Quote from: (un)reason;414671We've been through this before. I believe that whether someone is alive or dead, or if you like them as a person shouldn't have any bearing on how you assess their creative output. You do not. I'm perfectly willing to listen to arguments why I should change that opinion.

You are reviewing this stuff.  I see zero reason why you aren't allowed to review it if the person is dead or probably long moved on.

I mean, it would be as if I can't bash original White Box D&D for being a poorly written, confusing, unplayable pile of ass because its writers have passed on.

That would just be stupid.

Dragon Magazine Issue 205: May 1994


part 3/5


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.  


Libram X introduces the macguffin, and the retro-cyberzombie. Even if this isn't set in the same universe as the planescape cosmology, it certainly uses quite a bit of the same tone. Which isn't a bad thing.


Sage advice: What level can bugbear shamans be (7)

What level can voadkyn druids be (5)

Can humanoids become bards or not (Most of them can only become the nerfed bard kit in the book. Skip has forgotten this, and makes a dodgy ruling)

How high a level can alaghi shamans get (6)

Can you permanance wildfire (no, and it wouldn't do much good anyway)

What's the range of speak with dead (1 yard. Corpses don't have very good hearing. )

Can item shrink a living creature. How about dead creatures. How about fire ( no, no and yes)

My wizards want to put plate mail on after using up their spells for the day. (Well they can't. They're not properly trained, and they'll collapse like schoolkids forced to hike a hundred miles with a fifty pound backpack. Plus, who's carrying the armour when they're not wearing it? Doesn't that impede their fighting usefulness somewhat)

There are maps missing in FRS1 (Skip will solve that. Skip is more than used to dealing with this little problem. )

Gauntlets of ogre power, girdles of giant strength and warhammers stack?! Isn't that broken? (Yes, but you've gotta use all three simultaneously, or no go. Someone back in 1st ed really liked Thor, and we've never bothered to clean out that bit of exception based design because it's cool.)

Do psionic attacks go twice against non psionic opponents (Yes. This isn't as great as it seems)

Can psionics and magic work together (not easily. Magic is from mars, and psionics from venus. Relationships will be filled with misunderstandings. )

Why doesn't mind blank completely protect you from psionics (Be thankful it provides any protection at all. You know they normally don't work on each other at all. )

You got dark sun scroll creation wrong! (Skip apologizes profusely. Please don't cut Skip's pagecount or retcon Skip, oh mighty TSR overlords. Skip assures you that Skip will do better next time. Skip has kept up on his godly duties, expanding on the gods of nehwon. Isn't that worth something? )

Dragon Magazine Issue 205: May 1994


part 4/5


Fiction: Cap Revoort's luck by Daniel Hood. A sequel to the story in issue 195, this manages to answer the ambiguity left at the end of that story quite nicely, while still working as a standalone. It also highlights the dilemma of the swashbuckler's luck, where you are destined to accomplish great things and have legendary adventures, but the flipside of that is that you never get to live a quiet life, and the people and things around you that aren't so blessed will suffer lots of collateral damage as they're swept into your wake. It may be pure advantage from the PoV of a person playing them, but from the perspective of the character themselves, the constant drama can be a bit tiresome. As with the previous story, the character dynamics are pretty good as well, and there's plenty of implications that there's a wider world built up by the writer's notes, ready to go if needed. This is one campaign setting I could definitely stand to see a bit more of. We won't se it here though, unless the Freeport referred to repeatedly is the same one Green Ronin did quite nicely out of in the early d20 era. Let's check this. Doesn't look like it. Damn overcommon names.


It's never too early: Or once again, we have awesome plans for our conventions! Book now, otherwise you might miss out! Q is our special guest! More than 10,000 dollars worth of prizes to be won! Roleplaying and board games aplenty! (note that wargaming is now subsumed into the board game stuff, another sign of it's decline) An open gaming library that you can use to browse books and check out for use in games! (what are the odds many of them'll be missing by the end) And tons of stuff that's exclusive to RPGA members, so sign up now! Meh. More pure promotion. Like christmas, it seems to come earlier and earlier every year.


12 secrets of survival: Ooh. A collection of toys by Spike Y Jones. He's generally pretty good. Although not at math, apparently, as there's 13 things detailed in this article, not 12. Maybe it's the editor's fault. Maybe they meant 12a secrets, in the way that some buildings skip the 13th floor because it's bad luck. Either way, it's amusingly facepalm worthy.

Amulets of catnaps allow you to sleep in small bursts and still retain full functionality. For a couple of days anyway. Then, like most magic items of this sort, they'll start causing problems. Sleep seems to be one of the hardest things to get rid of completely in D&D worlds.

Armor of restful sleep lets you do the paranoid adventurer thing and stay fully protected in the roughest of terrain without having backache afterwards. Now you'll never get them out of it.

Exposure salve protects you from the elements for up to a full week. Well, you know how tiresome it gets having to apply makeup properly every day and wash it off before going to bed. Like the previous one, this'll save quite a bit of time on a day to day basis if you can get hold of it.

Eyes of the condor let you see as if you were soaring high above your location, getting a birds eye view that can be quite handy tactically. Just don't try to operate stuff at the same time, for perspective shifts make you clumsy and quite possibly nauseous.

Otiluke's survival sphere lets you encase yourself in an airtight bubble that also provides for your needs when active. It can be rolled around by the occupants or anyone around, so it won't make you totally safe from monsters and hazards, but a giant invincible hamsterball makes you able to explore more safely than normal, and is also a thoroughly amusing visual. I love it.

Pavilions of plenty are a somewhat larger device that also gives you a full food supply, and some protection from the elements. It even has it's own inbuilt butler, who can probably tell you all sorts of stories about what trips other adventurers took it on. Be careful packing and unpacking it though, or it will gradually lose it's value.

Potions of camel thirst are another thing that allow you to defer, but not eliminate your bodily needs, with diminishing returns setting in when overused. Still, the comedy value of drinking several week's worth of water to make up for your deprivation is quite appealing to me, so you can definitely go in my game.

Stone Cloaks let you disguise yourself as a rock when wrapped around you, a la morgan le fay. Like many transformations, there's the danger of coming to think like the thing you've become, which isn't very good for rocks. Could be a looong time before you turn back if that happens.

A straw of breathing makes sure you have an air supply on the other end no matter where you go. Which will leave you looking like a yokel when sucking this out of the corner of your mouth all the time in space, but hey, better ridiculous than dead, as we've said before. (and contradicted ourselves on a few times - it's such a hard decision.)

Sun Cloaks are of course very helpful in dealing with inclement weather. They do have a catch though. You wear it one way to stay warm, and inside out to stay cool. Put it on the wrong way round by mistake, and you'll be suffering twice as quickly. What are the odds someone'll do that while in a hurry to pack, particularly if there's monsters around?

Sustain fire makes anything you set alight burn for 10 times as long before being consumed. Along with the obvious use in dungeon delving and cooking, this also seems usable as both a torture device, and ironically, a last ditch protection should you happen to find yourself plunged into the elemental plane of fire unprepared. Gotta love those low key utility spells that encourage you to use your brain.

Rainfire prevents your fire from being put out even by being plunged fully underwater. If used to set someone's hair alight, you can bet they won't be happy about that.

Rainshield deflects any water from above, allowing your cleric to keep their dignity, and maybe even their life if acid is involved. Another of those utility spells that doesn't sound too impressive, but certainly makes things a lot more comfortable. Now, if only they'd remembered to include a sphere listing for it. So this article does have lots of cool, useful and funny things, but also some seriously sloppy editing marring the product. What's with that?


The game wizards: As hinted earlier, it's time for Ravenloft's new edition. Which means it's promotional article time, as is now the norm for their major releases of the month. In it we see a certain degree of sympathy for the devil, as happens far too often with vampires. Strahd tried to be a good and just ruler all his life. He would never have fallen if it weren't for that bitch Tatyana teasing him and then rejecting him! O_o Silly silly fangirls. That aside, this basically just fills in what's been happening over the past few years in game metaplotwise, and what's in the new boxed set. Nothing too surprising. Another healthy gameline chugging along here. We can move on and not worry about it collapsing when we take our eyes off it, unlike Azalin with his plots.


Dragon slayers: Council of wyrms! Another of the ambitious but ultimately horribly flawed products released during the final days of TSR. And another article of cut material directly from the official writers. Now obviously, in the CoW setting, dragon slayers are intended as NPC's, but in most other campaign settings, they'd be just fine for players, if a bit specialised and not nearly as useful against any other type of monster. As with Spike's article, this is a grab bag of stuff, including a selection of expansions for the existing dragon slayer kit, a new kit, and a new monster. 5 new special attacks for dragon slayers are the first thing, which is aided by the option to spend your proficiency slots on getting more of them instead of weapons. As with any specialisation, this is cool, but facing creatures not subject to them will give you problems. More options give you more chances to screw your life up.

Slayer-mages have some pretty extensive benefits and penalties, even more than their fighter counterparts. Not just good at killing them, they also get to communicate with them and control them. Well, as wizards, they are more prone to taking the wider view and thinking about things instead of rushing in. That doesn't make them any less dracicial though, as they need regular supplies of their body parts for their spells to function at full power. Let's hope the DM allows lesser draconic things like pseudodragons and hybrids like chimeras to count for that criteria, otherwise they'll have an exceedingly hard time at lower level, and missions'll grow tedious over the course of a campaign.

Undead dragon slayers reuse the skeleton warrior picture, which makes sense even if it is a bit cheap of them. After all, they do have a lot in common, and are frequently called back from the grave by some jackass who doesn't really care about them. Another bit of crunch that won't be that necessary in most games, but it's nice to know it's there.

Dragon Magazine Issue 205: May 1994


part 5/5


Role-playing reviews:  GURPS Vampire: the Masquerade gets thoroughly praised for taking the great themes of Masquerade, and marrying them to the solid mechanics of GURPS, while being visually better than the average book in either line. Concepts that were originally shrouded in pretentiousness are clearly explained. And of course you have a far greater range of other genres to cross over stuff with. What's not to like? Now they just need to take those lessons and transfer them back to the main line next edition.  

Dark alliance: Vancouver sets Vampires vs Werewolves to the fore, with the two factions fully aware of each other, and sharing the city uneasily. The kind of thing they'd consciously step away from in revised edition, this is marred by both silliness and vagueness, with much of the location stuff feeling like it was lifted straight from a tourism handbook. If you're going to do regionbooks, getting a writer who actually lives there does help.

Caerns: Places of power does slightly better, but it seems like their best ideas are the ones that are developed the least. They're able to just throw away all kinds of cool adventure seeds, leaving it up to you to turn them into full encounters. Ahh, the folly of young game designers. Soon your skills will be greater, but your inspirations fewer, and you'll wish you hadn't been so casual with your talent in the past.

Umbra: the velvet shadow shows that White Wolf can match TSR in their imaginative otherworldly realms quite handily. From the heights of the cosmos, to the lowest, most defiled atrocity realm, there's tons of highly adventurable locations for werewolves and mages to explore. The further away from reality you step, the freer the rein you have as a writer.

House of strahd gets the full 6 pips on the review die. It was already a classic. Now it's bigger, better described, and with more DM aids to help the horror proceed smoothly. Good luck, you'll need it.

Castles forlorn doesn't do quite as well. As a setting, it's pretty amazing, but it is very much up to the DM to construct an adventure out of the locations and denizens of this place. Just leaving them to wander around will be a confusing and frustrating experience, for it's not likely they'll figure out how to deal with this darklord permanently without a few clues. Well, maybe they can just escape with their lives to tell chilling tales instead. Isn't that the Ravenloft spirit?


Bears Vs Sharks in Dragonmirth! Yamara and Stress try their damndest to figure out how to get rid of Ogrek. Twilight empire finally comes to an end, but is left open for a sequel. Did everything turn out the way the real big bad wanted it too anyway?


Through the looking glass: The lead bill is overturned! Yay! Course, coming well after the 11th hour, this technical victory is still a loss in real world terms. Which is really the worst possible outcome, as it leaves both the advocates and defenders frustrated and unhappy. The only people who win are the lawyers. Bah. I'm repeating myself aren't I. Nevertheless, the problem remains deeply entrenched in the system. I don't see a solution coming any time soon. And as I'm not in a position to make the problem work to my advantage, ( I may be able to master legions of arcane rules, but I don't really have the public speaking ability or interpersonal skills to make a good lawyer) I shall keep complaining.

Back to the minis though. A marine standing on top of an armoured vehicle, defending it from all comers. A trio of skeletal musicians, playing drums, flute and bagpipes. Yeah, you know the overlord is truly evil when they make their minions play bagpipes. Two heavily armoured futuristic soldiers. Their heads are obscured, so they'll be easily reduced to mooks in the face of real heroes. A rather malformed earth elemental, approaching close enough to humanoid that it's starting to go down the uncanny valley. Dracula and a werewolf, a little late for halloween. A dragon having a good snooze. Two more dragons in flight, quite possibly about to fight. Some rather heavily armed and armoured space rangers, with spare weapons so you can customise them. A whole bunch of flags and standards, that you can again use to make your minis army look more professional. A vaguely enterpriseish little spaceship, designed to serve as an escort to larger ones. And a trio of non-cheesecake female rangers, ready and able for kicking butt and trekking through the wilderness. Sci-fi seems to be doing better in minis than it is in RPG's these days.


Ral Partha does a newspaper style advert. Nice to see one of them pop up again.


TSR Previews:  Looks like I spoke too soon last month. Barely 3 years since the last basic D&D set, they release another one, entitled The classic Dungeons & Dragons game. Once again, I am curious as to how this version differs from the previous ones.

AD&D, as usual, is stuffed to the gills. First up is another spectacular boxed set opening up a new world and milieu. Council of Wyms! Finally, you can play as a dragon. A substantially nerfed dragon in comparison to NPC ones, but a dragon nonetheless. Now, um, what do we do next adventurewise? How do we compensate for the truly ludicrous XP requirement disparities? Oh well, can't fault them for trying, just the execution.

A third boxed set this month as well, the revised Ravenloft setting. They too have been busy metaplotting away, and now the world has been substantially rearranged, with somewhat less nerdrage than Dark Sun or Greyhawk. Get another set of tarroka cards as well. Meanwhile on the novel front, they get Mordenheim, by Chet Williamson. Venture to the far north with two amateur necromancers who really don't know what they're doing, and see the Aaaangsty history of the monster and his maker in much greater detail. Who next?

And Al-Qadim gives us a 4th, somewhat thinner boxed set. Jesus H their printers and assemblers must be working flat out. Cities of Bone would fit right in in Ravenloft. Still, at least here it's easier to escape the desolate desert horrors stuck in their eternal routine and get some benefit from the treasure.

Planescape starts it's first adventure, The eternal boundary. See the fun you can have without even leaving sigil. Really, the adventures come to you.

The Forgotten realms gets "Marco" Volo: Departure. A fake Volo? Who'd want to claim responsibility for writing that stuff? A wacky adventure for low level characters? I'm hating it already. Shoo.

Our setting free AD&D books this month are PHBR12: The complete paladin's handbook, and Temple, Tower and Tomb. See Rick Swan fail to do as well to expand their characterisation as he did for rangers. See three nasty little dungeons and try to survive. Then maybe you have a chance in the tomb of horrors. Maybe.

The Amazing Engine updates one of the oldest settings they have, in Metamorphosis alpha to omega. It's been a loooong time since we visited the Starship Warden. This should be interesting.

Endless quest is getting Al-Qadimish, with Secret of the Djinn. Rescue the king of the genies? Oh boy. A tall task for a young pearl diver. Can you guide him the right way?

And finally, wackiness seems prevalent in the books department too. Captains Outrageous by Roy V Young. The world is about to be destroyed because the court jester offended the court wizard, and his three musketeers have to foil him. Oh boy. Can I skip this one.


Spellfire occupies the back page. Yes, TSR are now officially in the collectable trading card game business. Yet another sign of their impending doom appears on the horizon.


Another issue full of contrasts. There's some great articles here, but even they have some elementary editing errors. There's also a lot of promotional articles, some of which manage to be quite good, but the fact that they're custom-ordered by the company rather than reader submissions is also very obvious. It makes me feel that the magazine is probably being interfered with more by the people in charge of finances, which means the editors are distracted and having to add and remove things at the last minute. It's all rather unsatisfactory as a complete product. They've managed to get through it before, but with sales dropping, will the noose tighten upon them? The 18th birthday would be an ironic time to lose a bunch of your independence. But that's for next time, as I've said many a time before.

Dragon Magazine Issue 206: June 1994


part 1/5


124 pages. Not just one, but a whole family of dragons on this birthday's cover. Ok, so the lighting could be better, and they're definitely not going to smile for the camera, but would you be the one trying to get them to say cheese? Frankly you'd be lucky to avoid having your intestines used as spaghetti, with your kidneys as cocktail snacks. Not the way I'd like to spend a party.


In this issue:


Letters: A letter including a picture, of someone who has managed to get every issue and spread them all out on the floor. Whoa. You're gonna have a hard time getting back out after that one.

In sharp contrast, a letter from a complete n00b seeking advice on roleplaying. You're in the right place! Probably, anyway.

A letter from a group who have recently lost a member. Someone dying IRL has really taken a lot of the spark out of things. Understandable, really.

A letter from someone suggesting incorporating fate points into D&D. Dale doesn't object to the idea, but points out it isn't exactly a new one. Many games these days are trying to make high action swashbuckling heroics work better than D&D manages. Quite a few of them succeed.


Editorial: So why do we play anyway? In my case it's always been linked to my need to create, which is pretty integral to the way I approach the world. Dale, on the other hand, suggests the more straightforward idea that it's because it's fun. I vaguely recall fun.  Something to do with getting carrots for what you do rather than an absence of stick. And escapism. And once again, I'm confronted with the problem that when you do decide to seriously pursue the dream, and find it's a lot more work than you thought, you're left with nothing to use as escapism from that. Is it any wonder I'm depressed a lot of the time. Spending time with people you like? Creating a world where the solutions are simpler than reality? I'm really not doing this right by those standards, am In. So this really tells me one thing. When I finish this thread, I've got to do a complete detox, and find something to do with my free time that I actually enjoy, and doesn't involve computers in any way. This may be interesting as an excercise, but it's also rather unhealthy in the long run.


Street fighter the RPG! You go from gothy narrative games to one of the most straight-up fighting licenses. How you you make that work? Well, for a start, you can break Blanka's arm with your cannonball boobs :rolleyes: Now that's a special maneuver.


First quest: Skip Williams has of course been playing longer than the game was officially published. If anyone can claim the grognard title it's him, even if he's not actually that old. Benefits of starting young, I guess. Unlike Jim, he still mentions Gary's name, albeit mainly in conjunction with his son Ernie, who was one of his early players, and apparently still is. It must be a bit awkward still working around lake geneva, like dealing with divorced parents who still regularly run into each other at the shops. But  anyway, this is about the fun they had, not the bad things that have happened since then. Not that he can resist talking about that either, as his second game was rapidly put out of print by legal crap. Formative experiences like that highlight why he became their premier rules lawyer. This is a fairly fun read, helping me not only get into his head, but also reveal a few bits and pieces that they didn't mention back in the day, like Don Arndt's cowardice in the face of imaginary danger. Funny how formative events that still have effects in the shape of D&D today can have such petty seeming beginnings. Butterfly, hurricane, etc. I'm sure they didn't expect a paladin in hell to be turned from a picture into a whole module 20 years later either. But he's the one still influencing rules development on a monthly basis, while they're long gone from the company. It's not hard to say who's the bigger legend now.


More than just couch potatoes: More draconic roleplaying advice. As we saw in issue 200, they can be pretty machiavelian buggers. Wouldn't it be nice to make proper use of that intelligence, have them turn out to be the ultimate big bad who was behind most of the plots throughout the campaign. With their long lifespan, plentiful financial resources and array of magical powers, they could well have been at it for centuries, and have their claws in every pie. So fairly typical don't underestimate the monster advice, showing you that they can be made a lot scarier without touching their statistics at all. Only dressed up in a birthday suit. Which neatly sets us up for an emperor's new clothes quip. This is a lot less impressive second time around.


The dragon project: Sandy once again holds this column up, and shows us that he's a pretty versatile writer in the process. This time, it's Runequest, another BRP variant. Runequest has always had a good dash of goofy humour in it's setting details, and this is the case here. But it also manages to have both serious storylines and genuine poignancy. Cerulean Glory Oversees Tides used to be human, a long time in the past. He's spent centuries as a dragon, and has enormous physical and magical capabilities. But he's decided he was happier as a human and wants to go back. So he's trying to act like a person, while still being an 80' dragon with odd mindset and biological needs. You can't go back the way you came. That's like trying to uncook a cake by freezing it to -200 degrees for several hours. The results may be interesting, but they won't be what you want. In contrast to the previous article, this one comes off a lot better on rereading. The idea that you could separate yourself from humanity completely and then want to go back just seemed vaguely comical and stupid back then. Now it makes a scary amount of sense. You spend years trying to become something better, more knowledgable, more skilled, more focussed than you are, and then you find it doesn't make you any happier and ask what's the point? It's all going to be dust in a hundred years. So I give this one my approval, and now I'm off to have an existential crisis. See you in a bit.

Dragon Magazine Issue 206: June 1994


part 2/5


Part dragon, all hero: Oh yes. While it had it's flaws, if there's one thing that came out of the Council of Wyrms setting and stuck, it's half-dragons. While there might have been plenty of monstrous dragon hybrids, such as dracolisks, dragonnes, etc; the idea of PC'able draconic hybrids didn't seem to have occurred to anyone before then. Without this, there likely would have been no half-dragon template, no Mojh and Dracha in AU/E, no part dragon bloodlines in UA, and no Dragonborn as a new PC race in the 4th edition corebook. So here we have one of my favourite tie-in articles. Roger Moore gets back to article writing with a real bang, with something in the vein of his old half-ogre article, only better. He looks at the possibility of half-dragons in settings other than the council of wyrms, in the process granting most dragons with innate shapeshifting powers the capability to procreate with other species. Things vary widely from world to world, with even greyhawk and toril having their own quirky variations, and Krynn and oriental stuff working pretty much completely differently to the norm. This is very definitely not a case of one size fits all, which I find very appealing. They also have balancing factors! Ok, the powers they get are a good deal better than the ones they lose, but still, having them gradually lose their original racial abilities as they become more draconic is a neat touch. As is including half-iron dragons, which of course are entirely from the magazine. Still, unlike last issue's dragon slayer expansion, this does mostly work standalone mechanically, although it does reward setting mastery fluffwise. This convinced me to buy CoW first time around, and it still seems moderately significant in retrospect. It does have the risk of making everyone want to play special snowflakes, but that's always the case when you introduce cool rare races and classes. And hey, if you can't be amazing in your fantasies, what really is the point?


Gunnar Thorson: Another comic starts up to replace Twilight Empire. Barbara Manui & Chris Adams show they're capable of a quite different art style to Yamara. A Viking detective? Well, Cadfael was doing something similar around this time. Dropping deductive reasoning into a setting where it's unusual does have interesting effects.


Campaign journal: Some more of Carl Sargent's cut Greyhawk material here. Off to the east coast to meet the sea barons. This of course means pirates. A loose confederation of bickering landholders, they have nice weather and plenty of resources, but limited actual land. And of course, they can treat any serfs who don't have the resources to sail away very poorly. So there's plenty of wrongs to right around here. There's also plenty of uninhabited  islands, ready to populate with monsters for those who prefer their dungeon crawling. It's all in character with his moderately dark, but not totally hopeless setting changes.And of course, you could probably plonk X1 or X8 in easily enough. Neither terrible or brilliant, this seems like enough info to get us started on another adventure. About what we can expect from an article.


Was equinox really that hard?


Fiend knights and dark artifacts: More Carl Sargent cuttings, strewn through the magazine, filling in details on what Ivid & co are up too. The published stuff post greyhawk wars was very Iuz-centric. And this shows that would not have been so strongly the case if the line hadn't been cancelled. Although the fiend heavy direction likely would. Seems like they're getting everywhere, under the guise of service, with serious designs on taking the whole place over. And that never ends well, especially if you have baatezu and tanar'ri around at the same time. So here's more nasty creatures and items to bite you in the ass.

Fiend Armor gives you a whole bunch of baatezu advantages on top of the standard AC boost. They do broil anyone of the wrong alignment though. One of those ones that'll be a pain for most heroes because it is neat but not for them. Don't just leave them lying around so the next mooks can be powered up by them as well.

Fiend Circlets are pretty similar in terms of granted powers, only less bulky and intended for spellcasters. Stuff like this does not mean they'll respect you in the morning, just that you're a valued pawn. But enjoy your few decades of hubris before eternal slavery while you can.  

The malachite throne is Ivid's 'orrible great regal artefact of insane power and substantial dangers. It gives you true seeing, magical protection, and devil summoning, but said protections are useless against the devils, leaving you open for betrayal or collection of bills. And as he's going mad, while simultaneously suffering from a wasting disease, it's safe to say that the situation here will slip out of his control sooner or later, no matter how brutally he tries to hold on to it, and how much cool stuff he has. (unless he decides to become a lich, which isn't unlikely at all )

The Spear of Sorrow is one of those nasty intelligent weapons that  has a load of cool powers (literally) but also likes taking control of it's so-called owner, and using them to bring back Tharizdun worship. How very embarrassing. I'd rather not be turned into a door to door preacher, no matter the god.

The Cauldron of Night is essentially a pure plot device for producing more evil artefacts. You risk your life by coming here, and only woe will result in the long term. Still, it's a perfect looking location for a climactic fight with a big bad. Send them toppling into the bottomless pit in the middle and hope that finishes them for good.

Fiend Knights show that once again Ivid is sowing the seeds of his own demise. Turning your soldiers into unsleeping remorseless semi-automatons seems like a good idea in the short term, but it makes you very unpopular, especially with the friends and families of the transformed. Seeing them stamp around like this is in many ways worse than knowing they're dead. Silly evil overlord needs a PR adviser if he wants to catch up with Iuz.

Dragon Magazine Issue 206: June 1994


part 3/5


Forum: Kathryn Bernstein suggests that if you have one hack-and-slash player pissing off all the others, they ought to gang together and sort it out IC. That and the other logical IC consequences of being a psychopath who kills indiscriminately without remorse. They'll get themselves killed if the DM simply plays fair with challenges.

Anonymous gives his experience with hack-and-slash vs roleplaying, pointing out how low level characters succeeded where higher ones failed by using their brains. (and poison) There are several great equalisers in D&D, and even kobolds can exploit them, as Dragon Mountain so brutally showed.

B. J. Tomkins reminds us that if a particular player continues to be disruptive, you can and should just kick them out. If they don't want to change, it's not worth trying to force them. You'll have no fun, they'll have no fun, the whole thing will run and run.

Lee J. Ballard tried giving the hack and slasher in his group exactly what he wanted and then some. Curiously, that did not satisfy him. Hee. Nothing like a little dark humour to open people's eyes to the plight of others. Unlike the hectoring approach, that sneaks behind their defences to open their eyes.


Eye of the monitor: Once again sandy rubs in that the computer gaming and rpg hobbies are currently too young and transient for nostalgia. We've been through this before, so this time I shall shrug and move onto the reviews. You'll get your turn in a few years.

Lufia is a Japanese rpg in the final fantasy vein. Build a party, choose a girlfriend, and travel through the land to fulfil the plot. It has a good beginning, but gets more fight-heavy the longer you go on. There's plenty more where this came from.

Isle of the dead bores and frustrates Sandy. It's shoddily programmed, and the rapid respawn of monsters means getting anywhere is tedious and unneccecarily challenging. We have enough RAM now that this is entirely soluble. Leave it out.

Archon Ultra also gets a crap review. Barely improved from a decade ago, it's frankly inadequate. Not worth buying at all.

Epic puzzle pack, on the other hand gets a little slack for being lots of little games rather than one. They do get very cursory reviews though. His heart doesn't really seem to be in it this month. What's going on in his life?


Karamiekos, Ho!: So Mystara has finally finished gearing up to go advanced, during which they've been absent from these pages for 5 months. Will Jeff Grubb be as regular and enthusiastic a poster as Bruce Heard was? He certainly managed a pretty long enjoyable run on the marvel-phile.

Straight away, we see that Jeff has brought things into AD&D land by using the same technique now common for Forgotten Realms correspondence. Say hello to Joshuan Gallidox, our latest 4th wall breaking character to pop into the offices unexpectedly. Only this one's a halfling. Exactly how he makes the crossdimensional trip is not explained, but there are plenty of magical items he could have come across. He's not quite as scary as Elminster, but he is pretty prone to self-aggrandisement. I suspect Halflings may not be as crucial to this story as he makes out.

Second, of course, is the timeline advancements. The black eagle barony is free! Good has triumphed and the kingdom is just again. Er, sort of. Ludwig and Bargle are both still at large, the place is still a shithole, and the interim leader is thoroughly ineffectual, but these are all presented as opportunities for PC's. The rest of this article fills us in on the other changes around this region. Jeff's writing style is as fun and readable as ever, and this certainly looks like one of the better attempts at keeping the world living and moving forward. But still, you should be careful putting it into existing games, especially as the original overthrow scenario was presented as something the PC's would lead. So this is another well-written article, that may or may not be good for your game. Now, where do we take the world from here?


The dragon's bestiary: Great, more irritating faeries. We had some of those last year too. Looks like this year has seen a drop in both the number and quality of monster submissions, just as the ecology series did a couple of years ago. This is a bit worrisome.

Brambles are meaner relatives of Gorse, and have a similar spike fetish. A good reminder that fae creatures were associated with thorny bushes long before C:tL, and they make both good protection and a decent home for the buggers. As usual, laugh at them at your peril.

Dobies are essentially incompetent brownies. They mean well, but having one of these in the house means botched chores everywhere. And trying to get rid of them may well make the problem worse. What is a poor farmer to do?

Faerie fiddlers are another predictable mythic entry. They can make you dance uncontrollably, and distort time so a night lasts for years outside. Now there's one that can really have interesting effects on your game. Can you turn this to your advantage, or will it really mess up the game?

Dragon Magazine Issue 206: June 1994


part 4/5


Elminsters notebook: Ed once again shows us how to pack a campaign's worth of adventure seeds into a single page. Another evil wizard from the distant past, and their somewhat dubious legacy is detailed. One of the biggest problems as a solo wizard vs a party is only being able to cast one spell per round, especially as wizards are somewhat squishy. What's the solution? Orbiting undead skulls that are hopelessly in love with you! Unorthodox, but it certainly did the job. At least until hubris lead her into taking on a god and failing. Another example of how a greater number of high power characters and creatures actually results in the realms being more stable than krynn or oerth. Try the same trick on the krynnish gods and you might well succeed. So it looks like he's once again playfully showing off his system mastery and inventiveness, while ironically pointing out all the cheap tricks in the world will not save you if the DM decides to invoke a deus ex machina.  There's a definite multilayered irony there. As usual, his output is pretty great.


Role-playing reviews: A bit more magic reviewed here this month. So many different takes on it are appearing these days. It's one of those things that makes TSR seem more than a little behind the times. The rationale why spells work the way they do can also be pretty interesting, but Rick isn't so bothered, and just wants to get to the effects. Fluff is something you read once or twice, crunch is for a whole campaign. Which of these books will make worthy additions to yours?

The wizards grimoire is for ARS Magica, and is sufficiently specific that rick can't see players of other systems getting much use out of it. The kind of crunch you can spend years mastering, it combines the wondrous and banal, and the detailed and vague as well. There's probably too many undeveloped ideas, needing a good pruning to bring things together and make the good bits better. Less can be more, and all that.

The compleat alchemist is a system-independent book from WotC that feels like one of those old articles from this magazine. And like the old alchemist classes from the magazine,  it's light on roleplaying advice and the characters are ill-suited to adventures. It's like it's actively trying to make itself not useful to the average game. How do you expect to sell it to us?  

GURPS Magic 2nd ed, on the other hand, is solid as a rock mechanically, and full of ideas that you'll actually want to put in your game. You can always trust GURPS, rain or shine, which is a lot more than you can say for most systems. The worst you can say about it is there's a few vague or redundant spells, the overall building system manages to keep things both imaginative and well balanced.

Earth, air, fire and water puts the attention on clerics, showing us what you actually do with them in terms of playing, and filling in lots of cool high level stuff and new spells. Like much of dark sun's stuff, they need this because it is so different from the D&D norm. They should be decently competitive with wizards again after this.


Sage advice: Why does locate object have different durations for wizards and priests (That's a typo. They got the regular and reversed versions mixed up. )

Is the bonus spells for high wisdom table right? (no. Congratulations, you've spotted more errata. Skip thanks you from the bottom of skip's heart)

How can a non-thief disarm a trap. (by describing exactly what they intend to do with the mechanism. Old skool fiat system strikes back!)

How long does an undead creature stay away after turning (24 hours - roll needed to turn. Not a long-term solution. )

Isn't enhance overpowered compared to wishes. (Not really. At that level, superbuffing is a perfectly standard tactic)

Can imps, quasits & pseudodragons become familiars (Yes. For plenty of other examples. check out issue 86. )

I haven't read the general spell keywords (well maybe you should, before ploughing into the spells. You can't learn a culture if you don't know the language.)

How do you get the acid from melf's arrows off (apply a little common sense, and then rub it in with elbow grease. )

Are liches immune to harm spells (yes, but not for the reason you think)

Can fighter/mages use their fighter THAC0's for touch spells (A few years ago skip would have said no, as he did regarding fighter/thieves using their fighter THAC0 for backstabbing. But skip has mellowed a bit since then. So Skip'll say yes. Don't go thinking Skip's not still a badass mutha though. )

Is an invisible character invisible to themself or not? (They are. The complete wizards handbook is another case of freelancers being irresponsible and sloppy. )

Is animate dead an evil act (sorta. It won't change your alignment straight away, but it will have a negative impact. )

Can forget disrupt spellcasting (Probably. )

Does prayer buff the damage of your spell attacks (Oh yes. This is why you should have a priest on the team.)

Can there be specialist wizards in dragonlance (Only if they become renegades. That thar's forbidden magic round them parts)

You got my question wrong! I was asking about what happens when druids absorb defiling damage from defiling regeneration. (Don't you get bolshy with skip. Skip is still The Sage, and you aint. Skip will answer you, but if you don't pay up on time, Skip will track you down and cap yo ass. )

Does creating an illusion of an attack break invisibility (yes)

Why are memorization and casting times so different (preparation for anything usually takes much longer than doing it. Even magic has to obey that rule)

Can ottilukes resilient sphere block teleportation (Probably not. Too weak.)

Can undead be raised (Recycled question. We sorted that out over a decade ago, and the answer's still the same. )

And this month's newly enhanced pantheon iiiiiiiiiiiiiis........... The norse pantheon! Are you ready to ragnarok? Come on up and collect your prize!

Dragon Magazine Issue 206: June 1994


part 5/5


Fiction: defiance by Lisa Smedman. It's a mugs game, fighting dragons head on. One breath and your entire party could well be an outline on the wall. Far better to use your brain. They have to eat, they have to sleep (quite a lot in many cases) and they have to breed. All give you levers to exploit, and in this case, a simple peasant woman manages to do so where legions of armoured knights failed. As is often the case, the fiction imparts a lesson many adventuring parties would do well to learn. Sometimes, the best way to win is by never drawing a weapon, and 0th level characters can kick the ass of 36th level ones. (especially when they're your characters mother) Overconfidence can bring about anyone's ruin. At least the small know they're small and try harder.


Denver gets a full boxed set for shadowrun. Sounds spiffy.


Libram X spends a whole month choosing what outfit to wear. Jeff takes the time to poke fun at his own past works while at it. Swordplay is consumed by ennui. Dragonmirth is, as you would expect for an anniversary issue, infested with dragons. Yamara meets her sister, who wants to marry her husband, and more people who want to kill her husband. No break there then.


Through the looking glass: Another bit of painting advice in Ken's 3rd article. This time, he discusses layering. Basecoat, wash, drybrushing, detailing. Each has their place. Once again it's very much back to basics here and I can't scare up much interest, especially after they have had several articles with new ideas and significant developments. I don't need this, although I'm sure some new readers will.

Our minis this month are a feathered dragon for shadowrun, good for oriental and Mexican adventures. Another pair of dragons fighting.  Make sure you paint before assembly, otherwise you'll have a tricky time reaching everything. A cleric  with a mace, looking rather cross and ready to rumble. Two Mad Max rejects. A bare potbelly spoils the most cutting edge fashion. A Julie Guthrie dragon with a knightly rider. Good as ever, I see. A giant mutant skaven monstrosity. It's a hard life in the sewers, especially when you're that big. Two space marine sergeants from the future edition grimdarkness. Yet more goblins and skull-headed undead spellcasters. More things that never go out of style. The lady of the lake, and some Arthurian style pageboys and dwarves. They'll be setting you macguffin quests before you know it. And a mechanised demon thing for the Legions of steel game. Once again, it's the big lines tied to other products that are surviving.  
                        

TSR Previews: Planescape gets it's first monstrous compendium appendix. This does mean some rehash from MC8. Still, at least it's a proper book this time. And with yet more pretty Diterlizzi art. But the succubus and marilith will not be showing any boobies. Live with it.

Dark sun expands on psionics, in The Will and the Way. Lots of new powers, and a reworking of existing ones. Given the importance of psionics to dark sun, it's about time.

The Forgotten Realms finishes off the cleric quintet. The Chaos Curse sees Cadderly conclude his journeys and lift his curse. Woo. Now he can go back to writing about Drizzt like a good little hack.

Our generic accessories this month are the Deck of encounters set 2, and the players gaming screens. Now everyone can be paranoid and hide their stuff from each other, while having useful tables at hand to reference.


This one is an interesting one because so many of it's articles are tied into specific AD&D settings. With stuff for one-shots, established settings, brand new ones and the dying one, it really does run the gamut. Most of it's pretty decent, but like last issue, it feels very controlled from the top down. I suspect that's not going to change, and their grip will tighten as readers slip through their fingers. There is something to be said for co-ordinated promotion, even if it's not as cool as when things happen organically. So I'm left a bit unsatisfied, but can't trace it to a particular source. Bah, next issue please.

Dragon Magazine Issue 207: July 1994


part 1/5


124 pages. Is that a boy or a girl on the cover? Hmm. The contents say the original model was a girl. It may be a trap. The topic of the magazine, on the other hand, is treasure. One that seems basic, but somehow they haven't thought of doing it before. This seems likely to please the players in the audience in particular. Now, when are they going to do a special on wandering monsters? That seems like it could be fun for a DM.  


In this issue:


Letters: This month's letter page is devoted entirely to errata. From last issue to a good 7 month in the past, they've got plenty of little mistakes to report. Many of them were spotted by the writers themselves, albeit too late to fix them before printing. Allen Varney, Roger Moore, Steve Winter and Ed Greenwood all have a little egg on their face. Happens to the best of us. Dust yourself off and try not to make the same mistake again. Especially you Ed. If you're going to do crossovers, you have to make sure you don't mess up basic details of the other property, because that can be interpreted as dreadfully disrespectful.  


Editorial: So people are complaining that their game isn't as much of a challenge as it used to be. Maybe that's because you're skipping over all the travel bits. We can't do that in real life. Even after years in the same office, the commute still takes approximately the same amount of time, and you'll regularly be faced with inconveniences such as traffic accidents, overenthusiastic evangelists, bums selling the big issue, and terrorist attacks. Or something. Anyway, this is another thing that's going out of fashion, along with wandering monsters, for more scripted storylines and metaplot stuff. And Dale is trying to fight against the tide, pretty vainly in this case. Rather surprised this lesson is being forgotten. But then, the old expert set is several years out of print by this point, and there is a new generation of gamers coming who are learning a very different set of starting lessons. Whether you prefer this way, or decry it as another sign of instant gratification culture not wanting to work for their fun or have the possibility of being thrown against impossible challenges and having to run away is your choice. Lawns, gitofa, etc.


First quest: Zeb Cook is one of those designers who has enough cool credits over an extended period of time that it's hard to pick one over the others. The original expert set, Oriental adventures, Planescape. Each would be enough to seal his place in the hall of fame individually. The fact that he's been consistently producing other cool stuff for the past 15 years as well is icing on the cake. But it doesn't seem like his start was particularly auspicious. Like so many of us, his first characters didn't even have names, just numbers as they died repeatedly. Sophistication came gradually through trial and error. Which is you've got the time, is a more fun way to learn than being bossed around by a teacher being told that things are badwrongfun without explaining why. Even now, he's still learning and developing, which unfortunately means he's leaving us for the fast growing world of computer game design. Looking forward, it seems his credits there aren't so great, although they do include being lead designer for City of Villains. Oh well. We'll always have the forbidden city.


Big-league magic: Yes, even 9th level spells are pretty puny on a cosmic scale. And even D&D artefacts rarely offer you sufficient power to take over or destroy the world. Course, there are several good reasons for this. First is that the original designers kinda expected you to stop somewhere in the teens, so they never bothered to do hard design beyond that. Second is that it's a lot harder to keep such power from ruining the whole story than it is in a narrative written by a single person. So you're put in a slightly awkward position when covering this topic. You're not sure if you should be encouraging it, because it can be a lot of fun to have phenomenal cosmic power, or warning people away from it. So this is an article that isn't quite sure what it wants to accomplish, and settles for sitting on the fence, being a serviceable bit of advice, but not really doing too much. One of those cases where I'm bemused why they put this first.


Bazaar of the Bizarre: A collection of items from celtic legend here, putting the lie to the statement that they were uncommon back then. It's just that they were more likely to be living creatures, large objects or locations, and most heroes only had one or two. Which is the way to keep them special, really.

The Hound of Loruaidhe is a perfect tracker. Well, not truly perfect. A good spellcaster could beat it no trouble. But it seemed impressive to them at the time.

The Pigskin of Tuis can heal you and turn water into wine. Wait, wasn't that jesuses schtick? And isn't human meat very similar to pig. Hmm. I am very suspicious.

The Chariot of Dobhar can be ridden over water. But you can't stop without sinking, which may be hard on the horses if you try long trips. Once again they prove that magic may be spectacular, but you need the mundane technology like ships as well.

The Pigs of Easal, like Thor's goats, restore themselves if you put their bones out properly. If you don't, they stay dead, and the host gets very cross indeed. Don't kill the golden goose, or something.

Apples of the Hesperides are seriously nerfed here. No immortality, just extra effective sustenance. Bah. This is a greek legend rather than a Celtic one as well.

The Spear of Pisear protects you from fire, and sets alight anyone you hit. That'll create lots of panic if you wade into a crowd of enemies, breaking up their ranks quite efficiently.

The Spear of Lugh drains the blood of those it hits and uses it to heal the wielder. Is it just me, or is that a bit vampiric? I guess it's alright if done in a heroic cause

The Cauldron of Dagda gives vast quantities of food to the worthy, and leaves cowards to starve. It can be a harsh life up north.

The Sword of Nuada has also been nerfed in D&D compared to the legends. It's still pretty powerful though. And losing limbs can be considered worse than death, amirite?

Stones of Destiny predict the future. As legends show, this generally isn't too helpful actually. You've got to actually make the mistakes to learn from them it seems.

The Horn of Dispelling Illusions does exactly what it says on the tin when you blow it. No wizard's gonna frighten off my army! Course, in D&D they'll just fireball it instead, and what will disbelieving that get you?  

The Cup of Truth is another means of accomplishing an end mentioned in the last bazaar. Course, it's lie detecting power is blatant and applies to everyone around it, so it's harder to abuse by authority.

The Well of magical Lands transports you all over the shop if you stop and drink from it. If you make it back, you'll have some pretty wild adventures to tell.

Cloaks of invisibility have a pretty similar effect to rings, but only your weapon becomes visible if you attack people. This means it'll look like a disembodied sword is attacking, which may be amusingly misleading.

The Salmon of wisdom boosts your wisdom if you catch and eat it. Good luck with that, since I'm sure they're both rare and slippery. Of all the animals to invest wisdom in. Which god was responsible for that little cosmic joke? Another workmanlike collection really.

Dragon Magazine Issue 207: July 1994


part 2/5


Paper prosperity: Like artwork and magic items, pieces of paper can have value far above and beyond the physical item. Paper money is of course only valuable because people honour it (well, the same is true of all money, but gold, silver, etc are rare, and have quite substantial uses in electronics and precision crafting. ) Maps are valuable because of what they let you do, and the difficulty in creating a precise one. Legal documents can let you know exactly what you can get away with doing, and may well result in you going places or owning things you otherwise wouldn't be able too. This is a fairly low key article, but one of those ones that looks good for breaking a creative impasse, and inspiring adventures a little different from the usual. You can make the treasures from one adventure a direct hook into the next one, which saves a good deal of time and reduces hanging around drinking in taverns waiting for shady quest-setters. I think we can all agree that that's a good thing, at least until overused, and you spend years running from one hassle to another without ever getting to take a break. This is one they haven't done before, and hopefully It'll help you get out of a rut too.


Trifling Treasures: The alliteration continues, with another short but amusing article.  Putting a bunch of random bits and pieces in the pockets of your NPC's is the kind of thing that adds a lot to your verisimilitude, but takes a lot of work, and if you only do it with some people, you run the risk of the players jumping on the details just because they're there and making enormous red herrings out of them. What shall we do about this? Random tables time! Now that's old skool. Actually, I seem to recall them doing something like this before, quite possibly by Ed. Ah yes, issue 104 and issue 164. This isn't too uncommon an idea then. Course in this, like wand of wonder tables, you can never have too many to choose from to keep your players on their toes. Mix and match spare bits and pieces for maximum randomness in your life, like a real messy apartment. Good luck finding something that'll be just perfect for saving the day some time in the future.


The magic of Karameikos: Joshuan pesters Jeff for a second issue in a row, just because he can. This time, he's talking about Karemekos' premier school of wizardry. This is one of those cases where they consciously lampshade D&D's tropes, with it built on a dungeon which was repeatedly looted, repopulated by new monsters, and cleared out again. In theory, this'll keep it from being reoccupied again, and give apprentice wizards a good source of relatively safe xp as they study, as they can explore the underground bits, but run up to the surface where there's a ready force to deal with anything too nasty. An excellent example of self-awareness in setting design. Course, if it all goes wrong, one of the wizards'll be corrupted and turn into an evil overlord with their own ready made looming spire fortress once they've killed or co-opted everyone else. But hey, that just means another adventure for the PC's. So this shows you that you can do Hogwarts school of magic in AD&D, quite possibly including members of other classes as support guys. Not burdened by the metaplot stuff of last issue, this is pretty fun, and looks like it could be adapted to any high magic campaign fairly easily. D&D may be slanted more towards campaigns where you travel around, but nothing's stopping it from being set in a static location if there's enough interesting stuff going on there. Looks like we might get a few more fun bits and pieces before this world falls into disrepair.  


Forum: Greg Howley nitpicks over exactly what benefit bow and crossbow specialisation should have. Yawn. This is why we abstractify.

Mike Tresca tells his stories of how thievery has hurt the gaming industry as a whole by making shops stop stocking them. This is obviously not a good thing, and the least you can do is eject people who admit to stealing books from your gaming group. Yeah, that's a tricky one. Why are gamers (and Terry Pratchett fans) more larcenously inclined than the average reader? Is it just because they have a much higher percentage of teenage males, or are more complicated social issues involved?

Ken Lacy tries to solve the Bard kit issue. His first bit of advice is that where supplements contradict the core books, you should stick with the rules in the core books. That'll cut off the worst of the twinkery before it really gets going. One of those ones that illustrates the problems in their rules editing by directly pointing out that some of their books contradict others. Where are their editor's heads?

Tim Emrick gives his 2 cents on multiclassed characters with kits. He's moderately conservative, taking the view that it's all optional, and disallowable by the DM. And don't forget, kits should have significant hindrances to offset their bonuses.

Daniel L. Grindstaff complains that gamers at cons are becoming ruder and more likely to attack the GM's running style these years. Generally, not taking crap is a good thing, but there are proper ways to go about it. If you're the only one not enjoying it, you ought to not spoil it for everyone else playing.

Adam Panshin has a whole bunch of ideas for tweaking classes. Multiclass prioritising, anti-paladins, weapon specialisation, ranger's balance with paladins. All in the name of Balance! Tough order, you know. No-one really agrees what perfect balance is.


Role-playing reviews: The Planescape boxed set gets a 6 pip review from Rick, thoroughly pleasing him with it's stylistic choices, vastly greater accessibility, and highly fun to read prose. The bones may not be too different from last edition, but everything else is much more built up. Philosophy, geography, and biology are given new spins. Of course, it's still not nearly complete yet, but with so many infinite universes, you wouldn't want it to be. The stage is set for it to support many years of supplements.

Chessboards: Planes of possibility is another attempt at creating a planar cosmology, this time system free. It too seems pretty cool, even if it doesn't have the amazing visuals or instant accessability of the planescape stuff. There's a lot more dimensional math which seems aimed at those who like analyzing the conceptual side of things. But it still manages to have a sense of mischief as well. When you're working in concepts, it's hard not to have some funny results. I think I'd like this one as well.


Tales of gargentihr? What's that all about then? Another game I don't remember.

Dragon Magazine Issue 207: July 1994


part 3/5


The game wizards: Spellfire! Curse you Collectible Card Games! :shakes fist: We saw you on the horizon at the start of the year. Now one of the things that turned out to be a real bane of the roleplaying hobby, due to the way it competed directly with it for shelf space and social leisure time, is upon us. And it's chief corporate dog Jim Ward who's doing the promotional duties again. So here's a whole bunch of statistics, and a bit of rules details to tantalise us. Build realms comprised of famed locations from various D&D worlds, and attack & defend them with named characters using classic artefacts. It's not a bad idea, even if seems likely to produce scenarios that would be deeply cheesy if done in tabletop, akin to the setting gulf between WHFB & WHFRP. But then, that may be the point. Getting to quickly play scenarios that would be verisimilitude destroying in pen and paper does have it's pleasures, otherwise it wouldn't have had any success. Still, this is another development that is a bit irritating, especially as I know it'll also be taking quite a bit of magazine space in the next few years. I wasn't amused by it the first time around, and this looks like it'll give me plenty of fuel for complaint. Let's hope I can make some of the rants fun ones.


Eye of the monitor: Sandy once again tackles the backlash against violence in gaming. As not only a reviewer, but also a designer of one of the most celebrated gore heavy games of the year, he has a rather large stake in this argument. Unsurprisingly, his view on the matter is rather nuanced. Ironically, just as D&D players seem less likely to commit suicide statistically, it's looking like unleashing your aggressive urges on a collection of pixels makes you less likely to be violent to other people. Really, the important thing to do is raise your kids, not plonk them in front of a screen and let them play whatever they want, or just wander off unsupervised. Game rating systems only work if the parents pay attention to what's on them. This is a big part of why tribalism works. Even two adults can't give full time attention to a whole brood of rapidly growing little horrors. Having a whole bunch of aunties, uncles, grandparents around to share the burden helps in properly socialising your kids tremendously. Another bit of evidence that the way modern society is structured has some serious flaws, trying to go against human instincts and paying the price for it. But we're getting into soapboxing territory again, so let's cut to the games.

Fantasy Empires tries to do the companion level D&D thing and create a game where you start off head of a dominion and then have to conquer the world. The result is as mixed in success as the original Dominion management rules, although it alters them a lot. It does get a good long review, with lots of advice, but it's also quite critical in a lot of respects. It can be a bit slow, and once you've got halfway and victory is pretty much assured, you still have to get through the rest of it to win. Really, it's more for wargamers than RPG'ers, and how many of those are still around today?

Walls of Rome is another OK but not mindblowing wargame. I think you can figure out roughly what technology you have access to in this one, and it's not too surprising, although there are a few sloppy bits, particularly in the manual, which was obviously written before the game was properly finished. You'll have to work things out via trial and error instead.



The role of books: The magic and healing by Nick O'Donohoe looks like it'd get a 5 star review if John did that kind of thing. It's hard for him to pinpoint what makes it so good, but he settles on the way it balances realism and fantasy, hope and cynicism.  getting proper depth into what you create is one of the hardest things to do, really.

Witch and Wombat by Carolyn Cushman, on the other hand, fails to do the worldbuilding needed to make it's odd premise believable. It all feels half-finished, and the jokes aren't strong enough to make it work as a comedy either. Reading tons of other people's stuff doesn't necessarily make you a god writer.

Sleipnir by Linda Evans mixes norse mythology with a hard-bitten modern day soldier protagonist. There's plenty of parallels to be drawn between ancient vikings and modern military, and this tackles them while keeping the action count high as well. Don't be surprised that there's lots of non gratuitous violence and swearing.

Decalog, edited by Mark Stammers & Stephen James Walker, is an anthology of Dr Who stories. With adventures set in a whole range of the Doctor's incarnations, it's filled with easter eggs that reward detailed knowledge of the show. In fact it may be a little too focussed on hardcore fans. But it is full of imaginative twists and turns, and has a nice narrative device typing the stories together. He may be down, but he's not out by a long shot.

The beekeepers apprentice by Laurie R King gives Sherlock Holmes a young female protegee from america. This sounds like it could turn into the worst kind of mary-sue fanfic, but this gets a good review anyway, showing her gradually learning instead of jumping right in, stealing his thunder. As pastiches go, there are many many worse ones.

Dragon Magazine Issue 207: July 1994


part 4/5


Sage advice: If you forego a saving throw, then someone casts a different spell at you, can you save (nope. This is exactly what fast-talking is for. Dramatically, it's a feature, not a bug. )

Why the hell would anyone be a sha'ir! They can't get spells fast enough to use them in combat! (no, but they can keep going all day, and don't need to select their spells at the start. As tactical and utility casters, they rock to an incredible degree. Plus they can't lose their spellbook and become useless if captured.)

Can gens get out of ravenloft (Eek. There's a quandary for you. It'd make the class useless if they couldn't but potentially setting breaking if they could. Skip will allow them to temporarily check out, as they're not PC's, but just like ghosts and roaming Vistani caravans, they can never truly leave. )

Can paladins and rangers cast stuff from the tome of magic spheres (Skip does not want to seem churlish. Skip will give them one extra sphere each so they can keep up with the jones's)

Does a ring of free action prevent paralysis (Skip is going to make a completely outre ruling and say no! Do not question the whims of Skip! )

How exactly does a frost brand work (just say the word. (The word is on your lips ) Say the word. (The word is on your lips ) )

Can a gem of insight hyper boost an elf over the centuries (No. It has to be a different creature each time)

What happens when a wild mage abandons wild magic (Much Aaaangst as they ponder their new place in the world, and the harm they did with their former powers )

Can undead drink potions (yes)

How do undead recover hit points (by feasting on human Fleeeeeeeessssssssh and Brrrraaaaaaiiiinssss )

How does sunlight affect non-vampire undead (see their descriptions. )

What happens when a lich uses a wish. It shortens it's unlife by 5 years. Hey, that means it gets to be a demilich quicker. A plan with no drawbacks! )

How do you determine a liches HP (Since they use completely different dice, a complete reroll is in order.)

Can archliches be turned (Sure. It may not be easy though. )


Gunnar Thorson starts his murder investigation in earnest.


The dragon sage: For a third month in a row, they have something extra for Council of Wyrms. While they may not have enough faith in it's long-term selling potential to make it a full-blown line, there must be quite a few people who like it in the office. So here's a new kit for it. Sages have a bit of a problem on a human scale because they're not that suited for adventuring. But Dragons are inherently big, scary and awesome enough to make up for that. And while spellcasting isn't their primary thing, they do get an interesting selection of spells drawn from both wizard and priest lists. (Divination and summoning are normally opposed specialities. ) If you have a large party, and are struggling to differentiate your dragons, it doesn't hurt, even if it probably is slightly underpowered overall. Now, how do you do a draconic rogue variant? That's one I'd be very interested in seeing them tackle.


Rumblings: This month's gossip is primarily concerned with our links to the computer game industry, in one form or another. As we've heard earlier, Zeb
Cook is off to Magnet Interactive. On top of that, GURPS is getting computer games, Battletech is getting a CD supplement, and WotC are establishing a pretty solid web presence. TSR, on the other hand, are losing their relationship with SSI that produced so many good games, while all their net presence is in the form of third party newsgroups and websites. It's not great news for them really, if you read between the lines. Along with CCG's, this is another strong, and still growing competitor that will do a lot to take players and designers away from RPG's over the years. Getting half a dozen people together to play a game socially is a lot harder than turning on the TV and settling down to a session of final fantasy. These aren't really very good signs for us or them, are they.


There's a rum do about, old chap: A proper Amazing Engine article. About time. Spike Y. Jones turns his mind to distinctive plot hooks for this setting. The result is system free, but of course very steeped in victoriana, and so would take quite a bit of adapting for another game. Ware the french menace! How the hell does evolution apply to faeries? They're going to try and blow up parliament again?! Or replace the MP's with dopplegangers? How does this new technology of blood transfusions work when done between fae and people? Zombie Prince Albert strikes again! And a bit of parallel dimension fun just for the hell of it. A lot of rather fun ideas here, which seem to capture the mix of weirdness, humour and historical flavour the game wants to be played with. It's too little too late, but this is an entertaining little read who's heart is in the right place.


Great Responsibilities: What is with superheroes being outside the law. The good guys are rarely affiliated with any legal organisation (and the ones that are are generally noticeably less effectual) while the villains are never punished using the proper legal system, and get off ridiculously lightly for their crimes. It makes sense with the ones so powerful that no mundane system could hold them, but for street level ones it can only be explained away by liberal application of drama points. Plus unless you have super-senses of some sort, or incredible luck, spotting crimes in time to foil them regularly and get that superheroic reputation is a bit tricky. There are plenty of less glamorous things you can do with superpowers that make the world a better place proactively, instead of waiting around for some villain to attack.  With a sample superheroic organisation based upon these principles, this is one of those ones that seems quite decent at what it intends to do, but not too good if you're looking for a fast-paced, high action campaign. There's always the danger of actually making the game less fun when you add more detail and realism, and this seems the case here. But if you want to try a more logical setup for your superhero-filled society as seen in the likes of Aberrant, this could be what you need.

Dragon Magazine Issue 207: July 1994


part 5/5


Essential Villainy: Deliberately contrasting with the last article is a second system free supers piece. How do you make a memorably diabolical villain? Pretty much the same way you do in any genre. While powers may play a part, it's more in how they behave, and how they relate to the heroes. Whether they're flat or three-dimensional, scary or risible has little to do with their statistical capabilities, and more to do with how they're played. So this is one of those bits of end of issue filler that takes a familiar topic and tries to spruce it up by applying it to a new genre. I yawned my way through it.


Fiction: The lady of Roth Shan by Jo Shannon Cochran. Damn fae. Both men and women can wind up addicted to their beauty. Even if you rescue them from the immediate threat, they may well wind up in trouble again, maybe years later, quite possibly of their own volition. And you might well end up paying a price yourself. Law of drama and all that. If you think you're about to be dragged into a fairy story, steer well clear and nuke them from orbit. It's the banal way. Yeah, this is another example of why you don't want to get mixed up with fae, for the chances of living happily ever after are not actually that great. On the other hand, your chances of living happily ever after in the real world are pretty much zero, so this is a case where I can't really give a definitive answer. All I can say for certain is that this story didn't make a particularly great impression on me, positive or negative. More filler, methinks.


Libram X has amazons fighting more weird tentacled creatures. I do worry about these artists sometimes. Swordplay would prefer it if the party worked together properly. Dragonmirth's tuning is seriously out. Yamara introduces the new lich in the hood, comin' to take over ur familiars.


Through the looking glass: Convention season is on it's way again. We may be in somewhat reduced circumstances compared to a few years ago, but we're still getting our best stuff around this time of the year. A ghost and female vampire, with strikingly similar expressions for such differing body shapes. Sir Tarquine, a mace-wielding knight ready to bash your brains in. A werewolf formor that's entirely suitable for converting into a D&D monster. Three lizard men mooks, plus two more interesting lizard folk and their tamed dinosaur watchdog. A whole cast of mundane people for populating your city breaks. A whole bunch of familiars animal and supernatural for your wizard to chose from. A sarcophagus, containing a mummy, of course. An illusionist on a flying carpet. Pay no attention to the small bit of rock supporting it. And a Dwarf from Earthdawn riding a sabretooth tiger. That'll put the fear up any goblins riding Worgs for sure. (unless they seriously outnumber you, in which case I'm sure they'll pull something nasty. )


TSR Previews: Another new yet old campaign setting arrives this month. That's the 4th this year. They're really going into overdrive. Anyway, the Known World has migrated to AD&D, and been officially renamed Mystara, after the planet rather than the region. We kick off with Karameikos: Kingdom of adventure. The perfect place to make your name or die trying. Now with audio CD! We also see them kick off the supplement mill at a breakneck pace. Their monstrous compendium appendix is out straight away, as is their first novel, Dragonlord of Mystara by Thorarinn Gunnarsson. (another familiar name that's shown up in the magazine ages ago. ) Are they going to get any new stuff out, or is it going to be mostly rehash with shinier visuals. After all, there's a lot of ground already covered here.

The Forgotten realms is also rehashing, in Waterdeep, City of splendors. Another big boxed set full of stuff for players, stuff for GM's, monsters, maps, etc etc. Come on, surely there's somewhere you've missed out. What's south of Maztica? You're unlikely to find out in "Marco" Volo: Journey, as that faker also sticks to fairly safe territory.

On the other hand, we do get to go a bit further south than usual thanks to Al-Qadim, in Corsairs of the great sea. Haven't they already had one nautical sourcebox. Oh well. Plenty more strangeness at sea to go round

Planescape decides to expand on the places dumb adventurers are most likely to want to go first. The Planes of Chaos. Oh yeaaaaaaah. See the curiously phallic giant ship being constructed on the cover. Go wild in Arborea. Go mad in Pandemonium. Go drinking and brawling in Ysgard. Totally trip out in Limbo. And there's so much to do and see in the abyss that you'll never live to experience. Just enjoy the awesome.

Ravenloft does mummies, or The ancient dead, as Van Richten calls them. Considering they're one of the creatures that most needs a bit of extra depth, this is probably a good thing.

Dragonlance does Lord Toede, in the 5th villains book. Jeff Grubb makes this guy's antics amusing and full of unintended consequences. Yet more goofy humour in a setting brimming with it.

Dark sun gets The Brazen Gambit by Lynn Abbey. Another reliable worker roped in to fill out their supplement mill. A templar has a crisis of morals? Whatever next?

Endless Quest releases The Siege of the tower. Set in Greyhawk, it has you manning a tower and defending it from approaching monsters on your own. Will you be saved by the cavalry or die horribly. Guess only you can know for sure. Oh well, if you lose you can just try again.

And finally, our generic book is City of the Sorcerers by Mary Herbert. A sequel to Dark Horse, this is another one that picks up a generation later. Seems like they're doing quite a few timeline skips lately. Gotta have time for new adventurers to grow up, otherwise humanity would be a declining race from all the crises.  


For an issue about treasure, there's surprisingly little crunchy stuff in this issue. It's filled with advice that seems rather familiar, and articles that are generally inconsequential, even when they aren't bad. The bits that are significant, on the other hand, are the bits showing the arrival of CCG's, and the reorganisation of their relationship with computer games. Which are a bit depressing. If issue 201 foreshadowed this stuff, now it's well and truly here, and will be a regular part of the magazine experience for the next few years. And while it may be a break from D&D, it's a lot less welcome than covering other RPG's by different companies. This doesn't feel good at all. I knew it was coming, but that doesn't make it any easier now I've actually get to it. Guess I'd better press onwards ASAP.

Dragon Magazine Issue 208: August 1994


part 1/5


132 pages. The wolves howl and the cold wind blows in a cover which is completely contradictory to the actual season of this issue. Also advertised on the cover is coverage of their dead campaign world, and brand new CCG. It's all a bit contentious. Still, that means they're challenging their audience. Whether the audience will accept the challenge is another matter altogether. Maybe there is some reward at the end. It may be madness, but I've just got to see.


In this issue:


Letters: Another round of the submission guidelines thang. It never goes out of fashion. This proves two things. The magazine is still getting new readers. And people just don't pay attention, do they. Man, this stuff gets repetitive.

Not repetitive, on the other hand, is a letter by someone who turned a potentially tedious wander around into an opportunity. It's amazing what you can turn into a useful tool if you keep your eyes open and do a little macguyvering.

And finally, we have a complaint from someone who can't find call of cthulhu stuff near them. And as before, this is solved by giving their address and telling the writer to order direct. I can't wait for internet shopping to take off so this ceases to be a concern.


Editorial: Dale tries to promote roleplaying over rollplaying again, by giving you a little assistance in building their personality. Who, what, when, where, why and how? Simple one word questions, that can have very complicated answers indeed. When building a character, it's important to do so from several angles, otherwise what appears solid and 3-dimensional at first can turn out to be just a cardboard cutout. But at the same time, overcomplicating things can result in a whole load of wasted effort. My tendency is to go for a little too much, but the more I have to do, the less chance I get to indulge that desire. As is often the case with Dale, this is more an extra article than any commentary on current events. He's really racking them up despite not actually doing official articles himself. I also wonder just how much he actually adds and takes away from articles on a regular basis. Being an editor gives you a lot of behind the scenes power, different ones will use it to different extents, and probably only another experienced editor could tell the difference from reading a completed publication. So this isn't bad at all, and has also been fairly thought-provoking in general.


Jyhad, aka the Vampire TCG. Everyone's getting in on the act. But some will have more success than others. And it's not always the ones you'd expect.


First Quest: Ah yes, James Lowder. One of the people who's become a regular contributor to this thread in the last year or so. He seems noticeably less zany than some of our other writers, but that just meant his early adventures wound up with him as the straight guy, getting screwed over and rapidly dying while the more experienced players laughed. It's a hard knock life, for us. Still, once again, it makes for a fairly entertaining story that a lot of readers will be able to identify with. To truly hook people on something, you need intermittent reward, and combining sadistic teasing with the fun bits fits that bill disturbingly well. So this is a study in social dynamics, and how they (don't) change as we grow up. People manufacture drama because without it, they would be bored, and in the process, drag everyone else in. And some people need a lot more drama in their lives than others. Stay away from people who need more drama than you can take. Even if they don't mean to hurt you, it'll just fill your life with annoyance.


Right from the start. Ooh, an article by Eric Noah, the founder of ENWorld. Like Sandy's contributing over the last year, that's a definite turnup for the books. Following straight on from First Quest is another slant on introductory info. You can just throw them into the dungeon and make up a world as you go along, but this gets old after a couple of times. If you know your players, know what they want, and engage in the worldbuilding and character generation process simultaneously, you can tailor them to each other, making your life easier, and your players happier. Makes sense to me. A whole bunch of highly specific steps, with examples, makes this a pretty easy one to implement too. It's all pretty likeable. He evidently knows how to work with people and get good results out of them. Seems appropriate really. Keeping a whole bunch of moderators on the same page and not abusing their powers would require much the same skillset.


The sound of adventure: Once again with the audio CD cheese. I do have to wonder if their commitment to this format was one of the things causing Mystara to die so quickly once it went AD&D. After all, even if the products sell the same amount they used too, creating stuff like this pushes up costs quite a bit. So as soon as their finances start dipping into the red, these'll be the first to be flagged up as problems. Actually, how did the Mystara stuff compare in sales to the old basic D&D gazetteers and modules? There do seem to be quite a few people peeved by the rebranding, and possibly not buying the new products because of that. So this is an irritating promotional article that is very indicative indeed of the problems growing within the company. Silly gimmicks drive away regular buyers and attract people who then don't become long-term fans. Plus the audio CD's were pretty lame in general, which certainly didn't help. At least this is mercifully short.


Masterbook! WEG makes their own shot at an universal system, with worldbooks for indiana jones, and bloodshadows (I smell WoD clone) coming soon.