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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5296459" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 198: October 1993part 4/6The dragon project II: Another of our reviewers is roped into covering the game they worked upon before TSR poached them. This time it's Lester Smith and the Dark Conspiracy game. He doesn't do as well as Sandy, with a more conventional stalking and ravaging monstrosity, quite possibly from another dimension. Still, even if it doesn't support a whole campaign as easily as Mr Wellmeat and his plot hooks, the Darkwyrm is pretty scary both physically and magically, with 5 heads, disintegrating lightning breath, and the ability to mess up all your technological equipment. I'm not sure exactly how big and experienced a party you'll need under this system to have a good chance of beating it, but it's pretty clear starting characters need not apply. Decent enough filler that would probably have more impact if they'd spread it out better, instead of having two in one issue and then a gap of a month or two. Like the fiction, reviews and promotional columns, you have to tread the line between too much and too little to appeal to the greatest demographic, and this is another skill they appear to be slipping on lately. Campaign journal: Al-Qadim gets a turn in this column, showing us to combine arabian stuff with horror. After all, they have no shortage of their own ghost stories to draw upon. Why can't they be two tastes that taste great together? Fallen Nog and Kadar are already perfect grounds for forbidden lore, quite possibly of the sort that erodes sanity merely by reading it. Meanwhile the rest of the continent is riven by paranoia. The priests are more oppressive, the holy slayers considerably less holy, and the wizards and genies more mysterious and feared. Yak-men are another perfect horror creature with their rather nasty possession powers and skill at long term planning. It all fits together pretty easily, as if it were born to do this. Sometims, you just get an easy assignment, where everything naturally flows into place.Along with the strong advice, we also get two new kits and a monster, making this a fairly complete package with plenty of reasons for us to return to it. Looks like this is turning out to be a pretty good halloween.Priest-defenders gain the ability to turn genies as well as undead, but are members of one of those obsessive orders that can never give up their quest to destroy evil without losing their powers, and are generally not well suited for integration into society. They can turn evil in the pursuit of smiting though, giving PC's plenty of chance to get into means and ends arguments with NPC's. Sungazers fight evil, but are likely to fall to madness in their study of it, unless you have access to a cleric powerful enough to cast restoration regularly, in which case their hindrance will be mostly mitigated. A decidedly tricky one in determining game balance, since so much of their benefits and penalties are external action and situation dependent. Zakharan Kraken are pretty similar to their brethren elsewhere, only albino and slightly more powerful. They're set up to be perfect big bads, with a greater tendency to accumulate slaves and cults. Better watch out, etc etc. Horror can be things from the deep just as much as it can be undead, and we know there really are some pretty horrific looking things down there. (even if they'd actually die from pressure issues if they tried to come up to the surface) Forum: Anonymous writes in again, supporting talking things through with your players to figure out who their characters will be, and what kind of world they'll live in. A really good game starts long before you ever actually play. Whatever happened to just making stuff up as you went along? Joe Katzman actually thinks fighters need a little nerfing! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f635.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt="O_o" title="Er... what?    O_o"  data-smilie="12"data-shortname="O_o" /> Mostly due to specialisation providing an unfair advantage. Well, Len Lakofka thought the same. The disadvantages from having access to a narrower range of weapons do have to be deliberately attacked to become an issue. Another issue that probably needs tweaking. Jeremy Pataky is yet another person suffering under the yoke of officials with stupid preconceptions about gaming. Epic education fail. This stuff gets you reading, writing and thinking. But of course they don't REALLY want to encourage that, do they. <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" /> Chris Scofield is angry that churches are attacking gaming when there are far bigger and realer issues like poverty and crime around. Oh, they're old news. It's always the fads that really get the attention. Eyal Teler gives support to the idea of playing evil games. You can have a lot of fun, honest! Damn straight you can, even playing it Paranoia style. And it certainly doesn't make it easier either. You might not have to play fair, but it really is you against the world. Karim Pedersen has a fairly brutal nerf for wizards, based on temporary ability drain when they cast spells. Since it's more dangerous for high level spells, this makes it a real risk casting them. Yeah, that works, if you want to encourage a low magic campaign. Maybe a little too well. David Howery praises Roger Moore for reminding us that even most good DM's steal most of their ideas. It's all about twisting them enough that it's not immediately obvious. And even if they do spot it, twist things in the right way, and that supposed foreknowledge actually becomes a liability. Muahahaha. I like you. Roger Smith answers a whole bunch of points from previous writers. Debate needs listeners and replies, not just people talking at each other. Otherwise it's just politics. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> Chris Morris also answers lots of letters with his personal experiences on their questions. He's managed to solve the demihuman issues in his campaign, but not the one where people always pick the powerful classes. Just make them roll randomly. That reduces the odds they get to pick those classes considerably, and really pleased if they do.</blockquote>

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