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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5809121" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 264: October 1999part 5/7Nodwick does what so many adventurers failed to do and finishes Strahd off for good. Van Richten's Legacy: Our third Ravenloft article this month is an interesting little setting expansion, trying to make the core domains feel a little busier and more lived in. In many of the core domains, there have actually been several generations of people being born, screwed over and terrorised and then dying, and some of them actually know about the Darklords and hold serious grudges. This is of course entirely part of the Dark Powers plans, as they want them miserable and unsettled in their own domains, never able to truly achieve their goals. (The exception being those for whom loneliness is more depressing than being surrounded by schemers.) So here's a potential rival to Jacqueline Renier, and details on his followers, their lair, and unique magical items and spells. Stuff specifically designed to kick the ass of wererats is very prevalent. If they had a few more members and resources, they might even have a shot. As it is, they'll probably lose, but in an interesting way, especially if the PC's get caught in the middle, played by one side or the other. And if they win, things won't really be any better for the ordinary people in the domain. Oh well, at least it looks like we have all the ingredients for another adventure of reasonable length for low-mid level characters. That's not worthless, especially here where it can be hard to advance levels. Fiction: Shadamehr and the old wives tale by Maragaret Weis and Don Perrin. Hmm. If I'm not mistaken, this is a sovereign stone story. Since neither the novels or the RPG have been released yet, this might be a first sighting. Very interesting. The magic system, on the other hand, is basically the same as Legend of the 5 Rings, which I find slightly suspect. And Margaret & Tracey have already done another book series with an elemental theme, which makes me wonder if they're running out of ideas. But all these are forgivable if the story is good. Unfortunately it has deeply cheesy dialogue, and is one of those stories that is merely a prelude to another one, which is a problem they've caused before in the magazine, and grows no less irritating with time. So this is again not particularly pleasant reading. They seem to cause more problems than most writers. PC Portraits: Time for some dark brooding anti-heroes, as befits the season. They cover their eyes or faces, they wear huge shoulderpads or spikes, their expressions are grim or sardonic. This is pretty much exactly what you'd expect. For all they try to say D&D should be about heroes kicking the ass of evil, anti-heroes are too popular right now for them to resist. So here's a little blatant pandering for your pleasure. Must say I don't find any of them particularly sexy. Probably need a little more detail in the drawings for that. Learn from the Bradstreet way! Dungeon mastery: What would October be without some advice on running horror campaigns? Although actually, this sees them recognise that horror games, particularly D&D ones, work better if they have a little light and shade. Ravenloft certainly adds both heroism and a dash of humour to the mix. So Lester Smith tries to advise us how to strike a balance between these three elements. This involves thinking about what kind of game you want to run, how far your players are comfortable going, and just how extreme you want the extreme parts of your game to be. With lots of sidebars elaborating on details, this is a fairly dry, dense serious bit of writing that belies the subject mood it wants to create. But then, that's always been Lester's style, hasn't it. He's written quite a few decent games using it, so why change now. Maybe he's a bit more playful when actually DM'ing. Certainly wouldn't be the first time a designer plays differently from the way they write. So this isn't bad, but is a bit dry. Guess it goes somewhere in the middle, as usual.</blockquote>

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