Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5346832" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 204: April 1994part 4/6Campaign journal: This column is mostly co-oped by Greyhawk from this point on. As they said last month in the letters section, Greyhawk is cancelled, but there is stuff written but unpublished, and they still want to get it out. Wonder if this means Carl Sargent is still getting paid? Anyway, it's a lot better than nothing, and more evidence of support from the creative side of the company. After all, Blackmoor has never gotten any articles in here. So yeah, it's time to take a tour around the decaying ruins of the great kingdom. Back in 1982, the general public of Oerth was still unaware of just what a scumbag Ivid was. How things have changed. Now, with undead things occupying many high government positions, it's pretty obvious something is amiss. This is particularly the case in Rinloru, which is nearly 10% undead by now. This is why you should never let priests of Nerull have any kind of secular authority. There's plenty of other nasty sorts in power around here, and they're not all allied either. The result is interesting, but it does seem to push Oerth in the same high magic direction as Mystara and Toril. I suppose that's one of the big flaws of the metaplot heavy post Greyhawk Wars Oerth in general. Poor niche differentiation. On the other hand, the level of darkness is distinctive, this looks like a world where not only is evil flourishing, things could easily get substantially worse, which you certainly can't say for Toril. So this is an article that highlights why this stuff wasn't to many people's tastes, even if it isn't badly written in itself. As the primary writer, Carl must take both the praise and the knocks for this. Eye of the monitor: Ooh, the question of if computer games can be art. Now that is an interesting one. Their heavy degree of interactiveness means they can't simply be passively appreciated like a painting or TV show. On the other hand, there is a strong element of skill involved in creating them, and they do exist entirely to entertain and provoke thought. (well, apart from DDR, wii fit and stuff like that) Like Sandy, I'll probably incline towards the yes camp. Things like the mario and zelda series are definitely going to be remembered as one of the big cultural components of our era, far more than most bands, authors or painters. By that yardstick, there's definitely a degree of artistry involved. Companions of Xanth throws sharp contrast upon our intro. The works of Piers Anthony are never going to be remembered as high art, to be honest. The game does not stray far from that formula, with terrible puns aplenty and a very linear plot.  No alternate choices or sequence-breaking here, just straightforward puzzle solving. Meh. Bloodnet mixes cyberpunk & supernatural shadowrun style, with you playing a detective gradually turning into a vampire. This involves both brutal combat and lots of talking to various people to accomplish your goals and survive, making it quite the challenge for Sandy. Save frequently, for as is genre convention, many of the people you deal with will double-cross you, and it may well be easier to just avoid that subplot altogether. Still, it does seem to have some rather cool bits, with random killing accelerating your decline into monstrosity in a pleasing way. World of Xeen:CD-ROM gets lower marks than the text would indicate. It may be fun, but it also looks and sounds rather primitive these days. And in this fast-progressing world, that is definitely worth subtracting marks for. Escape from Monster Manor also gets low marks for being simplistic and sloooow. Disk based games need to buffer more, so loading times don't ruin the experience. Silly game designers. Libram X explains the cosmology of their universe. Also, Holy crap tentacle monster vs King kong mickey mouse world! You don't want to live there. My poor poor SAN score.Forum: Mohammed F. Kamel presents the case for keeping the numbers out of the players hands, and sticking to vivid descriptions instead. This is a particularly good technique for horror gaming, where you want them to feel uncertain and out of control. Todd A. Silva gives his contribution to the question of what a paladin should do to the fallen foe. In general, they should pick the merciful option, unless it's completely obvious they're going to offend again if given another chance. Hitting someone when they're down is pretty well established as dishonourable. David Carl Argall reminds us that a paladin defeating villains but not killing them shouldn't let them go. They ought to be turned over to the rightful authorities to serve the proper sentence, whether they say they're sorry or not. Otherwise you're making a mockery of the law. Course, if the law is corrupt, or as incompetent as Arkham Asylum, then you might be justified in taking matters into your own hands. Chad Cuss also tries to deal with the problem of just when a paladin should actually be violent, and how far they should go. As with many others, he reminds us that Lawful good does not mean stupid or lacking in proactivity. They should be actively seeking out evildoers to thwart and damsels to rescue.</blockquote>

Verification