Dragon Magazine Issue 224: December 1995


part 2/7


The Castle designer's guide to coping with magic & the supernatural: Ah yes, let's bring back a topic that got a whole series of forum letters a few years ago, turn it into a full article. A fairly familiar path by now. So magic massively changes how sieges and the like work, on both sides of the conflict. Bypassing walls becomes simplicity itself with flight and teleportation, a single creature immune to nonmagical attacks can wade through a force of regular fighters and laugh. But spellcasters run out of stuff to do quickly in a protracted battle, and there are mundane tricks that still work surprisingly well. Archers are a great equaliser, taking out high level characters by sheer force of numbers. Lead always cramps the style of divinations and ethereal marauders. Well constructed domes on top of your towers allow you to shoot out while not leaving you vulnerable to flyers. A 6 pager with several illustrations of stuff described, this is definitely a case where they've tried to come out with all guns blazing. And it does a pretty good job, tackling most of the annoying things wizards can do to ruin your day, if not in as much depth as they could. A good engineer certainly isn't helpless, even if their services will cost rather a lot. And there's still plenty of room to expand on this, which hopefully we'll see in the forum again. Symmetries and patterns. As long as people have ingenuity, there'll be new tricks developed on both sides of this issue. I somehow doubt it'll ever get as filled in as their lists of monsters and spells.


Elven cities & settlement: A random elven settlement generation table?! Ok, that's definitely a new one, even if it's two constituent components are not. At less than half a page these tables are more to spark your imagination than provide a complete setup. And spark my imagination they do, partly because of the very odd demographics you'll get if you apply them strictly. So I'm not sure if this is a success or a failure, because it is pretty interesting, but I can't imagine using it regularly in my campaign. Maybe they didn't do the math. Maybe their conception of what elves do in their day-to-day lives is a bit different from mine. And what dice do you roll to get a result between 70-200? So mechanically, this is a bit of a fail. If you're going to be more specific, that gives people concrete things to analyse and find good or bad about your work. And let's face it, their mechanics editing still isn't great around here. Make changes without making the preparations to adapt, and you will have a hard time getting used to things.


Descent to undermountain: Another AD&D computer game, another promotional article. We've already seen undermountain get a rather large boxed set, and plenty of adventurers have visited, it's an obvious choice for an action focussed AD&D conversion. This time, they're using the Descent modelling engine and getting on the doom bandwagon, with a 1st person 3D adventure game full of action, puzzles, and mutiplayer competition. That's the theory anyway. Googling shows that this was shunted between development teams, arrived late, was unfinished, completely cut out the multiplayer element, had crap AI, and was generally a bit crap all round. And since it's still a good year before it's actually released, we may well see more promotional articles in the mean time, or maybe stuff in the rumour mill about how it's going (wrong). This definitely has potential for a little morbid amusement.


The sleep of ages: We're still in the Realms, but this is a good deal more solid than the last article, in several senses. After all, Dwarven tombs are built to stay the same through the centuries, while undermountain is always being restocked and rearranged by Halaster as adventurers go in, kill stuff, and then die or get out again. Course, they don't stay unplundered for long if they don't take precautions, and they're not very keen on putting undead or constructs in to guard them, so the traps and tricks need to be pretty brutal. So this is packed full of example traps and fakeouts. For a more important tomb, they'll have a fake one near the entrance, with all the real stuff through hidden doors, and several fake secret routes that only lead to more trouble for anyone trying them. It is quite inventive, and you could either use the layouts and traps as given here, or mine them for your own dungeon complexes. Which is exactly the kind of crunch I approve of, and the reason why the Realms has been leading the way in the magazine since the early 80's. Stuff that's generic enough to make your own, but also fits into a larger picture if you want it too. It's a formula that works all too well, hence it's longevity.

Dragon Magazine Issue 224: December 1995


part 3/7


Role-playing reviews: Everway is WotC's first attempt at an RPG. Rick is rather surprised at how different the mechanics are. Mind you, making the random elements card based is probably the way to go if they want to get crossover from people who play M:tG, but haven't roleplayed before. Rick has a rather split opinion on this game. On one hand, it's a perfect fit for his GMing style, and on the other it may well be too vague for new players and rules lawyers. If you aren't a good improviser, steer well clear. Yeah, I think I'll pass then.

The Birthright campaign setting is also for experts, but for completely the opposite reason, as after all, there is a lot to keep track of. Plus the way the game is set up, it does rather encourage PvP actions. But the domain rules do seem to work and reward the actions they're supposed to. And let's face it, making them reward people who go out and attack others over those who turtle in their domain hoarding resources definitely makes sense if you want an interesting game in actual play.

In addition, Rick gives a good muahaha at labyrinth of madness, expresses amazment at T.W.E.R.P.S's longevity, and is very pleased that we can now go to Miskatonic University. This stuff may not be for newbies, but you should still consider supporting it, so they'll produce more in the same vein.


Forum: Geordie Keefe has the problem that he knows a DM who was really mean to newbies, blatantly favouring the existing players. This drove him off, and probably other people as well. This kind of behaviour is another thing that's dreadfully bad for the hobby as a whole.

Allen Mixson points out just how prejudiced and provincial medieval people could actually be. Shakespeare supports him on this. Tribalising was a lot easier back then. Some people managed to succeed anyway, but they were very definite exceptions.

C. Joseph Walker suggests using subtle methods to deal with shop-robbing psychopaths. If they can't get a decent drink without killing someone, hopefully they'll get bored eventually.

Karen Remick has the old solution of merchants being semi-retired adventurers who decided to invest their money in business rather than becoming nobility. They'll keep their hand in by disintegrating anyone dumb enough to try robbing them. The company might even be a whole party of them sticking together. See what happens when they try and raid Bargle's magical item emporium and deal with his 27th level contingencied ass.

Roy Penrod thinks you ought to penalise people XP for killing shopkeepers and other stuff they shouldn't kill. It's horribly metagame, but it'll soon solve the problem one way or another, particularly when combined with IC legal consequences.

Douglas Porter points out that Bards are actually one of the best classes for a single class party, particularly when you add kits. (and if you're really cheesy, multiclass half-elves, as we've had flamewars about before) After all, a band of touring musicians is one of the closer things to the adventurer dynamic IRL. (And may well be part of the reason why I am a musician. ) Plus it'll really work if you want to play a social heavy game.

Linda Edwards proves that women can be idiotic twinks too. Or maybe this is ironic. In any case, not letting 50th level drow in your party seems entirely reasonable to me.

Anton J. Uselmann thinks that when it comes to descriptions, you need to make sure you show, not tell. You control all the information, it's up to you to give them enough to make interesting conclusions from.

Jason G Ward makes the statement that maybe gaming doesn't need women. There are plenty of other pastimes that have massive gender imbalances that don't seem too worried about correcting them, such as fishing. Is it really worth stressing about?

Jeremy Prada is another person who makes players hesitant to use wishes via sadistic interpretation. People have been doing that since the dawn of the hobby. It's not particularly worthy of comment.

Dragon Magazine Issue 224: December 1995


part 4/7


A thousand and one words: Which isn't an Al Qadim article, surprisingly enough. instead, it's one of those short articles that tells us it's not the statistics, it's how you describe things. Even more than the castle design one, this is something they've said many many times, and this contributes very little if you're a regular reader. This feels like filler of the most obvious kind, with the layout manipulated in a odd way to pad things out to just the right size. Yawn. Time to hit skip again, I'm afraid.


Bazaar of the Bizarre: Another article complaining that druids don't have enough magic items focussed towards them? I don't know. Sometimes I feel like there's not enough continuity here. This is why compilations turn out handy after all. But why are monsters getting regular yearly ones while magic items aren't. Surely items are useful to both players and DM's, so they'd actually probably sell more. Oh well, basic logic errors may be another thing that's contributing to their sales slide.

Claws of the Bear are an idea they've already used in this column, goddamnit. So very bored right now.

Silver Branches shed moonlight, which lets you see, reveals fae, and enhances plant spells, curiously. Nicely idiosyncratic collection.

A Pouch of Trails protects you from tracking, and helps you follow trails made by others. Another one full of flavour and multiple uses.

Eyes of the Frentlin let you see through the eyes of a bird. Unless you have other powers to control it, this aint so great. But there are plenty of spells to solve this, particularly if you're a druid. Meh.

Bane Toadstools are evil fungi that corrupt you if you use their powers. They had to have a booby prize in there, didn't they. Most druids will of course try to uproot these buggers. But there's always one who thinks they can master the powers isn't there. Muahahaha. An entertaining end to a rather mixed bag here.


From the forge: Another column comes to it's end without being given a proper chance to say goodbye. Indeed, the writer is aware that this column has been delayed during the reorganisations, and even gets some formatting updates along with the rest of the magazine, which suggests that the guys in editing thought they'd keep this column, and then suddenly changed their mind, probably when the second changeover in quick succession happened and Pierce and Anthony came in. I guess minis are still a contentious topic for roleplayers. Some love them, while others find they actively impede their imagination. Now, the big question in my mind is: Was this the personal choice of the staff, or driven by the survey responses of the readers? This is one era where a little insider knowledge would help a lot, as the reality might be very different to what I'm inferring.

Once more to recap the actual minis then. Games Workshop release Warhammer Quest, their latest attempt to get new players on board. It seem a little more sophisticated than Heroquest, and is certainly more challenging and open-ended. They also release another pair of undead badasses to command your armies in the full game. The public appetite for them seems to be neverrending, and so why should they stop making them? Not that they're lacking in competition, with RAFM's skeleton war wagon, Ral Partha's official Dragolich, Crypt thing, and Lord Soth figurines, and Grenadier & Harlequin's respective skeleton forces. We've had so many skeleton armies over the years that no force should be reduced to a skeleton crew. :rimshot: There's also a demon and a dragonman, neither strangers to the modelling world. The only unusual creatures are two rather goopy looking Earthdawn monsters from Heartbreaker hobbies. Well, it's more diversity than some  halloweens managed.

And finally, we have a best of year. It's like squeezing the contents of two articles into one. A lot of these are larger showcase pieces that you might not want to use on the battlefield too frequently. A scene of a Hippogriff taken from a poem. A new wizard figure from sculpting legend Julie Guthrie, who has apparently gone into retirement. A dracolich necro drake from RAFM, photographed with brooding clouds gathering behind it. A 16 inch living dragon, which I'm sure will terrorise nearly any scale of minis you have. A rather skinny demon named Kreegah the Spoiler. I'm betting he can still rip most wizards to shreds from his description, not that that's hard when they didn't bring the rest of the party along A High elf from Games Workshop, an Orc Shaman from Heartbreaker Hobbies, a Grim Reaper from Grenadier. They're sticking to the standards as well. A julie Guthrie sculpted Klingon from Rawcliffe, showing she's busier than it seems. A very brightly painted and menacing looking mecha from Global Games. A looming Balrog from Ral Partha. And yet another bloody skeletal legion. Just how many more of them do we really need? Maybe we could do with a break from minis after all. It is a shame though, because they actually appear to have improved the way they transfer photos into the magazine as part of their reorganisation. That's gone up and down so much over the years that it seems very silly to stop just as you got it working well.

Dragon Magazine Issue 224: December 1995


part 5/7


A history of the rod of seven parts: Ohh. Now this is something they foreshadowed ages ago, but never filled in. What exactly were the Wind Dukes from the description of the Rod of seven parts. Well, wonder no longer, because not only are they being detailed here, but there's a whole adventure featuring them coming out next year. That is interesting. It would make sense that if you make an adventure from an idea they've already mentioned in the books, it would sell more than one delivered cold. This is especially the case when it's appeared quite a few times, each with slightly different details, thus building up curiosity in the kind of people who like to analyse apocrypha. So this is as much as history of the Rod IRL as it is in game, particularly as this is a generic module, so you may have to adapt it to any world. Unfortunately, this is the kind of article that is rendered superfluous if you actually buy the book, which I do rather disapprove of. But at least it's interesting and the information excerpted is self-contained. Another case of the magazine being used primarily for self-promotion. :mutter grumble mutter:


The chronology of krynn: Or let's get round to doing for krynn what we did for the Realms in issue 196. Take a good look at all the novels and short stories, and figure out exactly where they all fit in the timeline. Of course, since Krynn started earlier, it has been several years since that, and Krynn has had more short story anthologies, we have a lot more ground to cover. It takes nearly two and a half pages of rather dense type and spans thousands of years, a far more impressive timescale than the Realms' mostly present based stories. Well, it's a smaller area, so they have to expand outward in the 4th dimension instead. A little dry, but this is invaluable for completists and continuity obsessives. I don't object to this, although it would work better in an online format. Have fun keeping it up to date with all the stuff they're planning to add next year.


Rumblings is cut down to fill the half a page left by the chronology, with only 4 news items. News regarding Winter fantasy and Gen Con. A collectible card game about Waterloo, obviously by wargamers trying to capture some of that CCG dollar without quite getting it. And a particularly silly licence. TSR making limited edition mobile phone sim cards? Buh. I am truly boggled as to how they thought that was a good idea. You do not think of your gaming company when you want to top up your talk time. Admittedly, it is a profitable and rapidly growing market at the moment, but you are not equipped logistically to take advantage of it. All I can do is shake my head in utter bemusement. Even Buck Rogers and Dragon Dice make more sense as company projects than this.


Fiction: The law of third power by Richard Parks. A sequel to the story in issue 209, this once again presents a very interesting lesson, that applies not only to fictional magic, but to real life as well. When it comes to authority, it matters not who you are or what you can do, but who other people believe you are, and how much esteem they give your credentials, and so much of social life is front and illusion. And if you can get into power and fake it well enough, then chances are you're actually doing the job anyway, particularly if it's not one that actually requires technical knowledge. Important life lessons aside, this also manages to juggle the tasks of maintaining continuity without making the story inaccessible to newcomers, and establishing atmosphere. It all seems ripe for a continuation of the story. Unfortunately, as with Slab's, a little looking ahead shows this isn't going to happen. So much for continuity. I have to wonder if that's an active decision by the editors, or merely a lack of suitable submissions.

Dragon Magazine Issue 224: December 1995


part 6/7


Floyd continues to be snarky in response to events, but the people around him are not impressed.


Sage advice: Do krynnish bards have to take the test of high sorcery (There are no krynnish bards! The question is moot! ) Then why do so many of the races have bard level limits (Umm. Look! A shiny magic item! Quick! Retcon the books while they're not looking! )

Does shield proficiency replace or stack with the standard benefit (Depends if you're using players option or not. Are you gonna keep your edition locked down? You choose, you choose.)

When do you make sprinting checks (When you try and sprint. Surely that should be obvious)

How much does grand high mastery cost ( lots of points. But it's worth it.)

Do wizards who buy a combat bonus get a rogues or priests THAC0 (a priest's one Yayzo4)

What are polymorph's visuals? ( DM's choice. Drama is good.)

Isn't the long spear too good. (Skip thinks so. Skip remembers that Gary didn't like spears, and skip will carry on his vision in these hard times. You are free to nerf it :glances around nervously:)

What happens if you break a wand (nothing, except for a few specific cases.)
Do you have to save against poison every time a monster hits you (Usually. This can get really nasty if they have multiple attacks. )

What happens if you don't defend against a psionic attack (tough. You gotta spend the points, even if you don't want to. If you've got no points, they'll have an easy time.)

What happens when a high intelligence character sees through an illusion (They sneer. Or pretend to be fooled, if they're as wise as they are smart and trick the person trying to trick them.)

Are rakshasas immune to all priest spells (yes. They can be rather irritating, can't they.)

What happens if you try and raise an unconscious person. (You waste a spell. Nothing happens. Since these spells have expensive material components, this is a bad idea. )

What happens if a time shifted character puts themself in a perfect position for when time catches up (+4 bonus to hit at best. If you're a thief you might be able to finagle a backstab bonus as well, but that's yer lot)

My boyfriend banned me from the campaign, and said I can't play my characters anywhere else either. ( Sock it too him, sista. You don't need him. Dump his ass, and go find a new group. He can't stop you playing your characters there, no matter what he says. And if he shows up at your new group demanding you stop playing now, taser his ass, call the cops, and file a restraining order. All the ladies who independent, throw your hands up at me!)

Dragon Magazine Issue 224: December 1995


part 7/7


Dragonmirth really ought to move to a better neighbourhood. Swordplay really can't get out of character properly. Yamara ends with a wedding, and a big bang. Curse you, renovators.


The ecology of the lammasu: Oh, we have a couple of pages left over at the last minute? Hmm. Let's dig another ecology out of the slush pile and fill it with that. That'll keep people happy. What do we have? Lammasu? The goody-goody lion guys? Well, it's not my first choice, but you've gotta have a few good creatures around. Otherwise players would be justified in attacking on sight, and killing everything that surrenders. So we have a little bit of drama, a load of pontification, a few twists involving their relationships with other creatures, a bit a tactics, a bit of eco-crap, and a happy ending. Ho hum. I see why they put this one so far back in the magazine.


TSR Previews: Once again, the new year hangover sees output drop to a fraction of last month. Ravenloft subjects your characters to railroading and body horror as they get captured and turned into animal hybrids by Lord Markov. A dark sense of humour is recommended because otherwise you'd get really mad.

Dark sun gives halflings some more screentime in Windriders of the jagged cliffs. There may be plenty of water for a change, but adventuring in an enormous vertical jungle full of cannibal halflings with tamed flying creatures is no picnic. Unless you have serious mobility magic prepared you'll lose out to things of considerably lower level.

The monstrous compendia get their second yearly update. This one is black and rather better bound than last year's. But the monsters are probably less interesting. Diminishing returns strike again. Similarly, the solo adventures cycle around a second time, with Cleric's Challenge II. Will they try for another scrape of this barrel? No? That's a relief.


There's certainly a lot to hate in this issue. Price raises, rehashed topics, laughable promotion, half-assed excerpts. It far outweighs the good bits, and generally leaves me feeling decidedly cranky, especially as many of the bad bits herald further developments that I know didn't work in hindsight. So it's with a pretty heavy heart I head into 1996, knowing that there's definitely worse to come. It's going to come to a head at some point, but we've still got a way to go, and even if it might not be pleasant, at least it'll probably be more interesting than this year was. Turn the pages with one hand, and hold your nose with the other, and let's take another step forward.

Dragon Magazine Issue 225: January 1996


part 1/7


124 pages. So, here we are then. At least they realised fairly quickly that the red triangle was a dumb idea and are pretending it was never a long-term plan in the first place. In it's place, we have a tilted logo, a whole bunch more promotional blurbs scattered across the cover, and a completely blank print of the cover image a few ages inside. Now they have one less page to worry about filling with actual content. And a whole bunch of new regular columns, one of which is misspelled on the contents page. Only a few pages in, and I'm already finding good reasons to be amusingly bitchy. This looks like it will be worryingly easy pickings.


In this issue:


The wyrm's turn: The editorial gets renamed and moved ahead of the contents page. Because what they have to say is just too important to wait. Yes, this year heralds big format changes. The last two issues had a few of these, but now they hit in full force. (the price also goes up a full dollar, to $4.95) It's time for the magazine to start focussing seriously on gaming. Computer game reviews are out, the old comics are out, there'll be less stuff on games other than D&D, (apart from CCG's) and the visuals are seriously altered. Welcome to the last gasp of TSR, before they collapse under the weight of their bad company policies and financial mismanagement. So it's out with the old, in with the ....... older? as they promise to give plenty of coverage to dead campaign worlds and bring back regular deliveries of specific NPC's. Y'know, I never much liked those back in the day. Guess that's probably going to be another sticking point. They say they're going to bring back miniatures, but they've changed their mind several times recently so who knows. And it's all change in the comics department, of which I'm still not sure what to think. So as with last month, this already seems like more bad news than good news, but we'll have to see for sure.


Letters becomes D-Mail for some reason. Probably trying to get down with the modern lingo and new developments in technology. Me'n ma homies are delvin this dungeon, an any punk-ass muthafucka who gets in the way is gonna get capped. Word up. What's in this mailbag, dudes?

A request for more Drizzt books. Yeah, we're not going to let this one get away, when he's one of their biggest sellers. He will write until he drops! Ahahahahaha!

A letter wondering how much they can get for old issues of the magazine. A lot more than shops will offer you, that's for sure. You might even be able to get more than you paid for the really early stuff. So don't settle for less.

We've had letters asking how you get published by the magazine, or TSR as a whole recently. Now they ask how you can get them to publish your novels. Generally, you don't. They tell you what to write about if you want to be published, not the other way around. Look at poor Bob Salvadore. I'm sure he'd love to give them stuff set in a universe of his own invention, but you know what would happen if he did? Do you want to find out? Do you really?

A letter pointing out that you can trade old cars for new, and so they ought to do the same for the new Dark Sun campaign setting. I do wonder why everyone is suddenly getting all worked up about this one when the Realms, Ravenloft, Greyhawk and Mystara all made huge changes when they updated and didn't get anything like this fuss. It's not as if they were less popular than Athas. Or were they just not publishing it. After all, greyhawk & mystara died soon after being updated, so sales must not have been great.


Another development. They've been doing 12 issues a year for the past 16 years. Now it seems they've decided to push their limits a little further, and do a dragon annual every year as well. Which brings the total to 13. Unlucky for some? Quite possibly. More work for me? Definitely.

A LorR Collectible card game? I'm not that surprised really. The bandwagon jumping continues.


Skills & Powers in 8 easy stages: Get your calculators out folks, it's time to do some serious character designing. AD&D has always been relatively simple to build a character in, especially if you start from 1st level. Even the wodges of complete splatbooks only add a couple of steps to each character, given the amount of resources you have to spend. Incorporate Skills & Powers stuff, though, and the number of options goes up by several orders of magnitude. Be prepared to spend a lot longer making characters, and to need a proper character concept before you start number crunching if you want to be optimal. This article aims to make it less daunting by spelling out exactly what you have to do, but still makes it clear that it will take a lot more work before you get to play, and there are a lot more opportunities to make one character more powerful than another based upon the skill of their players rather than the luck of the dice and the treasure they get. So this makes it clear that this is where one of the big changes in 3e started. People want more choice, and though not all of the ideas tried here worked (subabilities in particular needed to die with a vengeance) some of them did. So as with all the letters about Athas a few pages ago, this sees them recognising that some of the things they've done recently may be divisive, and trying to do damage control. Exactly what effect that will have I'm not sure. Does it win back people alienated by recent changes? Does it make things worse to admit fault, when many people wouldn't have noticed the problem anyway? In any case, this is a rather worrying way to kick off their features.

Dragon Magazine Issue 225: January 1996


part 2/7


Secret origins and motivations of player characters: We may be starting to swing back towards the crunch side, but we're still right in the middle of 2e territory. Which means they follow up the mechanical advice with one on establishing your character's backstory. With particular emphasis on why they became an adventurer in the first place. Makes sense, really. As we've found before, taking a focussed approach on what we really need to know gets us playing sooner than writing several pages of fluff that may not ever come into play, particularly if you make it so long the DM can't be bothered to read it anyway. So this is quite decent advice that seems likely to speed up your game rather than slow it down, by getting you to fill in the right kind of details instead of the wrong kind.


Caste of characters: We've covered Africa and the orient pretty well. Now it's india's turn, with the first of several articles on this topic. First off, new kits. This is relatively easy to do, thanks to the caste system. Of course, that does mean people might be forced into roles they find impossible to fulfil, but that is the stuff stories are made of. Let's see how much they have to twist reality to get it to fit in a AD&D shaped mould.  

Singh can roar like a lion as long as they never cut their hair. Ahh, mythology. That quirk aside, they're your fairly typical martial sorts. Disciplined, reliable, and subject to the orders of their bosses. How much of a disadvantage that'll be is up to the DM.

Kshatrya are technically paladins, but the way the caste system is divided up, they're forbidden from personally performing religious duties. This means they sacrifice lay on hands and cure disease, but get the ability to read people's karma, and a reaction bonus. Hmm. I think that definitely pushes them away from a full-on combat role as well. Might not make them popular amongst an adventuring party.

Shikari are indian Rangers. They get the ability to slow their bodily functions to feign death, but have a tendency to take on impossible challenges, which leaves them open to DM screwage, or an epic tale, as they choose. Know your DM, in other words.  

Swami are wizards who learn from the spirits, although said spirits need rather a lot of persuading, since they don't have a great relationship with them. On the plus side, they don't need a normal spellbook, and can cast spells well beyond the usual range wizards can manage. On the negative side, they don't have a regular spellbook, which means they have the same kinds of compatibility issues as the more out-there variant wizards from the complete sha'ir's handbook, and breaking their focus doubly screws them over. I think their hindrances balance out their benefits adequately.

Brahmin are technically right on top of the caste system, but since they're supposed to be detached from worldly concerns, they don't get to enjoy it that much. A little graft, skimming off the money that's meant to go to the temple might take care of that, but then you have the usual problem with losing your powers. D&D just isn't well suited for tales realistic grey-shaded morality, is it. I suppose that's one thing 4e's changes have in in their favour.

Thugs go back to the root of the name, strangling for religious reasons and generally being superstitious and cowardly. It's not that they're not adventurer material, after all, going on journeys & killing everyone you meet is a perfect excuse for a bit of excitement in your life. It's just that other players may get tired of all this omen crap and decide to spend time with someone more reliable.

Fakirs may appear holy and magical, but they're primarily showmen who make a living from showing off their various tricks. They get the ability to learn spells by just watching them, and pretty much ignore the usual material component requirements, but they also lose a lot of the standard bard powers. Not sure how balanced that is, as both the benefits and penalties are pretty substantial here. Should be interesting to play though.

Yogi concentrate on the mind-over-matter thing and get incredible powers and flexibility as a result. Actually, it looks like they're inspired by Dhalsim from SFII as much as anything, with super-stretchiness being their main kit benefit. Their limitations are pretty substantial though. No ability to affect the minds of others, which is a pretty wide restriction for a psionicist, and the usual monastic aeseticism thing, which means they won't get to enjoy the fruits of their labor much. So overall, I think this collection is fairly balanced, maybe erring a bit on the conservative side, but better that than horribly overpowered. They're entirely usable, if a bit odd in places.

Dragon Magazine Issue 225: January 1996


part 3/7


The Winter Fantasy Convention gets 3 pages of promotion and a pre-registration form. The conventions still have plenty of money to spend on advertising then.


I'm okay, you're one-dimensional: Another article on getting your character going in a hurry. If you want help fleshing them out, try imagining who they'd be played by. Pick am existing person or character, tweak a few details, plonk them in the new milieu, and off we go. You could also ask what their theme song would be, what their most important personality trait is, or what they first do when meeting new people. So this is an interesting grab-bag of ideas, that might work for you, or they might not. I think it'll be very much a matter of taste. Oh well, a few more tricks and options doesn't really hurt. At least this one does put an interesting angle on the whole character-building thing.


Network News: For a long time, we've heard very little about the RPGA in the magazine. Just as Dungeon handles the adventures, Polyhedron is where all the talk of RPGA activities goes. Exactly why they've decided to change that I'm not sure, but here's another soon to be regular feature. Actually, upon reading, it looks pretty obvious why they want to do this - to grow their player base. Raven's Bluff currently has around 5,000 adventurers living in it, played by people from all around the world. But it could be more, oh so much more. We want you! Course, you have to start from 1st level, and your character options are fairly strictly restricted. No weird races, spells from only a few extra books, standardised hit points, comeliness as an extra attribute, evil and chaotic neutral characters not allowed. Hmm. This definitely reads like a set of rules developed organically as and when they ran into problems, and had to patch them to prevent people from running roughshod over the city slaughtering everything. If I was reading this at the time, I might have been tempted. These days, on the other hand, I'm not. I was rather soured on the whole large scale connected RPG thing after 3 years of MUSH play, which ended after one site folded from lack of players, and I quit another after they decided my main character's type was no longer permitted, thus wasting several years of built up xp without the character getting a decent ending. The degree of arbitrary unnegotiable crap you have to deal with from moderators is greater, the amount of influence you actually get to have on the world far less than tabletop, and the choice of venues if you want to enjoy decent sized network externalities rather small. I have no desire to subject myself to that again. Still, this is one step to increase their revenue that seems both sensible and potentially fun for most people involved, so I'm not objecting. And it's looking increasingly unlikely I'm ever going to get hold of a decent collection of Polyhedron back-issues, it will be nice to see what's going on in that corner of the gaming landscape.


Back in the saddle: Another bit of rules tinkering here. Maybe you prefer the way nonweapon proficiencies scale in Skills & Powers, but don't want to adopt the whole point-buy rigamarole using it entails. Try this backconversion. The results are almost precisely halfway between the basic 2e nonweapon proficiency system, and the 3e skill system. Proficiencies starts around 10, ± your ability modifier, rather than being liked directly to ability, and you get to scale them to a greater degree than before, but they don't all escalate the way they do in 3e. That makes this very interesting as a curiosity, and a game using this will have more flexible and balanced characters than the basic system. Overall, I think I approve. After all, the system did need overhauling, and this is a step in the right direction, if not a complete fix.


Campaign classics: So, the magazine's readers have made it very clear that they still like many of the campaign settings TSR is no longer producing material for. So here's another regular column to try and fill that void. And not too surprisingly, we're kicking off with a Greyhawk one. Three spellbooks, each by established names. This would do just as well in Arcane Lore. Probably wasn't even written for this purpose. Oh well, at least that shows demand is there.

Vecna's Ineffable Variorum is constructed entirely out of creatures. Bone for the covers, Skin for parchment, hair for binding, blood for ink. Pretty gross really. It has three unique spells in it. Depth perception, which is obviously to compensate for Vecna's little ocular deficiency. Vecna's Conflagration, which does what fireball cannot and flings enemies away as well as burning them, which is awesome visually. And Turn Lightning, which is also pretty obvious in application. Don't go for the boring attack types against someone this smart.

Iggwilv's Nethertome is a rather large and glossy spellbook, and is largely focussed upon demonology. It does have some spells though, including two rather nasty unique 9th level spells. Iggwilv's Lightning Cage allows you to trap enemies in such a fashion that they take tons of electrical damage if they try to escape. And Iggwilv's Timeless Sleep is another variant upon the sleeping beauty thing, not as good as the one in issue 221, although she's more likely to use it to create guardians that last centuries, so adventurers have something badass to fight. Nice to see a villain doing so much for the adventuring community.

Acererak's Libram has gone through owners almost as quickly as the tomb of horrors went through adventuring parties. Exactly why is uncertain, as it only has one rare spell, Acerack's Blackstone, which is a fairly basic spell absorber. Frankly, spell engine is lower level and better. So this doesn't seem to be a very imaginative collection at all. Delve deeper into the ancient tomes, you'll get far better ways of doing the same things.

Dragon Magazine Issue 225: January 1996


part 4/7


The convention listing gets renamed Cons & Pros. My sides, they are splitting.


Tales of the fifth age: Kindling, by Jean Rabe. All the rules have changed in Krynn. And this year, all the rules change in the fiction department as well. In their attempt to revitalise Dragonlance, they're filling the magazine with stories from it, just to make sure everyone's aware of it. Which means a dramatic shift in the style of material we're getting. Wheras for the whole of the magazine's lifespan, even the tales that were part of a series worked self-contained, this is hugely, horribly dependent upon what has come before, and feels very incomplete as a story as well, instead being more a set-up for events to come. It's main purpose is to introduce the gargantuan red dragon Malystryx, one of the major antagonists for the next wave of stories. Her origin is pretty mysterious, coming from some previously unmentioned brobdingnagian continent somewhere on Krynn, there's very little around these parts that can even remotely challenge her, and so she decides to stick around for a bit, make the place her own. So despite being longer than many of the bits of fiction in the magazine, this barely feels like a story, more an extended introduction. Which is an interesting change, but deeply unsatisfying when compared to the general high quality of short fiction around here. They'd better have a good payoff planned in future issues to follow up this setup, or I will be very cross with them for messing with one of the bits of the magazine that least needed it.


Rogues gallery: An elf wearing chainmail? What is this aberration. Common sense over displaying your pointy ears for the world to see? Dexterity as the lowest ability score? A nuanced and original personality that goes against stereotypes and has both cool bits and interesting flaws? I'm shocked. This new regular column has started up with something that's a vast improvement on the old Giants in the Earth character conversions. A character who isn't obvious and cliched, yet is still easily usable in an ordinary campaign. I was all ready to spew bile at this, and instead I find myself giving it fulsome praise. That is a pleasant surprise. I hope they keep this up, and don't slip into the bad habits of making supertwinked, rule-breaking mary-sues that PC's will loathe if they ever meet them.


Forum looks like it ought to have been some colour or other in the header and then casting a shadow, but they couldn't get the budget. So the draconic F winds up all smeary and indistinct, which is not very aesthetically pleasing. Another strike against their new direction.

Christopher Myers contributes well over a page on how arbitrary and illogical the dual-classing rules are. Bout time too. They have a certain interesting symmetry as a game concept, but absolutely no connection with the way people actually learn new skills. It's rather baffling how they were invented in the form they were.

Kerry Zane tells people to stop complaining so much. You know, if they did, this whole column would be pointless and wither away. A hobby needs a certain amount of friction to survive.  

Tim Cafferty defends TSR's recent price increases. They do have a need to make money, y'know. Roleplaying is not a charity.

Chris Curran, on the other hand, thinks maybe the prices are a bit of a problem especially for new players. Buying three big hardback books is a pretty hefty buy-in.  Bring back an affordable basic set.


Tournament rules: Earlier on, we had the official rules for RPGA play in Raven's Bluff. Now we have the Official Tournament Rules for Dragon Dice, for use in conventions this year. Rules clarifications, point allocations for armies, and the system by which you organise and advance contestants after each round. This all seems less arbitrary and irritating than the Raven's Bluff restrictions, largely because this is a fresh game which is just establishing itself, and so they've been developed in one go by a single team rather than accreting a bunch of odd little exceptions. They also include the official tournament tracking sheet, which is fairly simple and easy to understand. This again seems like a fairly sensible way to try and hold onto their player base, and make a bit more money from them. After all, if you build a community around a game, people are more likely to enjoy it and stick with it. So they are still doing some things right. I'm rather interested to see where this attempt leads us over the coming year.

Dragon Magazine Issue 225: January 1996


part 5/7


Sage advice gets rid of the little red triangle, and instead goes purple with black spikes. Lorraine must like her minions looking stereotypically evil. Most undignified to a sage who isn't as young as they used to be.

Can a giant object falling on a prismatic sphere penetrate it. (no. Even a falling planet will be stopped and destroyed or teleported to another plane by it's mighty power! Way to save the world dude! )

What's the point of chain lightning having scaling damage if the maximum is below the level you need to be to cast it ( Wands)

Can a frisky chest spell animate a giant gold statue (sure, if it isn't too big.)

Do mirror images make sound (Sure, why not)

When do enlarged characters get more knockdown dice. (when they go up a size category. Pure and simple)

How much do you know about magical items when you find them. (not much, unless you're a bard)

How do you know when magic is hostile (Common sense. Do we have to go through this every time.)

Can you move someone by pushing into their protection from evil radius (No. It's a magnetic repulsion. Note that paladin protection from evil doesn't do that anyway. )
What are the penalties for thieves wearing really heavy armour (Skip will help you out with that, no trouble.)

Do you go up to D20, then D100 for knockdown rolls by huge creatures (nah, just D20 is badass enough. It's like saves don't go below 2. The system breaks if you go too high, so we cap it.)


A rather stereotypical arabian bazaar scene? A bit jarring, in these politically correct days.


Dungeon Mastery: Oh boy, splitting the party again. It never ceases to be an issue, because there's just so many situations where it's unrealistic for half a dozen people to be joined at the hip 24/7. How are we to deal with this? Getting the players who's characters are absent to play NPC's? Seems pretty familiar. Actually, we already covered this in issue 190, along with a whole bunch of other bits of advice on what to do if they insist on not sticking together. So this seems both rehashed and very limited by comparison. It's not as long, it has less of a sense of humour, and the illustrations aren't integrated as well. Editing fail. You have to keep track of this stuff if you want to avoid boring us by telling us what we already know.


Role-playing Reviews: Warhammer Quest gets a second review. Rick is immediately drawn in by the high quality shiny bits and pieces, the rules are quick to learn and support a quite surprising amount of random happenings to keep things interesting. It's mostly just fighting, but there is enough potential for roleplay to use this as a gateway drug. And it's fairly affordable too. Shame christmas is over now. I guess timing is important when choosing your reviews.

Fudge gets a rather complicated verdict as it's not so much a system, as a formula for constructing your own RPG system. As such, it's very much for the expert DM, despite the simplicity of the basic system. Some more specific implementations like Spirit of the Century would be very helpful in raising it's profile. Otherwise there's just not enough to say.

Dragon Dice gets a pretty enthusiastic review. It's fairly original structurally, easy to learn, reasonably fast and has lots of tactical options. If you want to get in on the ground floor (having missed the boat for M:tG, go for it. Man, even the reviewers are getting bored with RPG's these days. How are the general public to be expected to hold on under these conditions.

Dragon Magazine Issue 225: January 1996


part 6/7


Palladium fantasy gets a new edition. Undertaken personally by Kevin Siembida! (wait, doesn't he do nearly everything there anyway. ) More fun and detailed than ever before!


Dragonmirth takes the pragmatic approach to the situation. Swordplay is quite dry in it's wit. Brave brave sir robin.


Even the gamers guide gets a logo in the new style, with the G once again looking like it ought to be in colour but isn't, and winding up looking murky and amateurish as a result. Come on, that's basic layout. Many things that are fine in colour look like crap when put in greyscale. Preview this stuff before sending it to print.


The changing faces of Dragon: Or let's highlight how little the magazine has actually changed in the last 10 years. They've lost their The, and eventually accepted that yes, they are a magazine after all, but they've stuck with their logo design for longer than D&D itself has at this point. Whether that's a good thing or not is very debatable. There is a lot to be said for not fixing something if it isn't broken, but it can also be called complacency. I suspect the main reason they're trying to change things is precisely because they're not working anymore. Still, this is interesting, because it points out a few changes I didn't spot at the time, such as the shift from a ™ to a ®. It's also amusing because once again they say they want the new magazine to have more attitude. You know who had attitude? Poochy. And you remember what happened to him? [brooklyn accent]Boy, they really screwed the pooch on that one.[/brooklyn accent] No, no, stop it, it's too easy, you're writing my commentary for me! Welcome to the failboat. We will be your ride for the rest of the year, presuming we don't capsize first. Um, um, can I get some semblance of sanity in here? So in conclusion, this is quite revealing. If anything, it reveals a little too much, and not in a flattering way, like your mum trying to squeeze into the clothes she wore as a teenager. (ok, ok, no more! ) Your choices in the past got you into this, and now you're making the wrong ones to get you out again. It wasn't just bad luck. I look forward to seeing how quickly they try to change the format again after this.


Rainforest rescue? It might not be too early for this eco-crap anymore, but it's still tiresome. The world isn't ending. Stop going on about it.


The role of books survives the purge.... For now. Actually, this new logo looks quite nice, even if it does have that badly photocopied air that pervades the rest of the logos. The basic theory is sound. Can they scrape up the cash to get it working properly?

The shape-changers wife by Sharon Shinn sees John welcome another first-time novelist onto the scene, producing something that would be excellent no matter the experience level of the writer. The ordinary and the fantastical is blended quite nicely, making both stand out all the better.

Two crowns for America by Katherine Kurtz, in deliberate contrast, sees him criticise a long established writer for being dull and formulaic in her writing. Sure it's a different milieu, but the characters are the same, the plot is the same, the magic works the same way. Did you think we wouldn't notice?

Ghostlight by Marion Zimmer Bradley, on the other hand, sees her try out her hand at gothic romance and do pretty well. It manages to make the twists sufficiently surprising that John doesn't spot them beforehand, and keep the characters well matched to the challenges. That way, you don't have to rely on a deus ex machina to solve the problems at the end.

Sisters in fantasy, edited by by Susan Shwattz & Martin H Greenberg (he must send comp copies of every anthology he does to John) takes a somewhat darker slant on feminist fantasy than the recent Chicks in Chainmail. It's also pretty engaging intellectually, without neglecting the emotional side either. Once again, they've pulled in a good selection of big names to do the job. Which is so much easier when you have the long established contacts.

Dragons of summer flame by Margaret Weis and Tracey Hickman sees John praise it pretty highly. Well, he was on board right from the start (see his review in issue 103) Their writing is more polished than it used to be, and they've had the courage to completely transform the setting, which is always a major risk when the world is as well established and filled in as this. In fact, they're almost too casual about the number of small and big changes they introduce. But then, creators are frequently a good deal less precious about their work than the fanboys. Just remember, the public are more conservative than they'd like to think they are. They can and will complain, as we're also seeing with regards to Athas.

Dragon Magazine Issue 225: January 1996


part 7/7


Floyd escapes the undead by the skin of his teeth. And his saviour is starting to pick up his snarkiness.


TSR Previews: A rather slow month in february, once again, however, they also mention two new supplements for this month they forgot last issue, so I'll do those first. Land of the Minotaurs by Robert A Knack sees us return to Taladas for the first time in 4 years, as Kaz deals with conspiracies in the royal court. Go him. Planescape also gets it's first novel. Blood hostages by J. Robert King starts a trilogy focussed on the Blood War. Well, with a card line as well, it is one of the most popular plot drivers.

Anyway, next month sees the forgotten realms complete it's secondary splatbook series. Warriors and priests of the realms makes our tank classes more powerful and integrated, as usual.

Ravenloft shows how to make artifacts even more sadistic than regular campaigns, in Forged of Darkness. Great power, even greater drawbacks and prices. Remember kids, just say no to artifacts. The buzz may be hot, but before you know it, you're an undead monstrosity who'll die if you give up the artifact or fail to sacrifice a baby to it every full moon.

Dark sun moves it's supplements IC in The Wanderers Chronicle: Mind-Lords of the last sea. Well, at least he's not annoying like Volo. And it's another pretty boxed set. They retain their collectors value better than books.

And finally, the Blood wars card game gets it's 4th expansion pack. The inner planes decide to make the long trip to join the fray. I play the yeti with tentacle arms!


Rumblings gets renamed to The Current Clack, which sounds like a reference to something, but I'm damned if I can figure out what the joke is. It seems to be designed to catch the attention of people who pick up the magazine and start reading from the back, newspaper style, with the overspill placed several pages earlier in the magazine. Which would work better if they hadn't just started polybagging the magazine. :facepalm: Classic case of departmental uncoordinatedness really.

The news has some pretty interesting stuff though. Games Workshop is cementing their dominance of the minis market by taking over their own distribution. This means smaller shops are being squeezed by their minimum order numbers, and they're being sued for unfair trade practices and anti-trust breaches by their former distributors. Meanwhile, White Wolf magazine has recently died, after a year in which they tried to revamp themselves by changing their name and turning up the attitude knob. Once again their decision to do that on this magazine too looks not just laughable but thoroughly misguided. ( A let's read thread for White Wolf magazine would be very welcome too, by the way) White Wolf the company, on the other hand, are doing very well from turning the attitude knob up, which I do find rather curious. Just as interesting is Jolly Blackburn's leaving AEG and coming here, bringing Knights of the Dinner Table with him. There's plenty of other bits and pieces, but these are the ones that stand out. Is the gossip going to get more salacious with the new format? Well, there are worse ways to get readers than emulate the tabloids.


There's certainly quite a bit to dislike here, but it's not as bad as I was fearing it would be. Some of the ideas they're trying are not only good ones, but properly implemented as well. On the other hand, there's quite a few articles that are not only rehashed, but just plain worse than their previous appearances in the magazine. And they're really struggling to get the mechanics of the game up to scratch, which is a lot more noticeable now they're putting more crunchy articles in. It is very interesting though, as we're starting to see the growing pains that'll eventually flower into 3e. So there are signs they'll get through this. It's just a matter of how much they'll suffer and lose on the way. That makes me a little more enthusiastic about pressing onwards.

QuoteSkills & Powers in 8 easy stages: Get your calculators out folks, it's time to do some serious character designing.

You needed a calculator for S&P?

QuoteAD&D has always been relatively simple to build a character in, especially if you start from 1st level. Even the wodges of complete splatbooks only add a couple of steps to each character, given the amount of resources you have to spend. Incorporate Skills & Powers stuff, though, and the number of options goes up by several orders of magnitude. Be prepared to spend a lot longer making characters, and to need a proper character concept before you start number crunching if you want to be optimal. This article aims to make it less daunting by spelling out exactly what you have to do, but still makes it clear that it will take a lot more work before you get to play, and there are a lot more opportunities to make one character more powerful than another based upon the skill of their players rather than the luck of the dice and the treasure they get.

It's not that much more work, but it depends on just how far you want to go with reinventing a class. For example, if you want a paladin with weapon specialization, you have to figure out which of the standard paladin abilities you're willing to give up. This kind of thing has a precedent in 1E, when clerics of certain deities got some extra abilities, but at the cost of others. S&P puts this into a standard system rather that the ad hoc arrangement from 1E.

QuoteSo this makes it clear that this is where one of the big changes in 3e started. People want more choice, and though not all of the ideas tried here worked (subabilities in particular needed to die with a vengeance) some of them did.

I kinda like sub-abilities, since it's a speed bump in the way of PCs needing wanked-out stats. Again, it's a simple exchange: you have to give something to get something.

Dragon Magazine Issue 226: February 1996


part 1/8


124 pages. This cover looks a bit rushed. I can still see the brushstrokes. They've managed to blend the logo with the backdrop nicely this time though. Maybe it was just a stylistic choice. Oh well. They do seem to be putting more artwork in, with the contents page having a rather large variety of different colour illustrations excerpted. Will they work in context? Flip, flip, turn the pages quick.


In this issue:


The wyrms turn: Blaah. Another editorial on how to get into writing for the magazine. Either they're still getting tons of letters, despite having said this stuff a couple of issues ago, or they aren't and are trying to get more new writers by reverse psychology. We've heard all this so recently, that it really doesn't seem like people are paying attention. Well, apart from the quibbling about fonts. That's new. And also goes to show just how picky they've become about their formatting these days. There is such a thing as being too standardised. Oh well. As soon as online submissions become commonplace, that'll cease to be an issue. In the meantime, this just reminds me that they've had huge staff turnovers recently, so of course they're going to be repeating old ideas more, since they may well be new to them. Ironically, the better my memory is, the more I'm going to suffer due to this. Not a very promising beginning.


D-Mail: We lead with three letters asking for stuff from back-issues. I presume that like the requests on how to write for the magazine, they get rather a lot of these, and are trying to drill in the stock answer of no free lunch, you've got to pay, presuming it's even available still. Once again I feel both bah and blah about this. We also see another bit of polyhedron promotion. Looks like the drive to boost the RPGA is going to be sustained throughout the year then.

A letter deriding issue 224's castle defence article. If they get to the walls, you've already half lost. A good leader ought to be paying attention to politics and news, and making sure it doesn't get that far. And if it does, they should have an army ready to go, blast them on the approach. Offence is the best defence. Quite a few real world military people agree.

Another attempt to soothe a worried writer. What is obsolete now? Oh, that's a tricky one. Just think of it as all optional, some options which aren't compatible with others. You can still pick and choose which options you allow. At least presuming you can get the rest of the group to agree. Good luck with that, by the way.

A letter criticising Rick Swan's reviewing style. Surely the most important thing a review should tell you is if a book makes a game more or less fun. The reply goes off at a tangent somewhat, tackling minor points first. Curious.

And finally, yet another letter from someone wondering how to become an RPG writer. Another one?! Departmental co-ordination fail. This repetition is getting out of hand. Who's overseeing this section anyway? Anybody? anybody?


The magic goes away: Eeek. Nasty scary eyes and 80's hair. No thanks. Equally unwelcome is the topic, trying to sell you on cutting down magic in your campaign. While not a bad idea in principle; as the various historical sourcebooks and masque of the red death have shown, it's not very well suited to the D&D ruleset. You need a system built from the bottom up to really do it justice, because you won't get the proper breadth of characters and niche protection here, and if you try and tone down the level of general magic in the campaign, while leaving the PC's rules untouched, there is the very real risk of them just walking all over the NPC's, no matter what social hindrances you try to put in their way. Ironically, this is one of the worst timings for an article like this, with their tightened focus on AD&D and other TSR properties. So it's a well meaning but problematic article here. Just go to another system instead of spending ages trying to get this to balance. Runequest or WoD work way better for gaming with the magic stripped out.


Rome may not have been built in a day but...: We're in more of a hurry these days. And we have better equipment. Yes, it seems that one theme that's continued on from last month is the desire to speed up your creation process as a GM, by guiding you through it step by step. More hand-holding, in other words. And while these channelling methods may help you work productively, if you are completely devoid of inspiration, no amount of trickery will solve the problem short of full-on random tables.