Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5134020" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 177: January 1992 part 4/6 The role of computers: Copy protection strikes again! This time, they cover another awkward angle. That of certain cheat tricks having the potential to completely bork your disc. This means that if you want to use them, it's strongly advised to use copies, which runs into problems of it's own. A set of problems that cease to be an issue once CDs and DVDs become the dominant medium, and many games are loaded entirely onto your hard drive, so you don't need to insert the disk to play. Still, it is a good illustration why I don't miss that era of computing at all. Thank hardworking humanity for technological advancement. Might and magic III:Isles of Terra is another strong entry in this series. Still a big adventure, but there are a lot more conveniences than there used to be, like automapping and various new action options. They give you plenty of hints on how to play and what to buy first. The number of franchises keeps on building. Gateway to the savage frontier is another SSI Forgotten Realms game. It only gets 4 stars, simply because it hasn't improved upon their previous games at all. Just churning out new adventures formulaically won't get you praised, even in TSR's own magazine. Martian Memorandum also gets a less than glowing review. While the graphics and sound are quite good, the gameplay is awkward and controls are inconsistent. Compared to last month's pick, it feels slapdash and rushed out. Wing Commander II doesn't get the 6 star treatment it's precursor did, but still manages the full 5. Twice as big as the original, and allowing you to transfer your characters from it, it builds on the good features of it quite nicely. It does require quite powerful system specs for the time though, so not everyone will be able to buy it. Space Quest I gets rereleased with upgrades that take advantage of the new technology. This is definitely considered a success by the reviewers. Spider-Man for the Genesis is a decidedly interesting take on his powers. Climb walls, negotiate open levels quickly with web-slinging, recharge your web-shooter by taking photos of the things you're fighting and selling them to the papers, watch out for the random appearances by Venom, and try to get it all done in an overall time limit. This was the demo game in my LGS for ages, and had some most frustrating bits in, particularly level 4, with the gorilla and sandman. Ahh, nostalgia. Haven't thought about that in years. Ediolon, city in the sky for shadow world. Now there's a fairly common (but still cool) idea. Dark sun steps outside the city-states with Slave Tribes. Yeah, they don't have it easy either. Forum: Harald Jeffery proposes docking your PC's charisma if they show no sign of being able to negotiate peacefully with NPCs. That or a Hound of Ill Omen. Aleaxes probably aren't a bad choice either. Hey, bad boys can be cool too. How many serial killers have fan clubs in reality, in contravention of all common sense? Ian Johnsson shows somewhat more finesse in his attempts to get annoying players to accept NPC's right to exist. But if they still refuse, just let them be outlaws, feared by all. It is fantasy, after all. C. J. Calo thinks the best way to make an NPC invaluable without having them step on the players is to make them primarily a source of information, not combat prowess. Making them able to kick the ass of all the PC's singlehandedly is only for the most anvilicious situations. Jeff Ibach Is baffled how this situation began. Why keep trying to use NPC's as part of the party is the PC's obviously don't want them. And why give them equipment better than the PC's at all. That's just asking for trouble. And also, remember turnabout is fair play. Now they have all these cool items, they're open to being robbed in the night and left for dead. Ahh yes. Turnabout is ALWAYS fair play. Muahahaha. One guaranteed method a GM has of dealing with any problem. William Lee Williams talks about the problems and benefits of using pregenerated materials. As usual, there's both benefits and drawbacks. With the vast amounts around these days, you get lots of different ideas and perspectives, albeit at a price.  Of course, other people may also have read those ideas. Even if your players don't cheat, them owning the modules themselves does alter the experience a bit. Angelo Barovier is also talking about the problem preexisting worlds present. The biggest one, of course, is the inability of PC's to make a difference to the setting. He also suggests using the Almanac style of keeping worlds vibrant and progressing forward day by day, which will of course be taken up by the known world/mystara shortly. Looks like this little idea, like the loose leaf monster sheets one, had it's origin in this magazine. Now that's something I get to say a good deal less these days. Rick Tazzle goes back to the decanter of endles water article from issue 171, with some more defensive uses for it. Shoot it down the mouth of anything with breath weapons. Or make the ultimate industrial power source. One of them could provide the motive energy for a whole factory. Now that's how you change the world with a single item. Toby Martin points out the many conflicts inherent in the various OA classes. They have to juggle a whole bunch of social and personal restrictions that drag the party apart if enforced strictly. Sounds about right. This is why adventurers are so frequently rebels, and also why just allowing players to make their characters in a vacuum leads to problems along the line. Gary did deliberately design the barbarian to be a pain in the butt, and zeb was just following in his footsteps here. Whether you see these conflicts as an obstacle to adventure or an adventure in themselves is up to you. Stefan Schultz brings up the old argument about how much a serfs life sucked under feudalism. If it wasn't so bad, why did so many people flee it as soon as industrialisation made large cities an economically viable option? Joe Piela speaks out in favour of scale mail, using his actual experience as a professional armorer for the SCA. What an awesome job to have on your resume. If anyone would know about it's protective qualities and ease of repair these days, it's him.  Beejay Johnson (<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f635.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt="O_o" title="Er... what?    O_o"  data-smilie="12"data-shortname="O_o" /> <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f635.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt="o_O" title="Er... what?    o_O"  data-smilie="12"data-shortname="o_O" /> [^0^] ≥O≤ <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f631.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":o" title="Eek!    :o"  data-smilie="9"data-shortname=":o" /> ) wants half-ogres back. With neither them nor Barbarians updated to 2nd ed, the big dumb smashy guy niche has lost it's best fits. They'll be back soon. The splatbooks are rolling out at quite a comfortable rate, bringing everything up to date. And finally we have another anonymous letter from a female reader complaining about the blatant sexism in her not so friendly local game shop. Gaaaaah. How many years have we had this problem repeated. Patronising behaviour bad. Don't make me have to come over there and hammer it in with an actual hammer.</blockquote>

Verification