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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5126091" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 176: December 1991part 4/6Role-playing reviews does some more boardgames. They seem to be doing that more frequently these days. Once again, it's because they like a bit of variety. And it's not as if the two things are so dissimilar that you can't learn from what works in board games. Judicious stealing is one of the easiest ways to progress through life.   The awful green things from outer space of course, is a Tom Wham creation, originally appearing in issue 28 of this very magazine. Obviously, he retained the rights to it himself, because it's now published by Steve Jackson Games. It seems to have increased in visual quality and sophistication since then, but retains it's strong sense of fun. Like most of his games, both randomness and skill play significant roles, keeping it fun and surprising through repeated play. So when exactly did he leave TSR again? Scotland yard is another fun one suitable for short breaks. One person plays a criminal while the others play detectives hunting him down through london, both with limited movement resources and a time limit. Obviously, the more people playing, the harder it is for the criminal to win. An interesting challenge where working together is important. Battle of the bulge is another rather familiar game, covering one of the more amusingly named battles of WWII. Set up your armies and fight, see if the Germans do any better this time around. Another one with plenty of replayability despite the seemingly limited premise. The marvel-phile: Cut characters time here. Another year has been and gone, and 128 pages just isn't enough. So here we get to see which new characters weren't considered important enough to make the grade. La Bandera, a young mutant revolutionary with social-fu power to rouse mobs. Windshear, an insecure young British hero with control over air. And Witchfire, an apprentice nature based spellcaster who's not afraid to speak her mind. As is too often the case these days, these are characters I've never heard of before, and am unlikely to do so again, thus proving why they were the ones cut from the book. They'll be first on the chopping block next time someone like Scourge strikes. Can't work up any enthusiasm over this lot. Just another way to make up a few pages in the magazine without having to rely on freelance material. Orcs nest wish us merry christmas in their own easily imitable fashion. Playing in the paleozoic: We've already had extensive looks at the Mesozoic and Cenozoic eras, and the weird animals that inhabit them in the magazine. Now Greg Detwiler takes us back a little further, to fill in the paleozoic. Lot's of increasingly odd things back there being discovered as archeologists do their work. And now you can kill them and take their stuff, not that they'll have much treasure to take. Another good example of Roger's attempts to work around a subject over the years while minimising direct rehash. Giant Opabina are exceedingly slow and rather odd looking water creatures that occupy the same kind of niche as crabs today. Their lack of armour means they aren't nearly as dangerous though. Enjoy your wading experience. Electric Agnath may be primitive fishes, but they're hardly defenceless. The water is hardly safe, since it is where life originally came from. Watch where you step in the water. Eurypterid are giant water scorpions. They're pretty wimpy compared to modern top predators, but they're still a decent challenge for basic set level adventurers. And if you can't breathe underwater, their grapples will have a definite home team advantage. Eogyrinus are proto-crocodilian amphibians. Slow on land, they'll attack from ambush, and chomp your feet. Once again, they're not really that scary compared to modern animals or D&D predators. Ironically, it might actually be a good idea to start off with the more primitive eras and move forward in play. Eryops are another slow amphibian with half-decent adaption to life on land. If they can get their teeth on you, it'll hurt, but even heavily encumbered characters'll be able to outrun them. Might not be a bad idea unless you're xp grinding. Cyclotosarus bring things a little further along the timeline, towards reptiles taking over from amphibians. Course, not having scales, it's AC is rather lower than full crocs. Cacops sees them start to develop half-decent land speed and protective bits on their body. They're still going to be outcompeted by things with scales, but it's not for lack of trying. Giant Platyhystrix are one of those things that show reality is often stranger than fiction. With a dimetrodon like sail on their back, and an oddly expanded ribcage, they're better at operating on land and regulating their temperature than most cold-blooded things. But once again, that advantage will probably not be enough against a team of co-operative warm blooded tool using mammalian killers.  Estemennosuchus have an amusingly shaped hard head, and graze on stuff, occupying the same kind of niche triceratops will do a few million years later, once the size war has really taken off. Erythrosuchus also have rather large, dinosaurian heads, and a bite to match. That's a 1 hit kill if they get a good grip on you. Not everything was wimpy back then. I'll make them suitably rare on the random encounter table. Plus, he gives us generic stats for Armoured predatory fishes and general Therapsids. And then a bunch of random encounter tables for various terrains, so I don't even have to make my own. Along with Tom Moldvay's reexaminations of the undead, this makes this one of the longest running and most useful irregular but connected features. Now, if only they could find some game useful animals in the ediacaran period. Then we could keep this going without rehash a little longer.</blockquote>

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