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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5174142" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 181: May 1992part 5/8TSR Previews: Toril is a busy little world as usual. Al-Qadim gets a monstrous compendium, MC13. Hang on, the Fiend Folio was number 14 and that was out last month. Someone's been la-ate on their deadlines. <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" /> Ed Greenwood on the other hand, probably wasn't late with FRQ1: Haunted halls of eveningstar. A spooky little story, also intended for novice players. (set as it is right in the middle of safe territory. ) We'll have them going east to get revenge on the Horde before you know it. The Harpers also continue to get lots of attention. Book 4, The Night Parade has more spooky shenanigans. What are these creatures, and will they seem a lot less scary once statted out. Ravenloft is also feeling more than a little spooky. RR5: Van Richten's guide to ghosts lets you scale your insubstantial boogaboos up or down so even the scariest party has to solve the puzzle of how to dissipate their frustrations to get rid of them permanently, rather than hacking and slashing with swords +5. Dark sun, on the other hand, is scary in a consciously contrasting way as usual. Dragon Kings reveals just how obscene 21st level + wizard/psionicists are. You can beat them in a straight fight, but you'll have to be similarly geared up and ready to roll. Lots of generalised bumpf this time round. We get another calendar of recycled artwork. Mostly Dragonlance, as they seem popular with the casual crowd, but some Forgotten Realms and Dark Sun stuff fills things out. Clerics follow in Wizards footsteps and get their own spell card collection. Once again, useful but hardly essential. And we get this year's batch of trading cards released, which is even less so on both counts. Yawnarama. Ooh. Gamma world gets another edition. It's had more resurections than most comic book characters over the years. Homebody heroes: Len Carpenter once again is prolific enough to get multiple articles published in the same issue. Here he tackles the irritating issue of nonadventuring characters with high levels in communities. Spellcasters and rogues can work their way up over the years primarily via their class based xp bonuses, but it certainly isn't as effective as adventuring in producing a well-rounded individual able to cope with anything. This brings the conflict between narrativist and simulationist design into the forefront. Is it right to assume that all NPCs had to work their way up to their power level in a way similar to PCs? If they didn't, should they be penalised for it? It's the kind of question that shows how much a class and level based system jarrs with attempts to create a naturalistic reality. Since this'll only apply to NPC's anyway, it seems a bit pointless to engage in detailed tracking of their skillset deficiencies. So it's one of those white elephant articles that's nice around to have because it's thought provoking, but I wouldn't want to slow things down by strictly applying the rules ideas in it in actual play. Role-playing reviews: Ooh. Vikings. Now there's an adventuring friendly culture if ever there was one. No surprise that they've got enough products for different systems for Rick to do one of his compare and contrast themed reviews. Vikings: nordic roleplaying for runequest gets the best review here. It mixes historical and fantasy elements in about the right quantity, the adventures are good,  and it all seems very playable. His only real complaint is the ironically short shrift rune magic gets.AD&D Vikings campaign sourcebook is from Zeb Cook, who of course also brought us Oriental Adventures. It doesn't go as far as that in providing new classes and removing existing stuff, but it doesn't have too really. Still, the crunch is the best part of the book, with adventure and setting material a bit lacking. You'll also need Legends & Lore to really get the most out of it. This is definitely a case where Gotta Collect 'em all is an issue. GURPS Vikings also gets a middling review. More of a toolbox than the other two, it does tend towards the mundane, with only a few new magical bits and pieces.  As usual with GURPS stuff, it helps you think clearly about exactly what kind of game you want to create, and how to accomplish that. Rick also decides to review a bunch of GM screens and the stuff that comes with them. Vampire has an introductory adventure that is both pretentious and silly. Spelljammer has a bunch of amusing little fold-up cardboard bits and pieces, as does Champions. Star wars includes a 64 page adventure that'd make a decent supplement in itself, while CoC includes tons of little bits and pieces of dubious utility. What's fairly obvious is that few companies consider them worth it as a standalone product.</blockquote>

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