Dragon Magazine Issue 180: April 1992

part 5/5


Wear your best suit: Great. They still haven't fixed the gadgeteer problem in FASERIP, despite it being rather noticable way back in issues 95 & 96, where they first covered Iron Man. Guess it's up to the magazine to post an unnofficial solution that probably won't make it into the next edition anyway. This is a rather limited solution too, only covering powered armour wearers rather than equipment in general. It also reminds us how glacially slow normal advancement is under the system, when upgrading your gear really shouldn't work like regular xp. Can't say I find this one very likable, or well constructed. Keep looking for a solution guys.


The wanderers: They say "If you build a better mousetrap, the world will beat a path to your door." If you build a better wandering monster table, on the other hand, that means better monsters hanging around making a nuisance of themselves. Which might sound appealing to adventurers, but is a nuisance to people who actually have to live there. Although if the tables increase your odds of encountering a large variety of normal humans and animals, as these ones do, then they might welcome the change in their living environment. By making the encounter tables nested, you can fit a lot more in, and can also reuse them by having multiple terrain ones direct to the same other ones, only with different probabilities.  Like the solo tables a bit earlier this issue, (which this would combine well with) this is evolutionary rather than revolutionary, but is a good deal more elegant than the d12 + d8 tables, with the probabilities easy to figure and adjust on the fly, and more able to throw up a variety of surprises that keep your game from getting stale. These little design tricks definitely deserve consideration. And it allows you to come close to including the entire ecology of an area in your random tables, which also means you could probably increase the frequency of your rolls without breaking the game by having the players face too many killer encounters. Applying this would have lots of little knock-on effects, probably for the better. I shall try to remember it when I next design random encounter tables.


Dragonmirth is a bit creepy really. Yamara gets a new home courtesy of Ogrek. Twilight empire gets out of the fire and into the tentacle monster. Not really an improvement.


Through the looking glass: SCUD missiles. Aka scary enemy boogeyman 1991 edition. Once again I say, what a complete letdown compared to the cold war. Still, it's not as pathetic as the supposed terrorists of the 00's (less than one successful attack a year worldwide is a joke to someone who grew up with the IRA around. ) The media really do have very little sense of proportion. Still, I'm sure it was scary for the soldiers involved. (even if more of them ended up with long-term problems from our own chemical crap than enemy attacks. ) Funny that the biggest reminders of the big world outside the magazine should be coming from the Mini's and computer game columns.

Our minis this month go back to mixing fantasy and sci-fi. A wall of skulls, which I'd probably get more use out of than this reviewer. A ghostly skeleton, or skeletal ghost, however you want to play it. A dragon that should tower over standard sized minis nicely. A centaur archer. A cleric, a witch and a dwarf. (walk into a bar. The witch changes the bar into a frog as revenge, which causes the house to collapse. The cleric heals them, and the dwarf rebuilds the house. Everyone lives happily ever after. ) A futuristic hovercraft, and two battletech mechs. All get between 4 and 5 stars. He really isn't pushing himself in this respect.


This time they actually remembered to scan the trading cards in. Which is nice. They're also using mostly original characters this time. However, this does result in a very noticeable drop in the artwork quality, as they don't spring the same kind of money as they do for the various book covers they recycled from for the previous set. Say hello to Foleas, Alvestar Jankins, Aurora, Guido del Confuso, Mellenea, Zinnabar Albbee, "Slipper Kindric", "Thallios", Chobin"the punkster", Darwell Tectite, Aruthir, Jastus, Hm-boye, Lady Wendolyn of Gaunt, Reptilla Half-elven, Phun Ach-mana Phun, and Delynn Rosabell. Dragonlance, Spelljammer, Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms are all represented. Many of them have kits, all alignments are represented, there's a psionicist, and they all have at least token attempts at personalities. Pretty decent demographic collection. I wonder how many of them are from games by the writers and how many are whipped up wholecloth. This series seems unlikely to end soon, but diminishing returns are starting to set in. They need to do something more than just trading to keep people interested.


As befits the middle issue, this is indeed a very middling issue indeed, with a medium amount of april goofiness between the full specials and the ones that cut it out, an even mix of articles with cool developments and tedious rehashed ones, and a moderate amount of non RPGing diversions. As is often the case, they seem to have gone for the approach that they can't please everyone all the time, but by casting a broad net, at least one article each month should be pleasing to you. Hopefully that theory will continue to hold water for a while longer.

Dragon Magazine Issue 181: May 1992

part 1/5


124 pages. Once more with the magical crunchiness with no theme more focussed than that. It's getting so common as to be barely worth mentioning as a topic. And yet despite the frequency of submissions of this sort, they're all pretty firmly stuck in the standard D&D magic paradigm. One of those things that makes it very clear why the 90's were a troublesome time for them. If you stay the same while the world changes, you get left behind. Still, they do make one useful little format change this issue. The various review columns get grouped together in the contents page, making them easier to locate and reducing the recent tendency of this bit to turn into just another wall of text. (the .pdf formatting follows in it's wake, which is also nice. ) So they are moving forward, just not as much as they probably need to be. I shall not be so patient, however. I fully intend to push myself to get the second half of this trek done faster than the first half.

In this issue:


Letters: Timothy B. Brown complains about the picking apart of his Dark Sun spell frequency math. These flaws were intentional! You would ruin the game if you changed it! Ha and ha again.

A letter praising their top quality fiction. Damn right. Haven't i been finding the same thing for years now, the average fiction quality is actually better than the average game material quality. Roger, of course, sends all the praise to his sub-editors. I'm sure they have to sift through a lot of crap to keep things this way.

A letter telling people to send in the adventures they spend ages working on to Dungeon if they want financial recompensation. That isn't going to work as well as you think, I'm afraid. They already get a lot more submissions than they can publish. Welcome to reality, where earning money doing things you love is really hard.


Editorial: Roger tries once again to push our gaming boundaries, proving as usual that he's a good deal more progressive than most of the material he gets. This time it's politics, and the lack of it in too many games that is his pet peeve. Once you get monsters of a certain power level, the impact they have upon the world automatically becomes a political issue, even if they themselves couldn't care less about the effect they're having on the puny humans. If your campaign lacks the epicness and emotional attachment of LotR, it may well be because you're neglecting that area, with people maintaining a nebulous status quo effortlessly despite all the monsters roaming around the world. He also exaggerates a little to demonstrate that personal power and political do not have to be linked, and you can do all sorts of clever things with long-term plans. (even if you have to retroactively make some of the details up to make the characters as intelligent as they should be. ) You can set your players at the centre of an epic and give them a decent amount of agency while still having an idea where the game will go in the long-term. He even makes it sound easy. Course I know from personal experience, it isn't quite that easy, but it's still a desirable goal to aim for. Nice to see him still aiming for the stars.


Sorcery & Strategy: Recently, we've had an article that went into tactics as performed by fighters in a relatively realistic world. Course, in D&D, spellcasters provide the majority of the really interesting tactical and strategic options, and even one makes a huge difference to the battle flow. And it's not just in their ability to inflict large quantities of area damage with a good fireball or lightning bolt. Thomas M. Kane points out that the buffing and defensive powers are actually more useful, especially once you get to higher levels and the enemies are pretty likely to resist direct effects cast at them. If you know what you're doing, you should be using divinations and terrain effects to ensure you're stacking the odds in your favour before the enemy even knows you're there. Once again we see the advantages specialists have in finding a useful niche in larger society, as he gives us some sample characters, their spell lists and normal tactics. With a nice mix of very specific detail, and principles that are applicable to any system, this is another strong delivery from forumite Thomas M. Kane. It could definitely have gone into more detail on the combat applications of clerics though. They're even more useful to an army, as they have all the healing and food effects, and aren't so squishy. Guess once again the magazine might have good material, but it's still limited in it's range.


Pages from the mages finally gives up trying to keep track of how many articles they've had. We have too many wizards! And they're all researching spells! Any time now we'll have another magical apocalypse that'll take a few centuries to rebuild from. Still, we have a definite formula by now. 4 spellbooks, each with 4 new spells in, for a total of 16 new spells. The only question is how cool and groundbreaking they are.

Galadasters Orizon is just a small part of the unique knowledge of a particularly ruthless and obnoxious lich who is still at large in Faerun and needs a good arsekicking. Now there's an easy adventure hook for you. The spells are similarly direct combat ones. Firestaff lets a wizard kick substantially more ass in hand to hand combat. Slumberward makes you immune to magical sleep, although the duration is probably a bit too short for it to make it a really good utility buff. Geirdon's grappling grasp lets you counteract the various bigby's hand spells, and engage in generalised grappling, of course. Morganava's sting is the only real clunker, as it's actually quite a bit weaker than vampiric touch overall, yet higher level. Someone didn't roll too well on their research attempts.

The Arcanabula of Jume is one of those spellbooks that teleports away randomly on a semiregular basis, ensuring that it's information doesn't stay with any one person, but is instead spread across the whole Realms. It's spells are similarly playful. Dark mirror lets you send magical darkness back against it's originator. Now there's a spell that's only going to be of limited use unless you know your enemy has a fetish for that kind of magic. Shadow hand is another rather underpowered device, that seems to be an attempt to compensate for illusionist's lack of evocations by making a semireal manipulator. Prismatic eye is a wizard's eye that can shoot color sprays. It too is mainly hampered by a too short range and duration for really effective spying, but is pretty decent as an additional attention drawer in combat. Shadow gauntlet is yet another failed attempt to make an all purpose manipulator, that looks pathetic next to the likes of disintegrate and flesh to stone. Ed seems to be seriously off his game at power level gauging today.

Laeral's Libram is a little spellbook lost by our friendly planehopping sorceress. I'm sure she'd be quite happy to have it returned to her. It only has a few spells, but the standard 4 of them are new ones. Forcewave is another one that seems weak initially. A second level spell that's less damaging and reliable than magic missile? Well, the prospect of pushing an enemy off a ledge does have the potential to do a LOT more damage, so I'll forgive that this time. Laeral's aqueous column lets you create cylinders of water through air, making diplomacy with aquatic creatures a lot easier, and having a whole bunch of creative uses. Jhanifer's deliquescence lets you melt things, even those that aren't intended to be melted. The details are deliberately left vague so he can exploit them later. Blackstaff is Khelben Arunsun's signature spell, so well known he doesn't even have to remind everyone by putting his name in front. It can drain your HP permanently, mindfuck you, disrupts both magic and psionics, and is near impossible to affect. Now that's one that does justify it's high level with both power and versatility.

Tasso's Arcanabula is the product of an illusionist and thief, playing around with the limits of their specialist restrictions. Tasso's shriek lets you prerecord your audible illusions and set them running surreptitiously, which is pretty handy for a low level trickster who doesn't want people realising they're a spellcaster. Shadow bolt is a semireal attack that works like an upgraded magic missile, and still does half damage if you disbelieve it. Shadow Skeletons are another semireal one that let you imitate a necromancer quite nicely, albeit not as effectively as the real thing. And Chromatic Blade lets you deal with prismatic barriers without memorising half a dozen very specific spells, and is a pretty badass weapon in it's own right. So lots of neat spells here, but also more than a few noob traps that you should steer well clear of. The writing does also feel increasingly formulaic, making this rather less thrilling reading than the previous instalments.

Dragon Magazine Issue 181: May 1992

part 2/5


That's certainly un-familiar: Upgrading your familiar. Yeah, that's a much needed capability, and it's no surprise at all that a certain degree of autoprogression was built into 3e familiars. So here we see a moderately influential, but very useful article indeed. Familiar enhancer I-VIII are level 2-9 spells, which means every time you get access to a new spell level, you can cast the next one to make your familiar smarter, more powerful, and more closely bonded with you. There is a lot of randomness involved in determining exactly what powers you get, which may or may not be pleasing to you, but most of the powers are pretty useful, and some of the high level ones are very cool. I can see this becoming a staple of quite a few people's character building. And isn't this exactly what the magazine should be producing. There are a few wanky bits, (I'm throwing out the once in a lifetime bit straight away, if your familiar dies, you should be able to upgrade the next one too) but I like this a lot and intend to make it available as an option to my players.


Bazaar of the Bizarre: Another oriental submission? You honour us with your great generosity, oh kind freelancer. Let me put it on the shelf with all the others.

Dragon Bones are what they say they are, and enhance your divinatory abilities. Yet another useful item you can make if you can kill a dragon, along with the armour, teeth, etc etc. Someone ought to compile all the magic items that require dragon parts in their construction and figure out exactly how many you could get from a single dragon.

Celestial Fury is a intelligent katana that may well be more trouble than it's worth. With the spirit of a rampaging dragon trapped inside, it brings thunderstorms wherever it goes, and is very blatant indeed in battle. It really gives a good definition to the idea of overkill and would be pretty scary in the hands of a villain. Emrikol the chaotic approves.


The voyage of the princess ark: Bellayne gets the spotlight upon it properly this issue. Thankfully, the conflict remains civilized. A myoshiman rakasta happens to be visiting, and of course reacts badly to myojo. But they decide to settle things in a sporting manner, with a little rat hunting. We see that while they may be civilized cat people around here, they're still cat people, with all the amusing instincts that entails. Once again, this is a fairly quiet episode for Haldemar & co, but there's lots of little character building bits, which is nice. They get to enjoy a banquet of stuffed giant rat, which is probably nicer than it sounds, and the ladies get to play with balls of wool :rolleyes: Once again I am conflicted between liking the cool stuff, and rolling my eyes at the silliness, which is a lot more noticable now than first time around. Ahh, the dreadful curse of maturity. Preventing you from getting enjoyment from the childish things you used to love.

On the OOC side, we have the usual travelogue of the place. History, population, gods, animals. We also finally get the rules for rakasta and lupin PC's. They take a different tack from the usual demihuman races, having the full range of classes available to humans, albeit at a quite substantial XP surcharge and penalty. They will be quite a bit more powerful at starting level, and then gradually fall behind, but they can still keep up way after dwarves and elves have maxed out their capabilities. This is an interesting development. We haven't seen many races with unlimited advancement in all classes around. I guess that since they also included 36 level progressions for the demihuman races as an option in the Rules Cyclopedia, there are a number of people who approve of the idea. It'll take a while to percolate through to general use though.

The letters also has an interesting thought. Why should characters with high ability scores get a further bonus in the form of XP bonuses. This is totally unfair. What if it was the other way around. Hmm. Another thing worth considering. And once again, this place covers stuff that would considerably change the game if implemented. Bruce is certainly pushing at the boundaries of what you can do with D&D, almost single-handedly. Just how much further can he go before burning out or running into some managmental obstacle?


More magic for beginners: Greg Detwiler feels like he's been doing this often and frequently enough to publish a sequel to one of his previous articles. Have a little more confidence in yourself. Ed was starting to do that kind of stuff right from his second submission. So here we have some more sample items and useful advice for those of you who want to be generous with the magic without breaking the game. The solution? Finer graining of powers.  

Items of Proficiency and Specialisation allow anyone to use them straight away. This allows you to have a full golfbag of weapons, which is rather tricky to do normally under the proficiency system. Just be careful not to become too dependent on the item over your own skill, otherwise you'll be in big trouble if you lose it.

Weapons of Enchantment penetrate DR, but aren't any more likely to hit and cause damage. Just the thing for if you want to slow advancement into monty haul territory while still giving the players regular measurable upgrades. We know D&D has problems in this area, and here's part of the solution.

Miniature/Polymorphed gear are another couple of ways of getting round the encumbrance limit. just say the word, and it goes from full size to something else more convenient. This is particularly useful for rogues and other people who want to take stuff where it shouldn't be.

Illusory Missiles are further variants on his ideas from issue 149. You're unlikely to disbelieve them in the middle of a heated combat, so it's almost as good as the real thing. Just make sure you finish them off properly once they're down.

Continual Torches have both the benefits of a torch, and an item with continual light cast upon them. This means you can set fire to stuff, but also makes them trickier to put away. Decisions decisions. I can see some groups having a long discussion over the merits and ramifications of these two options.

Weapons of Illumination are another case of taking the benefits of established items, and splitting them up. Want a sword which sheds light, but doesn't give you any bonus to hit or damage? I suppose it's better than nothing, once again.

Hammers & spikes of Silence are of course ideal for the enterprising thief who doesn't want to wake people. It's the little things that make the big difference when the element of surprise is at stake.

Armor of comfort comes in various forms. The basic variety lets you sleep in it without penalty. There are also variants which allow you to stay comfortable in environmental extremes, with the strongest even protecting you against otherplanar environments. I think that's easily worth the equivalent of a plus or two in terms of convenience.

Sleeping bags of Armor Nullification are another solution to the same problem. Snooze in comfort without undressing. Just make sure you get out quickly when danger threatens. Another one that might not be particularly powerful, but can definitely be a lifesaver, and makes adventuring a much more pleasant experience in general. This is why you should stay on the good side of spellcasters.

Dragon Magazine Issue 181: May 1992

part 3/5


The role of computers: The writers here continue to back the wrong horse, heaping praise on the Atari Lynx, and trying to make comparatively small figures look impressive. It's faintly embarrassing in hindsight. But then, the Dreamcast was also a good system that seemed to be finally picking up speed when it was cancelled. Like VHS and Betamax, it's hard to know who the winner of a console war will be, and the battles can go on years before one side concedes. For now, they're still fighting. Warbirds,Shangai, Block Out and Ishido all get short but very positive reviews. A whole bunch of different genres are catered for now. Get in while you still can.

Danger zone is our only negative review. With mediocre graphics and truly terrible sound, it really isn't keeping up with the other flight sims on the market. Seems a bit of an afterthought amongst the vast quantities of hints, many for years old games.


TSR Previews: Toril is a busy little world as usual. Al-Qadim gets a monstrous compendium, MC13. Hang on, the Fiend Folio was number 14 and that was out last month. Someone's been la-ate on their deadlines. Ed Greenwood on the other hand, probably wasn't late with FRQ1: Haunted halls of eveningstar. A spooky little story, also intended for novice players. (set as it is right in the middle of safe territory. ) We'll have them going east to get revenge on the Horde before you know it. The Harpers also continue to get lots of attention. Book 4, The Night Parade has more spooky shenanigans. What are these creatures, and will they seem a lot less scary once statted out.

Ravenloft is also feeling more than a little spooky. RR5: Van Richten's guide to ghosts lets you scale your insubstantial boogaboos up or down so even the scariest party has to solve the puzzle of how to dissipate their frustrations to get rid of them permanently, rather than hacking and slashing with swords +5.

Dark sun, on the other hand, is scary in a consciously contrasting way as usual. Dragon Kings reveals just how obscene 21st level + wizard/psionicists are. You can beat them in a straight fight, but you'll have to be similarly geared up and ready to roll.

Lots of generalised bumpf this time round. We get another calendar of recycled artwork. Mostly Dragonlance, as they seem popular with the casual crowd, but some Forgotten Realms and Dark Sun stuff fills things out. Clerics follow in Wizards footsteps and get their own spell card collection. Once again, useful but hardly essential. And we get this year's batch of trading cards released, which is even less so on both counts. Yawnarama.


Ooh. Gamma world gets another edition. It's had more resurections than most comic book characters over the years.


Homebody heroes: Len Carpenter once again is prolific enough to get multiple articles published in the same issue. Here he tackles the irritating issue of nonadventuring characters with high levels in communities. Spellcasters and rogues can work their way up over the years primarily via their class based xp bonuses, but it certainly isn't as effective as adventuring in producing a well-rounded individual able to cope with anything. This brings the conflict between narrativist and simulationist design into the forefront. Is it right to assume that all NPCs had to work their way up to their power level in a way similar to PCs? If they didn't, should they be penalised for it? It's the kind of question that shows how much a class and level based system jarrs with attempts to create a naturalistic reality. Since this'll only apply to NPC's anyway, it seems a bit pointless to engage in detailed tracking of their skillset deficiencies. So it's one of those white elephant articles that's nice around to have because it's thought provoking, but I wouldn't want to slow things down by strictly applying the rules ideas in it in actual play.


Role-playing reviews: Ooh. Vikings. Now there's an adventuring friendly culture if ever there was one. No surprise that they've got enough products for different systems for Rick to do one of his compare and contrast themed reviews.

Vikings: nordic roleplaying for runequest gets the best review here. It mixes historical and fantasy elements in about the right quantity, the adventures are good,  and it all seems very playable. His only real complaint is the ironically short shrift rune magic gets.

AD&D Vikings campaign sourcebook is from Zeb Cook, who of course also brought us Oriental Adventures. It doesn't go as far as that in providing new classes and removing existing stuff, but it doesn't have too really. Still, the crunch is the best part of the book, with adventure and setting material a bit lacking. You'll also need Legends & Lore to really get the most out of it. This is definitely a case where Gotta Collect 'em all is an issue.

GURPS Vikings also gets a middling review. More of a toolbox than the other two, it does tend towards the mundane, with only a few new magical bits and pieces.  As usual with GURPS stuff, it helps you think clearly about exactly what kind of game you want to create, and how to accomplish that.

Rick also decides to review a bunch of GM screens and the stuff that comes with them. Vampire has an introductory adventure that is both pretentious and silly. Spelljammer has a bunch of amusing little fold-up cardboard bits and pieces, as does Champions. Star wars includes a 64 page adventure that'd make a decent supplement in itself, while CoC includes tons of little bits and pieces of dubious utility. What's fairly obvious is that few companies consider them worth it as a standalone product.

Dragon Magazine Issue 181: May 1992

part 4/5


Forum: Just when you though it was safe to go back to school, here we go again with the satanic crap. This issue was never such a hassle for the magazine in the 80's. Just get on with playing and making cool books, instead of worrying abut what other people think of you. Life seems so much simpler if you don't care.

Ralph deGennaro talks about his life, and the benefits he's got from roleplaying. It's expanded his vocabulary, increased his math skills, and brought him closer to his family. TV is a far worse influence on people than D&D in terms of encouraging violence, apathy and social isolation, yet near everyone has one in their house. And that in turn had people trying to ban it a generation ago. Just another manifestation of the cycle of history.

Shane F. Cameron reveals the roleplaying backlash has spread to australia too. It does make playing a slightly nerve-wracking experience. Stupid media people and stupid parents who listen to it.

John McCord is another person who lost a friend because of the influence of their family saying D&D is satanic. It's a shame, and he wishes he'd had a good rebuttal to them at the time. Can the magazine help with that?

Brian Philips wishes people would focus on the real causes of mental health problems and suicide, like abusive families and bullying, instead of trying to attack irrelevant things in search of a quick fix. Love and understanding is the real solution, as the bible keeps telling us, and it's preachers keep forgetting.
 
William Michael Kelly also points out the many inconsistencies in the attempts to root out and ban "satanic" stuff. Football has it's origin as a pagan ritual, and kills far more people than roleplaying. Should we ban that? Good luck with that one. Basketball is similarly derived from a mayan game. And of course trying to completely ignore drugs and contraception causes more problems than properly educating your kids about them. Course, they won't find it funny when you point all this out to them.

Casy Leah Williams is also annoyed by the refusal of people to listen to rational debate. We have facts here, and you just plug your ears and keep shouting BAD STUFF IS BAD! How are we supposed to solve this without stooping to the level of our opponents.

Walter Roberts is another bit of anecdotal evidence that roleplaying does not hurt your grades or your social life. Not only does it have educational benefits, it teaches you confidence and the value of teamwork. Some people'll go wrong regardless of how well they're treated.

ILT Bob MacKey talks about his experiences gaming in the army. (currently stationed in saudi arabia) He's another one who learned about teamwork from gaming. In fact, that's the big positive thing about RPG's as compared to ordinary games. If done right, everybody wins. That shouldn't be such a hard concept to understand.

Tammy Coppa talks about the same issue from the perspective of a soldier's wife. The army is a decidedly stressful career to be in, and it's no surprise that soldiers need to blow off a little steam. Roleplaying is much better recourse for that than drinking and whoring. It's also something the whole family can do together as well.

Curry A. Mosher ( no thanks, they're generally a bit sweaty and greasy) gives us a numbered list of the things to do if you want your complaining letter to be published by newspapers. They have a definite format, plus fairly tightly defined word count parameters, and you need to fit into them. Plus typing is increasingly a very good idea, for fewer and fewer people are putting in the practice to have needed to have elegant yet readable flowing handwriting.


The role of books: Born to run by Mercedes Lackey and Larry Dixon gets one of those reviews where the reviewer wants to like it, but can't quite and doesn't know why, as all the right ingredients seem to be there. Isn't it a pain when that happens. Where has the magic gone?

Escape from loki by Philip Jose Farmer is a Doc Savage pastiche prequel. It does not impress our reviewer, being very matter-of-fact and not pulpy at all in it's delivery. Must try harder.

Python isle by Kenneth Robeson is another Doc Savage pastiche. it also gets a negative result for it's clumsy, overblown prose, more like fanfic than professional writing. It seems that this property isn't in very good hands. Was it open domain at that point?

Horse fantastic, edited by Martin & Rosalind Greenberg is a story compilation about, you've guessed it, humanities favourite riding animal. With a mixture of fantasy and contemporary stories by a range of authors, it shows once again the strengths of the anthology format and the variety of stories you can tell within a seemingly limited topic. It's not all my little pony and black beauty.

Tom Swift 6 Aquatech warriors & 7 Moonstalker by Victor Appleton are two rather more successful modern day continuations of a classic pulp series. With surprisingly restrained technology and good packaging, it seems this franchise is in safe hands.

Dragon season by Micael Cassutt seems to have a lot in common with our own Twilight Empire. A guy has a girlfriend from another universe, who disappears back there and leaves him holding the baby. Course, there are also some substantial differences. The parallel world is more technologically focussed, and there's more emphasis on the philosophical ramifications of alternate choices. It more than manages to put it's own spin on these themes.

A matter of taste by Fred Saherhagen is a vampire story starring Dracula, alternating between modern day intrigue and flashbacks of his life. It has some interesting examination of how vampire's powers and weaknesses intersect with modern technology, and the historical stuff is well researched too. But the powers never overshadow the human drama, which is as it should be.


A world of darkness expands the WoD beyond just vampires. There is also poetry. What a surprise. Just the thing to draw in those Dragonlance lovers.

Dragon Magazine Issue 181: May 1992

part 5/5


The game wizards: Zeb Cook surfaces again to remind us that in 2nd edition, the rules are not the final answer. Unlike in Gary's day, you are not expected to constantly keep up with the latest rules updates and incorporate all the supplements into your game. In fact, since some are contradictory (although not explicitly yet, genre emulation still isn't a mature science. ) this is actually impossible. Similarly, while modules may in theory have a canon date when they take place, adhering to this in your game is a bad idea, and you should change details, make up new rules, etc etc to benefit you. Basically, this is a big plea to all the people out there in reader land to get off his back. He may have been the lead architect of 2nd edition, but he's nowhere near the ultimate authority in the company. He cannot tell you how to play, nor does he want to. 2nd edition is going to continue to expand in multiple different directions, and no one person can keep track of it all. One of those articles that rubs in just how different the company is these days. Superficially it seems a good deal more pleasant, with no-one chewing out the customers, and a real attempt at running professional PR. Course, the behind the scenes atmosphere might not be so good, but they're not letting on. And of course, their overall editorial control is a bit lacking, which will definitely lead to problems along the line. What are we to do with them? :shakes head:


A very special agent: A bit more crunch for Top Secret. It certainly gets a lot more player-useful material than Marvel Superheroes, despite not getting articles as frequently. Probably something to do with the approvals process needed for the licence. So here's 5 new advantages and 6 new disadvantages to customise your character with. Well, I say new, but every single one of them I remember also seeing in GURPS, with the prices scaled almost precisely. So like the Runequest articles that convert D&D spells, this is helpful, but not very creative. Even the system for buying new advantages and paying off disadvantages is straight rip. It all rubs in that GURPS is just a better designed system in general. I find this very difficult to like as an article indeed.


Vampire release a limited edition dragonskin version of the corebook, and a rubber stamp courtesy of Chessex. Huh. Neither particularly obvious choices given the game's themes.


The marvel-phile: Oh, Canada, and other mutant teams. Let's see how they've changed, in these recent years. Yes folks, it's update time. Alpha Flight have a most amusing standardised costume. The Avengers have once again tried to rehabilitate villains and failed. There's been another brotherhood of evil mutants formed. The UK team have had their big plot arc build to a climax years in the making. And the Guardians of the galaxy have split into two groups to deal with several pressing threats. There's been the usual round of deaths and resurrections, Some characters have overcome old problems, while others have new ones to deal with, and yet others have had the resent button pushed on them, bringing back annoyances they thought they'd solved. Busy busy busy. The days of largely self-contained stories are long past. And of course, though they don't mention it here, they're haemorrhaging readers as a result of this. Could TSR have stopped it's own decline if they'd learned from the lessons of the comic crash? I think that's one of those alternate universe questions we'll never truly know. But it's certainly not impossible. As usual, no sense in crying about it now. On we go.


Sage advice: A mere 4 questions this issue, as skip takes the time to give some fairly pontificatory answers. I may not be so merciful, of course.

Art is in the eye of the beholder! One person's junk is another ones masterpiece! How do you define a failed roll in making a work of art? (Art, like morals, and gems and jewelery is objectively definable in quality and value in D&D. Get stuffed. )

Good sux. I want more support for playing the bad guy. (Go play white wolf games then. We like our PC's to be goody two shoes. Editorial policy, donchaknow. We're not allowed to hint that being bad could be a viable option capable of prospering long term, and corruption dogs the vast majority of reality. Lorraine (Rumble of thunder, stab of organ music) won't let us, under pain of, well, pain. )

Is EVERYTHING we know about space wrong in spelljammer (no)

Did your official hotline really say to ignore the rules and kick out the rules lawyers if they get in the way of the game?! (Yarly. We know our game doesn't hold up under detailed scrutiny, but instead of trying to fix it, we'll turn the blame back on the people doing the scrutinizing, and say they're the ones in the wrong for doing so. A classic tactic used by corrupt and perverted politicians, preachers and teachers to great success. )


Dragonmirth shows us how annoying living with wizards can be. It's no wonder they don't normally have relationships. Yamara winds up being the chosen one again, much to her displeasure. The twilight crew get hot and sweaty with the tentacle monster.


Through the looking glass: The iraq stuff is over, and so it's straight to the reviews with minimal preamble this month. Thunderbolt mountain minis show us a mummy red dragon brooding on her nest, protecting her babies. Ral partha take us to Battletech's orient and give us a samurai inspired mech. Grenadier have both necromancers and liches. (it's like playing both country and western music in a bar)  That one of them could become the other over the course of a campaign does not seem at all improbable. Viking Forge release a set of 4 orcs. If you added up all the goblinoids ever released, you could have a decent army where every figure is unique. Stone mountain minis introduce their own creepy hive-based alien race, the Kryomek. Alternative Armies go back to oirland to get some formorians out. Unfortunately, they're made of primitive lead that breaks easily. And Black Dragon Pewter finish us off with a wizard in the middle of a little research. As is far too often the case these days, nothing here leaps out at me as being of any note.


Some cool stuff in the themed section, but the rest of this issue has been rather a slog to get through. This is another one that shows how diverse and spread out they are at the moment. Yet curiously, at the same time, they're still stuck inside their own paradigm when the wider industry is changing rapidly. The wild experimentations of a few years later still seem quite a way off. Guess the long slow progress with plenty of good individual articles, but little overall influence will continue for a while yet.

Dragon Magazine Issue 182: June 1992

part 1/5


124 pages. Year 16 has arrived. If the magazine was a person, it'd get a whole bunch of new legal rights. But instead, it's another round of Dragon related articles. It's as reliable as getting chocolates, and probably as welcome too. Will this selection be delicious truffles, or those horrible nutty ones that always get left until last? I shall consume the entirety of this pick-and-mix one by one, as usual.

In this issue:


Letters:  A letter from someone who prefers 1st edition. It's getting increasingly hard to find the old stuff to replace his worn out copies. Don't worry, there's plenty of old copies floating around in bargain bins and convention sales. Those old hardbacks were built to last.

A letter asking about the various old issues of the magazine that were concerned with the people denouncing roleplaying. Roger gives quite a lengthy reply to this, and it is made very clear how the frequency with which this topic comes up has increased in the last few years. He used to think it was a joke, but the joke has worn increasingly thin as time goes on. They really do need to be stopped, albeit in a civilised manner that makes it clear we're the good guys. More on this over the page.


Editorial: Jack Chick. It's not an inherently scary name. Quite the opposite, if anything. But then, it's those with something to prove that often work the hardest. And Jack has certainly put his heart into the conversions business. Roger may have laughed him off back in issue 125, but he's not laughing any more. It really is rather worrying, the depth and breadth of topics he's attacked. Tracts tailored against every religion, including all the other christian denominations (it's WASP or damnation in chick's world) Music, Evolution, Roleplaying of course, even Masonry get their satanic underpinnings exposed. And most worryingly of all, a guide on how to most effectively distribute chick tracts. He's thought about this waaaay too much. Roger is evidently finding this increasingly irritating and worrying. Our enemies are bigger and better organised than we thought. We really ought to take this seriously. Yes, I know we've said that before, but I mean it this time. And then it's back to the day job It's hard to get too worked up about these things until they're actually on our doorsteps. And if these people were to get into power, they might well follow in hitler's footsteps of systematic reeducation and extermination. Man, believing in free speech, even for those who want to deny that privilege to others is a real bitch sometimes. Just when I though this topic was getting boring, they step it up a gear. It's evident that it's going to run and run, and possibly become even more hyperbolic. We have to make sure we don't lose interest first.


Not cheaper by the dozen: As they've complained several times, Dragonlance doesn't get many articles in here. Looks like it's up to their regular contributors to try and stimulate us. Spike Y. Jones once again comes up with a whole bunch of semi-connected ideas and integrates them into the setting smoothly. The kind of thing you usually see with the Realms, this is well up to Ed's usual standard. in fact, with specific dates and previously established events given, it's even easier to tie them in and check things for inconsistencies.

The Incubalum is an artifact egg that gives birth to random creatures, sometimes exceedingly powerful and strange. It's not really that useful, more a plot device. But it should be fun from a GM point of view.

Eggs of dragon breath are another way to abuse dragon eggs. Throw them and they release the effect of that dragon types breath weapon. They can be exceedingly expensive though no the point of diminishing returns, and they are rather fragile. Like any grenade, pack them with caution.

Shells of protection create a forcefield as long as you can keep them spinning like a top. This will obviously not keep out determined enemies forever, but in a nicely dramatic fashion.

Command Dragons breaks the pattern by being a spell instead. It bypasses he usual saves, but you need all the pieces of their eggshell to work, making this a rather tricky one you'll need a lengthy quest (probably involving said dragon's mother) to be able to use it, with no guarantee. And of course, once it wears off, you can expect trouble. Probably not worth it, on reflection.

Dreamhold is a magic egg that shows images of draconic history. Since TV hasn't been invented on Krynn, this can go for amazing amounts to the right buyer.

Mishakal's token lets you get pregnant easily, even if you don't have a partner. This is very valuable indeed just after a nasty great war, as long as people don't get selfish and pass it on once they've used it. We'll be seeing you again.

Apprentice's eggs are a really basic enchanted item that hold cantrips. Just the thing to ease people into building these things.

Eggs of Distraction are another one you activate by spinning. Unfortunately, they can hypnotise you as well, which will kinda ruin the effect.

Eggs of fascination are the refined version of the same item. They're harder to keep spinning, but don't backfire on you, and work even better in the dark. A good example of actual advancement, which can only really be shown with an actual timeline.

Eggs of imprisonment trap people in them temporarily. Course, in the meantime, you can set up more solid accommodation for the victim.

Ridiculators are the token Gnomish joke entry. They're basically automated egg-throwing catapults and mobile chicken coops. They aren't really any danger, but can be incredibly irritating. Another reason why krynn is avoided by many in the know.

Remove disease is a variant on the old illusionist cheat dispel exhaustion. It makes you look and feel better, but doesn't remove the underlying problem. This may actually make things worse in the long run. It saw plenty of use by charlatans when the gods were absent. I can see this one exported to other settings with great relish.

Dragon Magazine Issue 182: June 1992

part 2/5


The vikings' dragons: Last month, they reviewed a bunch of viking themed supplements. One of the curious absences from the AD&D viking supplement was new dragons, given the number of them that appear in legends. Guess the magazine has an easy opening to fill again. Say hello to the Linnorms. Don't expect them to say hello back. They're not a very nice lot. While intelligent, they really are very antisocial, even more so than the chromatics. They kick their kids out almost as soon as they're hatched, and it only goes downhill from there. They take longer to grow up as well, which means they're rarer than regular dragons, thankfully. Still, that's cold comfort when one's in your woods, eating people and fouling the place up. These are ones that would later get put into an official MC appendix, showing they proved more popular than last year's ferrous dragons. Welcome to the joys of mythic resonance.

Forest linorms remain sleek and snaky no matter how long they get, allowing them to worm their way through thick undergrowth. With invisibility to animals at will, they have no trouble hunting, but still prefer human flesh when they can get it.

Land linorms are lanky looking, cautious things. They get viking runes instead of spells. With invisibility and shapeshifting, they could deal with humanity peacefully, but no. Dragons gotta scourge.

Sea linorms are cranky herbivores who hate anyone sculling through the water above their lair. They actually live in relative harmony with their environment, but that's small comfort for you when you lose your ship and life.

Frost linorms are the only sociable linnorms, forming into small cabals. Instead of the usual spells, they also get a small selection of runes from the viking sourcebook. They don't hesitate to use these tricks for long-range strategy, and combined with their illusionary powers, they're the most able and likely to toy with you instead of just killing you. Time to get your Xanatos gambits out fellahs.

Dread linorms are by far the strongest, with 2 heads, and tons more HD than normal dragons. Their physical and magical abilities are similarly impressive, even a gold dragon will be dwarfed by a full grown one. And if you do beat one, that 500 foot corpse is going to be a pretty hassle to clean up. This lot do manage to one-up the existing dragon species in interestingly unpleasant fashion. Just the thing to reveal when they get to really high levels.


The Dragon's bestiary: No surprise that we get a few more almost dragons in this department as well. Let's see if these ones are good or bad.

Swamp wyrms are enormous snakey things with breath weapons. Not as badass as proper dragons, they nonetheless have a quite substantial effect on the environment around them. If it wasn't a stagnant bog with temperatures mirroring it's occupant before, it soon will be. Now that's nicely atmospheric, and gives you a very good reason to hunt them down and kill them. I quite approve.

Lindworms are dragons born with the draconic equivalent of Down's syndrome or something. Course, what is a runty little mentally handicapped thing by draconic standards is still a large, cunning and vicious predatory monster for humans. Another dull one for DM's who want to skip the magic and charm and let a low level party have their dragon to slay.


Sage advice returns to previous topics like a dog to it's vomit.

You've missed out a load of multiclassed combinations (Look again. Also, remember that you can't have more than one class from the same group, due to power redundancy. I know you think you're being clever, but really, this is stupid. )

Can athasian clerics get quest spells (If they can convince their bosses they need them. Good luck on that one, especially if you're a templar. )

Can athasian spellcasters be wild mages (Yes. God help us all. )

What are athasian cleric's holy symbols (Templars use whatever their boss says. Others use a bit of the appropriate element. )

Can psionicists have wild talents. (no. They have full control anyway. That's what being a psionicist means, y'know.  )

Why can't thri-kreen wear magical stuff (you try wearing clothes designed for a preying mantis, and see how well they fit you. Turnabout is fair play, and without any wizards, who's making the items for them? )

How do racial adjustments interact with the initial dice rolls on athas. (one step at a time. Don't try and do everything at once. )

What are athasian movement rates. (check their monster writeups. )

Whoa. Does being able to do 20 hour marches let mul & thri-kreen travel twice as fast. (Yup. This is the advantage of a single race party. Everyone else'll just slow you up. )

Do athasian elves automatically get the Running proficiency. No. If they buy that, it'll stack with their racial benefits. )

Do athasian dwarves have infravision. (probably. They haven't had time to un-evolve it.)

How do you manage your character trees (carefully, so a single death isn't crippling )

What can you do with alchemy on athas. (rather less than you could with proper magic. It'd be an inefficient avenue of study if cosmic power is your goal. )

Does the amount of water found with water finding scale with species requirements. (stop trying to pick the rules apart and cheat. )

Do merchants transact at their headquarters (No. That'd be like doing espionage deals at the home office. Too risky, normally)

You messed up the weapon chart on page 53 (yeah, keeping formatting straight's a bitch. )

How far can you throw a chatkcha (all the way to kamchatka)

How many PSP's do you get if you have more than one wild talent ( determine separately, and add them all up. You are at the mercy of randomness. Stuff like this is why psionics unbalances characters)

What happens if wild talents roll a power with prerequisites (they get them as well. And the scope for unfairness gets even bigger.)

What happens when you have power scores over 20 (natural 20 still fails. We don't like you taking anything for granted)

Animal affinity throws up irrelevant results ( yup. Replace them with athasian animals.)

How do thri-kreen regain PSP's/spells without sleeping (sitting around doing nothing for 8 hours. This is why they don't become spellcasters very often. When you've got a short life, you don't want to waste a third of it.)

Can preservers use defiler magic without becoming a defiler, so they can fake it socially. (No. Oh, it's a hard life.)

What's the spell progression for athasian wizards (same as it ever was. Fightin fire with fire. )

If you lose a spellbook, can you replace it (with even greater difficulty and cost than a normal game. Athas sucks for spellcasters. We want to encourage you to become psionicists)

When do half-giants change alignment ( Early in the morning, making mah breakfast. Daylight come and me wanna go home )

How long does a place stay barren after being defiled (many a year mon, busy wizard gotta keep movin on)

How much extra xp do fighters get for killing things ( Really not enough. )

How much do roads cost ( Less than walls, thankfully. )

How muck honey does a kank make (A glob a day. Not a very scientific measurement, is it. Glob. Glob Globglobglobglob. )

How do athasians react to spelljamers (like Skip said before, it aint gonna happen. If you try it, Skip will send the canon police to break down your door and beat your head in with the rulebooks. They just beat skip around the head about the lesser divination school and spending bonus slots from intelligence on weapons, so skip knows what skip is talking about. Don't mess with the canon police. They're well funded, and they're growing. They will fight against noncanonical games internationally, and cross system. And they have a bitchin theme tune. Canon police, do do de do do. Canon police, they're watchin you. With their psychic NDA hamsters, they follow the wishes of their masters. Canon police, fuck yeah. :guitar solo: Canon police. They're everywhere. Canon police! They're here, Beware! )

Dragon Magazine Issue 182: June 1992

part 3/5


Novel ideas: Ravenloft's first novel has done rather well, and here come the follow-ups. Dance of the Dead taking us to Souragne, and Heart of Midnight to Kartakass. Looks like they're not going for trilogies and recurring characters in this world, in contrast to Toril and Krynn. Well, horror does become increasingly difficult when you have recurring heroes who you know are going to survive. Still, it does mean they never got a breakout hit character like Drizzt or Raistlin. Except possibly the Darklords themselves. We remember Freddy, Jason, Mike Myers. Do you remember what the heroes who faced them were called? So it's proving here, although it's still going to be a while before they realise that and start shifting the focus of their novels accordingly. Once again, we get little looks into the minds of the writers, and see that the sources they drew on when writing are pretty prosaic actually.  And we also see that creating grim work when you don't feel that way naturally leaves you just itching to put immature jokes in and break the tension somehow. Who'd be a writer for hire, eh?


The voyage of the princess ark: Looks like Bruce is indeed suffering burnout or other things occupying too much of his time, for the Ark is on vacation this month. Only the letters pages remain. Lets see what people want.

Someone wants a creature crucible on the creatures of the savage coast. Bruce is not at all against the idea. Send in letters demanding it. It increases the odds it'll get made.

A question: Why isn't alphatia the most powerful nation in the world if it's the only one with airships.( I. Wizard kings are fractious bastards who are more concerned with their rival wizards than anyone else. The are not inclined to share for the good of the country II. Other nations have their own special tricks. )

A question: Is the princess ark based on Star Trek? (It wasn't intentional. It just kinda turned out that way. )

What AC does ironwood armor have (same as the type of armor it's imitating)
Will we ever see a gazetteer on Norwald (Good question. (the answer is no, but probably not intentionally.))

Are there rules for hull points (no. You've just gotta fudge.)

Are you gonna put firearms in D&D (no. We sorta just did. That's as close as I want to come to doing so.)

What is haldemar prince of (Haaken, like it says. A floating rock and a few miles of farmland below it. Nothing spectacular. )

Is the D&D planetary map based on earth in the past (Well spotted.)

What's with the missing stats in Kingdoms of Nithia (Oops. Our bad. )

Is there going to be a monstrous compendium for D&D. (Probably. We have so many things we want to do.)


The wild wild world of dice: A short but funny article here about the various quirks that people have about their dice. Silly superstitions, amusing habits, irritating tricks for cheating and methods of preventing this, and the endless cosmic battle of crystal vs opaque. One of those amusing little diversions that breaks up the flow of the magazine nicely, and has a few helpful bits of advice, (use different coloured dice for D% and define which is which beforehand) but isn't going to change the world. The equivalent of stopping for a drink at a small roadside bar on an endless freeway journey, just seeing the sights for a bit.


Palladium gets evul with villains unlimited.


Kings of the caravans: More Realms NPC's from Ed. Seems that's a real growth industry for him at the moment. Endless supplies of spells, monsters and magic items alone do not a complete world make. This time, the theme is merchants. Attach an identity to those you're shopping from to make the setting a little more filled in.

Llachior Blackthorn is from Tethyr. He's not only useful from a trading PoV, but because he hires adventurers to deal with pirates, giving us an easy way into adventure that doesn't involve taverns again. He's also looking for a wife, and his list of desired traits make it quite likely that a female adventurer would fit them. So that's two very good reasons he could find himself a recurring NPC in your game.

Ondul Jarduth is Llachior's cleric sidekick. He has some trepidation about him getting married, which could be spun in a very slashy way if you ask me. A fairly quiet one, he seems like a character you'd benefit from staying on the good side of.

Sharest Tanthalar is an insanely twinked character who's good at everything, has psionics, and is probably a Harper. She's singlehandedly killed mind flayers, Drow, and lots of zhentarim, and is personal friends with some of the most important people in the realms. Just another canon-sue to steal your glory if you get in trouble.

Emrock Uerngul is a thief who's managed to earn enough to go straight.  He's still got a strong sense of mischief, and an unorthodox friendship with a sentient manta ray that profits them both. Thanks to that, he can get goods delivered when no-one else can. Sounds very much like a PC to me.


The role of computers: Buck Rogers matrix cubed is another of our official tie-ins from SSI, using much the same system as their Forgotten Realms games. It doesn't get 5 stars, because it doesn't really advance the interface and graphics, but they still give it a positive result, with plenty of advice on getting through the early parts of the game. Now if they'd only implement automapping, the reviewers would be a lot happier.

Planet's death is a second sci-fi adventure rpg, albeit one that takes you rather further afield than buck did. As is often the case, they encourage careful resource management and frequent saving. Rushing through the story is not the way to win. Again, there are a few system bugs that keep it from being 5 star material, but it seems there's no shortage of decent sci-fi rpgs out there.

Dragon Magazine Issue 182: June 1992

part 4/5


Dragonslayers on the screen: Another curious peripherally connected article this month. I must say, the idea of getting a bunch of friends together and having each one take the role of a character in a computer RPG isn't one that occurred to me. It seems rather like it would combine the worst aspects of the two media. The inflexibility of playing a computer game, and the bickering and internal sabotage a tabletop RPG group can suffer from. Having one person on the keyboard while the others are just backseat drivers does not seem like a recipe for fun to me. And indeed, this does point out the problems that are likely to occur. You need to make sure everyone is useful somehow, such as by mapping or doing the number crunching. Even then, I'm not absolutely certain about this. The days when easy internet multiplayer and games designed to take advantage of this will make it a moot issue are still a good few years away, and I think this kind of thing would definitely be less fun than just playing the game myself. Still, nice to see them trying out new ideas, even if they don't work that well. As with the dice one, this is more interesting than another bunch of formulaic monsters.


Pen power II: More survey questions? They obviously have a lot of things they want to think about. This one is mainly collecting demographic data. A decade ago, their fanbase was largely teenage and nearly all male. Just how much will that have changed in the meantime? See you in a few months time.


Ready! Aim! Fire!: Crossbows get a short shrift in AD&D? Oh noes!1 You know, we've actually known that for ages, and we've got a good idea who to blame too. (Len Lakofka, as he admitted in issue 51) So here we have one of those articles that points out the Proud Historical Antecedents of the crossbow, and adds a load of variant crunch that slightly powers up the weapon by adding extra detail. It still doesn't bring them remotely close two swords or polearms, so I don't have any real problem with this, but it is still more than a little dull. Still, we have to have our dose of reality to balance the fantasy, don't we. Let's not dwell on this too much, otherwise before you know it we'll be reading a thousand page illustrated dissertation on weapons through the ages.


Psionics in living color: And here we have another instance of attempting to spice up an old topic by applying it to a new avenue. Saying that you need to go for more vivid and detailed descriptions in your handling of psionic powers? I can see the formula from here. Classic pro roleplaying principle + obscure and little used subsystem = another way of hammering in the same lesson. It does have some amusingly experimental art design that I like, but the text itself is too obvious for words. So the formatting is still improving, but the content is much the same as a decade ago. One for the new readers.


TSR Previews: Lots of stuff this month, spilling out to an extra half a page.
Dragonlance finally gets a proper core boxed set. Strange to think it's never had one before, and everyone's just been picking up bits and pieces as they go along. We also see another bit of history we've known about for ages examined in detail in the novels, with The Cataclysm. More short stories showing snippets of lives affected by the big smash.

The Forgotten Realms gets Aurora's whole realms catalogue. Another of their really cool half IC bits of setting building. Dead useful for if you have players who like to spend whole sessions just shopping and roleplaying, and pretty handy if you have hardcore dungeoncrawlers who like to pack all sorts of weird bits and pieces that might come in handy. Just don't forget your encumbrance, or you'll make it too easy for them.

Greyhawk gets WGR2: Treasures of greyhawk. More mini adventures for when the DM runs out of ideas mid session and needs some filler to plonk nearby, keep the players interested.

Ravenloft is up to it's third novel, Dance of the dead. We've already had the low level adventure set there, now you get to learn some more about the Aaaaangst of it's darklord. Don't give in to brooding, for that path leads to becoming one of them.

On the generic side, we have HHQ2: Wizard's challenge. Soon there will be solo adventures designed for all the classes. Be ready to be bloody cautious, and hope you win initiative, for getting that spell off really does mean the difference between victory and death. We also have HR2: Charlemagne's paladins. Another historical era gets adapted as best the ruleset can manage. Just how good that was, I'm not sure. Any takers?

D&D has yet another quirky low level set of adventures, this time with a boxed set full of props and crap. Goblin's lair seems designed to introduce new players to the idea of mass combat, which I suppose is something. Still feels like they're seriously dumbing things down in this department.

Marvel Superheroes gets another spiffy boxed set. Lands of Dr Doom lets you into Latveria, to fight him, or at least one of his many doombots, in his secret lairs. Very definitely Muahahahahahahaha!!!!! time here.

And finally, weirdly, we have another XXVC product, a good 9 months after the last one. Are they trying to reboot it, or this one last book that was written and ready to go before the cancellation, and is just getting put out with a tiny run for contractural reasons. Hardware by slade gives you a load more gadgets to fill your game with. Assuming anyone is still playing, anyway.


The marvel-phile: Leftovers here again. Like cold meat on boxing day, it seems to be almost standard in this department these days. It really isn't as fun as it used to be. Still, this is one that's more player useful than most. Dr Doom's hyperscience gadgets. He's certainly come up with a lot over the years, and it wouldn't be surprising at all if some of them got lost, stolen, or recreated by someone else. Anasthetic nose plugs to keep people comfortably unconscious for whatever length of time. A staff designed to absorb nearly any force harmlessly. The nervous system scrambling Entropic Inducer. The Null time sequencer, which lets him freeze time to his advantage. And the Quark instability condenser, which is a pretentious name for a half-assed disintegration ray. All appeared in Fantastic Four issue 352, showing that he's got a pretty impressive toy collection. This is different from most of their articles, but still feels like they're more creatively hemmed in than they used to be, with the focus entirely on existing characters and things. They've also got less of a sense of humour about this, as reflects the general tone in comics these days. Can't say I'm happy about the way this column is going.

Dragon Magazine Issue 182: June 1992

part 5/5


Fiction: The dragonbone flute by Lois Tilton. Far too often in these stories, Dragons are a dying race, and we only get to see ancient powerful ones. Where's the next generation? Is anyone going to help keep them alive? And who will mourn them when they're gone? It's another melancholy story this month, with just a small glimmer of hope mixed in. Both the main human and dragon have lost the ones they love, and find a bit of comfort in a world which seems determined to screw them over. Quite an affecting story, this once again manages to shake off the boredom and engage me emotionally after a whole wodge of filler articles.  If only the rest of the magazine has as much stuff to choose from when trying for the best.


Forum: Tim Harford is one of those people who actually managed to allay teacher fears by simply talking to them. It was actually surprisingly easy. Course, that's likely because they hadn't made up their mind yet. Rational minds which suspend judgement until they have sufficient information aren't usually the problem anyway.

Geoff Pass has a friend who became a born again christian, but kept relapsing into gaming, and then loathing himself afterwards. It'd be funny if it weren't for the valuable stuff he just threw away, some of it loaned by the writer.

Aaron Goldblatt points out that the RPGA is already supposed to be an organisation that represents gamers as a whole. Yes, but you don't see them doing much anti-oppression campaigning. Anyway, remember that the other side thinks of themselves as the good guys too. Without empathy, you'll only make the problem worse.

Dale Critchley is a christian and a gamer, and points out that evil characters tend to be a self-correcting problem. As we've found before, through gaming we can learn to work together better with other people. If you just flat-out forbid evil, they'll never learn the problems it causes except by harsh reality.

Michael Niveu has written a paper on the effects of RPG's as part of his university work. In assembling material, he found that there was plenty of rigorously tested positive material, while the negative stuff was merely unsubstantiated hyperbole. Another strike for the scientific method.

Richard Doyle is going to aggressively seek out and engage in diplomatic relations with church people in his area, and encourages you to do the same. If you do it right, it should get rid of a lot of their fears.

Jeffrey S. Kennedy is another christian who thinks the whole thing is stupid. No-one's saying monopoly turns you into a greedy social climber who backstabs their friends, or hungry hungry hippos promotes obesity. You are not your character.

Craig H. Barrett also goes on with great passion about the social benefits roleplaying has. Co-operation, self-control, reading, math, leadership skills, imagination, all in one neat package. And it's fun too. How can teachers object to that?!

Nathan Nieman suggests taking the matter all the way up to congress! Don't let the other side win just because they shouted louder! Send me letters personally! Ahh, the enthusiasm of youth.

Don Jamieson gives another anecdote of how his group have been playing for the past decade and grown up into productive, well-adjusted adults. Course, no-one notices those. When failure gets you more attention than success, failure can become a perversely attractive option. Such is the paradox of media reporting.

S. Lynne Mann also points out the educational benefits of rpgs. We are definitely getting into repeating points territory here. How much more of this can people take?


Role-playing reviews: Pixie is a 20 page indie RPG where you play the mischevious little home invaders trying to make lives for themselves. A great example of early highly focussed indie game design, it's simple and fun, if rather challenging and not suited to lengthy campaigns. Like Bunnies and Burrows, the mouse eye view of the human world can be both scary and funny if done right.

Amber diceless RPG gets not just one review, but two, with Lester and Allen contributing their thoughts. Seems like it's made quite an impact upon the game designers with it's paradigm shaking ideas. The game is uniquely suited for PvP games, and the system naturally pushes you in that direction, reflecting the source material and it's internecine familial conflicts. With no dice, you really have to think to win a battle, and with your own character stats and advancement uncertain to players, gaming the system is always uncertain. It really is both different and challenging. Just watch out the PvP doesn't spill over into reality, and be careful with making the power levels of the previous generations too high, resulting in the worst kind of GM fiat crap. Still, once again, TSR has had the gauntlet thrown down. Adapt or become moribund. There's so much more out there than dungeons.


Dragonmirth has yet more adventurer eating jokes. Yamara is live on crystal ball. How are you supposed to surprise the enemy when they're watching your every move? The twilight team get the macguffin, then get another sideplot to deal with.


Through the looking glass: As with last year, here we get lots of draconic minis. Both cold and ice dragons. (once again, the country and western joke seems very appropriate. ) A fire dragon, of course. Black, gold and blue dragons from  Grenadier and Thunderbolt mountain. A Wyvern from Ral Partha and another heat and cold themed pair as well. Most notable in this column is the above average amount of complaining about assembling these things, and the various flaws in their construction. When they're made out of lots of parts you have to put together yourself, they're only as good as their weakest link. You can't just source parts out and hope they'll all fit together in the end. No escaping the need to communicate, no matter how tedious it may be.


Clerics get a deck of spells too. Don't get them mixed up.


For the second time in a row, this issue both highlights how TSR are starting to go round the same old issues one too many times, and how the world is changing around them.  And they're certainly not ignoring these developments, but there's a world of difference between some of the writers being excited individually and the company as a whole adapting. This does feel like another turning point in gaming's history is upon us. The passage of events is going to continue to be interesting, even if individual articles may struggle to hold my interest. There will be no surrender.

Dragon Magazine Issue 183: July 1992


part 1/5


124 pages. Up to space again, in an issue that looks like it mixes fantastical and sci-fi approaches to going up up and away. I don't believe we've had a combo like that before, and it allows them to cover other systems more than usual, so this is a very positive choice. UFOs have plenty of books and movies dedicated to them, but not an RPG, yet. Come on, keep trying to expand the market.


In this issue:


Letters: Lots of stuff from Roger here as he plays with the usual formula again. Instead of actually publishing the letters, he just gives the answers to them, so he can get more done in the space allocated. Very cheeky. Course, what the questions were is usually pretty obvious. Chalk it up to multiple people sending the same questions in.

We also get one token letter, in which they point out the existence of Creeks and Crawdads, the roleplaying game of semi-intelligent postapocalyptic crustaceans. If your kinks involve something like that, I really don't want to know.


Editorial: The old married couple theme returns with Roger again trying to spice up his and our gaming life. The fiction department in the magazine is consistently proving to be one of the least repetitive and most emotionally engaging parts of the magazine. It'd be a rather good idea to imitate that, and pick up some books that don't fall into the usual tolkien/conan axis of fantasy knockoffs If you want to shake off the boredom. For whatever reason, he picks The Face in the Frost by John Bellairs, and The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle. He points out what makes then unusual from a gaming point of view, and makes translating that into AD&D rules seem pretty simple and easy. It's not hard, introducing new tricks. It's just that they'll soon grow routine as well, and then the next variant, and the one after that, and so so, and so on. Let's just hope that by the time we run out of ideas again your players'll be keen to go back to basics.


Magic and technology meet at last: Gamma World is back. And no surprise that they're trying to get articles for it going again when it's previous editions got so many in the magazine. Kicking off is an obvious topic. Converting between it and AD&D. Since we also had this in the 1st ed DMG, the at last bit of the title isn't really accurate, but meet again doesn't have quite the same ring to it. This is a quite easy business really, as like Buck Rogers, the new system is pretty closely related to AD&D. But what changes there are are very interesting indeed. Armour class is inverted, starting at 10 and going upwards. And there's a perception attribute along with the regular 6. Both changes that are needed back in D&D land, actually, and it's interesting to realise they already know this. But of course the slow edition cycle means one won't be implemented for 8 years yet, and the other'll be awkwardly kludged into a form which is still a pain today. This conversion is set up in such a way that both sides have very little resistance against the other's powers, and stuff happens on the terms of whoever is most proactive, but stuff taken into other worlds tends to lose it's abilities, which prevents inter-universe trade from seriously altering your campaign world. So when going interdimensional raiding, hit fast with blasty powers and keep the enemy off guard. Offence is the best defence. Now let's hope the PCs don't all get disintegrated in the first round of combat by enemy lasers. Very interesting, as it reveals some of the design assumptions that are currently running in the TSR offices, and how certain writers would probably like to revise D&D. That's well worth knowing, whether you're looking to play it like X, or just engage in a little edition warring fun, and want something vaguely resembling facts to throw at the enemy. So this is a nice one both for use and obsessive microexamination. A good way to kick things off.


Advice to a high lord: A second TORG article (see issue 174) Well, it's more than most 3rd party games get these days. And once again they make it seem like a pretty cool game, that I vaguely regret not having got into at the time. It's been out for around 2 years now, and has both supplements and novels. And here's some GM advice on how to make sure it's idiosyncrasies are an advantage to your game rather than a problem. Interestingly, the writer also explains things in a way that makes them pretty clear to people who don't own the rules either. After reading this I have a much better idea of the effects and limitations of the drama deck, for example. It also reads nicely as a throwdown to other games to have dramatic over-the-top plots that give players a greater than normal degree of plot control. So it's useful both for owners of the game, and in selling it to people who may have seen the adverts, and are still on the fence. Another very good result. If only their official themed articles could balance their promotional and add-on aspects that well.


Avast ye swabs and heave to!: How could we have a space issue without a spelljammer article? And how could you have ship-based adventuring without boat-to-boat combat and piracy playing a part? Beats me, but Rich Baker seems to think too many campaigns are leaving them out. In the case of ship-to-ship combat, that's probably because the rules are a pain, so like grappling, people ignore tactics that work well in reality because of the game's poor modelling. But the rest is easy enough to fix. The long months of waiting around for ships to actually pass by can be skipped over. And the joys of never knowing how badass the people you'll meet can be simulated effectively by random table. Really, it's less dangerous than dungeon delving, and if you go privateer, you still get to have a homebase in civilisation as normal. And if it goes wrong, you might even get arrested instead of just killed, which leads to other adventure styles if you know how to run it. This is a bit more pessimistic about the prospects of lawbreaking and the relative morality of who you're killing and taking the stuff of than I'd like, but I suppose they have their family friendly image to consider. So a cool topic, presented in a middling manner.

Dragon Magazine Issue 183: July 1992


part 2/5


Unidentified gaming objects: We finish off the section with a system free look at modern UFO mythology. The usual ideas about them being secret weapons, fae, creatures from the clouds, parallel dimensions, even molemen from the centre of the earth. It's all very amusing. People come up with a ridiculous amount of crap, much of which can't be the truth simply due to mutual exclusivity. As is often the case, the magazine can barely scratch the surface, but it makes up for this by having a good bibliography at the end that'll take quite a while to read. Seems like a decent enough way to turn on people who've previously had no interest in the topic, and indicative of it's growing popularity at the time. Funny to think that this is more than a year before the x-files comes out. Wonder if that'll get any mentions in here.


Shadowrun gets it's second edition. Which is probably a good thing, as I've never heard anyone say 1st edition was better than the following ones, despite how the 2/3/4 edition wars rage.


The voyage of the princess ark: Just west of Bellayne is the mysterious nation of Herath. Seemingly just an ordinary Magocracy, (as far as there is such a thing) it's actually a nation comprised largely of Araneas who have developed the ability to assume a humanoid shape. This is of course a huge secret that no-one in the setting must be allowed to discover, and they will go to any lengths to keep it. And as usual when there's an elephant in the room like this, the protagonists come close to discovering it right away where everyone else who spent years there failed. :rolleyes: Oh, plot, how depressingly predictable you are. We also see the start of the Wrath of the Immortals metaplot event brewing, as the wizard king drops cryptic hints to Haldemar. What does this bode for the Ark and it's crew? Nothing good, I'll wager.

On the OOC side we of course have stats for the advancement of Araneas, which means they can be used as PC's, but this might be tricky, given their hefty XP penalties, and serious social restrictions. After all, keeping a big secret like that from the rest of your party may cause conflict, and if you do let them know IC, that marks the entire crew for some serious trouble from other Aranea. And while it may seem fun at first, once you've dodged the dozenth magical death squad, you may find it a bit tiresome. This does make this one of the more troublesome installments of this series.


Role-playing reviews: We are of course in theme here, with a couple of sci-fi games. And a bit of complaining about the difficulties of selling hard sci-fi in RPGs. When people actually have to pay close attention to what's possible, and carefully justify and examine the ramifications of what isn't, sales are hit. But we keep plugging away, for the speculations in them are useful for reality in a way star wars never can be.

Mechwarrior second edition doesn't do too great. Character generation is a real pain, with tons of number crunching, derived stats, and general sluggishness. Combat is similarly complex, and of course it's incomplete without the mechwarrior game to actually handle the giant robot side. Rick once again demonstrates that he's not patient enough to regularly play games that heavy. Still, he appreciates it for what it is, and the cool setting stuff, even if the system isn't his cup of tea.

Aliens adventure game gets an even worse review. Tons of random dice rolling in chargen, tons of dice rolls for even simple actions in game, brutal and unpleasant combat, it all seems heavily focussed on realism over fun. It also doesn't do horror very well, being far more focussed on the second film's military violence than the first film's atmosphere. Unless you want a very specific flavour of game, leave this out.

Rick also gives us a quick rundown of most of the Buck Rogers RPG supplements. The line may be running down rapidly now, but of course they still have lots of unsold stock to shift, and he gets roped into doing his part. NEO in the 25th century and the Luna sourcebooks come off best in his opinion.


The role of computers: Civilisation is one I've spent many frustrating hours with. Gods, that game can eat up tons of your time. Course, that is because it's fun, and incredibly open-ended. Will you rush to the spacefaring stage, or take advancement slow and concentrate on taking over the world. Read the manual, because it's big, and really will help.

Bard's title Construction Set allows you to build landscapes for your fantasy game. It also includes stuff for noting down your game's idiosyncracies of equipment, spells, monsters, etc. It uses point and click design, which makes it a good deal more user friendly than old programs. And the graphics and memory improvements of recent years allow you to both save a decent amount of stuff and print off images.  That means you won't be completely tied to your desktop come game night.

Dragon Magazine Issue 183: July 1992


part 3/5


The viking's dragons: I thought last month's selection of Linorms was missing a few. Multi-part special articles have decreased in frequency over the years, but we have one here. As with last month, here's five more highly malevolent dragon types to terrify your players with. Since we've covered the basics already, let's get straight to the monsters.

Flame linorms make red dragons look decidedly weedy, having substantially greater physical abilities and slightly better magic too. They're definitely another one for the high level adventurer who really needs that extra bit of challenge.

Gray linorms rub in how much bigger linorms grow than normal dragons by being described as relatively small-bodied, when their bodies are still actually bigger than most chromatics and metallics, while their tails are longer than a even a gold dragon's combined total length. One of the less powerful and smart Linnorms, they're still more than powerful and magically versatile enough to be confusing and deadly to fight.

Rain linorms are relatively small and weedy physically and in terms of spells, but get tons of cool innate abilities, including exceedingly good regeneration at their uppermost levels. They manage to be even more egotistical and greedy than normal dragons, which is quite a feat really. A little comeuppance before they get too big for everyone's boots would be a good idea.

The corpse tearer is an absolutely terrifying singular horror with energy draining claws, a breath weapon that may well leave you permanently crippled if you survive, and enough undead slaves to conquer a small country. It's wealth is similarly substantial, and it really does make an epic foe that would be a good climax for an entire campaign.

The Midgard linorm is even bigger and more powerful even than corpse tearer, but seems a good deal less aggressive and proactive in it's seeking of food, wealth and temporal power. Which is a bit of a relief really, as you really don't want the world serpent peering it's enormous eyes into your window as a prelude to eating your house whole. Actually, in some respects it's less powerful than a regular great wyrm, as it has neither discretionary spells or flight, but you'll still need both power and luck to get this monster. And flavour-wise this is a definite success. It's easy to get jaded with dragons, forget just how nasty they actually are. This lot bring that right back.


Werewolf: the Apocalypse, coming in august. They're certainly moving forward and capitalising on their success. Interesting to note that white wolf now occupies higher billing than esdevium.


TSR Previews: Al-Qadim gets it's first boxed set, Land of Fate, which actually gives us the geographical details to back up the rules. Strange that the core would be a single book, but then the line got so many boxed sets after that. Normally it's the other way around. I wonder why.

Spelljammer goes back to touch base in SJR5: Rock of Braal. It certainly never got the same kind of iconic status as sigil, but it's still a trading nexus where you can meet all kinds of weird creatures from across the spheres. Have fun.

Dark Sun continues to put the PC's almost centre stage in the metaplot. DSQ2: Arcane shadows sees the preservers trying to strike while the iron is hot, give the sorcerer kings a few more sharp knocks. Before you know it, half of them'll be dead, and the rest on the defensive. Hey ho.

Greyhawk fills in one of the characters who got mentioned in the old skool stuff, but not in much detail. Rary and Robilar. Traitorous wizard and his fighter sidekick. Man, the circle of 8 hate these guys. Can you solve the problem those great wizards couldn't, and exact a brutal killing and taking of stuff?

Dragonlance gets it's turn to have an introductory module. DLQ1: Knights sword. For a 1st level knight of solamnia and their buds. You know the drill. Proving yourself to the NPC's is likely to be as important as killing things.

The Forgotten Realms continues the cleric quintet, with Night Masks. Cadderly is still having trouble with assassins, despite the class being removed. Suspect everyone!

The generic stuff this time is more rehashed compilations. The magic encyclopedia, vol 1, is the first part of an attempt to compile every magical item published in every D&D product ever. In 64 pages? That's barely enough to index them. Oh, and there's also another bunch of collectors cards to fuel your obsessive trading urges.

D&D gets away from the little novice adventures they've been sticking too recently, and does the exact opposite. The Wrath of the Immortals boxed set revises the rules for playing them, and features a brand new adventure which completely fucks up Mystara.  Can you make a difference, and save Alphatia, at least in your game?

Gamma world boots up the supplement mill, hope once again trumping experience. GWQ1: Mutant Master sees you foiling the plans of the mutant supremacist alliance. But what if you want to exterminate those stuck-up pure strains. We never get to have any fun. :pouts:

And finally, our standalone book this month is The nine gates, by Philip Brugalette. More fantasy where the fate of the universe is at stake? Iiiiits psychodrama time.  


Fiction: Gryphon's nest by Ardath Mayhar. Hmm. You're back again, are you. Well, well. I suppose it has been quite a while since she got a successive onslaught of slating reviews in the book section. Mixing ecology and comedy of errors isn't a combination I would have come up with. But it seems to work, albeit going by rather too quickly for me to really get attached to the characters. It raises some interesting questions about the youth and raising of weird hybrid creatures, and unlike last time, the comedy is definitely intentional. It also reminds me of cartoons where intelligent talking animals are the stars, and they all seem to be able to communicate with each other and have vaguely human sensibilities. The illustration works well with the story, capturing the intended flavour quite nicely. Interesting.

Ah yes, the linnorms. I loved those articles back in the day. I was always glad to see Dragon present us with monsters portrayed in myth and legend. This is especially true when it's a type of monster that has been so thoroughly absorbed into D&D canon that it no longer resembles what inspired it in myth and legend.

Dragons are the best example; the D&D dragons only passingly resemble dragons from myth. The same is true of plenty of other monsters, though, from trolls to goblins to elves. I would like to have seen more Dragon articles address this type of thing, presenting interpretations of monsters as they appear in the literature of different cultures.