Dragon Magazine Issue 208: August 1994


part 2/5


Get motivated!: Contrasting with Dale's character creation advice earlier, this article thinks the most important part of a character is not who they are, or their past, but what they intend to do now and in the future. Interesting thought. It's certainly the case that far too often, players will come up with an elaborate backstory, but in the end, become just another cog in the party, doing exactly the same dungeoncrawls that they always do, unless they make a conscious effort to adjust their natural playing habits. Course to make that work, you need to co-ordinate with the other players to make sure they don't have contradictory goals, otherwise you'll tear the party apart. This is a bit of advice that they haven't given us before, and it's one of the good aspects of the characterisation-heavy era, so I quite like this one. Like method acting, there are various other cool ways you can approach the same problem. If you think up a new one, don't hesitate to share it.


Bazaar of the Bizarre: Another article on horses here. If an experienced adventurer wants a mount, they've got to be prepared to upgrade it for it to stay battle competitive. If you don't want to switch to dragons or something, then you'll have to start making magical items for your horse.

Bridles of Equine control do exactly what they say on the tin. Magic enforced loyalty for those who can't be bothered to form a proper bond with their animal.

Bridles of fearlessness, intelligence or strength are also pretty self explanatory. How do you want to buff your mount today? Make sure you're badass enough to keep up with them, whichever way you choose.

Feed bags of plenty ensure you don't need to load up with grain and water. You'll still need to remember to put them on and take them off each day. Maybe you should just get a golem, if that much maintenance is too much for you.

Grooming kits of disguise let you change the appearance of your mount. After all, if you're going undercover, you don't want to be given away because you forgot a basic detail like that.

Riding crops of speed let you push your mount extra hard. It has it's limits, of course. Killing your horse through pushing it too hard is not a good idea.

Riding crops of teleportation, on the other hand, dispense with all that sweat and effort and just get you there. I know which I'd prefer in most situations.

Saddlebags of holding are for the adventurer who still can't carry enough despite all their own extradimensional spaces. Jeez, that's gonna hold a lot of treasure.

Saddle blankets of comfort are for holding while you suck your thumb. Or something. Your horse needs environmental protection too you know.

Shoes of Combat are the horsey equivalent of magical weapon, Your basic bonus to hit and damage. Yawn.

Shoes of Flame are like a flaming sword, a nice upgrade to the previous idea. They also protect both the horse and rider, which definitely seems useful to me. Ride across that magma Trigger!

Shoes of Leaping are the equivalent of boots, which reminds us that the horsey item slot situation is a bit more competitive than for humans.

Shoes of Flight make the previous item look thoroughly unimpressive. Flight vs jumping. No competition really.

Shoes of Obscurity are the horsey equivalent of rings of invisibility. They'll let you disappear mysteriously when needed elsewhere. With billowing mists too. Neat.

Shoes of Protection are another straight conversion. Some protect the rider as well, some don't. either way, you're not going to kick them out of bed for wearing them. <_<  >_>

Shoes of Swimming should also be pretty obvious in effect. Speeding through the waves, faster than a flashing dolphin.You'll still get wet though.

Shoes of Weakness are the usual cursed item in the batch, to keep you paranoid. You didn't think making equine items couldn't go wrong, did you?

Spurs of command are another means of ensuring obedience. Once again I have nothing much to say.

Trappings of displacement let you imitate a displacer beast. Not very useful if in formation, obviously, but pretty nasty for hit and run combat.

Trappings of elvenkind remind us that the nature loving ponces provide for all animals. While not as good as the shoes of obscurity, they once again have quite decent concealment capabilities.

Trappings of protection are yet another direct conversion. They'll even stack with other compatible garments. A decidedly unimaginative end for a really rather boring article. Man, that was a serious grind to do.


Team Spirit: A third bit of character-building advice this month once again takes a different angle. Don't know why they didn't make it this issue's formal special topic. As should be obvious from the title, this is about giving your party enough common ground that they want to adventure together. Now, you can work this out amongst you, or if you want to make the campaign truly random and quick, you can roll on a table. Actually, this devotes more time to the random tables than the custom advice, which I find rather amusing. Some of them could be used in conjunction with others, and of course, the table on group customs could be rolled as many times as you want, and you think they can remember. This is another thing that could break an impasse and speed along the process of starting up a campaign by a few hours.  Definitely one for noting down.

Quote from: (un)reason;418713Dragon Magazine Issue 208: August 1994
Masterbook! WEG makes their own shot at an universal system, with worldbooks for indiana jones, and bloodshadows (I smell WoD clone) coming soon.

Bloodshadows in its D6 incarnation OWNS.  Its noir fantasy horror and not even on a proper Earth.  If there was any justice in this world (there isn't) this would be one of the most popular RPGs out there.

Dragon Magazine Issue 208: August 1994


part 3/5


Behind the scenes: Bah, back to the promotional articles with a planescape one. Unlike the teasers, this is fairly banal, although it does have some cool sketches I don't remember seeing in the actual books. While Diterlizzi gets all the fame, Dana Knutson also had a good deal to do with defining planescape's distinctive aesthetic, and indeed, getting it commissioned in the first place. And of course, there are plenty of other people who deserve credit for making the line as good as it is. So this is a bit of mwah, mwah, we're all fabulous dahlings, let's engage in a bit of backslapping and drink champagne to celebrate our baby being released into the world. It's a little bit sickly, but oh well. At least in this case they deserve it. Still, again I say next! This is inconsequential!


Campaign Journal: Carl Sargent makes his final contribution to Greyhawk's post war geography. Last time we went sailing the sea, now it's into the depths of the Adri forrest. Even elves & stubby gnomes are rare in the depths of this one, while bandits, goblinoids and weird stuff aplenty for the players to fight roam the area. So it's mostly low-mid level encounters, but there's also one super high level plot device bit that's near impossible to get into, and has a terrifying evil artifact sealed within. With plenty of important characters from the area given full stats, this is another fairly long and wide-reaching article that you'll have to build upon to make a complete campaign, but does give you enough for when players stroll through the area. It's not as obviously suffering post-war as other areas, but it is a place riven by paranoia, with lots of small groups who don't trust each other or any strangers wandering through. And with adventurers being the sort to fight first and ask questions later, they shouldn't be short of opportunities for XP. So I think once again this'll make for fairly good gaming. Should I be playing greyhawk, I'd use this.


Eye of the monitor: Ah yes, computers vs consoles. one war that was particularly immature, because the majority of people eventually wound up owning at least one of each. Can we not accept that each has plusses and negatives for different kinds of games? Fie on ye, and your tribalism! A pox on both your houses! I'll be over here having fun with both.

Secret of Mana is another megaseller of the SNES era, even if it doesn't quite beat Zelda 3 overall. Sandy still gives it a 5 star rating; with it's multiple characters, decent AI, sense of humour and challenging puzzles. Consoles can produce games that have depth and don't let anyone say otherwise.

Ultima: the false Prophet brings this series to the Super Nintendo. It doesn't get a brilliant grade, and actually, it barely gets reviewed at all, with Sandy digressing into a rant on the drawbacks of console versions of PC games, and indeed conversions in general. This is actually probably more interesting than a normal review would be. He does seem surprisingly keen on turning this column into a general soapbox.

Al-Qadim: The Genie's Curse is one of the final SSI AD&D games. It does have the usual flaw of requiring grinding for XP, but is otherwise is plenty of fun, and has a lot more instant action than the old games. Nice to see them producing stuff for the smaller campaign settings as well.

Ultima VIII: Pagan sees this series continue to decline in quality. It doesn't give you enough help figuring out how to play it, and the controls grow increasingly arcade game like. Fashion is moving on, and they're moving in the wrong way to follow it successfully.

God of Thunder has you playing Thor, of course, smashing shit and solving puzzles  in an overhead zeldaesque style. It's a bit primitive, but it's free, so what's the worry. The worst you can get is some wasted time.

Raptor is a shoot'em up where you get to upgrade your plane between missions with the money you earned from blowing up enemies. Sandy enjoys that, finding getting real rewards for your accomplishments instead of just a higher score increases the pleasure. Once again, it's free as well. And blowing stuff up is inherently fun in itself.


Defend the realms: Our first proper spellfire article makes it's appearance. Variant rules time! Allen Varney was our first reporter on CCG's, so it's fitting he experiments to see what happens if you change bits around on TSR's new game. Change the pyramid to a line, circle, cross, grid or cluster. Introduce an economic element to play, as happens in reality. Ally protectors. And they squeeze in some errata as well. This isn't bad at all, and squeezes in a lot of options in a small page count. (made to look bigger by lots of awkwardly shaped adverts) It's a bit more variety for the magazine, and doesn't feel forced like the Buck Rogers articles in issue 157. Once again, it looks like I'm going to be able to get more info on something I pointedly ignored at the time. As long as they keep it to 1 article a month or less, and they don't suck too much, this is an entirely valid use of their page count.


Gaming around the world: It's been a while since we had a yank go off to report on the UK conventions. This could be good for a laugh. No great surprises here, but of course, it's the little differences that really stand out in his mind. The greater politeness of the english (ha!) The vaguely prisonlike UK holiday camps. The massive greasy breakfasts. All the cool old stuff. And the convention itself isn't bad either. So this reminds us that you shouldn't just be adventuring in your mind, and if you do, don't be surprised when everywhere you create seems the same to your players. Some real travel'll really help shake up your ingrained assumptions and let you create more varied cultures in your game worlds. Plus shopping opportunities. It's fun being a tourist. So this is one that's interesting for me because it does turn the tables on my UK flavoured viewpoint, and the enjoyment of the writer bleeds through into the article. Obviously it's not as significant as Gary's first trip to the UK, back in issue 63, but very few articles these days are. Another little adventure, that hopefully'll lead to bigger adventures for you.

Dragon Magazine Issue 208: August 1994


part 4/5


Forum: Rick Underwood revisits that thorny subject of critical hits. He suggests the probability system adopted in 3rd ed. Natural 20 means a threat, then you have to roll a hit again to confirm. Well well. This is a turnup for the books. He also uses fumbles with a similar probability if you roll a natural 1. This seems like about the right probability of brutality to me.

J. W. Rommell talks about his own experiences gaming, and suggests that you ought to let new gamers watch before they dive in. This stuff doesn't have to be scary.

Serena Ng also tackles both the sexism and introducing new players angles. It's less scary if you introduce several at once. Girls can get intimidated when there's just one of them and a whole bunch of blokes, especially if they're already an established group. It's one of the things that makes bands with female lead singers particularly unstable.

Marle McCabe believes Stout halflings have more in common with gnomes than dwarves. Don't let Tolkien hem you in. He never had gnomes to worry about.

Daman Robinson points out that it is entirely possible for male gamers to play female characters. Some of them aren't even lesbian stripper ninjas. There are plenty of male actors who actually enjoy acting.

Mike Olgren advises us not to be embarrassed of roleplaying as an adult. We don't grow out of our musical tastes. Like video games, the problem is simply because it's a first generation form of entertainment. We just have to make sure the hobby survives after they die out and gets passed down successfully.


The game wizards: Dragon passed it's 200th issue fairly recently. Now Polyhedron hits the big 1 oh oh. And it looks like they're putting a similar degree of extra effort to make it a special issue as well. Ed Greenwood is contributing, of course. But there's also stuff from Margaret Weis, Zeb Cook, Monte Cook, Bruce Heard and Roger Moore. Pretty much the same cast as we see regularly contributing to Dragon. It also looks like they're making an extra effort to cover other RPG's in this one. I do wonder just how connected the editorial policies of the two magazines (and Dungeon, for that matter) are. Will all three cut out coverage of 3rd party stuff at the same time in early 96? Do they all use the same editing and typesetting equipment? (I'm still not sure if they've moved fully to computer yet) As ever, when they bring this topic up, I must bemoan the apparent absence of polyhedron issues on the web, or anyone willing to hunt them down physically and do a reading thread. It's looking increasingly unlikely that itch will get to be scratched. So this a promotional article that reminds me there's a whole other untapped source of old D&D articles, many of which are quite good in their own right, even if they don't have the same legendariness simply due to smaller reader base. It'd be a shame if that just disappeared into the ether as the physical copies gradually wear out and get lost.


Role-playing reviews: Another delve into the quirky small-press games. Cool ideas, implementation limited by budget. Often an interesting position. Will any of these go  on to greater things?

Whispering vault is Mike Nystul's rather interesting attempt at designing his own game. Creating a premise that seems perfect for an anime series, you're ascended beings with their own weird and wonderful realms protecting the world from rogue gods. Lester only got to see a prerelease copy, which had a few flaws, but hopefully some of them'll be fixed in the full version. It's still a decidedly fun premise, and the dice mechanic is interesting as well. This is one that should have done better, and seems a good subject for a revival.

World Wrestling Federation basic adventure follows in the footsteps of our old Ringside game to bring the world of pro sports to roleplaying. It's a very amusing idea but the writing is repetitive and hard to untangle. It results in things being a lot slower than they ought to be, which spoils the fun.

All-star Wrestling game does a good deal better. It's only half the size, yet a lot more flexible, and easy to play. Should you want to engage in white room combat and bizarre theatrics, this is the one to pick.

Superbabes is licensed from the Femforce comics, and like most licences, tries to emulate the tone of the source material. In this case, that's quite playful and not too complicated, with drama point mechanics that promote the right kind of stories. The main complaint seems to be the shoddy construction of the physical books themselves. Meh.

Inferno panders to the satanic RPG controversy, with you playing damned souls, necromancers, demons, or possibly priests venturing into hell to smite evil and rescue unjustly imprisoned souls. You can choose to be good or bad, and either looks fun, but of course the evil options are given more relish, just to annoy the moral majority. Like white wolf, they must be gambling this will increase their success.


Fiction: Time in a bottle by P. Andrew Miller. We had a genie based bit in the computer reviews. Now we have another story involving a being with phenomenal cosmic power, and an itty-bitty living space. Quite a good one, as it twists around two classic genie tropes - the perversion of the wisher's wish, and the desire to wish them free. It also manages to expertly mix pathos and humour, and get inside the head of a decidedly alien creature. And the happy ending is just tear-jerkingly brilliant. A real little gem that fits a lot of descriptive density into it's pages. This one definitely goes in my top ten bits of fiction from the magazine.


Gunnar Thorson is capable of surprisingly deep thought for a man engaged in pitched combat in the dark.

Dragon Magazine Issue 208: August 1994


part 5/5


Sage advice: What classes and level can tieflings be (most of them, pretty high. They're versatile little things, as befits their diverse heritage )

Do magically aged undead get more powerful (probably not. You don't get mental bonuses for fake aging, so they shouldn't either)

Can druids use athasian weapons if they're made of organic materials (Hmm. Skip is suspicious of this concept. Skip does not recommend it.)

Where's the height, weight and aging tables for the new planescape races, ya berk. (Are you threatening skip with yo bad 19th century british slang. Skip was brought up on the mean shores of Lake Geneva, where there were d4's that could take your foot off lurking round every corner. Skip laughs at your pitiful attempts to sound tough, biatch. But Skip will answer your question anyway. Now watch yo mouth next time. Can you dig it?)

Where the hell is the Dawnspire?( Good question. Errata, errata, here we go again. )

Can PC githzerai plane shift (No. They've all been disowned for associating with other races. )

Can planars really see portals without using magic (yes. Why do you doubt the books, friend citizen? )

Are 1st and 2nd level priest spells common knowledge to sha'irs (no)

How the hell do dragons from far countries get to the council of wyrms on time (Flying 20 hours a day. Man, their wings are gonna need a serious massage after that. )

When are all the things that happen in the forgotten realms novels gonna be properly updated to the game. (They aren't. They're just gonna be referred to obliquely so you have to buy everything to keep up with the metaplot )

I question the validity of your rulings! You keep missing points! (Ahh, fresh meat. Come here son, Skip's gonna teach you a valuable lesson. :bang: There. Once your kneecaps heal, I hope you won't make the same mistake again. Ahh, that's better. It's been too long since Skip did that. )

Can a beholder's eyes survive the death of the body (No, thank god. They'd be even more of a nightmare if that was the case. )

Wouldn't a vampire that had recently fed still be obvious to infravision, because the heat would be concentrated in their stomach? (And what's to say it isn't passed straight to their veins? They do not have regular metabolisms, remember. Your DM was entirely in his rights to screw you out of 2 levels in this way. )


Libram X gets rather confusing as Jen meets an alternate her. Dragonmirth finds a prince in every pond. Joe gets in trouble with his gods in Yamara. This is what happens when you hang around vampires.

WotC creates their own comic to advertise their customer sales line. It's a Foglio number too. Haven't seen much of him around here recently. This is the kind of thinking that will lead them to own ur ass, TSR.


Through the looking glass: Ken proves himself not a reviewer after my own heart by saying that the reason most of his reviews are positive is because he thinks we'd rather hear about the good stuff than be warned away from the bad stuff. NOPE! I want to laugh at the crap stuff. Entire websites are formed precisely for this purpose. Plus only posting positive reviews can make you look like a company shill. You lose several points of credibility.

So anyway, the minis. A chief goblin and his pet squig from warhammer. What a heartwarming story. A pair of street samurai from Shadowrun, probably noobs, since they aren't cybered up to the gills. Some 15mm ogres for the Battlesystem. They'll be barely goblins if the PC's are in 25mm scale. Zulkir Szass Tam from the forgotten realms setting. One of the few bad guys with a chance of beating Elminster in a straight fight, if your PC's meet him, you know it's serious. Some griffon riding warriors, also AD&D official. A pair of postapocalyptic rebel leaders. The fat one is wearing less clothing than the thin one, and appears to have an armoured codpiece. Thank you for that, designers. An arthurian herald.


TSR Previews: Generic stuff is very much on top this month. The complete druid's handbook shows you how they can be protectors for all terrain, plus the usual supply of kits, roleplaying advice, scary new spells, and a villainous organisation dedicated to the harsher side of nature. They also bring out player packs, prefab sets of character sheets, minis, pen, dice, all the obvious crap. Very much aimed at beginners. And another art book for those of you who don't want to trawl through dozens of places for the odd pretty picture.

Dark sun shows us City by the silt sea. Shane Hensley is expanding on things. There's another really scary undead monster out there. Looks like even Athasian dragons can wind up Dracoliches.

Ravenloft is also undead obsessed, as usual. The Awakening sees another monster unleashed on the world. Thankfully it's stuck in Ravenloft, but that's small comfort if you're trapped in there with it.

The Forgotten Realms gets another R A Salvadore drow novel. Siege of Darkness. Things go horribly wrong, but if anyone deserves it, they do.

The Amazing Engine releases Kromosome. Genetic Engineering + Corporate espionage. Sounds like it would have fitted in with the Top Secret output 5 years ago. More cool toys to build your own game world.


Somewhat better than the last few issues, this is still very much of it's time, but shows a lot more of the positive aspects of that era, in terms of worldbuilding, characterisation, design elements, etc. Remember, even if the average quality goes down, all the good stuff from all the previous eras remains valid, so you can just keep accumulating options with which you can make your game better. You'll just need more time to sort everything out. Now, the big flaw here is our limited lifespans. And since I've now been working on this thread for almost a 10th of my life, I'd better get a move on if I want to get a practical benefit from it. On we go to the next issue.

Dragon Magazine Issue 209: September 1994


part 1/5


124 pages. Time for clerics & druids to get another turn at being the featured class for an issue, with both a cover appearance and three articles near the beginning. I guess this means more spells, and possibly more kits if we're lucky. They still don't actually do articles with them that frequently. Funny business, really. I suppose it reinforces the image of them as a cool idea that was never implemented very well, allowing prestige classes to improve on the principle quite a bit come next edition. But I'm getting ahead of myself again, aren't I. Let's try and keep this linear, at least in the output stages. (and then you'll never know just how non-linear my reviewing process actually was, ahahahaha!!!!! ahem)


In this issue:


Letters: A letter from someone who wants to work at TSR. As with the unsolicited magazine articles, Dale has to inform them their chances are slim. Try becoming a freelancer first. It's a rough ride, but it all gets a lot easier after the first few articles sold and contacts made.

A letter from someone worried about the death of dragonlance. It's not dead, it's just the RPG side of it that got small. The novels are going as prolifically as ever. If you're unhappy about this, keep writing and buying.

A complaint that their copy of the complete book of humanoids lost it's cover. Hey, that happened to me too! Guess it's another one that was shoddily printed in general. Which is silly, since like UA, it was one of their crunch heavy books most likely to be thumbed through again and again.

And finally, a request for healthy food recipes that'll make good alternatives to the mountain dew and chips stereotype that results in overweight gamers. Tee hee. Thankfully that is not a concern of mine, and as long as my knees'll allow me to walk miles regularly and do several hours of dance practice a week, hopefully that'll continue to be the case.


Editorial: Not sure who's doing the editorial this month, as they don't sign it, but it certainly doesn't read like a Dale piece. Plus he's too young to have a daughter just join the army, unless he was a dad at 12. Still, like Dale's editorial in issue 207, it's a strong reminder that the journey is usually by far the biggest part of the adventure, and in real life, every lengthy trip is a minor adventure, especially if you aren't much good at reading maps and following directions. And most people didn't have GPS or mobile phones then, so if you were lost or running late, you couldn't call to apologise or ask for help. It's also a reminder that gamers and army people do have quite a bit of overlap. Since Roger left, that's come up less frequently round here. Still, this story of other people's frustration and eventual triumph is reasonably entertaining, and has lessons for you to apply to your gaming as well, be you player or GM. It's a big world out there, and a lot less actively malevolent than most game worlds. If you want true realism, you have to remember the neutral stuff as well.


First quest: Steve Winter has been a fairly regular contributor for over a decade now. He's one of the old guard who started off as a wargamer, before being sucked into roleplaying by the people in the gaming club. He actually puts a lot of attention to that start, it's more than halfway through the article before he gets to his D&D experience. And even then, he found he preferred Metamorphosis alpha and gamma world. I seem to recall him being heavily involved in the Battlesystem stuff, so I suspect he takes the non D&D projects where he can. This is one of the introductions I identify less with, as the writing isn't too engaging, it takes too long to get to the point, and the experiences are quite different to my own. But then, it would be a boring world if we were all alike. I know there are other people out there who'll see themselves in his formative experiences. Personally, I'll have to return a meh result though.


Branching out all over: So we've reached the end of class and race handbooks. All the ones from the players handbook are now fully catered for. What now? Not sure, but at least we can take advantage of the last one with a tie-in article to provide subtle promotion. As he did with the Council of Wyrms, Roger Moore looks at better integrating the new druid subtypes into the various other campaign worlds. Actually it's surprising how few of them actually have druids. Like assassins, they like to think of themselves as ubiquitous and eternal, like the cycles of nature, but they really really aren't. No wonder entire planets wind up ecologically screwed on a regular basis. This certainly isn't as fascinating as the half-dragon stuff, and is pretty much lacking in new crunch. It's obviously for the setting obsessives who just have to have a canon answer, instead of applying a little logic. The new spell ideas are cool, the rest is stuff I could have whipped up myself in a few minutes. One of those cases where you wonder why they put them first. Probably the whole established author thing. MeeeeEEEEeeeeh, once again.

Dragon Magazine Issue 209: September 1994


part 2/5


The priests of africa: More kits time! As with issue 200's wizardly kits, (which are by the same writer) these have minor access to spells from the other side, thus blurring the wizard/priest distinction in D&D. This should make for an interesting article mechanically, but also runs the risk of repeating fluff ideas. Africa is a big continent, but are his cultural sources wide enough to do that justice? I shall have to see. Artwork's good though, so that's already a plus in it's favor.

Animal priestesses get wizard divination spells (but not clerical divination spells, very weirdly) and the abilities to talk too, charm and summon their chosen animal. Course, they can't hurt said animal without losing their powers, but as a limitation, I think this falls into the path of what I was going to do anyway. They're pretty unlikely to attack you with that suite of powers unless there's a more powerful spellcaster involved.

Kongo Witch Doctors get to create village wide circles of protection via dancing. They're not that great as adventurers, with quite a small sphere selection and no armour allowed. More a support kit then, for they'll be almost as squishy as wizards in the frontline.

Legbas are another variant on the elemental priest idea. They get the more wide-ranging power to control all kinds of animals from the appropriate terrain, and a pretty decent spell selection, including wizard spells of the appropriate element. The only hinderance is once again having no armor and shields, which I suspect may be standard for all this lot, given the culture.

Obeah-men get wizardly necromantic spells, setting them up as the priestly parallel of issue 200's Houngan & Mambo. They also have to sacrifice animals to the gods upon level increase in the same way. Using both really blurs the distinction between the magic types.

Poro draw upon their ancestors regularly, and get to upgrade their mental stats in the manner of cavaliers. They also get bardic lore and lots of proficiency slots. Their spell selection isn't that great though, making them more generalists with spiritual fluff than clerics. Which is interesting. But as with last selection, these seem more likely to err on the side of overpowered than under. Maybe the consistently considerably lower AC's will balance that out. Guess that's another question for the actual play realms.


Palladium also gets all verdant, with the jungles of yin-sloth out now.


Long-lost priestly magicks: Wizards aren't the only ones with obscure spells. Clerics might not have as many, for both IC and OOC reasons, (godly records, and not as many supplements focussing on them) but there's certainly nothing stopping spells from going out of common use, particularly if they're the sort that would only be cast a few times a lifetime anyway. High priest forgets to pass them down, or gets killed before a decent successor arises, and the hierarchy's secrets are borked. Such a pain.

Merge with Nature lets you avoid death by merging with a tree and becoming a dryad. This is nowhere near as good as Tree Spirit from the complete druids handbook, but it is a level lower and accesible from more spheres. If you know about both, you're unlikely to use this unless it looks like you're going to die from old age before you get the chance to advance a few levels.

Roots of the Assassin are a druidic variant on Evard's black tentacles. They kill by strangulation, and are rather a bitch to fight. They seem perfectly decent as a combat spell, and have some neat forgotten realms fluff woven in as well.

Resplendence of renewed Youth lets an old priest temporarily regain the vigour of youth for one last world-saving adventure! (at a heavy price, of course) Very much a plot device, this has a good dramatic feel to it, making me thoroughly approve. This selection definitely goes for quality over quantity, which since we have tons of spells already, isn't a bad thing. And new methods of playing with the aging process, which is one area D&D has always been rather conservative with, are especially welcome. So I definitely enjoyed this one.


Role-playing reviews: Lester bends the rules a little, and reviews computer-based roleplaying aids in this column. Well, it's just as valid a form as audio CD's to aid your gaming, and has considerably more legs in terms of development and reusability. After all, we know now that computer based aids'll become an invaluable part of 4e's player aids toolkit. It's mainly the budget required that keeps this from becoming more common. I suspect quite a few companies are trying to jump on this bandwagon around this time.

Goldtree engine is for creating your own fully searchable city setting, full of fleshed out buildings, people, objects, weather, random events and plot hooks. Much of Lester's review is devoted to his sample adventure created with it, which does indeed sound pretty cool. It's surprisingly quick to use, and can throw up results that surprise even the DM, spinning off into new plots easily. A computer program should make things quicker and easier, not harder, and this certainly seems to fit that bill. Now, if they could just get the self-aggrandisement out of the manual.

Worldsystem Mapmaker is designed to create maps and encounters over a wider scale, even going up to solar systems rather than just planets. Again, it's flexible, and supports putting a certain degree of randomness in your game so you can have random monster attacks and weather to keep players on their toes. It does seem a bit harder to use than Goldtree, but also more versatile. It also has a bunch of expansions, so it seems good for people who really want to work at mastering a program.

Campaign Cartographer isn't nearly as versatile as the other two products reviewed here, but does what it does better, thanks to being more specialised. You can zoom in and out from street to global level easily, and create amazing levels of detail. You can lose yourself for hours and fill your entire computer's memory with your world maps. And it costs $70. That's a fairly substantial investment to make. Once again I'm thankful that computers have become a good deal cheaper and better over the years.


The invisible sun: A second (and final) amazing engine article for the magazine before it slips away like Top Secret and Gamma World before it. This is actually recent enough to be topical, as it's for Kromosome. Although it does look like cut material from the book, as it is by Wolfgang Baur, the actual author, but still, better than nothing. So here's a new organisation for the players to join or oppose. Existing largely online, and making use of nasty computer programs that burn out people's minds, turning them into cyber-zombie slaves, The Invisible Sun certainly isn't a heroic organisation by any stretch of the imagination. But of course, they have valuable information and a good social network, so you might need to deal with them to get things done. And the premise is fairly fun and not too hard to convert. The biopunk name might differentiate it a bit from standard cyberpunk, but stylistically, it means little. Just a slight difference in the kewl powerz. But I'm not complaining at all.

Dragon Magazine Issue 209: September 1994


part 3/5


Forum: B. Johnson brings back the paladin's code issue, once again saying you should discuss it with the DM before play to establish their moral priorities. Then, when the pinch comes down and it's time to make hard compromises, you won't lose your powers for prioritising a different ideal to the DM.

Mary Cateli thinks that paladins shouldn't all be played as cavaliers, and cavaliers shouldn't have to act like jackasses towards the peasantry. Many of the best knights were humble and courteous to everyone regardless of age, sex, race or social class.

Eyal Teler thinks that it's important that the paladin's code doesn't force them to act like idiots. Good ≠ stupid, and if you make it so, then of course they'll wind up falling from grace or failing in their tasks regularly. Unless they're following the god of pedantic bureaucrats, this is a bad thing.

Steve Fletcher points out that paladins may be slightly more powerful than rangers, but they're both harder to get into, and easier to wash out of. This is what counts as balance in D&D at the moment.

Mike Delmonico is finding his specialist wizards are gaming the system, and often not actually using that many spells from their speciality. And the fixed opposition school system is rather clunky. Perhaps removing that, and making the proportion of spells that need to be of their speciality rather higher, at least 50%, would help.

Jean-Philippe Suter expresses his displeasure at Jon Pickens reorganisation of spheres in issue 205. This kind of movement based not on what they do, but who ought to be using them seems like putting the cart before the horse to him. Course, in his ideal world, every god would have a completely customised spell list. You know why they don't do that? Because that would mean it'd be a nightmare figuring out if a particular priest could have particular spells from supplements. The sphere system supports modular expandability.

Julian Neale picks apart the power level of high level necromancers. Many of their spells are surprisingly sucky. House ruling time! Yeah, I think half the time they use necromancers as villains so they can inflate their levels to look impressive, while still having the PCs kick their ass when they get to them.

Donald R. Maclean turns his eye on the many problems with using magic jar as a method of immortality. Sooner or later, they're going to break free, or you'll be stuck in the receptacle somewhere obscure for years with no-one to take over. Like becoming a vampire, you're setting yourself up for a troubled existence where you regularly have to worry about your victims coming back to haunt you.

Christopher Davis also points out Eric Burns' misconceptions as to how magic jar works. People do fight back mentally when you take over their body. Plus you can't tell exactly what you're getting beforehand. That can be rather embarrassing.

Doug Ironside recommends cheating on your gaming group with another one. If they're better, you have more fun, and if they're worse, you learn to appreciate what you have all the more. Either way, it's more interesting than hanging around with the same people year in year out.


Ex Libris: Just back in issue 207 they encouraged us to use pieces of paper as treasures, for there are quite a few plot opportunities created by them. How many more opportunities in something comprised of hundreds of pieces of paper? We already have a decent selection of magical books in the DMG, so this adds a whole selection of nonmagical ideas, once again determined via random table. Most of them are useful, quite a few are funny, and some of them contain useful information for magic-users to research stuff. This is very much in the old school spirit, being short, lighthearted, and not afraid of bending genre. Does feel a bit rehashed though. Probably shouldn't have come so soon after a similar article.


You wanna be a What!: Ah, yes, gamma world and their gonzo selection of races. Unlike D&D, which is still relatively conservative in the official publications, they've always encouraged you to play sentient plants, cockroaches, conglomerations of radioactive gas, and other such weirdness. So here's another bundle of crunch, giving you stats for characters derived from ants, butterflies, cats, dogs, dolphins, dragonflies, fleas, flys, killer whales, leopards, lions, lizards, owls, rabbits, rats, scorpions, snails and wolverines. Most of them are pretty much as you would expect in both stats and personality. The artwork goes for an alice in wonder land, pseudo-victorian style which looks good, but doesn't seem very appropriate for the post apocalyptic environment of gamma world. That, combined with the fact that this seems to be back to basics again (what, no stats for cat & dog stock in the corebook?) leaves me a little bemused. Not a lot of rigorous critical thought going into putting this together, it seems. What game do you really want to play? What playstyle are you trying to promote?! This is doing my head in now. Why did the editor put this together in this form? Chalk it up to lack of direction.


Eye of the monitor: After only a single year, Sandy moves on, his regular programming work taking up so much time that he can't hold down this column as well. Bah. And now we truly move into the endgame of computer game coverage in the magazine, where the cast of reviewers changed every month, with very little consistency. This doesn't feel particularly good either, even though he wasn't around as long as the Lessers, he certainly made his mark with memorable soapbox pieces and cool additional articles for the magazine. Still, he goes out with another prophetic statement, predicting the rise of MMO's and other multiplayer games. The greater the proportion of people regularly buying computer games, and the more able they are to communicate, the better the network externalities become, and the more viable this option is. And other people are always a challenge where computer opponents soon cease to be, or reach the point of impossibility. He certainly has his finger on the pulse better than most people who try to predict the future.

Inherit the Earth is a point and click adventure game that feels a bit buggy and outdated. It's also annoyingly hard, leaving Sandy frustrated at what could have been. It only takes a few things wrong to seriously lower a game's score.

Equinox is the sequel to Solstice. (see what they did there) Like it's precursor, it's a 3d isometric game where you explore levels and solve puzzles with decidedly limited resources. Make sure you don't use them up too soon, otherwise you can find yourself stuck.

Castlevania IV shows Sandy once again making fairly elementary errors about nintendo games. Castlevania II was the only one that had any real roleplaying elements, I & III were both straight platformers. He's decidedly disappointed by this. Platformers are evidently not his thing.

Serf City is essentially a medieval version of sim city, with all that entails. The building side is balanced out with the combat side, with knights that you use to conquer enemies and defend your city. The AI is limited, and there's no networked multiplayer, so it's hardly a classic, but it's another one that's entertaining enough if you like the genre.


Gunnar Thorson solves the mystery, with a little oracular help. A plot wrapped up in under a year? Unheard of! Will he be back to solve another one? Nahh. This is going to stay a one-off. Bah.

Dragon Magazine Issue 209: September 1994


part 4/5


1,001 faces of undeath: Ahh, yes, dark sun undead. Each one an individual. Which means more powers for them to choose from rarely go amiss. And that is exactly what we have here, along with a semirandom set of tables for determining how many and which ones they have. Like the old hordeling table, which it has a moderate amount of stuff in common with, you can get some pretty obscene results, especially if you get multiple complementary effects on the defensive powers table that make them virtually impossible to hurt and able to reform even if their physical body is destroyed. You won't even have to resort to fiat to get scenarios like a classic slasher movie series, where buggers like freddy and jason just keep on coming back ad nauseum, killing more people each time. Ravenloft may spin a scary tale, but Dark Sun really backs up it's terror with large numbers. So this'll let you whip up multiple scary, idiosyncratic individual monsters much faster. That's definitely worth something, even if it's hardly original these days.


Fiction: What power holds by Richard Parks. A tale of magic and it's laws this month. Not too unusual around here, you might say. The thing you have to pay attention to is their consistency, and the way they impact the fictional world around them, hopefully in such a way to create compelling stories. When they create a battle between what is just, and what is the compassionate thing to do, this becomes more of a benefit to the narrative. And when we get to discover them along with the protagonists in a naturalistic fashion, it helps keep the world accessible, and makes you eager to read more. So once again, it looks like their fiction department has picked a winner, with a premise that could easily be expanded on to fill a few novels of adventures and worldbuilding. Sometimes this magazine seems like a whole world full of unfulfilled potentials. Only a few of them will ever become reality. But then I remember that's much of the point. With roleplaying, it's what you make in your own games that really matters. So let's draw what we can from this and move on again.


Sage advice: How does speak with dead work on petitioners if they've lost their memories (It doesn't. It works on corpses, which remember just fine. )

What racial adjustments do githzerai thieves have (none. Their body is close enough to human to make no difference in these matters. )

Do the fated get double to both weapon and nonweapon proficiencies (Skip says no, full knowing future freelancers will break that rule. Skip looks forward to capping their asses. )

Can power's avatars enter sigil (no. Even that would cause the lady of pain to throw a tantrum with sharp whippy things.)

How big are a dragon's wings (2/3rds it's body length)

How high can a dragon's strength go ( Not as high as you'd think. Damn this 25 point scale )

How big an area can you scry ( As far as you could see from that point normally)

What races can use giant sized weapons (have we not formalized size categories yet? Oh well, another thing to put on the edition change list)

Do PC satyrs get 50% magic resistance (no. PC's are different. In this case this means we nerf stuff, like we did for githzerai last issue.)

Can a magical shield deflect attacks from creatures that need magical weapons to hurt (yes, but a normal shield could do that too)

What's this? Looks like the higher-ups at TSR are forcing Skip to do spellfire questions as well. What are you gonna do if Skip refuses, huh? Oh. Yes, maam. Right you are. :mutter, mutter mutter. Skip'll get you for this later, just you wait and see:

What is an unprotected realm (one with no defences or defender )

How far back can I set my realms (you need to put them as close as possible. Only if you have lots of them can they cower behind one another)

What happens if you get more than 8 cards in someone elses turn (nothing, until you get to step 5 of your turn.)

Can a realm defend itself with spells without a champion (no)

Why put stuff in your hand, not the pool (so you can use it more quickly)

How many cards can you have in the pool (as many as you like.)


The dragon's bestiary: Fae last time, trolls before. Now it's Golems. Another fairly common occurrence in the magazine (see issues 44, 99, 119, 136, 156, 159) and gaming in general. And one that's relatively easy to create new variants for, just by picking a new material for them to be constructed out of, then adding a few appropriate powers. Thankfully, this writer doesn't take that lazy route, instead going to some effort to both reaffirm their horror story origins, and create some more inventive creatures.

The brass minotaur is your classic terminator style pursuer with a couple of twists. Any damage it does is a bugger to heal (although not as much as clay golem's) and it can transport it's victim into an extradimensional maze and hunt them down without their friends being able to help. Run, run as fast as you can. If you're encumbered, shed the excess. It's better than losing your life.

Phantom flyers are unusually clever and mysterious for constructs. They strike in the night, and disappear into the shadows in the daytime. They can serve as spies, retrieval, or just mothra-esque engines of destruction for their masters. Steal the magical whistle controlling them and you get some pretty awesome treasure instead of having to kill them. That sounds like a fun scenario to me.

The burning man is even more likely to go psycho on it's creator than Clay Golems. Since it's also near indestructible, and has a malevolent intelligence, it really is a nuclear option for a battle. One of these is perfect for destroying an entire village and similar horrifying situations. Don't hesitate to run away if you don't have the tools to beat it. Yeah, all of these three are nicely scary, more so than most actual undead. Maybe they should have been saved for the october issue.


Rumblings: Hee. Kindred: the Embraced. White Wolf is about to learn the hard way what TSR learnt over a decade ago. Dealing with tv executives and coming away with a shred of artistic integrity and faithfulness to the original licence's vision is not an easy task. They're a bunch of coked up tosspots. At least most musicians have basic listening skills. The rest of this column is taken up by the origins awards winners. Dragon mountain, their minis line, and this magazine all get awards, while Traveller: the new era, GURPS Vampire: the Masquerade and Magic: the Gathering are among the other products making waves. Colons are the in thing in modern titles. People'll copy the silliest little things in the hope that some of the cool will rub off, while missing the things that really make them popular. ^~^


The game wizards: I've certainly been guilty of a little Ed Greenwood worship over the years. Here we see that even the other designers at TSR are in awe of his talents. Whatever you think about the quality of his work, his sheer prolificness is not in dispute. He produces writing more than twice as fast as most of their staff, despite also holding down a regular day job as well. Does he type faster, sleep less, or simply have so many ideas that he doesn't need to pause to think what to write next the way most of us do? Even the editors find him a joy to work with, which is not the case with many prolific but scattershot creators who have more ideas than they have time to properly develop, and struggle to decide which to work upon and complete properly.  And he seems to make an impression as a great eccentric on those who meet him personally as well. So while this is technically a promotional article for his new novel, Crown of Fire, it's more one extolling him personally, to make their superstar writer even more of a legend than he already is. Does he really need that? Probably not, but there you go. In any case, it reminds us there are very good reasons he rose to the top, rather than someone else, and sometimes you can meet your heroes without it shattering your illusions about them. There are far worse things to learn, really.

Dragon Magazine Issue 209: September 1994


part 5/5


The role of books:Weird tales from Shakespeare, edited by Katherine Kerr & Martin H Greenberg does the alternate takes thing with humour and aplomb. From musical comedy to satire about hollywood conversions, the fun variants are the best, while the ones which play it straight less so. If you want to make an adaption work for a new time you need to inject same of your own creativity. After all, shakespeare certainly ripped off older plots, but it's what he did with them that was important.

Mordenheim by Chet Williamson is of course the story of Ravenloft's Frankensein analogue. It gets hit by the strong complaint that magic in D&D is a well known and codified thing, and Mordenheim's actions make no sense at all in light of that. That is a presumptuous assumption. Maybe in some other worlds, but Ravenloft is very much a place where each domain works on it's own little rules socially. Darkon might have plenty of wizards and clerics, but Lamordia certainly doesn't, and anyone openly showing occult knowledge would be another target for a good old lynch mob wielding burning torches. Yeah, it all falls apart if you look at it too hard, but when doing so will likely get you eaten by a creature of the night, you learn not to do that almost reflexively. Ahh, rationalising. There's not a lot you can't do with it.

Caledon of the mists by Deborah Turner Harris is one of those stories that can't figure out if it wants to be Historically Accurate or fantastical, and suffers for the split in tone. Pick one or the other and stick with it! Less can be more.

Mother of storms by John Barnes posits a near future in which global warming has destabilised the weather substantially, resulting in far more frequent and violent hurricanes. Meanwhile, virtual reality is really taking off as a form of entertainment. These two bits of unconnected relatively hard sci-fi premises interact in an interesting manner to create a story that seems fairly plausible, while not neglecting the characterisation either. This doesn't seem bad at all.

A logical magician by Robert Weinberg is another novel applying scientific principles to magic, setting things in modern day chicago. It does have a streak of comedy running through it, but not to the extent that it could be defined as a comic novel. As is often the case these days, it leaves things unresolved so as to obviously set up a sequel. Shouldn't give away everything at once, should we?

Wizard's first rule by Terry Goodkind is another book that's immediately recognised as a series chosen for major promotional push by the book company. And indeed, it does get a mostly positive review, standing out from the pack due to it's quite distinctive characters and setting. Course, those quirks will start to bug us over the course of an extended series, but hey ho, too late then.


Libram X deals with the duplicate problem, and then they get back to Jen's home. Of course, now they have to deal with the thing they left behind. And time seems to have passed faster here. What are the odds he's ready for them.  Swordplay shows that while the mage may be useless at defending the party, he's quite capable of defending his property. Dragonmirth shows the limitations of various types of spellcasters. Yamara is in danger of having her skull repossessed, along with everyone else. What a diabolical plot. And given the RL attempts of companies to patent genomes and genetically modified crops, reality is once again imitating the most ludicrous of fiction.


Through the looking glass: As he's done several years in the past, Robert warns us to prepare for the long dull winter months at home. Perfect time to stay in and paint all your minis, really, presuming you can get a good idea of the colours in artificial light. Just watch your ventilation. You need to strike the right balance between keeping warm and not suffocating yourself on toxic fumes. I think that's not a worry to most people. Still, using spraypaints is an option that could speed your painting process along quite a bit, so it is good of him to point it out to us. A few decades ago, people would pay a lot for that kind of technology.

Our minis this month are a sleeping dragon and its treasure hoard. They're detachable, so either can be used individually, making it more versatile. An armoured giant that'll tower over most minis, but still look pretty puny compared to action figures, as it's only 65 mm. 6 coffins, 2 ponies and a sacrificial altar. The ponies will not fit in the coffins, but they might carry them somewhere. Two mildly futuristic troopers, and two trenchcoated badasses with guns, another adjacent pairing that seems to add up to a good story. A dune buggy and a helicopter. A mohawked, dual-wielding post apocalyptic warrior grrl. Another batch of faceless security goons for your PC's to dispatch with ease. And a quartet of shadowrunners which are really feeling the burn of the removal of lead from our minis. The stresses of the last few years have faded to a low-level persistent grumble.


TSR Previews: The forgotten realms gets Elminster's Ecologies. Ed was the king of these a decade ago. See what he can do when applied to the various regions of his own world. The Realms really is filled up to quite a frightening degree now. How can they find more stuff to put in? And our book this month seems quite interesting too. The Ogre's pact by Troy Denning is another start of a trilogy. An ogre's kidnapped someone's daughter and he doesn't want her rescued? Whyever could that be. What will happen to the doof who tries to rescue her anyway?

Ravenloft, on the other hand, still has plenty of room. Hour of the knife, of course, takes you to Paridon to face Jack the Ripper. Just who or what is he really? Not that it's hard to know. All you need to do is read the corebook. It's so hard to be genuinely scary in D&D. It also gets it's first fiction anthology, Tales of Ravenloft. Another opportunity for them to illustrate the ironic sense of humour of the Dark powers, as people suffer, and make others suffer.

Planescape gets it's own short adventure anthology. The well of worlds. 128 pages of extraplanar jaunty goodness. Get 'em done and be back in Sigil for dinner.

Mystara continues releasing CDs with products, with the adventure Hail to the Heroes. Add a new level of atmosphere to your game by playing tracks at the appropriate places. Oh, the cheese. How much did these cost to produce?

Lankhmar gets Rogues in Lankhmar. Exactly what it sounds like, this details the thieves guild, and has lots of ideas for what larcenous adventurers would like to steal in the city. Now that definitely sounds like fun.

Dragonlance finishes rehashing the original module series, with Dragonlance classics, Vol 3 filling parts 10-14 in a condensed format. As with B1-9, it might be a good idea to use the originals as well if you can find them.

Endless quest does Spelljammer, in A Wild Ride. Save the rock of Braal from rogue asteroids. Isn't that a computer game? Strange to think this is the last product for the line.

Our generic AD&D book this month is Wizards Challenge II. A monster a normal army can't touch? No problem. A few magic missiles'll do the job. Really, if you fill your army with nothing but fighters, you should expect this trouble.

Another book which looks to have goofy elements is Go Quest, Young Man by K B Bogen. A young would be mage has a distinctly awkward time of things avoiding a girl who's after him and finding anything genuinely heroic to do. He needs more narrativium.


Once again, I'm not hugely enthusiastic about this issue. There are some funny bits, but it's bookended by boredom and basic advice. By this time, I'm getting fairly sure it's an actual consistent quality slide, and not just burnout on my part or a few duff issues. I suppose that fits with the brief history of the magazine I read before starting the journey. Still, it's not really bad enough to outright slate yet, just getting dull and go round the same subjects too many times. Which is better than being actively bad from a reader's point of view, but not from a reviewer's. On top of that, I seem to be running short of jokey ways of pushing onwards without repeating myself too. What are we to do? Let's start the next issue and hope something in there'll inspire me. The halloween ones generally do seem to be of above average quality.

Dragon Magazine Issue 210: October 1994


part 1/5


124 pages. That lich's collar is definitely OVER 9000!!! Ahahaha! And his wife hasn't let a little desiccation affect her bust size. It's those little details that provide so much amusement in this Tom Baxa cover. Yes, it looks like our horror will be leavened with a nice slice of schlock again. Not that there's anything wrong with that. More than one note is needed to make a truly great tune. And a bit of chromaticism is very helpful in producing horror tunes. Let's try and add a few more odd chords to our horrific repertoire.


In this issue:


Letters: The harm CCG's are doing to roleplaying really starts to become clear this issue. The reviewers thought they could peacefully co-exist, but no, they are stealing valuable players away with their highly modular charms. It's a terrible tragedy. What are we to do!?!1!! Ok, maybe I'm being a little hyperbolic, but it is having an effect. Despite his levelheaded response, Dale has cause to consider the magazine's future direction. Do they follow the tide, and risk alienating people who think this magazine should focus on RPG's, or stay where they are, and risk losing sales because of it. Not an easy decision.

A letter complaining about something being out of stock. There's usually somewhere second-hand you can get it if you're really desperate. You'll just have to work a little harder.

Another familiar topic. A complaint from a reader who's spotted an error in the magazine. Dale comes up with a suitably comedic faux punishment for the errant freelancer. Again he has learnt from Roger well.


Editorial: Wolf Baur takes a turn in the editorial seat to do what Roger used to around this time of year - report on his convention experiences. He has less to say about the madcap antics, and more about the actual games themselves. In particular the foreign ones. We've managed to convert D&D to many other languages, it's caught on successfully in some markets, and now they're returning the favour by translating their games into english. Stuff like The Black Eye and Nephilim are making waves this year, and existing games like Shadowrun and Call of Cthulhu have supplements created by the localisation teams, and then translated back. The dawn of international gaming is upon us! Hmm. This is one thing that the internet has done less than we expected to fix. While it has eradicated distance barriers with reasonable success, language barriers are still fairly substantial. While small countries have most of their population learn english as a second language, latin america and china in particular can still feel like different worlds with very little crossover in popular media. Course, the more separated they are, the more likely the games are to be intriguingly different in rules and cultural references. So as with quite a few recent editorials, this encourages you to go out and check out what the real world is doing, because it'll make your gaming more interesting and varied. Don't spend a lifetime dreaming in isolation, or your dreams will be small and unrealistic.


First Quest: Dale may be taking a break from the editorial this month, but he's here, on the next page instead. You're hardly going to miss him. He's not one of the grognards. No, he was part of the second wave drawn in in the early 80's by the brief period of media hysteria. The cool factor of killing things and taking their stuff is not to be underestimated. And enthusiasm is more fun than technical skill, especially when it comes to recruiting new people to your cause. This is another tale where they look back with a combination of nostalgia and embarrassment, and recall both the good and bad aspects to gaming in the early 80's. You learn by making mistakes and reading stuff in magazine articles. Actually, that's another distinctive factor of his early gaming, just how much he drew from the magazine. Seems fitting for someone who would then become editor for it. This is another one that's quite likeable because he does obviously have clear memories and plenty of enthusiasm for the topic, and isn't censored by politics as far as I can tell. And as long as he's having fun, he'll bring it to the magazine.


Dead or Alive: Resurrection does open up a legal can of worms. Since clerics are more likely to be on the inside socially than wizards, it does make sense that they would be cautious about bringing people back if it would cause social upheaval. An extensive look at the logical ramifications of it being regularly available and commonly known about is long overdue. What does it do to inheritance and tax law, especially if they're dead for a while before being raised. What is the legal status of undead who integrate with the community and don't try to eat everyone? What does it do to royal successions? Quite the headache. Fortunately, this is the kind of headache that makes for good adventures. Normally, when you kill a bad guy they stay dead, but when people keep on coming back, it suddenly becomes a lot easier to get a comic-booky scenario where over-the-top stuff happens on a regular basis. On the other hand, players being players, they might well get obsessive about finding and mutilating every body so the enemies can't come back again and again, more maniacal and irritating each time. So lots of ideas here on how you could play it up or tone it down, both of which could make things interesting and different from the average campaign. I approve of this quite strongly.


Who's afraid of the big bad ghost: From a fairly new idea to one that's somewhat less so. How exactly do you make horror roleplaying genuinely scary? In this case, less is very definitely more. The greater the degree of uncertainty, the more players will genuinely worry about the fate of their characters. Fake dice rolls, jump scares, sensory weirdness, monsters with uncertain stats, extended periods with no combat, and the prospect of permanent loss of stats when it does occur. It's all about being mean, but in moderation, and making their imaginations do the real work. Which will only work with some players, no matter how good you are. I liked this quite a bit on first read, but there is quite a bit of stuff that's been discredited here, or at least has been made unfashionable by the many people who complain strongly whenever they feel deprotagonised. So it's not as compelling as the last article, but is more universal. Horror techniques are a lot easier to apply to games other than D&D without breaking things than easy resurrection.


Too evil to die: Tom Moldvay finally finishes his series putting new spins on all the standard D&D undead, 7 years and 5 articles later. It's always worrying to see something done sporadically, because you're never sure they'll finish it. So much can go wrong in a life, and people can change unexpectedly in ways that ruin the project, or cause it to end up substantially different to when it started. It's a nagging concern of mine as regards this thread, and why I've set it up so posts continue on a daily basis even when I'm taking a break from writing. So anyway, this is now complete, which feels pretty damn satisfying. So we now have a full 32 variant types of undead from him, more than enough to populate an Ravenloft style domain of distinctive horrors, capable of challenging people from low to high level. I think I'll call it Moldvania. It has a nice ring to it.

Ekimmu are the restless spirits of people who never got properly buried. They possess you and then attack your buds, forcing you to do the subdual and exorcism thing. You'd better hope there's enough players free to grapple them, for they also come in groups, and you don't want to be reduced to observers to the carnage.

Casurua are ghostly horrors created by mass slaughter. They're exceedingly tough, but fortunately are not intelligent or mobile. They may well make a place pretty uninhabitable though, which won't be good for real estate prices. And just inflicting damage won't finish them off for good, either. Stuff like this is why undead make good long-term challenges.

Keres are one of the monsters that originally escaped from Pandora's box. They inflict ageing, disease and bad luck with their attacks, which means you'll probably need some serious clerical assistance after fighting one. They can transform into gnats, which makes them quite effective spies or able to pop up while you're in bed to scare you and then disappear. As with the random undead from last issue, they'd make excellent horror movie stars, especially in a threesome as they like to gather.

Charuntes are an interesting clerical variant upon liches. Vulture-headed, hammer wielding high-up servants of gods of death, they sound like they could become iconic if given a good promotional push. And if not, they can still scare the crap out of your players, especially if used in groups.

Dark Lords aren't based upon real world mythology, but a purely AD&D conceit. What happens if someone is sucked into a sphere of annihilation, but badass enough to survive and escape? A near indestructible creature of pure blackness, able to warp time and space in quite a number of versatile and scary ways, and both age you and drain levels with every hit. The only saving grace is that subtlety isn't their strong point, but these buggers could take on armies and tear down cities and are likely to be pissed off enough to try it. They very much earn the special appellation. So as expected, this final instalment is very much aimed at the high level player. Very nice to see longtime readers getting some love.

Dragon Magazine Issue 210: October 1994


part 2/5


A monster in the classical traditions: Call of Cthuhu is our non D&D coverage this month. This means one of those amusing little bits of IC fiction where some poor schmuck stumbles across things that are bad for the SAN score and barely escapes with their life. Degenerate worm-things that worship Nyarlathotep? Well, if you do close-ups of real little worm things, they look pretty creepy. This definitely qualifies as an easy target. Still, it's fun, and manages to meld Cthulhu mythos bits with real world mythology bits in a manner that seems pretty seamless. Like the ecology articles, which it has a lot in common with, this both makes for a cool read and adds plenty of adventure ideas independent of system. I approve.


Geas: Oooh. This is an interesting tie-in. The Tarroka cards for Ravenloft were one of the cooler little bits and pieces included in their boxed sets. It's pretty obvious what their inspiration was, but they put a D&D spin on the tarot symbolism. With suits based on the 4 main class groups and a major arcana filled with other monsters and strangeness, it can be used for both IC fortunetelling and games. And that's exactly what they do here, with an amusing little card game they cut from the actual set for space. Assemble an adventuring party and complete quests to win the game? Sounds very similar to the premise of actual D&D. This does seem like a very niche article, as it's use is completely contingent upon having one particular supplement, and it can't be easily converted the way many of their specific world and non D&D articles can. I guess this falls into the same category as their Audio CD's, an expensive to produce and obscure frippery that helped to split the player base to a ridiculous degree, thus causing them to lose money in the long run. The kind of thing that would be given away for free on the web these days. I'm rather uncomfortable about this.


Campaign Journal: Athas is an interesting world. It's easily been the one in which they twist around the core rules of AD&D the most. (at least successfully) Which means unlike the similar Al-Qadim article this time last year, they do genuinely have some new adventure ideas. Very rarely is keeping track of water supplies crucial in other games, except for short periods in desert adventures. There would be vast amounts of bitching if you were this stingy with weapons and other resources in any other world. And while intrigue and exploration can be applied to virtually any setting, they have a very different feel here, largely because basic resources are so scarce. It's all a lot more desperate and cutthroat. It's weird how in some ways, Athasian characters are more powerful than regular ones, while in others, they're rather less, and of course they have challenges more than sufficient for them. Of course, if you put them in a crossover game, all these problems disappear rapidly once they've encountered another adventuring party, killed them, and taken their stuff. So cool ideas, including a bit of badwrongfun here. Greg Detwiler has examined the source material and put plenty of thought into this one.


Forum: Adam Bickford tells us we've been underestimating the cleric all along. They're actually pretty good statistically, and their spells are far more accessible than wizard's. Add it all up and they blow them away.

Melody Alder, in an amusing contrast, complains just how much her cleric is overshadowed by the wizards. Who is right?! This combination seems almost custom tuned to provoke further debate. :rubs hands together:

Greg Detwiler decides to contribute to the forum, praising the idea of reskinning. Using that, we can make clerics even more obscene, by letting them have access to nearly every spell, only with the visuals reflavored to their religion. Dear oh dear.

Philip N. Toomey thinks the parrying rules are crap. Another opportunity for the forum to serve as an airing ground for house rules. Yay.

Joel E. Moyer bigs up the old books on world and adventure building. They may be out of print, but their advice is still invaluable to the novice DM. There's tons of advice out there now if you know where to look.

Lee Sutton disagrees with Joe Kutcherfield that there's too much roleplaying in roleplaying. o_O Sure getting too bogged down in backstory and shopping is bad, but roleplaying is the name of the game. You ought to be doing at least some of it.

Matt Lunak also find's Joe's assertion pretty ridiculous. Go and play a computer game! Then you'll get the reward you want for acting like a personalityless, relentlessly goal-focussed automaton. Zing!

David Shanahan gives his experiences on putting superpowerful characters and their players in their place without making them leave the game entirely. Just put them on a bus to godhood and start with a new character. Easier than killing them, that's for sure.


The game wizards: Spellfire expands rapidly as they try and play catch-up with M:tG. This means card sets for all their campaign worlds, including ones they're no longer producing books for. Each has their own distinctive abilities. Dark sun's toughness, Ravenloft's secrecy, Dragonlance's lunar cycles and the Forgotten Realms' random effects. Hopefully the extra cheese will balance out, making cards from all worlds viable choices. And if not, well, mixed decks are more likely to surprise enemies and use the best bits from everywhere to maximum synergy. Only chumps stick to obvious themes, as both the pokemon and yu-gi-oh cartoons show all too well. So this shows their marketing strategy for this game is pretty much what you'd expect. Exploit as much of their IP as possible, and hope that'll draw existing customers into the new market. That's the way to do it! (no it isn't!) Yes it is! Shut up you naysayers! This game's Not For You!

Dragon Magazine Issue 210: October 1994


part 3/5


Arcane Lore: Back to the life, times and quirky products of a particular wizard here this month. Drenal was one of those geeky guys who was unpopular because he was way too absorbed in his research, even in life-threatening situations for the party. This eventually wound up in him becoming a casualty while wandering off from the party. Let that be a lesson to all would be broody loners and badasses. The reason humans are social animals is because it offers substantial benefits. I know it can be hard getting along with those idiots fate has thrown you together with sometimes, but you have to try.

Drenal's Annoying Poke lets you remotely jab someone with a needle. This gets incredibly irritating when done repeatedly. Wizards can be quite nasty bullies too when they put their mind to it, even with only cantrips to call upon.

Drenal's Distraction is one of those spells that looks like it would work anyway with just the material components. Waving a flag onna stick and shouting at the enemy? Are you sure this isn't april? I'm not wasting a spell slot on that.

Drenal's Dry Ink, on the other hand, is pretty useful if you have the kind of DM who likes to enforce equipment limitations and little stuff going wrong unexpectedly. No bursting, no smudging, just easy writing. That's the kind of utility spell more wizards should be developing.

Drenal's Stone Flame turns fire to stone for a short duration. This is handy as a livesaver, illumination, and quite possibly as a good way of setting a trap. One for the imaginative player.

Drenal's Amok Needles is a more powerful version of his Annoying poke. A whole bunch of flying needles stinging you 'till you drop. It might not have the raw killing power of fireball, but it's more likely to make the enemy cut and run. It's worse than wasps.

Drenal's Eyesore sends the flying needle straight for the eye. Not nice, but also a way to win a fight without completely devastating the surroundings and ruining all their equipment.

Drenal's Sound Barrier is a variant on silence 15' radius that may well be be more useful. You'll still be able to communicate with each other, but everything on the other side is blocked out. Another thing I'd rather appreciate having as a musician. I rather like this collection after all. It's spells may be slightly underpowered, but they more than make up their usefulness in finesse, so it all balances out.


Primitive weaponry: A second article by Greg here. One that crosses over well with his previous one too, as most of these are made of non-metallic materials, so they won't be affected so badly by the scarce resources of Dark Sun. Plus many of these have additional benefits beyond the basic attack and damage thing. A few more tricks to liven combat up is rarely a bad thing.

Kotitate are clubs shaped like a thin sharpened violin. Perfect weapon for gangsters to conceal for HtH battles, since guns aren't common in D&D.

Kugerongs are another club variant with a sharpened point. Inflicting multiple damage types with a single weapon is always good, because it gives you tactical options.

Leoniles are primitive pick/clubs used by australians. They're a real bugger to parry, but not hugely damaging, so they become most interesting against other warrior types. Exactly how good they'll be against a kickboxing roo I'm not sure.

Manoples are like large sais, short swords with a pair of daggers on the side. As with the japanese variant, this means extra good parrying. Specialists can even break enemy weapons. Nasty and totally radical. (Gimme a break)

Patu are little sharpened paddles. So another one that also serves as a tool, which is important when you aren't wearing any clothes, and don't have many pockets. They're also good for two weapon fighting. Seems like that's a common thread most cultures experiment with.

Powhenua are another variant on the spike/club combination. Putting one on each end, they let you deal with flanking enemies simultaneously. So much more sensible than bat'leths.

Rang-kwan are staves with spikes on both ends, another variant on the same theme. Again, they're good for parrying and/or attacking multiple enemies on both sides. I wonder if they have a 3rd edition conversion, where that would be even more handy.

Shotel are very curved swords that are rather good at getting round enemy shields. Since they're from the kind of climate where people only used shields, and not armor, this is quite a substantial benefit. Against dumbass knights (presuming they resisted heatstroke) this may not be the case.

Tebuje are clubs studded with sharks teeth. Just another way of raising the damage and looking more intimidating. Plus, relatively easy to replace if they come off. (and you know they will) Just add spiky bits from your latest monstrous kill. It can become a real avenue for bragging.

Tewha-tewha look like no weapon I've seen before, and look like they'd be handy as tools as well. They're one that really rewards specialisation. Nice to see other cultures coming up with stuff that isn't just another variant on the same few shapes.

Wahaika are little curved clubs. They're surprisingly good at being used from horseback, and are cheap too. For those who think cavalry strafing is a european advantage, these'll be a nasty surprise, and really annoy adventurers who are used to their foes standing and trading blows with them.  

Watilikri are massive boomerangs that don't come back, but do lots of damage and get stuck in the victim. If you have a whole stack of them you can throw them pretty fast too, so you have a good shot at bringing down something big and tasty.

Wongala are another boomerang variant, this one intended to be thrown at the ground just in front of someone and then bounce up to smack them in the face. This is obviously disorienting and tricky to dodge. That's not cricket at all.

Wirka are another one designed to trap the enemy's weapon and break it in experienced hands. Plenty of meanness there. So this is a collection of weapons that very much supports system mastery, as stuff in a supplement should compared to the core weapons. That there are a few that aren't just variants on existing weapons as well is a real plus. Keep experimenting, something new turns up eventually.

Dragon Magazine Issue 210: October 1994


part 4/5


Fiction: The siege of Bahorel's bed by Daniel Hood. Hmm. This is a nice mix of pathos and humour. Not easy to blend those without diluting the two. So this is the story of an old librarian dragged into being an apprentice wizard, and the awkward stuff that happens as he tries to learn wizardry with students maybe a third his age. This culminates in a well handled incident of accidental demon summoning which is solved by a neat bit of rules lawyering. So by combining a whole bunch of elements that I like, this manages to be very satisfying indeed on an emotional level. Like an early episode of Red Dwarf or The Young Ones, it's amazing how attached you can become to a bunch of misfits, even if they aren't actually that nice as people.  


Role-playing reviews: Players guides? What's the difference between a player's guide and a players handbook? I'm glad you asked. The handbooks are generally core products, modelled after AD&D. They contain information essential to playing the game. Meanwhile, the guides are generally released afterwards, intended to serve as an expansion on matters that are most of interest to players, rather than GM's. Some are pure spoiler-free setting, while other introduce cool new mechanical options. And there definitely seem to be a lot more of them around than there used to be. So Rick jumps on an area of growth and rides it to produce another column. (Yes, I know that sounds dirty )

The Werewolf players guide adds a whole bunch of stuff that would become core in the next edition, such as archetypes, merits & flaws, and plenty of new Gifts. It also explains a number of existing concepts more clearly, particularly when it comes to the werewolf social order. It still shows a lot of the early white wolf flaws, but they're still at the stage where they learn with every product, and are progressing towards being the number 2 gaming company rapidly.

Players guide to the Dragonlance campaign goes for a fully IC approach, filling you in on the world as the narrator discovers it. This makes it rather easier to read than the core set, even though a lot of the material is near straight copypasta. Since their current problem is getting people playing the game, not buying the novels, this seems like a sensible experiment on their part.

Players guide to the Forgotten realms campaign takes a similar tack, with slightly less success. This seems to be mainly due to an obsession with minutinae such as the foods of the Realms and a more meandering, less plot driven narrative style. Well, I suppose that's consistent with the general flavours of the two campaign worlds. I suspect this is a matter of Rick's tastes as much as any actual quality difference between them.

Investigators Companion is for Call of Cthulhu. It's rather focussed on the real details of the 1920's, which you could find in a non game book anyway. The fact that it's also rather dry leaves Rick decidedly unimpressed.

Players survival guide is for Over the Edge. It's another one that is hampered slightly by the need to avoid spoilers for players, but it still does a lot to unravel the out-there ideas of the game and make them accessible. Hopefully now you'll be able to get to the fun parts.

Rick does get suckered by the First Quest gimmicks though, so it's not all good here. I suppose when it's brand new technology you don't have much to compare it to.


Sage Advice: Can you try and touch someone next round with a touch spell (Only if it explicitly says so. Otherwise, you get one shot on the round you cast it, and if you fail, you wasted it)

How much damage does fire storm do (a piddling amount for it's level. You're better off with call lightning)

What do the short races get bonuses to saves against. (spells, and spell like abilities, regardless of which save they actually require. Not extraordinary powers though)

Does druids shapeshifting healing apply to all hit points, or just the ones suffered since last change (All of them. Skip don't want to give you extra bookkeeping to worry about)

Can you backstab with missile weapons (Skip says No! Don't allow ranged backstabbing in your games, folks. Nothing good can come of it)

Does stoneskin protect against energy draining (No. Skip knows it's overpowered now, so skip will do everything in skip's power to nerf it without actually seeming to change the rules.)

Do multiple stones of good luck stack (no)

You still haven't properly fixed the wisdom bonus spell progression. (Oh dear. Surely you can work out the intention and fix it without Skip's help.)

How big is sigil (large city sized, enough to hold a few million people. The lady of pain can change it at her whim though)

How does everyone understand each other on the planes ( :handwaves: Common is spoken everywhere, and it's pretty similar everywhere. Unrealistic, you say? Would you prefer learning a new language every time you travel a few hundred miles. That gets tiresome very fast)

What does a cranium rat's mind blast do (same as an illithid's)

When does Iuz get to throw a tantrum over being beaten (any time you actually defeat him, as opposed to ending things without battle.)

How do you affect a battle when not involved (event cards. You can fuck things right up with a good storm or something)

Can you use wall of fire on defense (yes)

When does the temple of elemental evil let you draw cards. (when it's placed.)

What does 3/4 mean (you can use it in step 3 or 4. Flexibility can be as crucial as power.)

What happens if you put a champion in a realm that has a level (they fight the champion, then the realm, not both at once)

Do you have to beat drizzt twice in a row (no, just twice. He'll go and brood no matter how long you took between giving each beating)

Can you use Drizzt more than once a battle (no)

Does solid fog prevent a battle without harm (yes, but it doesn't undo any damage already taken)

Dragon Magazine Issue 210: October 1994


part 5/5


Elminster's notebook: Oooh. Snake cultists. Been a few years since they got any press. Which I suspect is the way they like it, since they're generally all about the insssssidioussssnesssss. Here we see a return to the old ecology style of writing, where he keeps the main description purely setting, and puts all the crunch in footnotes. There's a pleasing blast from the past. Speaking of which, whatever happened to the ecologies? We haven't seen any all year. But anyway, along with info on the cult, we also have a whole bunch of their custom magical items which you could in theory take and use. (if you can control them, and don't mind people being suspicious of you because you're wielding a sword that is also a snake. ) As is usual for these columns, the sheer density of useful ideas is quite impressive, and the whole thing has quite an old school feel to it. Ed is definitely returning to a more active role in the magazine, after a few years away. And he certainly seems to have no shortage of ideas still. It's just a shame he can't carry the magazine all by himself. I guess even he can't write that fast.


Tarant has indeed made himself comfortable in Jen's homeworld and has no intention of going back in Libram X. Swordplay is all about the money, as usual. Dragonmirth has a rather good limerick this month. Yamara meets psionic bugs on hard fun. Whoda thought it. And Ogrek is still annoying.


From the forge: Looks like Ken's decided to change the name of his mini's column to something a little more manly. Ironically, just as he makes the effort to distinguish his columns from Robert's a bit more, he takes his first stab at soapboxing about the lead banning bill. Lead might gradually return to the table now the crisis is mostly over, but prices sure ain't going down any time soon. If production costs go down again, that just means more profit. Uh yeah. The utility companies might be able to get away with that kind of crap, but everything else, you put prices up, we'll buy less. Supply and demand requires the demand part to work properly.

Unsurprisingly, the minis this month are horror themed. Undead in all shapes and sizes. A chariot pulled by skeletal horses. A full blown warhammer army set, and an individual lich-king commander. Another lich, this time an official AD&D one from Ral Partha. Dr Mordenheim's official lab, plus some extra official mad scientist gear. This really is his year, isn't it. A big spiky gorilla/frog thing. A half dismembered undead giant using it's own leg as a weapon. A winged demon in the classical tradition. An alien stalker with a seriously heavy bit of weaponry. A vignette of a woman about to be sacrificed by an undead priest. Some fae, just to provide a little light relief in the midst of this gross sepulcher. Another undead legion with a mounted leader. A rather large werewolf, with additional mid-transformation models. And finally, in another break, some robot dogs for Legions of Steel. Actually, those can be pretty scary too, especially if they have the stereotypical glowing red eyes. After all, Terminator is really horror rather than hard sci-fi.


TSR Previews: Red steel! Booyeah! One of the most brilliantly goofy parts of our most brilliantly goofy campaign world gets updated and rejigged from it's appearances in Dragon Magazine. Now everyone has a magic power of some sort,  and a rather devastating dependency. This makes things complicated but fun. Don't bother with the CD though. Yawn city.

Masque of the red death! Double Booyeah, in principle at least. Like council of wyrms though, the attempt to do D&D modern is seriously mucked up by the rules, which nerf you horribly while offering nothing in return and really fight against the proficiency system, not changing enough to properly model the era. Most frustrating.

Into the Abyss. Triple Booyeah. I've used this twice, and it's been pretty entertaining each time, even if the players go off the road and wind up in even deeper trouble. But then, that's what the abyss is for. There's always another nook that'll lead you even deeper and more in trouble. All you need is a sadistic imagination.

Al-Qadim gets Caravans. Cross the desert, and try and keep as much of your stuff as possible along the way. Why have a merchant kit if players aren't going to use it?

Ravenloft gets it's third monstrous compendium appendix. More undead variants and other things that go bump in the night. Never let your players be certain of exactly what they're facing.

The forgotten realms has yet more bloody Volo. This time, it's the Sword Coast he's all over like a rash, the cheeky beggar. Seeya later, alligator.

Dragonlance gets something nasty called The Medusa Plague, part two of the defenders of magic series. Yeah, if that illustration is right, limbs turning to snakes is pretty worrying, and very much needing of an epic quest to fix.

Dark Sun finishes the tribe of one trilogy. The name turns out to be cleverer than we thought, as our protagonist finds out he is just one part of a greater being. And with that knowledge and regained unity, he gets to become really badass. Athas is going to become a better place.

Our generic products this month are HR7: The crusades, and the Deck of Psionic powers. Pretty broad field then. Will you go for gritty religion based conflicts, or for quick reference of your mental powers. Or maybe both. This has easily been the first month where I actually bought the biggest proportion of the products released at the time. Interesting business.


As usual, the october issue is considerably above average quality for the magazine, which feels particularly dramatic in this case, thanks to the modernist advice from Spike, the conclusion of the classic series by Moldvay, and the two and a half (counting the forum piece) pretty good articles from Greg Detwiler. I think Greg'll have to take first place, but it's a close run thing. Lets hope they have another store of good articles for christmas as well.