Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5200968" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 185: September 1992part 1/6124 pages. A nice dark sun cover adorns this months issue. By no co-incidence at all, this is also this month's special topic, exactly a year after it first got unleashed upon us. I wonder if they're going to try and make a regular thing of this. Surely not, when even the Forgotten Realms hasn't managed that kid of privilege. Maybe I'll be interestingly surprised, maybe not. In any case, let's see how the gameline has developed over the past year. In this issue:Letters: A letter asking why TSR don't release their games on Atari formats. Not profitable enough mate. Don't want to throw good money after bad by supporting a dead system. A letter asking one new question and two old ones. Roger uses this as an opportunity to once again drop subtle hints to upper management that we are well overdue another best of. The demand is obviously there, why will you not authorise it? It's easy money for old rope. A letter from a Rifts fanboy saying Dragon sucks for not covering palladium stuff, and their reviewers suck for being so harsh on it. Comedy gold, enabling Roger to give a level-headed yet sarcastic response. You keep your facts away from the froth. Let's not even mention what happened when White Wolf tried to cover their products in response to a similar letter. A letter suggesting that maybe the time is now right for them to put a hologram on their cover. All the cool comics are doing it. Roger gives a cautious response. Maybe for issue 200. Maybe. Not making any promises. Don't send complaining letters if we don't. Editorial: The annoying letters apparently continue at a rate high enough that Roger can't print all of them. He can however give them a good rebutting. Flying space whales are an entirely viable form of fantasy! Not every cover has to involve something badass staring at the camera going Raar. AD&D 2nd edition is not dumbed down! If anything, it takes even more effort to keep track of and incorporate everything. Similarly, 1st edition is not some perfect holy canon. The number of things left open or inconsistent is quite considerable, and we've filled in quite a few of those gaps in the meantime. And finally, gamers can be any age, race, religion, sexuality, political affiliation, etc that they like. As long as they can create a character and roll them bones, they can join in. Assuming other roles regularly should breed tolerance and empathy. Well, it seems that they still have their share of vitriolic lamers writing in. Don't sweat it. It shows that they're invested in the game, and also keeps you from getting complacent. Plus, comedy. It's much better than bland positive stuff. The Arena Master's Arsenal: More weapons! More ingenious and often rather ugly weapons with special tricks beyond just inflicting damage. Another case where this may not catch fighters up with spellcasters in the amount of new crunch they've got, but certainly doesn't hurt. While intended for Dark Sun, I'm sure you can slip these into your exotic cultures on other worlds. Bard's Friends are multipronged knife things that are easily used from concealment and make good parrying weapons. They look like each one is likely to be a bit different, customised to the hand of their maker and whatever sharp things they have to lash together. Cahulaks are halfway between nunchuks and grappling hooks, and can be useful both in hand to hand and short range combat, for purposes of pain and grappling. As both a tool and a weapon, they definitely seem like a good one to carry around just in case, particularly for rogues. Crushers take the principles of leverage and momentum and seriously exaggerate them. 25' long poles? Not getting that in many dungeons. On the other hand, in a wide open field, this can let you attack lots of things at once. Interesting idea though. I wonder how they came up with that one. Datchi Clubs are huge spiky honeycombs of pain, the worst kind of phallic metaphor. Rotate them when attacking for extra larceration based agony. And you thought corncobs and pineapples were bad. Dragon's paws have blades on both ends and the middle, like klingon batleths, only more practical. You can use the ends as protection from the sides while attacking to the front. Gouges are big axe/polearms with shoulder straps to give you leverage and reduce the risk of disarming. You can also do flashy spin attacks for double damage if you have the space. Very PC'ish. Master's whips have special barbs designed to contain poison. If you're really good, you can have a different one applied to each lash and control which one gets the enemy. I must admit that sounds both awesome and fairly plausible. The themed tricks you could pull would be quite considerable. Tortoise blades are a good example of using what you can get. Take the shell and bones, and use them to make a two-in-one blade and shield combo that makes for great dual-wielding and parrying action. If anyone's going to have a chance against Drizzt, it's a gladiator from the big desert. Weighted Pikes have a sharp bit on one end, and a spiky club on the other. They're most effective on large creatures, but their versatility of damage types means they're good as a primary weapon. After all, you never know what'll be resistant to one but not the other. Widows Knives are double pronged nasties that can be spring-loaded and used with great precision both in hand to hand and ranged. Now there's one you'll need at least a little metal to craft. Still, it's a good end to an awesome collection.</blockquote>

Verification