by Spike Y Jones. While it concentrates on modern day games, which are obviously easiest to cater for in this respect, it also mentions past and future ones as well. They don't have to be actual objects, photographs will do just fine, and are pretty easy to get hold of. (and even more so now than then with a camera in every phone and effortless copying of the digital data they're comprised of) And theres plenty of cool little things you can find in antique shops that would make good props. Even a scribbled picture is better than nothing. And there's several meta tricks you can pull, like arranging to have someone call or otherwise interfere with the game, that work really well for horror games in particular. So there is indeed quite a few ideas they've never suggested before, that can make a nice impact on the quality of your games if used sometimes. Another case of the magazine providing just what it ought to be.</blockquote>

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