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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5141522" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 178: February 1992part 4/6The marvel-phile: A third set of characters rescued from the scrap-heap this month. Leir, the celtic god of lightning, which makes him a rival of Thor. Not a bad guy, but a hot-headed arrogant twit who is easily tricked, as so many gods are. Still, even he doesn't have as big a self-control problem as Nobilus, a flawed clone of Thor (again?!  Silly mad scientists, forgetting the inverse ninja law. ) What was the High Evolutionary thinking trying a stunt like that? In any case, it didn't turn out well for him, and we won't be seeing these guys again very often, which once again makes it pretty obvious why they were cut. More filler here, I'm afraid. Role-playing reviews is taken over by Rick Swan. Another personal favorite writer of mine (apart from the complete paladins handbook, which sucked) We finally get star ratings on our reviews here as well, (how long have the computer team been using them without the others catching on) which is another positive development in my opinion. Anyway, this month's review topic is another visit to minis based wargaming. Rick notes that while they may still seem popular at conventions it is now a surprisingly small number of people who actually play regularly. Although he doesn't phrase it so negatively, the market isn't in such good condition these days, with only a few big companies remaining. But ironically, the rulesets are possibly better than they've ever been. (now there's another familiar tale from both music and gaming) So I guess it's now his job to persuade us we want to buy things we don't need, and keep this hobby going a little longer. Fantasy Warriors is Grenadier's attempt to provide a system for their many minis. It gets a solid rather than brilliant result. It's easy to learn, and the minis that come with it are quite nice, but there is some irritating rules cruft, and no sample scenarios at all. A new edition could make quite a few improvements. The AD&D 2nd ed Battlesystem miniatures & skirmishes rules do slightly better, but still aren't perfect. Still, they are a substantial improvement on the 1st ed Battlesystem, with the presentation getting a clean-up akin to that of the various AD&D corebooks. The rules are nicely simplified as well, making running battles involving several hundred creatures on each side entirely feasible. The only major flaw (although it is a very big one), is the handling of magical effects, which is way too sketchy. This limits how fantastical things can really get, without some serious DM adjudication. Dark Sun'll probably take a bit of work then. Bladestorm also gets a quite positive result. It manages to have both a good system, including cool magic; and a nicely imaginative setting to justify all the fighting that takes place. Strange races, advanced rules that improve the game rather than slowing it down, and spells that are designed around the battlefield make it all hang together nicely without being generic, and it's his favourite game of the month overall. War Law gets our worst review. Like the rest of Rolemaster, it's insanely complex, with it's barrage of math and tables doing Rick's head in. Someone must be able to make head and tail of it, given the number of supplements they've managed, but if even experienced game writers have trouble, he wonders who the buyers are. Novel ideas: The novels section continues to bloat in size as befits it's proportionate profitability. Course, they also have a couple of new gamelines as well, so they can increase the number of novels by splitting them amongst more subdivisions. Basic D&D is getting novels, Dark Sun, Ravenloft, and Spelljammer are busy building up their own fanbases, and they vainly try to keep the XXVc line alive for another year. They do seem to be reducing the number of generic books though, going from 6 last year to only 4 this time. Guess my hunch that they don't sell as well was probably right. Even so, that's at least 29 new books this year, several every month. More than enough for most people's disposable incomes, unless you're a total addict. Still, they're not publishing nearly as many novels as they are game books, apart from in the Dragonlance line. So no great problems here, yet. The game wizards: This month, our other promotional column concentrates on the Marvel Superheroes game. Just like the basic D&D game last year, this is going through a revamp. Looks like they're reducing the number of adventures, and going for more splatbooks based upon specific superhero and villain groups. Mutants, Dr Doom & Latveria, The Avengers, and Spider-man's rogue gallery are their first choices. I suppose it fits in with their general policy at the moment, but I can see this getting very barrel-scraping within a few years. It also encourages you to use the canon characters in your games even more, rather than inventing your own heroes and villains, which is mildly objectionable on a creative level. I guess we'll see what changes they'll make in a few years, when the shine on this new trick starts to wear off. In any case, I can't say I'm too enthusiastic, but since they've managed to turn around dubious premises before, I'm not going to prejudge. Any opinions on this particular change of direction for the line?</blockquote>

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