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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5347696" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 204: April 1994part 5/6Role-playing reviews: This time, Lester decides to focus on card games, or at least, games that incorporate cards. Not everyone is content with just dice as a randomiser. And of course, with Magic: the Gathering making real waves, the scene seems to be set for a whole bunch of people trying to use them in some form, quite possibly in tacked on and bandwagon jumpy ways. This is a new topic, and so should be quite interesting. Quest for the faysylwood sends your adventurers on a quest into the unknown, trying to find the legendary forest. Draw cards, which determine the lands you travel through, the challenges you face, and the dangers you can throw in the paths of your competitors. Sounds like many a board game out there, only with cards. Lots of tactics available here, which means that the leaders of the pack tend to get knocked back again by everyone else, keeping things dramatic. I can see myself having fun with this one. Once upon a time doesn't do so well, with Lester finding the rules both too strict in some ways, and too vague in others. It is very much a game of skill, with winning or losing a matter of weaving the cards you're given into a coherent story. On the other hand, it looks good as a means of breaking writer's block. like Eno's oblique strategies. Make of that what you will. Dark Cults is a game of gods manipulating a mortal's life. This of course leads to all sorts of hijinks, frequently fatal. Of course, the nature of card decks means they generally peter out anticlimactically, with the protagonist escaping or dying. Well, that's how it happens in real life. You really need to try to make a game become narrative simply by naturally following the rules. Creatures and cultists turns the tables, being a card came of mad god cultists competing to see who can summon their dark god and destroy or take over the world first. This is pretty funny actually, with all kinds of chaos ensuing when you mix the mundane and magical to sabotage your opponents. You'll never be able to play Call of Cthulhu with a straight face again. Sage advice: Do you get strength bonuses to attack and damage when you push a rock off a ledge on someone (no. Gravity is doing most of the work, not you. Skip does not approve of credit stealers )How hard is it to hit the broad side of a barn (harder than you think, especially in a high pressure situation with missile weapons. )How do beholders reproduce (See the ecology of the beholder, waaaaaay back in issue 76. Even Skip has trouble remembering stuff from that long ago. ) If I accidentally break a crystal shell and let all the phlogiston in, killing everyone, do I get XP for killing everything in the system (there are so many holes in that logic Skip doesn't even know where to start. Let's just say no, you can't play this storyline. Skip will dispatch the canon police to retcon you if you persist. )Can Dwarven booze replace greek fire (Almost. It'd certainly make a good improvised substitute. But it's not as useful as dwarf-bread plate armour. Now that's a truly impenetrable defence.)What happens if a toothless man is turned into a vampire (retractable fangs! Woo! ) Can a molydeus sever heads with an adjusted roll of 24 or 25 (yes. Basic math, my dear, once again.)Why do you have stats for gods if we can't kill them (We don't. We only give stats for their avatars these days. Skip pitys yo, fool)How long does it take to memorize a spell, oh great sage (10 minutes per spell level. This gets very tedious at high level)The dragon project: Car wars! Another of those games that seems to have surprising survivability. Since they've done crossovers with them before, it's no surprise that they get a turn in the Project. Now, how do we incorporate dragons into a fairly low-key sci-fi setting? Well, they managed clones with memory backups in issue 166. A little genetic engineering should do the job. So get ready to face gigantic genetically engineered alligators, able to run at 20mph for short bursts, and with snouts tough enough that if they ram you, your car may well be damaged or overturned. That'll give a shock to people expecting a more conventional battle, even if it won't make a particularly credible extended threat when the protagonists have flamethrowers and missile launchers attached to their cars. The setting stuff is pretty good too, with nice touches of humour making this feel appropriate for the issue without going so far as to break suspension of disbelief. This is definitely making me reappraise Car Wars as a premise suitable for interesting long-term gaming in. Like Divine Right, I'd now be fairly enthusiastic to pick it up if I should stumble across it in the shops. Fiction: A brush with life by Tim Emswiler. A little while ago, we had a review of a book where someone gained the power to bring things they painted to life. Here we get a rather more humorous spin on that idea. A young student finds that the minis he paints are coming to life. Unfortunately, they're not even remotely under his control, and rather annoying and demanding. This leads to comedy with great ease, and eventually results in the protagonist giving up painting altogether. Oh well. Some gifts are more trouble than they're worth. Better to learn that now than by leaving new york a smoking ruin when the statue of liberty decides to scourge the world of all evildoers. I rather like this one, as I generally tend to when they incorporate a bit of sadism into their humour. Now there's a pattern I have no objection to realising.</blockquote>

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