Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5435956" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 219: July 1995part 4/8Birthright gets a pull-out six (!) page spread of advertising in the middle of the book. Yikes. How much would that have cost if it wasn't being done by their parent company anyway? The role of books: Mastering magic cards by George H Baxter & Larry W Smith, Ph.D (not often you see one of those around here. ) runs into a rather awkward little problem due to the speed WotC is releasing new editions. It's already out of date by the time it gets to publication. It's not much help on the social side, either, which means it's utility is still rapidly deteriorating further. It's a good example of bad mismatch of subject matter and delivery medium. This is a very definite case where the internet already handles this stuff better. Excalibur, edited by Richard Gilliam, Martin H Greenberg & Edward E Kramer is another of those fantasy anthologies Mr Greenberg compiles so well. As has been the case for some other very specific topics, he gives his writers plenty of leeway to work around the subject and find new angles both funny and serious. Plus a bit of poetry. If you like arthurian lore, at least some of the stories'll probably please you. The faery convention by Brett Davis is a fae detective story in a setting that seems like anita blake's, in that the supernatural has just been brought into the open and they're trying to sort out the legal issues. This does not go smoothly, and is also used as an allegory for the oppression of real world minorities. It gets the fairly common result of good ideas, but needed a better editor. Such pain by Don Bassinthwaite is for Mage: the Ascension. There is of course a certain amount of pretension and mature subject matter. And a good deal of moral ambiguity, since our protagonist is a technocrat. The setting and rules from the game are not egregiously violated, and indeed, it serves as a good introduction to the themes of the game as well. White Wolf haven't done too badly with their fiction department so far. The printers devil by Chico Kidd gets another fairly typical review pattern. The quirky one that doesn't go over the top with explosions and <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />, but manages to find a new spin on several topics and build up it's characters nicely. Well, John has been doing this for 11 years now, it's not surprising he's settled into a pattern as well. I'm glad my reviews almost certainly won't take that long even at this rate. Fiction: Breaking the wall by Lois Tilton. Mrs Tilton's 7th story in the magazine? Since we just found out how fierce the competition is for this slot is, I wonder how many stories she's sent in and had rejected to get this far. So it's no surprise that this is once again pretty good, and quite dark, asking hard questions about the nature and extent of free will, and how much good people should compromise on actively opposing evil for the sake of short term comfort and family. The answer is of course that there's no good answer, and you're going to have to fight like hell and make some nasty sacrifices for freedom. Which is fairly realistic, if rather depressing. But hey, at least it's a good deal more dramatic than reality, which is what the public really wants. And it has some decent setting building, which is what you want in an RPG magazine. She definitely knows what she's doing here. Sage advice: Why are there spell failure chances for wisdom below 9 (recycled question. Skip has not changed skip's mind since then)Can you cast spells from scrolls if you aren't smart enough to learn them ( yes. Stand on the shoulders of giants and you can see further. Stand on the shoulders of beatles and you can fill stadiums in style without having an original thought in your head. )Are giant's weapons adjusted by their enemies size (no.)Can big races backstab small ones. (sure, if they can get surprise. Look for the appropriate modifiers. They're right there in the books )   Are creatures that are immune to death magic immune to disintegrate (no. Whatever could possibly make you think that. ) Does immunity to magical charm also make you immune to psionic charms (usually)I'm still not satisfied about elven archers (well tough. Skip will nerf them some more.  Shut yo mouth or skip will nerf them further, and their poncy cat and dog friends too. ) Can you turn a polymorphed lich (Sure. They're still dead inside. AAAAAAnnnngst! )Why can't humans become dual classed paladins (they can, just not with classes from the same group)Can you specialize by buying a weapon for two of your classes (No. This is another case of fundamental misconceptions about the way the universe works)Do dual classed characters get double the amount of bonus proficiencies from int (no)Can you improve blind-fighting by spending more slots on that (no)Can you specialize in thrown weapons (Yup. Not a problem at all.)Can you use a decanter of endless water underwater as a propulsion method (Sure. Skip doesn't always discourage inventive uses of powers. Just usually.)How powerful is a chromatic orb's magnetism (exceedingly strong. As hard as opening doors <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=";)" /> )</blockquote>

Verification