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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5351019" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 205: May 1994part 3/6The role of books: The legend of nightfall by Mickey Zucker Reichert is a fairly low-key fantasy detective story, who's protagonist can alter his density. This minor magic is of course used inventively throughout the story and allows them to develop his personality better than someone with godlike power. Fairly common story. Escalate to epic to soon and you lose people. The imperium game by K D Wentworth is another novel that shows the arrival of MMORPG's was anticipated by quite a few writers. This one gets picked apart though, because it's economy doesn't hold up. If people are spending virtually their whole lives playing the game, how are they affording doing so. I think neither the writer or the reviewer fully realise how much costs are going to come down, or how addictive real MMO's can be. Many people do wreck their lives and live off their parents or unemployment benefit for years to spend 20+ hours a day on them. Reality is stranger than fiction. Fallen heroes by Dafydd ab Hugh is a Star Trek DS9 novel where nearly everyone dies. Of course, this being Star Trek, time travel is involved, and the reset button is pushed by the end of the story. Hey ho. At least it's well done this time, with characterisations being accurate and events not seeming gratuitous. Indiana Jones and the white witch by Martin Caidin, on the other hand, does not manage to sound like the Indy we know from the films. Way too much exposition, and too little action. And no sexual tension at all? That's no good. :shakes head:  A college of magics by Caroline Stevermer is a little more technologicaly advanced than the average medieval fantasy, while not being quite modern or cyberpunk. Regencypunk? Sounds good to me. Crown of fire by Ed Greenwood shows that he isn't quite as palatable over the course of an entire novel as he is in magazine articles. Elminster's voice grates on our reviewer, while the plotting ironically seems like it would work better as a module than a novel. It's like reading about a macguffin hunt from the PoV of the macguffin? Iiinteresting. Rumblings: Ooh. A sighting of Gary! Admittedly, it's because TSR sued his ass over the Dangerous Journeys game, but still, first time in a few years. Everyone is happy about the resolution? When said resolution is not only the game ceasing production, but TSR acquiring all the rights, I very much doubt Gary or GDW have the same opinion of this outcome. A little googling shows that this is another case where they bombarded them with lawyers, and probably would have lost the court case, if it were not for the fact that they had far more money to throw at the problem, forcing them to settle out of court to avoid bankruptcy. Truly a case where our evil overmistress (roll of thunder, wolves howl) worked to justify her appellation.  The rest of our gossip isn't nearly as interesting. Dragon magazine is getting a spanish edition. I wonder how long that'll last. WEG is making an indiana jones RPG. White wolf are following TSR into the novel business, quite profitably too. Margaret Weis is working on a star wars book. Lace and steel has a new publisher. Some companies are flourishing, others are suffering. Have you backed the right horse, or are we all onto a loser here really. Immortal! What colour of pretentiousness will you specialize in? Oh wonder of worlds that gives us something so incredibly easily mockable. It's all coming back to me now!The plane truth: Our third and final instalment of the teasers takes things in a very dramatic horror direction. They may be making the planes more accessible, but it's still full of powerful and alien things that can completely mess up your life if you meddle with them. The codex of the infinite planes is one of those things. You meddle in it, you risk a fate worse than death, and making the lives of many others miserable in the process. Gods are another thing you need to tread carefully around. They might be one of the primary employers, but they aren't known for their generous severance packages. (severance of your package, on the other hand) So this serves well as both a teaser and a warning. You have plenty of cool stuff to explore, but don't expect to be able to waltz out here and kill your way through every problem. Your DM should make sure this place remains wondrous and scary even at the highest levels. Now git yerselves a-buyin'. Forum: Patrick J. Dolan brings the real world perspective of an army chaplain into the paladin debate. Important in the process of sparing and treating enemies is making sure they're no longer a threat. This may be a bit harder in a fantasy world, but you still don't torture and kill a defenceless person. The ends do not justify the means. I'll bet he hated what the US army became after 9/11.  Dan Cuomo seems to have a somewhat lower standard of what counts as an unredeemable monster. Assassins and evil clerics fit into this category. I radiate dubiousness at this suggestion. Alan Clark is another person who makes sure his paladins hand people over to the judgement of the law rather than killing where feasible. Craig Hilton encourages you to spell out exactly what lawful good means in your campaign before you start. That'll at least deal with half the arguments, as they won't be transgressing from ignorance. And don't set them traps just to strip them of their powers. That kind of adversarial play is just asking for trouble. Alan Lauderdale gives us one of those letters that replies to half a dozen recent topics. But foremost of these is the alignment one. The rules are a gross oversimplification, and need some GM attention to make everything work. That is why D&D isn't a computer game. Paul Peterson turns defining morality for a campaign into an entire session in itself, requiring short essays from each of the players. Yeesh. Well, it'll solve that problem, but have fun trying to get all the players to join in. This sounds altogether too much like hard work for my liking. Eye of the monitor:  Gateway II: Homeworld is a text adventure with still shots to show you what's going on. It doesn't get a very good review, being noth primitive and rather unfair in design. Without the hint book, you're unlikely to be able to finish this. The hand of fate is not a licence of Manos, (unfortunately) just another fantasy adventure game where you point and click, selecting options off a list. It is a bit slow and easy, but Sandy likes it anyway. There are far worse in the genre. Dungeon Hack is rather more unusual. An upgrade of the roguelike principle, using the AD&D rules, it has lots of customisability, which means you can control the challenge level pretty well. And of course, near infinite replayability, as long as you don't mind the puzzles being basically the same after a while. This definitely sounds quite cool. Dark Sun: The Shattered Lands gets the same marks, but a less positive review. It's interesting, but also hard and grindy. Save frequently, blah blah blah. It's a shame CRPG's do have to be more combat centric than good tabletop ones can manage.</blockquote>

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