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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5181719" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 182: June 1992part 5/8Kings of the caravans: More Realms NPC's from Ed. Seems that's a real growth industry for him at the moment. Endless supplies of spells, monsters and magic items alone do not a complete world make. This time, the theme is merchants. Attach an identity to those you're shopping from to make the setting a little more filled in. Llachior Blackthorn is from Tethyr. He's not only useful from a trading PoV, but because he hires adventurers to deal with pirates, giving us an easy way into adventure that doesn't involve taverns again. He's also looking for a wife, and his list of desired traits make it quite likely that a female adventurer would fit them. So that's two very good reasons he could find himself a recurring NPC in your game. Ondul Jarduth is Llachior's cleric sidekick. He has some trepidation about him getting married, which could be spun in a very slashy way if you ask me. A fairly quiet one, he seems like a character you'd benefit from staying on the good side of. Sharest Tanthalar is an insanely twinked character who's good at everything, has psionics, and is probably a Harper. She's singlehandedly killed mind flayers, Drow, and lots of zhentarim, and is personal friends with some of the most important people in the realms. Just another canon-sue to steal your glory if you get in trouble. Emrock Uerngul is a thief who's managed to earn enough to go straight.  He's still got a strong sense of mischief, and an unorthodox friendship with a sentient manta ray that profits them both. Thanks to that, he can get goods delivered when no-one else can. Sounds very much like a PC to me. The role of computers: Buck Rogers matrix cubed is another of our official tie-ins from SSI, using much the same system as their Forgotten Realms games. It doesn't get 5 stars, because it doesn't really advance the interface and graphics, but they still give it a positive result, with plenty of advice on getting through the early parts of the game. Now if they'd only implement automapping, the reviewers would be a lot happier. Planet's death is a second sci-fi adventure rpg, albeit one that takes you rather further afield than buck did. As is often the case, they encourage careful resource management and frequent saving. Rushing through the story is not the way to win. Again, there are a few system bugs that keep it from being 5 star material, but it seems there's no shortage of decent sci-fi rpgs out there. Dragonslayers on the screen: Another curious peripherally connected article this month. I must say, the idea of getting a bunch of friends together and having each one take the role of a character in a computer RPG isn't one that occurred to me. It seems rather like it would combine the worst aspects of the two media. The inflexibility of playing a computer game, and the bickering and internal sabotage a tabletop RPG group can suffer from. Having one person on the keyboard while the others are just backseat drivers does not seem like a recipe for fun to me. And indeed, this does point out the problems that are likely to occur. You need to make sure everyone is useful somehow, such as by mapping or doing the number crunching. Even then, I'm not absolutely certain about this. The days when easy internet multiplayer and games designed to take advantage of this will make it a moot issue are still a good few years away, and I think this kind of thing would definitely be less fun than just playing the game myself. Still, nice to see them trying out new ideas, even if they don't work that well. As with the dice one, this is more interesting than another bunch of formulaic monsters. Pen power II: More survey questions? They obviously have a lot of things they want to think about. This one is mainly collecting demographic data. A decade ago, their fanbase was largely teenage and nearly all male. Just how much will that have changed in the meantime? See you in a few months time.</blockquote>

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