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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5176532" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 181: May 1992part 8/8The marvel-phile: Oh, Canada, and other mutant teams. Let's see how they've changed, in these recent years. Yes folks, it's update time. Alpha Flight have a most amusing standardised costume. The Avengers have once again tried to rehabilitate villains and failed. There's been another brotherhood of evil mutants formed. The UK team have had their big plot arc build to a climax years in the making. And the Guardians of the galaxy have split into two groups to deal with several pressing threats. There's been the usual round of deaths and resurrections, Some characters have overcome old problems, while others have new ones to deal with, and yet others have had the resent button pushed on them, bringing back annoyances they thought they'd solved. Busy busy busy. The days of largely self-contained stories are long past. And of course, though they don't mention it here, they're haemorrhaging readers as a result of this. Could TSR have stopped it's own decline if they'd learned from the lessons of the comic crash? I think that's one of those alternate universe questions we'll never truly know. But it's certainly not impossible. As usual, no sense in crying about it now. On we go. Sage advice: A mere 4 questions this issue, as skip takes the time to give some fairly pontificatory answers. I may not be so merciful, of course. Art is in the eye of the beholder! One person's junk is another ones masterpiece! How do you define a failed roll in making a work of art? (Art, like morals, and gems and jewelery is objectively definable in quality and value in D&D. Get stuffed. ) Good sux. I want more support for playing the bad guy. (Go play white wolf games then. We like our PC's to be goody two shoes. Editorial policy, donchaknow. We're not allowed to hint that being bad could be a viable option capable of prospering long term, and corruption dogs the vast majority of reality. Lorraine (Rumble of thunder, stab of organ music) won't let us, under pain of, well, pain. ) Is EVERYTHING we know about space wrong in spelljammer (no)Did your official hotline really say to ignore the rules and kick out the rules lawyers if they get in the way of the game?! (Yarly. We know our game doesn't hold up under detailed scrutiny, but instead of trying to fix it, we'll turn the blame back on the people doing the scrutinizing, and say they're the ones in the wrong for doing so. A classic tactic used by corrupt and perverted politicians, preachers and teachers to great success. ) Dragonmirth shows us how annoying living with wizards can be. It's no wonder they don't normally have relationships. Yamara winds up being the chosen one again, much to her displeasure. The twilight crew get hot and sweaty with the tentacle monster. Through the looking glass: The iraq stuff is over, and so it's straight to the reviews with minimal preamble this month. Thunderbolt mountain minis show us a mummy red dragon brooding on her nest, protecting her babies. Ral partha take us to Battletech's orient and give us a samurai inspired mech. Grenadier have both necromancers and liches. (it's like playing both country and western music in a bar)  That one of them could become the other over the course of a campaign does not seem at all improbable. Viking Forge release a set of 4 orcs. If you added up all the goblinoids ever released, you could have a decent army where every figure is unique. Stone mountain minis introduce their own creepy hive-based alien race, the Kryomek. Alternative Armies go back to oirland to get some formorians out. Unfortunately, they're made of primitive lead that breaks easily. And Black Dragon Pewter finish us off with a wizard in the middle of a little research. As is far too often the case these days, nothing here leaps out at me as being of any note. Some cool stuff in the themed section, but the rest of this issue has been rather a slog to get through. This is another one that shows how diverse and spread out they are at the moment. Yet curiously, at the same time, they're still stuck inside their own paradigm when the wider industry is changing rapidly. The wild experimentations of a few years later still seem quite a way off. Guess the long slow progress with plenty of good individual articles, but little overall influence will continue for a while yet.</blockquote>

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