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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5444295" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 220: August 1995part 4/8Forum: Tim Jones has some advice for Joe Walker. Wishes go wrong, prices come due, ooh, how about now. Get too it. Give them some challenges suitable to their powers. Alan Clark says much the same thing, but in far more sadistic terms. We sorted out this problem for star wars, we can certainly do so for D&D. Use your ultimate world controlling power and snap them like twigs. Eric Aune tells joe walker to retire his group. Sometimes it's the only way, and this looks like the case here. He has similarly blunt and unambiguous advice for other forumites too. John Holcomb is being driven away from AD&D by the sheer bloat of products. It's impossible to use it all, and his group keeps arguing over what exactly to do, winding up getting very little done. There's too many choices, too many books to haul around, and they've virtually stopped supporting regular D&D. It's not good for the company. Ah yes. Choice is a good thing, but the human mind is not equipped to deal with too many choices, and TSR has pushed well over that limit by now and is busily spreading itself too thin. Another sign their public support is definitely going downhill these days. Christopher Kelley is finding that roleplaying is still very much a man's game where he lives. He's tried to get more girls interested, to much apathy. It isn't very pleasing. Anonymous writes in, giving some more worldbuilding ideas, plus one rather sadistic little adventure seed that'll make your life very interesting. Take all their stuff away, make them really work to get it back. Many adventurers don't look nearly as impressive without their shiny toys. Jess Hallsworth concentrates more on game running advice than worldbuilding, but still has helpful info to impart. Sometimes it seems like the forum has more concentrated useful info than the rest of the magazine put together. Eye of the monitor: Warcraft gets a second review in quick succession. This is becoming a definite issue with having two sets of reviewers who don't seem to be very well co-ordinated. (unlike the minis pair, curiously. ) Once again, it's a pretty positive review, with the main complaints being that the two sides are mechanically identical, and the computer AI is too easy. Going multiplayer is definitely the right course for them. Machiavelli is a sim game of renaissance politics. Explore the world, trade, build up political power and take over Venice. It does have some amusing play elements, but ultimately falls prey to grindyness. Just like real life then. Blood Bowl is of course a computer game conversion of Games Workshop's grimdark fantasy football game. Unfortunately, it seems unfinished. The AI sucks, they hadn't got round to implementing online play and intend to do so in a patch, and there are stupid tactical mess-ups. Really not worth bothering with. We also have a quick review of Inside Mac Games magazine. It's another good example of people taking advantage of the cheapness of CD's, as it comes packed with demos and shareware. They've still got a userbase big enough to produce more games than you can play. Now they just need a few more regular consumers to pay for this stuff.</blockquote>

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