Dragon Magazine Issue 231: July 1996


part 6/8


Sage advice: How do you make psionicists using skills & powers (oh, this is gonna eat up tons of space. Should skip cap this mofo to get out of this question :Rumble of thunder, stab of organ music: oop, lorraine's watching, better get to work. Work work work. La lala Happy shiny rules writer, la la lala.)

Does a scarab of protection help you against dispel magic (no. It has no save, so the bonus doesn't apply)

What happens if you destroy a liches phylactery before killing the lich (You get a very pissed off lich after you. Also, liches, like dev :organ music: er, fiends, are notoriously tricksy. Don't be surprised if it's a fake.)


Network News: Another case of fail this month comes here, with the end of this article cut off abruptly for no apparent reason. It looks like it ought to route to another page, and indeed, on the next page there's a whole load of blank space it could have gone in, but I've scoured both my .pdf and physical copy and can't find it anywhere. This is another thing that makes me grumpy, especially as I was rather enjoying reading it beforehand. An interview with the guy in charge of Earthdawn, and his past and convention experiences. He's one of the people working hard to keep the RPGA supporting games other than D&D, which definitely deserves kudos. He's also busy writing for FASA when not co-ordinating convention adventures. It's both likable and informative. So this article manages to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, which is both annoying and funny. This is what happens when you go through editors too fast.


Dragon dice: A second bit of supplement pimping two months in succession. From the undead, to what is pretty much their opposite. The Ferals! Embodiment of vitality, fecundity and animalistic savagery. They replace troops at a scary speed, making them hard to put down for good, move fast, are ok in any terrain, and have plenty of tricks based on their individual animal types. Yeah, this is pretty standard fantasy tropeage, and quite a few of the spells seem to be directly taken from D&D. I find this surprisingly boring, especially compared to the quirks of the first few races. I suppose half of that is the problem with changing your lead developer and the other is that supplements don't generally get the development and editing time core stuff does. In any case, I suspect half-assed ideas like this contributed to the line's overall problem with oversaturation and underselling. Adding the kitchen sink makes a setting less interesting, not more.


Knights of the dinner table has an attack of the henchpeople. Swordplay turns the tables on the law. Dragonmirth does the old fake house trick again. Floyd faces the attention of the Randian inquisition. Will they give him a properly objective trial?

Dragon Magazine Issue 231: July 1996


part 7/8


Role-playing reviews: Shaman sees Rick annoyed because he can't discuss more than half of it due to spoilers. And the name is the least imaginative part of the whole thing, which may cost it sales from those inclined to judge a book by it's cover. It's a damn good idea that could do with a better implementation.

Arcane companion is for rolemaster, adding a whole bunch of interesting options for players and DM's to customise their campaign with. It's as crunchy as ever for the system, but rick still finds it surprisingly accessible and concise, packing thousands of spells and items in. If you like the system, it would be silly to pass this one up.

Magic: A manual of mystic secrets is for Earthdawn. As with the Rolemaster one, it's pretty tightly tied to it's system and setting, and will take a bit of converting. And even more than Rolemaster, the magic ideas are quirky and interesting, with unique abilities and social ramifications for each magic type. Rick's main complaint is that the system for the planes is a bit of a non-starter. Probably ought to get it's own book to sort that out.


TSR Previews: Another busy month coming up. The forgotten realms continues to slant slightly heavier on the novel side. The Heroes lorebook stats out all the various NPC's from books again. How many new ones will there be, and how much will the old ones have changed since they last did this 5 years ago. And how soon will the continued novels render this one out of date? The Mage in the Iron Mash (sic) by Brian Thompson features Volo being his usual nosey and irritating self. Still, as long as it's mainly bad guys he's annoying, that's not a problem. Passage to Dawn by R A Salvadore is another Drizzt novel. He's forcibly returned to icewind dale and has to go through all that crap again.

Red steel is rehashed in a rather odd way. The Odyssey line kicks up with another generalised sourcebook on it. Wha. It was less than 2 years ago. Why is this happening? What happened to the Mystara name? I'm confused. They also get a book, The Black Vessel by Morris Simon. Seems generic enough. Really, what's going on here?

Birthright gets the Naval battle system. This sounds self explanatory enough. Mass combat is one of the things there is a consistent demand for, yet doesn't quite stick in the core rules. It would be needed in a game where domain management is important.

They also try and kick off the Lankhmar line again, with The New Adventures of Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser. Shane Hensley tries to make this boxed set streamlined and truly standalone, to try and lure in more new players. Interesting. What was different about it, and did it bear any relation to his later Savage Worlds stuff?

Ravenloft continues the Grim Harvest series with Death Ascendant. Things are about to get even uglier unless you can foil them pronto. Can you keep things from progressing to the next level?

Our generic stuff this month is Sages and Specialists, and a Heroes Tale. More stuff on the people you might want to hire, and more mid-range mini adventures to keep your players busy. Not very gripping.

Dragon Dice get their 4th Kicker pack. The Feral. Beastie boys join your army ready to fight for their right to party. More weirdly, they start a novel line as well. Cast of Fate by Allen Varney sees a young lava elf concerned about the futility of war. Ha. Like Gundam or Mega Man, as long as your franchise is built on blowing shit up, you're always going to have to fight some more.

Dragon Magazine Issue 231: July 1996


part 8/8


The current clack: This month's news column is mostly concerned with revivals, which is actually quite pleasing. The battletech CCG is being rescued from limbo, Hero games are getting a new publisher, and so is The Whispering Vault. While companies may be experiencing financial problems, there's still plenty out there, and they want to keep cool properties alive. Of course, in some cases, this'll be just throwing good money after bad, but this is frequently the case in creative industries. You have to offer people all these different ideas so some can become breakout hits and support the other ones. The eras where everyone tries to follow the crowd in their attempts to succeed are the dullest to observe.

Also amusing here is Allen cementing his place as the resident technophile. He jumped on the internet quickly a couple of years ago, and now he's sharing his wisdom on the matter of mailing lists and message boards. Yes, they do require adapting to a quite different style of conversation to face-to-face communications, and can branch and spiral in ways that aren't easy to follow to the uninitiated. It is interesting to speculate just how people's brains are being affected by regularly conversing in this fashion, and what implications it has for young people who don't remember any differently. In the long run, it just makes for another "kids these days, gitoffa my lawn" cultural gap for people to rail against. And there's not a lot we can do about that.


It's not all bad here, but I can quite clearly identify the bits in the issue that made me decide I was getting sick of D&D at the time. Too many bits, pulling in different ways, too many mutually contradictory articles, too much dilution of theme, too much sloppiness in the writing and editing. And Dragon Dice just being annoying. It made me realise that I had enough to keep on playing for years as it was. Why bother with more if it was only going to make things worse? So that meant I pretty much missed their commercial nadir. This time, of course, I'm going to have to go all the way through it, try and give it a fair assessment. Tune in next time, as I once again venture into terra incognita. Only this time it's urban decay instead of virgin wilderness. Oh well, I'm sure there'll be plenty of opportunities for heroes here too.

Dragon Magazine Issue 232: August 1996


part 1/8


124 pages. A cover rendered entirely in washed out reds and yellows that looks like it needs a little sharpening up here. The theme, on the other hand, does seem pretty sharp. Weapons? Don't think we've had a full themed section on that, while we have had quite a few on magic. Rogues got some new tricks last issue. Now it's warrior's turn to try and play catch-up. As usual, I am fairly curious how well that'll work.


In this issue:


The new D&D starter set is advertised using the cover from the old Moldvay basic set, in the process showing that the new one isn't a patch on the old in terms of sheer attention-grabbing weirdness. This is no good at all.  All you'll do is fuel people's nostalgia.


The wyrms turn: We leap straight into the issue's theme in the editorial. What exactly is a weapon? Let's consult our friend the Oxford English Dictionary again. Huh. These new editors have more boring references than the old ones. This doesn't compare to army stories or goofy actual play experiences. And once again, they use formatting to try and disguise the fact that their word count here is very low. This feels like another content free editorial that they could have skipped entirely. Blah blah over-reliance on formula. You could have fit an article twice this size in this space. I miss 1987, when they were actively trying to be as efficient as possible. Now it seems like they're trying to pad things out wherever they can to save money. This sucks.


D-Mail: A letter praising the revamped magazine, in particular Roger's recent orbs of dragonkind article. They have been printing a lot of letters like this recently. I suppose it shows they are pleasing a decent segment of their readerbase. And the ones they aren't pleasing must be quitting altogether rather than complaining. Or maybe they're being selectively positive to keep people from quitting via peer pressure.

A letter nitpicking about the name of Tolkien's dragons. He did change his own mind quite a bit over the years. Even serious geeks may dispute which one to use.

A letter saying that what they need is more themed issues, and a bigger forum section. Perfectly reasonable requests. The themed stuff I agree with in particular, especially if they can find one they haven't done before.

Another letter just offering general praise and stuff. (apart from the price increases, which suck) Yawn.

And finally a question about rare Dragon Dice. You can only get them at a convention! Just another way to sort the true fanatics from the lightweights. (join the RPGA now :teeth ting: )

Dragon Magazine Issue 232: August 1996


part 2/8


Weapons of the waves: We start off this themed issue with one of their more ambitious articles in a while, a 9 page one on naval combat in the Birthright setting by one of the official writers. Since they're also producing a supplement on this topic, this has the air of a promotional tie-in, so I'm not sure how much of this is repeated in the book. Still, it's both interesting and at least some of it is new. It reveals just how much Cerilia's history and naval tactics differ from the real world, and are shaped by their magic & geography. With tactical advice, new weapons, and a whole bunch of little cards containing statistics for ship types, there's plenty to use and appreciate here. It's not particularly usable in another campaign, but I still rather like this one, as it has both ambition and smoothness. Still, I don't think it'll be changing history like the half-dragons one.


En Garde!: Yay! A Red Steel swashbuckling article! That's something I've certainly wished they'd do. If I'd noticed this was coming, I might not have quit last month. It has some pretty cool ideas as well, with formalised fighting styles that you gradually learn upwards, only getting the higher level manoeuvres after learning the lower ones in the style. They did that with wizards in the Paths of Power article, and that was awesome. Unfortunately once again we are hindered by the fact that warriors only get one new proficiency slot every 3 levels, and have a lot of choices on which to spend it. You'll be unable to master this stuff before 20th level, at which point wizards will be using wishes and chain contingencies. So this is a cool idea hindered by the underlying system, just as with the previous attempts to give warriors more combat options. Roll on the next edition.


And the walls came down: Magical Battering Rams? That's a new one. (apart from that april fool monster, and that's bleating) Not often you see mundane ones in D&D either, as mass combat isn't that common, and they're a bit too encumbrance-heavy for a party to carry in a dungeon, despite being quite useful potentially. Maybe when you get yourself a portable hole or something. As is usually the case when they manage to fill in a new niche that makes sense, I approve.

The Arien of Thang-Nor is a spell that conjures a supernaturally tough battering ram. Fairly basic, but it does deal with a lot of the logistical problems you'll face. Whether it's worth a 5th level spell slot I'm not sure. Might want to add a few summon monsters to get the creatures to wield it. Everything is soluble if you're a wizard, but it can take a lot of preparation.

Frost-Rent is more interesting. Carved of solid ice from the paraplane, it'll transfer it's chill to the structures attacked, and make them brittle. Wrap up warm, otherwise it'll take off your fingers as well. Can't trust these artifacts at all, but at least this one's drawbacks are relatively simple to avoid.  

Khalmick-Graz is a rather scary orc device that plays music as it runs, like a giant evil bullroarer. This makes it pretty likely to win by sheer revulsion, presuming you have the staff to operate it. But then, given how fast orcs breed, they should have replacements up and trained soon enough.

Thunderstrike Rods let you unleash lightning bolts so powerful, they also serve as battering rams, and stun everyone in their path. Make sure your forces back off before you unleash it, because that's one hefty area of effect.

Dragon Magazine Issue 232: August 1996


part 3/8


A flurry of swords: More new swords? Do we not have enough variants as it is? Apparently not, as Greg Detwiler gives us a full 26 new variants, well and truly affirming the sword's place as the supreme weapon throughout the ages and continents. Polearms? Pah! Piffling by comparison. 17 of them have some distinct benefits when you're proficient in them, and more when specialised, rather than just being another endless tiny variation on damages. So whether you want to slice through armor, massacre small creatures or parry better, you can find something to suit your needs. Happy twinking. Yeah, I'm not very interested in this.


Sorcerous six-shooters: Here we go again, following in the footsteps of issues 28, 57, 60, 70, 124, 176, 199, and lots more non D&D ones over the years. It's not an unfamiliar topic. Thankfully, this isn't one of those annoying starting from scratch reboots that forgets everything that came before. Instead, it's an examination of the place of firearms in all the various settings, including the inactive ones. Apart from Greyhawk & Athas, they have a place in all the worlds, even if it's a rare one for various reasons. (oh, poor poor krynn, made distrustful of technology because the species that uses it most is completely nuts. ) So not only is this pretty pleasing because it has something useful for the casual fans of every world, it's also nicely in continuity, and has some nice new bits of crunch for you to play with.  Magical guns may be an abomination to the purist, but as we already know from Shadowrun, they can do some pretty awesome things. And if you try fighting against someone optimised, you lose. Call it natural selection. I think this article manages to draw and fire fast enough that I don't get bored.


The ecology of the roper: Aw. Poor little girl. Now this is a very different ecology indeed. The story of a little girl suffering from uncontrolled attacks of clairvoyance, and when she jumped into the body of this month's monster, and had to experience it killing and eating things from the inside. Now that's a narrative device I've only seen once before (ahh, the joys of rugose cones) The writer gets in character, and stays there all the way through, before ending with a heart-wrencher of a final line. Absolutely brilliant, this even makes the classic Ed ecologies from the 80's seem tame. The footnotes are merely average, but hey, you can't have it all. This is still a classic article, managing to make more impact on me than the magazine has managed for quite a while. Much kudos.


Floyd still hasn't twigged why the little boy has massive magical powers, the twit. How telegraphed do these things have to be?

Dragon Magazine Issue 232: August 1996


part 4/8


The role of books: One foot in the grave by Wm Mark Simmons is not a book based upon the sitcom, but a vampire story involving a beleaguered half-vampire. Cliche, you may say, but we all know there's little new in the world, and this is a story that manages to make the idea fun. There's action, sex, and plot twists aplenty, and while it's open for a sequel, it still manages to finish it's current plot properly. It's all very well balanced.

Shade and shadow by Francine G Woodbury combines mystery plotting with magic as science ideas, to produce a fairly slow paced but well written murder mystery. John's main complaint is that the worldbuilding possibly isn't taken far enough. That's the stuff roleplayers need to steal for their games.

Firestar by Michael Flynn is one of the many books coming out around that time that tries to capitalise on pre-millenial tension. How long ago and silly that all seems now. Still, it's very much of the vein that we can make the future better, not that the world is doomed and there's nothing we can do, which is welcome. After all, sci-fi ought to be driving us onwards to advance technology, not making us hold back out of fear.

The magic touch by Jody Lynn Nye is our negative review for the month. It's blandly written, derivative, and the tone really doesn't match the setting. Gotta warn us away from stuff as well as recommend it, otherwise this section wouldn't be half as interesting.

Wind from a foreign sky by Katya Reimann sees John bemoaning that the explosion of fantasy actually means fewer heroic epics in the old skool vein. Fortunately, there are some new writers producing them, like this one, and he hopes they get at least a good trilogy out of this series. But will they enjoy the same commercial success in a competitive market? It's so much easier to become legendary when you're a pioneer.


Tales of the fifth age: The gift of fire by William W Connors & Sue Weinlein Cook (so she's married Monte now? Iiinteresting) We've had stories showing us what's happened to the kender & gnomes during krynn's upheaval. Now it's dwarves turn. With 4 months to go, I don't doubt the elves'll get their go as well. As befits the race, this is actually fairly serious, showing that they're having to deal with internal tensions as well as outside challenges, and do morally dubious things to survive. Such as trying to train a fire dragon of chaos to fight the great dragons taking over the land. Yeah, that's the kind of plan that's likely to lead to massive losses on both sides, whoever wins. And it's not surprising it leads to it's user being banished from the dwarven halls for his rashness. This is actually pretty good, with plenty of drama, well defined characters, and a story that holds up on it's own but still ties into the larger sweep of krynn's history. We're finally getting somewhere with this 5th age idea, figuring out what it's supposed to be about and the stories we could be telling in it. Let's hope they can bring this to a climax at the end of the year, and justify their sluggish start.

Dragon Magazine Issue 232: August 1996


part 5/8


Dragon Dice: The last two months, we had new races. Now we have new magical items. I guess that they're once again following in D&D's footsteps with this game. Regular items are 4-sided, while artfacts are represented by 10-sided dice. They're also introducing summonable monsters that can be used by any side with sufficient magic to spare. As usual, they have a whole bunch of quirks, requiring constant attention, and refusing to fight other summoned monsters of the same elemental type. And on top of that, they're adding new terrain types with various advantages for their users, like grassy knolls to shoot from and wood to hide in. So this opens up a whole bunch of new tactical opportunities and obstacles for all sides, which means it has potentially higher sales than introducing a new splat. Hmm. Feels once again like they're taking a lot of their lessons from the way they've run AD&D over the years. And why not? It's probably more likely to work than creating a whole new paradigm.


Wyrms of the north: The first two dragons in this series both have names that began with A. Now we have one that begins with a B. Oh dear god. Don't tell me Ed had all of this column written out in advance, and delivered it to the magazine as a fait accompli that'll last several years even before the first one was published. That's just showing off. Could he fill the entire magazine on his own if he wanted? In any case it's a reminder just how head and shoulders he is above everyone else writing for them, that he has both the talent and prestige to get away with such an idiosyncratic and specialist column.

And despite my previous rants about canon strangulation and magic bloat, there continues to be a lot in Ed's writing to enjoy. Chief in this particular one is his detailed talk on the tactics this dragon uses, and his attitude towards the rest of the world. While very obviously of a draconic mindset, he has more than enough nuance to make him individual in both conversation and a battle, and in typical Ed style, these details are easily used in actual play. There's also plenty of info on his lair and the magical items he has are actually put to good use, instead of just being slept on in his hoard. If I were to play in the Forgotten Realms and use dragons, I would actually use this. Still, I don't think there's much chance of that happening anytime soon.


Sage advice: I sent in a question. It cost me $5.16! I'm entitled to an answer! (No, you are not. The Sage's time is a privilege, not a right. Skip is entirely within skip's rights to charge an initial consulting fee, and then refuse to take on a case.  And if you send in another letter to whine, you've just wasted another $5.16. Ha ha. Go on, waste more of your money sending in a complaint. Skip dares you. )

Do you get the backstab bonus if you hit a sleeping creature in the front. (yes. They don't know you're there. )

Does backstabbing work on undead and things without backs (not generally. Common sense must provide the exceptions as usual, because we can't talk about every monster individually in here. )

How many attack does fighter get against a swooping creature ( it depend on may thing. The position of fighter in round is critically important. also weapon number held. Attack of opportinity provide one phase of attacks, up to limit. If already used, then no opportunitty to attack.)

Does your movement rate initiative affect? (Affect it does, for PC's only)

Are touch spells blocked by armour (yes)

How does dual-classing work with respect to proficiencies (Skip has changed his mind again. Retcon, retcon! La la la la. Skipadee doo dah, skipedee ay, my oh my what a wonderdfull day. Great chanfes come, great cvhanges go. )

Can priests change spells after napping (not without making their god cranky)

Can dual-classed wizard/priests put priest spells in their contingencies (Sure, why not. Let your imagination run wild. )

Is there an initial save against charm spells (yessssss. )

Do fireballs burn up stinking clouds (nooooooooo)

Dragon Magazine Issue 232: August 1996


part 6/8


Forum: Rick Maffei takes up a full 2/3rds of the forum this time round. People have challenged his opinion, and he is eager to rebutt. After all, that is what the forum is for, and if you don't want debate, get a soapbox and megaphone instead. And despite them being optional, TSR shouldn't publish stuff with shoddy rules in the first place. It sets a bad example.

Jeffrey Martin thinks AD&D should be concentrating on fantasy over realism. It's more fun that way. Plus, medieval laws were heeded in the breach as often as the observance, just like real world tax and traffic regulations.

Michael D. Bugg thinks magic ought to be kept rare enough to remain wondrous. Rather a tricky task when half your PC's use it routinely, methinks. Once again, you're battling the system.


Network News: Hee. We actually have a bit of LARPing coverage this month, as they prepare for the big Gen Con Living City events. Dress up as your character, and you'll get the chance to make a serious impact upon the metaplot of Raven's Bluff. Hey, there are far worse things to do with your time. You'll even get the chance to meet Elminster, although I very much doubt you'll get to attack him. (and wouldn't it make a pretty pickle if some deluded madman killed Ed while he was dressed up as El as vengeance for what Elminster did in one of his previous games. I wonder if that would make the metaplot. ) As with the return of non D&D stuff in their 5th age article, this isn't unwelcome at all, even if it does fall prey to a bit of self-aggrandisement, and isn't as thrilling as coverage of 3rd party games would be. This kind of stuff does look like it would be a great deal of fun to do, presuming you have the time and money for all the travel and costuming. And this is definitely a case where the more the merrier, so promoting it beforehand is a rather good idea.


Swordplay finally reveals how they survive this stuff. Life insurance works much better when you have resurrection spells. Dragonmirth stumbles right into the joke this time. The KotDT crew are reminded that no matter how powerful you are, GM fiat can beat you without a roll. And the GM is reminded in turn that walking out is always an option. No gaming is better than bad gaming.


Role-playing reviews: Conspiracy X is of course an attempt to produce an X-files inspired game. After all, it's one of the biggest sci-fi/supernatural shows out there, so a good game based off it has definite sales potential when targeted at the geek audience. The basic character creation and and action resolution is fairly familiar, point buy and stat + skill + modifiers + 2d6. But it still has quite a few unique quirks, such as the group cell construction rules, and the zener cards for psychic powers, that do help set the atmosphere and make the whole thing more genre appropriate. If you want to play that sort of game, there's few systems better, at least until the unisystem version comes out.

Lost worlds gets a 6 pip review, as Rick is overjoyed it's not only been rereleased after a decade (review in issue 85), but improved upon. It's not quite a roleplaying game, but it is a good deal of fun, and less obviously designed as a money sink than CCG's. Get a few, and have a blast.

Tales of Gargenthir beats even Traveller in the depth of it's character generation lifepath system. It may take a session or two just to get to the present. And things don't speed up much from there, with a pretty crunchy system for resolving actions, and a well detailed, interesting setting. If you can cope with Rolemaster, this should be pretty enjoyable.

Dragon Magazine Issue 232: August 1996


part 7/8


Wraith: the Oblivion gets a second edition. But forgets the pathos regaining rules What are you gonna do. Hire a better editor? Ahahahahaha!


TSR Previews: We once again break the record for new releases next month, with 15 of them mentioned here. Anyone who can keep up with this lot has some serious disposable income and is a very fast reader. Lets see what we can see.

The AD&D core rules get put on a CD-ROM. Now thats a good use of technology, not like those silly audio CD accessories. Just fast, easy, fully legal characters to start playing with. It's not all bad ideas. There's also the epic Rod of Seven Parts adventure, which unusually is well behind it's tie in book. Was Skip late with his manuscript or something?

Birthright gets Legends of the Hero Kings, and the Khourane Domain Sourcebook. More adventures for them to make their name completing, and another place for them to come from and be in charge of. Are your guys ready to step up and bat when their blood destiny comes due? It also gets The Spider's Test by Dixie McKeone in the novel department. Lolth is not involved, unusually. Normally, there's no getting rid of her where spiders are involved.

Lots of setting double bills as well. Dragonlance relaunches it's gaming end with a bang. The Fifth Age has begun, ruled by cards and dramatic conventions rather than dungeon crawling. Will it get the success it deserves. I guess that depends if you like the ideas of dragonlance or not. The novels also kick off the stories of the new era, with Jean Rabe writing The Dawning of a New Age. How will the canon characters react to the massive changes in cosmology and magic system?

The forgotten realms returns to undermountain for a 4th time, to find a place called Maddgoth's ( Mad goth? Srysly? White Wolf envy much? Go sit in the corner with Boinger, Goretox and Black Ice Shadow ) Castle. A flying castle in a giant underground vault? Not the most practical position for it, really. Well, I guess he must be mad. Meanwhile, Elaine Cunningham continues to try and replicate the success of R A Salvadore in drow adventurer tales.

Planescape gets the planewalkers handbook. Finally they get kits suitable for the planes, along with lots of other player-centric goodies. About time. Not so wanted is Pages of Pain, by Troy Denning. How do you do the memoirs of the lady of pain without destroying her mystique. Can he pull off that tall order?

Ravenloft returns to gothic earth, with A Guide to Transylvania. See the land Dracula rules, and quite a few of his lackeys and enemies given greater detail. Well, it's worked for Strahd, it should work even better for the real thing. They also have another ironic Vistani story. To sleep with Evil by Andria Cardarelle. Well, romance is given extra piquancy if it's tragic and cursed. If it's troo wuv they'll battle on regardless.

Our generic book also seems pretty familiar. Trail of Darkness by Darlene D Bolesny sees another scheming bastard foment division and conflict between races for his own profit.

Dragon Dice is also expanding yet again. Magestorm adds magical items to your dice arrays. Can you figure out what their most tactically optimal uses are?

Dragon Magazine Issue 232: August 1996


part 8/8


The current Clack: Once again the most interesting news this month is thrown in as a virtual afterthought. Margaret Weis marries Don Perrin. Given they're both writers, I am absolutely certain collaborative books will be forthcoming. Still, how will this affect her writing partnership with Tracy Hickman? Well, he's already produced collaborative works with his own wife. Oh god, foursome, bad images, bad images. Also :googles: 17 year age gap. Go her. Although apparently they divorced in 2003, so it can't have been a hugely stable relationship. I am strongly tempted to delve into gossip a little further here, but I think that's a bit too far out of good taste. Family friendly thread (just about) etc etc.

Our more standard gaming news once again concerns the ownership of various properties. Everway is getting to be the first game of a brand new company. Gatecrasher is being republished by Grey Ghost Games. Darkurthe Legends has moved to Gatekeeper publishing. Pandemonium, on the other hand is being dropped, and all remaining copies are being given away for the price of shipping. Everyone's feeling the pinch, and just hoping that their creativity survives. Oh, you needn't worry about that. The internet is busy making the creative attempts of normal people ever more accessible to a wide audience for a minimal price. Still, the outlook doesn't look great from this angle.


Overall, I rather enjoyed this issue. After the last two being pretty torturous, they had quite a lot of good or decent articles, and the return of several features I'd rather missed. It feels like they're finally starting to accomplish the goals they set for themselves in the revamp. It may not save them, but It's good to see they still gave it their all. The next few months are definitely going to be interesting reading.

Dragon Magazine Issue 233: September 1996


part 1/8


124 pages. Okay, now this is truly a hideous cover. Everything about it offends my eyes. The scrappy colouring. The lack of depth and perspective. The cluttered loading in of creatures. This is a pretty strong contender for worst cover evar. Even the cheap stuff from the early days of the magazine had better planned composition than this. Remember, once you get above a certain level, adding in more stuff makes things worse, not better. I'm turning the pages fast to get away from that, and hoping the contents will be an improvement.


In this issue:


The wyrm's turn: This month's editorial is actually pretty entertaining, as Dave Gross tells us the story of his youthful passion for chess. It's amazing how such a simple seeming game can become a passion that takes a lifetime to master. Well, although it may be a game of pure skill, there's still more permutations than a human mind can memorise, and your opponents will hopefully improve as you do, so there'll always be a challenge there. Really, this is another reminder how interesting gossip is, and how small and silly our reasons for taking one direction in life over another can be. Even if you cloned someone, they might well wind up with quite different interests and skillsets from being raised in a different time and place. What chance events threw your life in a completely different direction?


D-Mail: A letter asking for coverage of online gaming, and conversions for older editions. Things that seem likely to get a mixed response really. Still, doesn't hurt to try.

A letter from the writer of 231's Arcane lore answering some questions about dragon wing armor. Yeah, it'll take quite a bit of work to make that one useful for PC's. Might want to destroy it or give it to a good dragon as a bribe.

A letter chattering about the whole geek stigma thing, and also about the age gap in their gaming group. They might not have the same experiences, but they can all contribute positively in the present.

A gripe that the CD they included with the magazine was Windows only. Poor macs, getting the short end of the stick. Count yourself lucky they survived at all. What would the computer landscape be like without at least one competitor to Microsoft's world domination?

A letter asking what computers they use to make the magazine. Currently, Quark Express is the main program. But it is a complicated business. One crashed system could be a real problem. I hope they have backups.

Dragon Magazine Issue 233: September 1996


part 2/8


Going to Court: Once again, they try to revitalise the political game-playing, as after all, they'd really like Birthright to succeed, and prove that D&D can sustain modes of play other than dungeon-crawling. As is their current trend, they take a somewhat more crunchy approach to this than previous attempts, breaking things up into influence levels, their effects on reaction rolls, and the various actions you can use to raise or lower your standing. This goes by amazingly quickly, which is a pretty good sign, as it means they're not only fitting quite a lot in, but it's done in an easy to read style. So It's a pretty positive beginning, that should help even the most socially inept DM run a courtly situation. Good choice. A random courtier generator would be nice at some point though.


On wings of eagles: Or The Ecology of the Avariel, attempting to do for them what Roger Moore's articles did for the standard demihuman races quite a while back. Instead of giving a general overview, they choose to go with the options of IC fiction (with added AAAAngst), and lots of detail on a specific example city. At 8 pages long, it's bigger than our last look at winged elves, back in issue 200, but obviously less integrated into other articles, since it's generic, rather than for a specific gameworld. This does make it harder for me to establish an emotional connection, especially as this writer doesn't have Bruce's skill at cramming vast amounts of detail into a few paragraphs. It doesn't bug me like the article on animal men which was in a similar position, but it does fall a little into the elves as mary-sues with a perfect society trap. It does have quite a bit of useful new crunch, including 3 new kits, and is self-contained enough to be used without the complete book of elves, so I'll return a mildly positive result. It's got more than enough good and bad points to be interesting, in any case.


Fiendish Fortresses: Or good god, it's an absolute pain in the ass creating a safe home when there's creatures with at-will teleportation. All the normal tactical approaches go out the window, especially when they add flight, a whole bunch of immunities and magical abilities, and the intelligence to take advantage of this. Not that it's impossible, especially when the other side also has at will teleportation, and a different set of immunities and magical abilities. The solution? Well, it involves places that feel rather like traditional dungeons, with deathtraps in a substantial fraction of the rooms, layouts that are counterintuitive and lack toilet facilities, and infinite pits all over the shop. Tee hee. Basically, they ensure anyone trying to go in blind has a pretty good chance of ending up in a horrible situation that does tons of damage before they can get their bearings. And since they may be able to teleport, but they're pretty low on scrying spells, this makes them cautious. Immortality is a terrible thing to risk. Obviously the various sides have their own quirks. The baatezu make every single room containable and checkpointed, while the tanar'ri places are such utter tips that no-one else can figure out where to go and constantly stub their toes and knock over cups of acid. And let's not even get into the yugoloth ones. (which they don't, annoyingly) This is well-written, logical, inventive, and fun to read. The only problem, and it's a doozy, is that THEY JUST INVALIDATED THE WHOLE FUCKING PREMISE IN THE METAPLOT!!!!!!!!!1! Seriously, that's not the kind of problem you just brush off in the prelude. If every single human in the world suddenly had their legs fuse together into a single hopping limb, you would not see us carrying on as if nothing was wrong. I get that they're prideful creatures and afraid of revealing weakness, but when you're that common and smart, you should figure this crap out pretty quickly. So it's not this article I have a problem with, it's their company need to have metaplot in every single bloody gameline, and the way it makes an infinite universe seem so ridiculously small. And there's worse to come on that front. This really just makes me want to shout FUCK YOU TSR, YOU'RE SHOOTING YOURSELF IN THE FOOT HERE!!! Ugh. So much squandered potential.

Dragon Magazine Issue 233: September 1996


part 3/8


Wyrms of the north: Speaking of squandered potential, is Ed Greenwood still producing this stuff? As interesting as it might be to read, just how many people are actually going to get to use even one of these dragons in actual play, let alone the 20-odd it looks like we'll be getting. Still, we're onto C now, and chances are, we might skim the last few letters. We're probably well over a 10th of the way through.

So this is our 1st green dragon. She is a pretty cranky creature, as is standard for the race, but the details are very individual. From eating habits, to vices, to tactical details, to sex life, (or lack of it) the details are not only pretty substantial and usable, but also rather funny. They're just the kind of thing a skilled player could exploit, but should watch out when doing so, for having your corpse used as a chewtoy often offends. It's also a reminder that while the lesser chromatic dragons may have intelligence, they're nowhere near as smart or magically capable as the average metallic or gem dragon, and they may well envy their sheer range of options. Actually, I wonder if he will do dragons of other types, as so far, it's been all the boring colours. Guess I'll find out in future issues.


Campaign classics: Al-Qadim meets Birthright this month, with domain stats for the various regions and city-states of the land of fate. That's actually a pretty cool idea, if rather specialist. Obviously you'll need at least the core products for both worlds to make sense of this. But if you do, you have a very interesting bit of conversion, which takes a few liberties with the setting of zakhara and the rules of birthright to produce a game that won't be quite like a regular birthright domain game, but will be more high magic, more trade-oriented, and with more interesting nonhuman interactions, particularly where genies are involved. I think this is a pretty awesome idea. Substituting Cerilia's very traditional celtic fantasy backdrop for an arabian one can really spice up the domain rulership game, as well as changing the personal adventures between them. Plus you could do a little continent shuffling (hey, it worked for kara-tur) and set both continents in the same world, so you have a playground more than twice the size to conquer. I like that. Now, if you could get round to doing a crossover article for OA as well, I'd be even happier.


Dragon dice: After rapidly introducing a ton of new races, we're now getting assurances that the old races are still valid. Power creep hasn't made them useless, and they'll still be getting support in the future! God, once again we see how accelerated their development cycle is. It's no wonder they overreached themselves and then burned out when sales didn't match the creator and company's enthusiasm. Just as with Birthright and it's 4 books at once barrages, it makes me wonder how they expect the general public to keep up with this. I suppose that's exactly why they're having problems. The lack of research and unrealistic expectations about what the public wants led stuff to be overprinted, underprinted, or generally not targeted right to make maximum profit. This isn't really a terrible column, but it is pretty telling. If you'd spread these supplements out over a longer period, the game might still be chugging along. But no, you had to get overambitious. Oh well.

Dragon Magazine Issue 233: September 1996


part 4/8


Bookwyrms: Oh dear. Another column gets a punny name. Not that it's a terrible pun. But I still rolled my eyes when I saw it. I wonder how long this change'll last.

Archangel by Mike Conner sets a mysterious and deadly plague on 1930's america, that for whatever reason, doesn't affect black people. This obviously has serious political repercussions, and a whole bunch of other interesting things are happening against that backdrop. There may not be overt supernatural elements, but there's plenty of speculation in this fiction.

The forgotten beasts of eld by Patricia McKillip is an old book that's been reprinted. It's writing style evokes nostalgia in the reviewer for the books he read as a kid, which is a good thing. Pastiches may try, but a book written in a particular period will always bear the hallmarks of it's real time in terms of cultural influences.

Immortals by Tracey Hickman gets a rather odd recommendation. It would be perfect as a text for teaching in school? Bwuh. Okay then. I don't think that's going to get much traction.

The wind after time by Chris Bunch is a bit of high action sci-fi adventure that seems to have more than a little in common with Star Wars. It once again gets a recommendation. You know, these are a good deal shorter and less critically rigorous than the role of books. This is not a very good change, and worries me quite a bit.


Tales of the fifth age: Thunder and ice by Douglas Niles. Meet the new magic, not the same as the old magic, but a good deal more similar to the average portrayal of magic in fantasy stories than D&D's vancian magic system. This allows them to do things more narratively, but just as importantly, it democratises magic enormously. People from regions and cultures that formerly wouldn't get the formalised education to tap into the moons are discovering new powers in a haphazard way and refining them into an art. Which makes them valuable, but not in the same reliable and relatively trusted way as the old mages and clerics. So as so much of the 5th age, this is about faith and it's sincerity and justification, hard sacrifices, and being challenged by the forces of nature as much as any monster. I think I'm starting to get the picture. After the last few stories built the drama up, this lets it unwind a little, but not all the way. I'm pretty ambivalent about it, actually. Feels like filler. I suppose you've got to have a few plateaus before you get to the climax, and it has been a mostly upward trend so far. They've still got a bit of time.


Iron & blood: warriors of Ravenloft? Way to break the mood of your license. Really, I can't even parody this.