Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5271158" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 195: July 1993part 3/6The game wizards 2: Looks like the Amazing Engine is getting a second promotional article as well. You know, a good actual article with new crunch and fun writing would do more to sell it to me than half a dozen of these promo columns.  As with the Dragon Strike stuff, here we tackle things from a different angle to last month. There, it was Bughunters getting the spotlight, this time it's For Faerie, Queen and Country. Where that had substantial rules for tactical combat based on sacrificing movement points for various actions, this brings an open-ended magic system, and rules for all sorts of fae races and their human half-breeds. The whole thing is designed to minimise rollplaying and maximise roleplaying <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f644.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":rolleyes:" title="Roll eyes    :rolleyes:"  data-smilie="11"data-shortname=":rolleyes:" /> Yes, seriously, they actually say that. Combine that with the general cheesiness of their actual play example, (Mister Wog the frenchman? :facepalm: ) and a lot of my sympathy over the game's failure is rapidly evaporating. I really shouldn't be surprised at whimsy in a game this fae heavy, but I still find the tone of this horribly grating. Definite fail. Pandemonium! Adventures in tabloid world. I don't remember this one. Would someone be so kind as to shed enlightenment? The marvel-phile: New Characters! Hot off the presses! Getchore new characters here! Proctor & the Gatherers. All dressed up, posing, going raar, and ready to fight your heroes! Manipulative psychic supervillain extraordinaire; his wizened, also psychic crone sidekick; a cyborg with mobility, sensory & shielding powers; a big amiable bestial lunk of a tank; and a shapeshifting creature that duplicates others. Pretty decent team really, not totally stereotypical, and with plenty of variety. And they have a pretty interesting storyline too. Heroes from another reality, they've found themselves in the antagonist role here due to their bosses manipulations. Which of them will do heel face turns is still up in the air. Although maybe less so now, depending on how fast the turnaround time for articles is these days. Will any of these characters stick and become recurring ones after their storyline is over? Or is this just another part of their endless attempts to keep up with the obscure parts of the Marvel universe? Either way, it feels very much like business as usual here. Forum returns. Evidently they had so much stuff they wanted to cram into the birthday issue, something had to give. It is extra big this time, so that should make up for it. Owen Muir speaks out against sexism and agism. But he does point out that Alias did have a valid IC reason for wearing impractical cheesecake armour. I suppose that makes it all better then. She was created to be an object of cheesecake IC AND OOC. There's so much wrong with that concept I'm really not sure where to begin. Peter Rivellini praises issue 189. We need some more interesting themed issues like that. But anyway, there is some good mapmaking software out there. Feel free to order it direct, since it doesn't have major label distribution.Cynthia Higginbotham has cheaper suggestions. MS Paint! Tee Hee. Frankly, that would be trickier and slower than doing it by hand for me. W.A.N also thinks that shelling out several hundred dollars for the professional software would not be a wise investment. Think how many gamebooks you can buy with that! Yeah, some of these things can be pretty obscene. It's like academic textbooks. The development costs outweigh the demand, so they have to set prices far above the material costs of duplication. John F. Wherry suggests getting some shareware. Ahh, this once again reminds me why I love the internet. And also why it makes such a mess of old commercial models. How can you sell stuff when people are giving it away, and also copying your stuff and giving that away for free too. William B. Philips has yet another suggestion. Being in the army does have it's perks in terms of exposure to technology. No shortage of options then, as long as you pay the price. Craig Judy recommends a bit of software that only costs $30. See, that sounds like a decent price to me. Now, how many copies would you have to sell at that price to pay for the developers and still make a decent profit? Troy Herman goes waaaaaaaaay back, and tackles the issue of Paintballing prejudice. Really, they're in much the same boat as we are, and you shouldn't snipe at them. As with Jake and the LARPing crap, it's depressing to see our writers falling prey to the same prejudice that they decry in others. Dennis Rudolph recommends you watch the antiques roadshow. No, seriously. There's so much cool stuff to draw upon. Tee Hee. History is not boring at all. Get your plot devices where your players least suspect. Matthew W. Hurd has profited quite a bit from giving his address out in the magazine. Now he has a number of cool pen pals. See, the system works! The right combination of forcefulness and god manners gets you furthest with both genders. Christopher T. C. Miller gives methods for encouraging a long campaign that keeps people engaged. You need to wind them along with carrots, not push them forward with sticks. And don't hesitate to draw upon realistic stuff to fill out background details. Bryan Fairfield kicks the complaints about the complete bard's handbook into high gear, with some extensive statistical analysis of how powerful and versatile multiclass bards with kits are. His group is now comprised almost entirely of them. It's a big problem. He also suspects the complete book of elves will make things even worse. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> How very very perceptive of him. Get better rules editors for your splatbooks! Vincent Nasso is another person who finds multiclass combinations generally turn out superior to single classed characters of the same XP total. It's all different facets of the same issue. How long will this breakout of complaints last? Talus London Young has a whole bunch of mean nerfs for multiclassed characters, that probably go rather too far. 10% more failure on everything? Are the penalties from splitting XP and ability scores not enough? Yeeesh.</blockquote>

Verification