Dragon Magazine Issue 199: November 1993


part 1/5


124 pages. It's blatant sadism time, with monsters being this issue's special theme. Like Magic, this is almost ridiculously broad a topic, that they really ought to focus a little more finely so as to reduce the frequency with which they repeat themselves. Guess they can only control what they get so much. Have the freelancers sent in some good stuff, or will we have to rely entirely on the staff writers again? Another day, another issue to fill.


In this issue:


Letters: A letter from someone amused to see a baffled boyfriend dragged along to game night for a change. Statistically, it had to happen at some point.

A letter from someone wondering what happened to Rillifane in monster mythology. We've already sorted that out. Twice. Let's hope the back issues are still available.

Another person who wants Roman stuff. By no co-incidence, they have a sourcebook out, oh, round about now. Gotta collect 'em all!

A request for the addresses of some other gaming companies. This is no trouble for them to fix.

A question about their old products from the 70's. This proves a little trickier. Their record keeping was apparently not the greatest in the early years of TSR. It's no wonder they keep getting dates wrong and forgetting old products.

And finally, a question asking what happened to Judges Guild. They died, but many of their properties live on! Don't hesitate to pursue the new editions. (even if they might suck compared to the old stuff)


Editorial: So the day has finally come for Rogar of Mooria to seek out new adventures. He's being promoted from mere editor to the title of Product Group Leader. A pretentious corporatespeak title that translates as guy who bosses around and co-ordinates the developers for all the different AD&D campaign worlds. (At least, that's what it looks like) Which means he'd like to thank all the people that helped him make the magazine as good as it could be over the last 7 years. Mwah, mwah, you're all stars in your own way. It's all pretty short and predictable for this kind of departure. What he does not say though, is who is replacing him. And flicking back to the contents page, it's Kim again! Weird. Well, I suppose he did leave the company for a few years to go off gallivanting with Gary. That probably set him back a few rungs on the career ladder when he did return to TSR. So it's quite possibly going to be all change again in the next few months. And they've already lost quite a few columns recently. Guess it's going to be interesting times again until they get a new pattern down. And the editing may suffer in the meantime. Still, at least it's not abrupt chaos like Kim's original departure. I guess we'll have to wait for TSR's collapse for some of that action.


Opening the book of beasts: David Howery once again shows us that bad artists imitate, while great ones steal. Fresh and tanned from exploring africa, he heads back to medieval europe, and discovers that there's still a surprising number of creatures unconverted from there. Plus of course, there's the many mythological distortions of real world animals, created by imaginative naturalists with little real world experience of their subjects, and chinese whispers descriptions of African animals. Those are almost completely lacking from D&D, pushed out by the soppy revisionist witterings of PETA girl. Making even the mundane creatures fantastical would help reinforce the game against those tedious stickers for realism in fantasy as well. And I approve of both these objectives. On top of the alterations to existing creatures both real and magical, there's several new ones too.

Calopus are horned pumas, making them fairly versatile in terms of attack mode, but not actually much more scary than regular big cats. Still, it'll make the adventurers wonder and maybe get paranoid, which is usually pretty fun.

Monocerus are somewhere between the magical unicorn, and the mundane rhino in appearance and behaviour. They do have some weird quirks, and are pretty much impossible to tame, which means they won't be studied easily either. Best to just drive them to extinction then.

Sea Orcs are presumably drawn from sightings of killer whales, aka orcas. They're described as being more like crocodiles, but you know how these things change via chinese whispers. In any case, they're big, somewhat intelligent, and quite capable of smashing your little boat and gobbling up the party.

Sea monks & bishops are curiously benevolent creatures, living in small enclaves under the sea. Since they do all have fairly substantial clerical powers, getting on their good side can result in much needed healing during adventures underwater.

Serra are giant fishes that use their upper fins like sails to travel at high speed on the surface and slice straight through your boat. Even Jaws was never that awesome. The kind of thing you include just to see the looks on the players faces when they pull their signature move. It's no wonder sailors were a superstitious lot who got drunk and blew their money first chance they got. The sea has a lot to be afraid of.

Yale have appeared here before, in issue 101's creature catalog. And from the looks of them, David remembers this, as the stats are virtually identical apart from being converted to 2e. I quite approve, and hope Greg Detwiler won't mind this uncredited recycling either.

Bestiary Dragons are based on those long, snaky, frequently poisonous western ones that kill by constriction more often than they do by bite. Whether they have any magical abilities on top of that is up to you. As the legends show, spiky armor may well be a lifesaver. Just because you're adventuring in traditional lands, doesn't mean you won't profit from using your brain to solve problems. I think this is a pretty good little milieu opener.


Crude, but effective: Tuckers kobolds time yet again, reminding us how even dumb creatures become a lot scarier with basic tactics. Albeit with quite a bit of 4th wall breaking humour. Say hello to the Hobgoblin Elmonster. The kind of obvious rip-off character that would be more at home in the april issues. But the actual advice is as useful as ever, and include a few they didn't come up with last time. Traps, tricks, interesting synergies of relatively mundane monsters, even basic things like alarm systems and missile weapons. Use the damn things, for they will save lives, and help you kill enemies better. Even the dumbest of things don't want to die, except maybe bob-ombs. So this is a familiar topic that manages to justify itself by an excellent bit of tongue in cheek framing.

Dragon Magazine Issue 199: November 1993


part 2/5


The dragon's bestiary: Trolls certainly aren't short of a few variants, including quite a few that appeared first in this magazine, such as issue 41, 51, 129, 141, more than their fair share of the minis review columns and tons of Wormy. Looks like that's not ending any time soon either, with the internet about to give their profile a further boost. Here's a few more.

Trollhounds show it's not just dragons that engage in pervy hybridisation. Basically just regenerating, extra ugly wolves with diseased bites, they're certainly not unbeatable or particularly strange. But since basic worgs managed to be pretty scary in The Hobbit, I guess it's how you play them that counts.

Phaze trolls operate on a similar principle to phase spiders. Mobility and misdirection make them the challenge they are. If you're extra unlucky they'll be psionic as well. I can definitely see them as a mid-level big bad or high level mook, so they're reasonably versatile enemies.

Gray Trolls have a poisonous bite, just to make things a little trickier, and uncommonly long range infravision, for some reason. They can assume gaseous form, and are burned by sunlight. That's what you get for hanging round with vampires. Another one you'll need a damn god lore roll to spot.

Stone trolls are tougher than normal trolls and have a unique weakness that you'll need to work quite hard to exploit. Still, their regeneration is slower than normal trolls, and they give lots of XP. Take wands full of healing and blasty effects to keep up with them long enough to finish them.

Fire trolls, unsurprisingly, are immune to fire, but have other weaknesses, although not exactly what you'd expect. (unless you watch lots of cartoons) On top of that, their acidic blood destroys metal weapons that hit them. They're big and tough enough to be a challenge even to name level adventurers. Probably best to have your spellcasters stock up on AoE blasty spells if you want to get out of this one alive too. A brutal ending to a collection obviously aimed at rather higher level parties than most of these.


Fiction: One-eyed death by Jonathan Shipley. A mystery story where the mystery is never really solved? Those can be pretty frustrating. Still, there's plenty of clues here. You'll just have to draw your own conclusions from them. Trouble is, it's nearly all loose ends. There are large amounts of vague worldbuilding that really need other stories to fill them in before this one can make satisfactory reading. Which if it was ever published, it wasn't in here. So this isn't terrible, but doesn't really work for me as is, needing some expansion. Writing truly self-contained short stories is actually a surprisingly tricky art.


The known world grimoire: Heraldry. Our third time round this topic. (see issue 53 and 154. ) And here we're reminded that Mystara is the only world that still uses alignment languages, and all the setting weirdness that goes with them. People know exactly where they stand on the major moral issues, and are generally not afraid to flaunt it either. Not that it matters, for obtaining nobility initially is entirely predicated on your ability to kick ass, rather than moral character. It may affect exactly what kinds of followers you attract though. This is a rather mixed up article, simultaneously trying to tackle real world history, and possible ideas for both D&D and AD&D game worlds. How you get them, what they look like, what different classes might do with them, it's very much a grab bag of options that you'll need to customise for your own campaign. The ideas for mechanical bonuses conferred by heraldic animals are pretty decent, and would work very well in a dominion style game. (transplanting to birthright shouldn't be hard at all. ) Plus it crosses over well with David Howery's article earlier on by talking about the medieval mythical connotations of real animals. Overall, I think I like this, despite not really wanting too. It gives us plenty of pointers without hemming things in too much, and reminds us just how weird you can make D&D by playing it's rules' logical consequences completely straight.


Campaign journal: A Spelljammer and Greyhawk crossover this month. (although relocating it to another world wouldn't be hard) The Black Pegasus Trading Company are a bunch of somewhat roguish adventurers who've moved into the space trading business as they went up in levels. They keep their sources pretty quiet while down on Oerth, thus neatly sidestepping the impact spelljamming would have on the technological and political milieu. They also carefully walk the balance between good and evil, tending slightly towards good simply out of self-interest, because it's better for business, and well treated employees are less likely to quit or betray you, while still being quite ruthless in making sure they get maximum profits from a deal. They could well end up as friends or enemies depending on how they're played. With a good dozen sample plots, and half a dozen character stats, this accomplishes what it sets out to do pretty well, giving you a good way to incorporate space adventuring without cutting the characters off from their original world, or changing said world drastically in the process of opening things up. Spelljammer may be pretty much a dead line by now, but this is still a good article for it. The lessons that they would later apply in making planescape accessible to new players are well in effect here. If only they'd learned them a few years sooner.


Eye of the monitor: Sandy shows another of his big differences compared to the Lessers. They were very much in favour of family friendly entertainment, getting rather uncomfortable whenever gore or sex came up in games they were reviewing. Sandy, on the other hand, wants to see those options out there, albeit with a parental guidance system analogous to the movie one. Why not just use exactly the same one? It would save time and bureaucracy substantially. What is not amusing is halfhearted censoring that removes the blood, while leaving the actual gameplay completely unchanged. Especially when it's only done in certain regions. Then it's both pandering and hypocritical. Sandy SMASH! Hee. This is a very entertaining intro. It's nice that games can finally do justice to mature themes, and amusing to see people reacting against that.

Final Fantasy II (which isn't the japanese II, but a later one, if I remember my geek lore correctly) doesn't have great graphics, but nearly everything else gets praised. The music is good, the enemies are always at just the right level of challenge, and the plot is fascinating. Characters appear and disappear throughout it in highly dramatic fashions, making the whole story seem much bigger than just your adventures. Get yourself some chocobos and go a-riding through the lands.

Ken's Labyrinth is another game where the first bite is free, then you need to pay up. However, Sandy isn't tempted, with a whole bunch of rookie mistakes messing up the programming. There are some cool ideas, but overall, the implementation needs some serious refinement.

Betrayal at Krondor also gets a negative review for some substantial design flaws. It eats up too many resources, and requires you to pay too much attention to IC bean counting. It also often refuses to recognise your accomplishments, leaving you just plain stuck when the plot can't be advanced properly. Needs some serious debugging.

Day of the Tentacle, on the other hand, is a fun Lucasfilm adventure game which really takes advantage of CD audio to allow you to hear every line of hilarious dialogue. The visuals look pretty amusing too. Once again, their development team has pulled together something both high quality and fun.

Dragon Magazine Issue 199: November 1993


part 3/5


Role-playing reviews: Star Wars time again. The long-term success of this franchise really is quite impressive, when you look at it. A big part of this has to do with creator ownership. By controlling the licencing directly, instead of having to go through layers of studio interference, George managed to get a greater quantity and quality of spin-off stuff than most similar properties. (LotR has always been hampered by the licensing split between the sillmarilion stuff and the main 4 books, Titanic, Terminator, Indiana Jones, Aliens, and the like try gamely but resist being expanded into an entire universe because they're a bit too focussed on one thing. Harry Potter and Twilight could be worldified, but their creators seem to want to avoid being pigeonholed. Avatar has potential, but It's still too soon to see if it capitalises on it and becomes a decade-spanning franchise. ) Part of this is the RPG, which has managed a steady flow of supplements for years now. Last given a big feature in the magazine in issue 155, it's time to take a good look at what it's come up with again.

Star wars second edition is one of those cases where there are lots of incremental improvements over the first one. And a bit of bloat too, but not so much as to spoil the fun. A little knowledge of the EU may come in handy as the RPG has fed that in recent years, and in turn draws upon it. But it's still a fun setting, and a fun system that doesn't do too badly emulating it. The association between gaming and Star Wars can continue profitably for quite some time longer.

Heir to the empire, Dark force rising & Dark empire sourcebooks show just what a huge impact Timothy Zahn had turning Star Wars from a trio of riproaring movies into a remotely credible setting. There's a vast amount of information that can be converted, statistics of people, new worlds, expansion on the nature of the force. This does include some stuff that isn't very useful for gaming, and a certain degree of padding, but what do you expect. At least we have a decent idea now what happened after return of the jedi.

The politics of contraband is a collection of smuggling based adventures. Unfocussed and full of typos, Rick doesn't enjoy this at all. Develop your ideas better.

Twin stars of kira does rather better. Essentially a series of adventures bound together by an interstellar road trip, it's still a mixed bag, but there's more hits than misses.

Supernova sets things in a solar system about to go nova. This presents many problems that can't be solved by combat, including some tough ethical questions. Let's face it, there's no way you're saving everyone this time around. One for somewhat more experienced and mature players.

On top of that, there's microreviews for all the other 2e products released so far. Villains, locations, and a GM's screen. As before, it's a mixed bag really, but you should be able to get a pretty decent campaign out of this lot. West end games are coming out of this deal quite profitably.  


Romancing the stoneskin: Here we go. The floodgates are well and truly opened on the Stoneskin topic, to the point where they've given it it's own special, in addition to the usual forum. Quite a substantial one too. This is going to take some pretty serious work to get through.

Erin D. Smale has a ton of suggestions, many which don't require changing the rules. Anything with 3-4 attacks per round will burn through stoneskin like a hot knife through butter. Sahuguin, bears, even carrion crawlers (oh yes, gotta love the carrion crawlers in this situation) If that fails, reduce the number of attacks it protects against or the duration. If they can't precast it miles in the future, it merely becomes a nuisance like Haste.

Scott Isaacs points out the many things stoneskin does sod-all against. Energy, disease, acid, poison, mass attacks. Many of these are entirely accessible to most humanoid attackers. They will adapt.

Jason Papadopoulos suggests going back to the 1e version of stoneskin, which doesn't protect against as many attacks. Simple as that.

Daniel Harms is another person who thinks making the duration nonpermanent is the primary fix needed here. Nerf durations in general! Let's lay that groundwork for later editions!

Mae Tanner suggests that rocks fall, everybody dies. Lots of little hits are once again the way to go.

The Baron suggests implementing the diseases in the Complete Wizards Handbook that stem from overuse of a particular school. Mean. Granite dust can also be surprisingly expensive and hard to obtain too.

Jason A. Goode shows us all the ways a Dragon can really mess a stoneskinned character's day up. Breath weapons and spells really ruin your day.

Thomas B. Knoedler wonder where all the money is coming from. Well, maybe it's because they are mowing through their enemies so easily at the moment. Treasure does normally come in the thousands in D&D.

Mark Macedo suggests lassos and contact poison. Have them wake up later with their gear gone. It'll take quite a bit of work to make back the money to refresh your spells after that.

Michael Tresca also suggests rocks fall. Or people keep bags of gravel just to throw in your face. Exactly what swashbucklers would do, anyway.

Rick Hood stepped up the number of monsters after his players discovered Stoneskin. It's all about keeping the challenges appropriate to the party.

John Gartner III reminds you to screw them over by having any attempt to cast other touch based spells on them fail and use up a charge. This is particularly mean if they've been taking damage from spells and really need healing pronto.

Peter B Sears suggests wild magic zones. Watch where you rest to buff yourself up.

Soren Thustrup goes back to the basics and reminds you not to roll, just to subtract a charge every time someone attacks them. Quick and easy.

Timothy J. Pudoff mitigates the problem by not letting them rest after every battle. You have 24 hours to save the princess before she gets sacrificed to the volcano god!

J. R. Katzman uses lots of little spikes, whether thrown darts, or in a pit trap. Every single one counts separately. They'll soon add up.

Scott Brownlee just wants to change the rules. Do you need too, when they're as easy to twist as this.

Nathaniel Deily also wants you to full on degrade the spell to reinforce your authoritah. Don't let the same trick keep on working.

Lev Osherovich suggests making stoneskin self only. That'll cut the abuses by a big fraction too, then you can charge them a premium by making stoneskin other a higher level spell. The crappiest kind of nerf. I hate it when they do that.

Alfredo M. Cunha suggests that you shouldn't be able to maintain the same spell twice simultaneously. There are certainly some systems where that is the case.

Roger Rhodes also cuts the duration, although not as drastically. You can't give them free extra resources because they saved carefully earlier. Just like real governments then

Alan Lauderdale suggests that the enemy corner the market on diamond dust. Then you can make a whole adventure out of trying to get stoneskin back.

Jay Knioum reminds us that dispel magic is useful against any kind of persistent buff. Spamming your enemy with it just before going into battle could well become a standard tactic in a magic-heavy world.

S. Morgan also goes the magic heavy route. Zap them with magic missiles and the like. Remember how even a single fireball devastates an entire party.

Sean Milner goes psionic. We know by now how good that is at bypassing the normal resistances and messing with your mind. Stone skin won't keep their brain from exploding from the inside out.

Paul Wrider recommends keeping exactly how much protection they have left secret. That'll keep complacency at bay a bit.

Wade Hoover suggests selective bookworms. Just take out the problematic spell and have done with it.

William S. Hickey suggests magical items that are designed specifically to penetrate stoneskin. Everything has it's counter, especially if it's pretty common.

Aaron R. Smith wants to give stoneskin a visible manifestation, and make having active stuff like that socially unpopular. Not that this'll stop people who sleep in full plate and carry 50 pounds of gear, including half a dozen weapons.

Anonymous tells you to simply not give any xp for any encounter that was no challenge at all. I think that's virtually an official rule anyway.

David Goodwin has the rather silly suggestion that as granite is radioactive, they'll start suffering from that eventually. Trace radiation like that is unlikely to affect anyone.

And finally, Michael T. Scott suggests switching worlds if all else fails. Different laws of physics can justify any changes you like, including complete removal of problem powers. Presto chango. So once again, any problem is solvable by an attentive DM.

Dragon Magazine Issue 199: November 1993


part 4/5


The dragon project: Dunklezahn! This isn't magazine exclusive material! :pouts: On the other hand, that also makes it interesting because it is strongly tied in with the larger setting of Shadowrun (as many of you will have known as soon as you heard the name) The first corporate dragon, he's become quite the celebrity over the years, and probably made quite substantial amounts of profit from doing so. Sometimes he appears on chat shows, with the aid of a human interpreter to act as a mouthpiece for broadcast. Sometimes he experiments with VR, although that takes some pretty expensive and clunky custom jacking interfaces. And as a big, public political player, he has plenty of powerful friends and enemies amongst the megacorps, and is the subject of much gossip and speculation. Much of this is presented through IC excerpts from chatrooms and the like, in the same form they use in the actual sourcebooks. The stats are somewhat abbreviated, but he's pretty superhuman in all stats, well able to take down an entire party singlehandedly. Course, that won't stop him from being assassinated in future metaplot events, but that's a story for another time. This does plenty to show how a dragon can be a viable character in shadowrun's fusion of fantastical and futuristic ideas. And as a reminder of quite a few other cool bits of gaming's history, it's another joy to read. Respect to the people who sorted out this one, making it a lot more than a character sketch that just happens to use a system not normally covered in the magazine.


The role of books: A night in the lonesome october by Robert Zelazny is a playful crossover of victoriana, featuring sherlock holmes, dracula, frankenstein, rasputin, and the elder gods. It's good fun, but also a bit silly, and the illustrations make it seem even more so.

Dr Dimension by John deChancie and David Bischoff gets a negative result for bringing back the worst aspects of the pulp genre, including blatant sexism, paper thin characters, and ludicrous slapstick humour. Even the clifhanger ending feels forced and trite. Even Buck Rogers managed better.

Galatea in 2D by Aaron Allston shows he can do full novels as well as short fiction and game books. The protagonist has the power to pull things out from paintings, which is a pretty cool power, but not one suited to unprepared magical spectaculars. This means he's still in serious danger from the people who want to exploit him, and has to use his imagination to deal with his rival. The final ending is a particularly good example of a literary magic battle. What will he turn his writing talents too next?

Powers that be by Anne McCaffrey and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough is a fun romp, but doesn't really work as worldbuilding, with John having no trouble picking holes in it's setting and plot. Like star wars, it's more fantasy than sci-fi, so you may want to disengage your critical brain and just enjoy the ride.

Death comes as an epiphany by Sharan Newman takes us back to 12th century france, for a more historically rigorous bit of worldbuilding than most. This does not come at the expense of story, however, creating something that's not quite fantasy, but still pretty interesting reading. I guess you'd compare it more to the modern day continuations of now historical novels such as the Bronte ones.

Dinosaur fantastic, edited by Mike Resnick & Martin H Greenberg, is one of those short story anthologies he specialises in. This time, of course, it's dinosaurs. Cashing in on Jurassic Park, the majority of these involve bringing them back in the modern day world, but there's a substantial minority of time travel ones where we go to them too. This includes a story in which we wind up in the Great race of Yith role, sending our consciousness back to bodyswap with a tyrannosaur, and a Loch Ness monster story, which fits in pretty easily actually. Dinosaurs can actually cover a surprisingly large conceptual space, and they've managed to get the good authors in as usual.


Sage advice: Do lizard men get benefits from using shields (yup. They're adders, not basic number setters.)

I thought aquatic elves couldn't be spellcasters. (Only on some worlds)

Why are Lolth and Vhaerun's stats different between Drow of the underdark and Monster mythology, Which is right? ( Monster mythology. They're better standardized with all the other gods in there. )

Can you combine trick shots (no, thank god. Elves may get to be better just because they're elves, but they aint that good.)

How do spellfilcher powers work? (Same as regular wizard spells. Spell level, caster level, blah blah blah.)

How do dragon caster levels and THAC0's change as they grow. ( Quite a bit. They're not primary spellcasters, but they're nothing to be sneezed at. )


Ready, aim, Fire!: :sigh: You're recycling titles again. But not topics, it seems. As one of our final basic D&D treats before they get kicked out, Bruce is giving us the weapon mastery details for siege weapons. Ballista, Springals, Light and heavy catapults are already ready to kick butt, but now you can specialise in them to even greater degrees. Ok, so that's the kind of option most PC's aren't going to bother with, unless they're 36th level and enjoying the supreme generalissimo stage too much to move up to immortaldom and being a small fish in a big pond again, but it's nice to have. Slightly more recycled is the talk on guns. Seems like people want to put them in every world. And since Mystara is one of the kitchen sink settings, and it'll soon be out of his hands anyway, Bruce decides to capitulate and figure out a logical place for them in the setting. Those obnoxious Heldanic knights are trying to bogart the technology, but it is spreading anyway. And since this stuff is rather dangerous to the user, it's being used more frequently in cannons than it is hand pistols, as you can light the things with fuses and make sure you're well back when they go off. As with the siege weapons, we get mastery stats for hand guns, and 4 sizes of cannons. Again, it's not useless, but it does feel a bit like a sour parting shot when you consider a year or so ago Bruce said he didn't want to include them in this setting. So this is fairly interesting from a historical point of view, and useful from a mechanical one, but a bit depressing too. Homogenisation sucks. And of course politics sucks too, but that goes without saying. Decidedly mixed feelings here.


Dragonmirth is all dressed up and ready to play. Yamara is still absent as Ogrek is his usual charming yet infuriating self.  Twilight empire is in no mood for a prolonged mexican standoff. We have a battle to win here people. Lets get too it.

Dragon Magazine Issue 199: November 1993


part 5/5


Forum is relatively small compared to the stoneskin special earlier. Jonathan Keepers thinks Oklahoma city's fandom is unpleasantly exclusionary. Oooh. This seems very specific and potentially flamewar provoking. It'd probably work better on an internet forum though.

K. W. Brown has a rather interesting observation on the lead bill issues the minis industry has been facing of late. It's the amateurs that get lead poisoning. People who actually work with it take precautions and usually avoid the issues. I suppose it's the same kind of issue that results in doctors hardly ever getting sick.

Ann Dupuis shows once again that she really does her research, talking about RPG's where violence is not the primary focus. GURPs comes off particularly well, perhaps because she's currently writing for it. Having tons and tons of noncombat skills and advantages does allow you to take your focus off the kicking ass.

Anonymous seems to be becoming quite the regular in here, with another contribution in quick succession. That old rule about always needing names is well and truly gone. Anyway, his problem is that their game has recently started developing more depth and actual roleplaying, apart from one player who is stick in hack-and-slash mode. This is presenting increasing tension. You may have to get rid of him. We've been through this before. Sometimes you just have to cut the chaff to move forward. Bigger isn't always better.


Through the looking glass: We kick things off here with another game review. Dragon Lords (not to be confused with Dragonlord, Dragonlords, or The Dragonlords, which are three entirely different products, also mentioned in here at various times. :§ ) is a hex based wargame where each side commands a wizard, and a bunch of dragons with knights riding them. Fairly simple ruleswise, it uses double-blind maneuvering and lots of breath weapon varieties to give you tactical options, making winning about outguessing your opponent more than luck or mechanical superiority. Once you get the hang of things like facing and altitude manipulation, things go quite quickly. Robert quite likes it, but thinks it would be improved by a bit more crunch. Well, you are an expert. That's perfectly normal.

Our first mini review is a trio that use the same lycanthropic transformation gimmick as last issue. Only this time it's a female werewolf. I smell bandwagon jumpers. We also have an absolute ton of undead. A duo of skeletal cavalry. A trio of amorphous ghosties. A trio of still sleepy vampires. Another trio, this time of undead pirates. Anyone can die, and nearly anyone can return, albeit not always in good condition. The living are hitting back though. A diorama of an adventurer captured by Orcs. Tons of little details in this one. A model of the oft-neglected packhorse. A mule'd be better. A wizard reading a scroll. Whether mighty magic will be forthcoming is up to you. A relatively small tank. And a trio of dark elves, ready to shoot you with (probably poisoned) crossbows. The girl looks like she's the one in charge, which is as it should be.


TSR Previews: As is often the case, christmas is a big one. The forgotten realms gets a full 3 products this month. Volo's guide to the north revisits another area they covered a few years ago from a different, more flavourful perspective. PG2: The player's guide to the forgotten realms also rehashes things in a crunch free, newbie friendly fashion with lots of IC moments. I think they're starting to go round in circles here. The Harpers series also fills up, with book 7, Soldiers of ice. Flawed heroes find redemption? Good for them.

Dark sun sees gulg and nibenay still locked in persistent grinding conflict, in DSM3: Marauders of Nibenay. And the PC's are once again stuck in the middle, trying to make the best of things. How are you gonna profit from this one? Meanwhile, a fairly famous name joins the novel team. Simon Hawke! I remember when he was Nicholas Yermakov, and get a short story published in issue 94. He's kept at it and come quite a way with us. Anyway. Outcast is part one of the Tribe of one trilogy. Starring a half-elf/half halfling. Great. Now everyone'll want to play one. Brooding loners do tend to do well in these stories.

Ravenloft gets a second Monstrous compendium appendix, MC16. This one is focussed on individual named creatures with full histories, just to make things more personal. Not every monster is a mook or a darklord. There's plenty of middle ground, and the creatures in that do quite a bit of ironically appropriate suffering as well. Put them out of their misery, one way or another.

Dragonlance looks at Ariakus, our third villain to get the spotlight. This egotistical twat thinks he can take Takhisis' place as supreme lord of evil. That's not going to end well. Still, could be fun finding out how.

The 1993 collector cards get a special limited edition factory set. See, if you just bide your time for a bit, you can get them all far more efficiently. Like a cobra, you should be silent, swift and deadly. Snipe like a veteran ebayer for great profit.

D&D updates the setting to reflect that another year has passed in AC1011, the second poor wizards almanac. 240 pages of mystaraey goodness. Well, they haven't been doing much of that lately. Good to see it get a little more love, rather than patronising disconnected intro products.

Buck Rogers High adventure cliffhangers gets it's only supplement. War against the Han. Good to see them being a little more cautious this time around. But it's still a big boxed set that possibly cost more to produce than they sold it for. They really are starting to lose touch on what the market wants.

Course, standalone books are always a gamble, but you've gotta keep trying them, or you're definitely doomed to eventual obsolescence. Green Fire by Louise Titchener features war combined with sexual tension between a king and a water goddess. Although probably without the actual sex, given their current company policies.


As this is the 4th issue in a row in which they lose a regular member of staff/column,  there is the very real feel that the magazine is fragmenting at this point. We lost most of the old guard in 86, now the second wave are largely replaced as well. And it feels like they're actively burning through the last of their basic D&D articles before they dump that as well. As with last issue, they manage some pretty cool articles, but it almost feels in spite of the organisation rather than because of it. They're too busy gearing up for the next issue, which is now going to be even more of an effort with the management changes. Let's hope they can pull off something at least as spectacular as issue 100, hopefully even better.

Dragon Magazine Issue 200: December 1993


part 1/10


172 pages. Oh boy. This issue is both a christmas one and a centennial. Not often you get a conjunction like that. And as a result, they really go to town, with the largest issue in the entirety of the magazine's history by a large margin. Plus the quintessential symbol of early 90's excess, a holographic foil cover. That's gonna push up the production costs. So I've decided to do something a little special for this issue as well. I've been rather enjoying the works of channel awesome in recent months, so I decided to see if I could do stuff like that, since I have the equipment, and I'm no stranger to audio editing. And a good month of frantic writing, filming and editing later, (video recording and editing is waaay more hassles than music) here we are. I've filmed video sections for many of the articles, in which I elaborate on details, take different tangents to my print reviews, or simply goof around. So get ready to enjoy what is almost certainly going to be the longest, most elaborate review in this series. I seriously hope you like it, and it was worth all the effort.



In this issue:


Our statement of ownership occupies a fairly prominent place on the contents page. It shows this hasn't been a great year for them, numbers-wise. With an average of 86k, but a last issue result just over 80k, they've shed readers about as badly as they did in 86-87, with a higher proportion of losses being from the newsstands than the subscriptions. This means that despite the big celebrations this issue, they're probably actually running on a tighter budget than they used to. Oh well, got to speculate to accumulate. I suspect they're hoping this'll win some people back, and maybe even draw in a few new readers with it's spiffy attention grabbing cover. Good luck to them.


Letters: A complaint about Allen Varney's reviews in issue 197. It became a little too much soapboxing about wider issues, and not enough about the product at hand. This is a very interesting topic indeed. A review cannot help but have aspects of the reviewer's personality bleed through into it. (I'm sure you could figure out a good deal about me through proper analysis of this writing, and even more from the video stuff, since so much of communication is tone as well as actual words.) Indeed, to completely do otherwise would negate the opinion part that makes a review valuable. Similarly, products don't just spring into existence from a vaccum. Knowledge of the people producing them, the fashions of the time and place they were made, these are important in making an informed judgement about a product. Likewise, knowledge of a reviewer will help you know if their opinions are likely to be in accord with yours, so you can make an informed purchase. Nevertheless, Allen concludes that he might have gone a bit too far, and he'll try to avoid repeating that mistake.

A letter from someone who's uncovered their old character sheet, and wants to know what their old magic items do. However, they can't seem to find descriptions of them in any official products. This is because your DM was liberally stealing from mythology, giving you overpowered literary items that haven't got official incarnations yet. Monty haulism like this is perfectly normal in young games.

Speaking of young games, our next letter is from someone who has recently had two tweenage girls join the group, with the real possibility of a third coming along soon. This has seriously cramped the style of the older people in the group. Oh suck it up and get to teaching them to roleplay properly. The sooner you do, the sooner they'll cease to be a problem. We were all amateurs at some point.

A letter by someone interested in getting into PbM due to their recent article. A move approximately akin to getting into britpop in 1997 fashion-wise. Oh well, I'm sure someone, somewhere is still doing it the old fashioned snail mail way.


Editorial this month is done by Kim, Roger and Dale working in concert. It wouldn't be a century celebration without a good look back at the story so far. Again, the fact that this is a quite well co-ordinated changeover compared with Kim's abrupt departure in 86 is made pretty clear. Everyone is still in touch with each other, and working in the same buildings, even if they're doing different jobs now. All the acrimony can remain focussed on the accountancy people. (who probably aren't happy at this issue being bigger without having a corresponding price increase to gouge the rubes. )

Kim is full of nostalgia about his early years at the magazine. Really, he was tremendously lucky to get on board the magazine just as it started to really rocket upwards, and that he was one of the few people applying who was primarily an editor rather than a gamer. That's not to downplay his contribution at all, as it was that experience that played a big role in pushing the magazine up to a new level of professionalism. In return, he got to enjoy the experience of working on stuff a lot more interesting and varied than newspaper journalism, and get the experience of being a celebrity for a few days a year, just enough time to really enjoy it without getting a bloated ego. It really is a very good life for him. He should feel very lucky he got not just one, but two chances to do this.

Roger's reminiscences are less personal, and more concerned with the great articles he's got to preside over during his tenure. There really are rather a lot, particularly from the early years. Just as with Kim, he got to be around when they tried out a lot of new things. But even more than Kim, he had to work ridiculously hard, as he became editor of two magazines just as the magazine's readership was starting to shrink again. He managed to turn that around for a while, but he must admit it's worn him down over the past few years, and he's glad for the change of scenery. It can never really be as special as the first time, can it.

Dale's section is relatively short, as he is still the junior member by comparison. Most of it is actually comprised of his side of the hiring process, and thanking the rest of the staff, with little information actually about him. He's still very much just one of the crew, no time to grow an ego. And with the top layers of the company still young enough that they won't be retiring any time soon, he'll also have to work very hard and be quite patient to advance further. The company is ossifying a bit, isn't it.

Dragon Magazine Issue 200: December 1993


part 2/10


Magic from the gods: We started off this year with some african stuff and new kits, and it looks like we're going to end it that way as well. Technically, this lot are all wizard kits. However, the strict distinction between arcane, divine and psionic power sources isn't really source material appropriate, so a lot of them have limited access to cleric spells amongst their special benefits. Which definitely alters their focus, without having to deal with the massive XP penalties multiclassing inflicts.

Baule Diviners get access to the elemental sphere, and lots of social respect for absolutely no penalty beyond all their initial proficiency slots being chosen for them. Bit of a no brainer, providing you have the wis to specialise as a diviner in the first place. But then, people do frequently neglect the humble diviner and their puzzle solving powers. Knowing they can also flame strike their way through problems goes some way to making them more glamorous.

Bokor are one of the most interesting kits I've seen in a while. Both benefits and hinderances are pretty significant. Bigger Hit dice. Access to the chaos sphere. Automatically getting to become undead after death. Uncontrolled shapeshifting. And being pariahs in most places for being weird and satanic. They aren't going to get to live a normal life anytime soon, at least until they have enough spells to be able to polymorph themselves back on a daily basis. (and even then, the wild surges'll keep things from being too safe. ) One could certainly be a valued member of a party, but you couldn't really rely on them. Their powers will be troublesome sooner or later.

Houngan are ye old african voodoo stylee wizards. Which means lots of dealing with the spirits. This means they get access to the clerical Necromancy sphere to supplement their wizardly necromantic specialisation. Since this puts stuff like remove paralysis, neutralize poison and resurrection in their grasp, that takes quite a bit of the pressure off clerics to hold back and play support, for the party isn't so totally screwed if they're lost.

Mambo are the feminine form of spirit-talker. They get the same extra necromantic access, plus a moderately stereotypical charming power that'll do a bit to compensate for the schools restricted by their specialisation. Their advantages seem to well outweigh their hinderance.

Zande Witch Women are the african inquisition, rooting out Bokor and other spiritual nasties wherever they may be. As with our own inquisition, they look pretty scary, and often go too far, making them not hugely popular amongst the public. But with cursing, access to the Combat sphere (which again goes some way to compensating for their forbidden schools) and the ability to have a human bonded "familiar", their bonuses once again significantly outweigh their downsides. Aside from being very stingy with bonus proficiencies, these are a pretty badass lot, quite possibly capable of outshining less interesting character builds. Allow into your game with only with caution and an appropriate backstory.


The wizards three: It's only the 4th instalment, and this is now cemented as one of the most eagerly awaited parts of the magazine. No surprise that it's appearing here, in this epic special issue. This time, they get down to business relatively quickly, trading more spells than they've managed before in a single sitting. 9 of them are new, and I'll examine them in more detail in a minute, while one is a bit of cross-promotion for their supplements. (gotta collect 'em all!) Not that it's devoid of drama. Mordenkainen is revealed to be fully aware of Ed's presence, the Simbul makes a guest appearance, and Dalamar gets taken down a peg by the others yet again. He just can't catch a break, can he. No matter how powerful you get, there's always a few people even better out there.

The spells are as useful as ever. Shadow bolt inflicts minor damage, plus various penalties on their actions due to pain. Since there is a shortage of good offensive 2nd level spells, this might just be the one to fill that slot.

Slowspell is an interesting little metamagic effect that delays when spells take place. This can inconvenience enemies, and be used tactically to benefit your own spellcasting if you plan ahead.

Acid Bolts are another basic blasty effect. Aside from the greater damage and different type, they're just a variant on magic missile, with no special effects to mark them out from the crowd.

Mordenkainen's involuntary wizardry sees him dip into his personal library and once again get metamagical. Make them waste a random spell. Way to ruin the careful plans of your adversaries.

Bonebind gives you another method for incapacitating undead, with the potential for comical applications as well. Just the thing for players who still hold a grudge about being aged or level drained.

Bloodstars give a wizard 7 orbiting orbs that let them kick the asses of a whole party like a fully powered up ship in R-type or Gradius. Just the thing for a villain about to face a climactic battle who doesn't have any minions near to split party fire.

Lightning Storm is pretty weak for it's level, with the only real selling point being the fact that it leaves you unscathed. Really, any combat spell more than twice the level of fireball should be substantially bigger or more damaging. Someone didn't roll well on their spell research attempt.  

Alamanther's return lets you play mimic, casting any wizard spell you've ever seen, but don't know personally. Fill all your 9th level slots with this, and you could almost be a spontaneous spellcaster, eschewing study for mischievous improvisation. If you've made it that far, you deserve a little relaxation.

Tempestcone is a more offensive variant on Ed's own Spell Engine from issue 100. How very appropriate a callback. Instead of turning them into harmless light, it absorbs any magic energy cast at you and turns it into magic missiles. Truly a godspell, letting you change the whole nature of a fight in one fell swoop. Beware fighters though, since you can't cast out of it any more than people can cast in.

Looks like Ed has brought the awesome here, just as he has many times before. There may be a few balance issues, but that's standard with experimental magic, and it seems they're as often overpowered as under. Just exercise the usual caution and make sure they have to actively hunt down the rare and powerful spells on an individual basis. I wonder if he'll have anything to contribute to issue 300. Certainly seems like there's no end to his popularity at the moment, but we know how quickly that can change. Good luck.

Dragon Magazine Issue 200: December 1993


part 3/10


The color of magic: Reskinning and type substitution. Two fairly valuable ideas that still need a bit of pushing onto the public. Remember, everything in a roleplaying system is an abstract idea, not a reality. This means you're free to do all kinds of things to said ideas. Do not listen to the literal-minded people who want to make massive twists to the system in the name of realism, or those who insist that the rulebooks are holy writ, the letter of which is to be adhered to over the spirit of adventure and creativity contained within. So this encourages you to create many many spell variants that are basically identical mechanically to existing ones apart from the way they look, and the types of immunities and vulnerabilities they are subject too. This includes four sample characters and the specific quirks of their magical education. From fire to spider themed, it all looks pretty easy to implement, and will make plundering the spellbooks of the defeated all the more fun for players. And so we move a step closer to highly abstracted indie games and effect based universal resolution systems being common design elements. I find myself rather approving.


Familiar faces: Looks like David Howery has a bit to contribute to this feast of articles as well. Familiars are certainly an, um, familiar topic in the magazine, with lots of big names having contributed articles on them in the past. Stephen Inniss's wide ranging creature contributions in issues 84 & 86, P. N. Elrod's roleplaying advice in issue 147, and Len Carpenter's upgrading spells in issue 181. David's contribution is less about adding new stuff, and more about making the most of the existing rules. There's quite a few normal animals, and several monsters from the monster manual that would make appropriate familiars, but don't have a place in the PHB table. Instead, you can roll on this d% table, which includes lots of natural animals, and a couple of kyoot mini dinosaurs to grab the jurassic park fanboys. There are separate tables for if you try your summoning on the sea or in the underdark, and another one for users of the Complete Humanoids Handbook. It's all very easy to use, and probably won't upset the balance of your game, but isn't as  impressive or imaginative as Stephen and Len's contributions. I may have to whip up an even more expanded table integrating all of these bits and pieces. So overall, this is neither brilliant or terrible.


Bazaar of the Bizarre: Ooh. An item that has plenty of potential for magical variants, but hasn't been exploited yet. Magical keys. A little harder to think up new versions of than magical figurines, but certainly not insurmountable. What will they hide or reveal?

Keys of Inquiry force you to tell the truth. Not a particularly surprising power, really.

Map Keys are a lot more interesting, revealing details the original cartographer knew about but left off. This could mean nothing, or be incredibly valuable from adventure to adventure. Certainly a valuable thing to acquire if you're a treasure hunter.

Courier Keys are another solution to the problem of transmitting secret messages. Like Johnny Mnemonic, they lock the info in your head where no-one can get at it until another key opens it up. No torture will help get the info out, although you may wish it could.

Keys of Reunion come in pairs, and always point towards the other one. Splitting the party is rarely a brilliant idea, but this makes it a little more survivable and solvable.

Saddle Keys lock you into one so you can't fall off. Course, if you drop the key, things'll become very awkward, since you're stuck on the back of your mount. Better have at least one member of the group who doesn't need this kind of help.

Shapeshifter keys lock anything it's turned on into their current form. Another one that'll be very useful indeed in certain situations, and not at all in others. Remember, it's just as valuable used on you as on your enemies, and some creatures are pretty scary even with those powers removed.

Grave Keys can unlock any crypt, and bring the dead out to serve you. I'm sure adventurers'll find plenty of use for that, even though it seems somewhat morally dubious.

Keys of Silence lock up your vocal chords, like the speak no evil monkey from the last bazaar. There's more than one way to shut up an annoying blabbermouth, and a good thing too.

Spider Keys part webs and protect you from spider poison. Another one you won't use in that many adventures. Perhaps you should put all these keys on a single chain. After all, they wouldn't take up much space, and would be much more convenient for one person to carry than magical rings.

Rogues keys boost your lock-picking skills. No surprise something like this turned up in the collection.

Keys of Translation are another one that'll be very useful some of the time. Every party needs something to help with languages, really. Otherwise you'll have to fill up your valuable spell slots, and that will reduce your adventuring effectiveness.

Dowsing Keys unlock any groundwater that may be beneath you. Course, the more you need a drink, the less you're likely to get it, but such is life. At least it won't break an athasian campaign like a Decanter of endless water would.

Wizard's keys boost your chances of learning spells. Good luck figuring that one out if you don't have identification magic. So lots of quirky and useful, but not hugely powerful items this month, as well as a few formulaic dull ones. Now, where do we fit them into our random tables?

When I was buying Dragon new on the shelves, I recall that landmark issues were a big deal at first.

50 was pretty big. My first issue of Dragon, ever, and it was full of cool stuff I remember to this day - a big Kzinti article and a bunch of articles about dragons that fascinated me.

100 was one I highly anticipated. I was deflated with the actual issue. All I can really remember was Gygax's story, which I felt, and still feel, took up way too much space. I also recall the game, which I never had any motivation to play.

200 I remember even less. It looks decent enough from what you've written, and I'll take a look at it in the Dragon Archive, but nothing about it really jazzes me. It could be that it was just the era my own life was in at the time - 2e had come and most of my groups had dropped away from playing for one reason or other.

300...well, I'll wait until this project reaches that far.

I remember buying Dragon on autopilot by this point. I purchased it more out of habit and the desire not to break my unbroken streak of issue 45 (45-49 I bought just after I bought 50, which was my first new issue) through the present. I think I may have given short shrift to the run of the mag from about 1990 until 1998 or so (whenever 3e tidbits began appearing).

Dragon Magazine Issue 200: December 1993


part 4/10


Arcane Lore returns after more than a year off, to give them another place to fit in new spells. Not that I've missed it with the Wizards Three taking up the slack. And since this is another collection of elemental and energy based stuff, it seems pretty obvious they haven't been getting any cool new submissions in the department lately. Like the ecologies, things sure aint what they used to be round here. Send more stuff in!

But enough pessimism. Let's talk about the good aspects of this article. For a start, it's fluff is set in Greyhawk, rather than the more usual FR stuff. Also, there's a decent amount of planes related stuff too. And all the spells are pretty handy for an adventurer. The worst that you can say about it is that it's a little formulaic. And that's hardly a surprise at this stage.

Frostfire lets you make your torches and bonfires heatless or actively cold. This'll keep you safe, or allow you to bypass many monster's energy resistances. That'll intimidate those red dragons.

Proficiency lets you use weapons you don't know how to, even violating class restrictions. (although gods'll still throw tantrums if their clerics break the rules. ) This is of course most useful to the wizard who casts it. Don't think you can go toe to toe with a fighter though. Hubris will get you.

Bands of Ice are your basic unpleasant magical imprisonment method, which'll also give the captive frostbite. Ahh, the joys of bend bars/lift gates rolls to escape. If anything says they don't actually want you to succeed, it's them.

Lightning Curtain is basically the electrical variant of wall of fire, with it's own variant on being drawn to metal, and being more dangerous to those wearing it. Another one to help wizards be smug in their lair when facing fighters.

Lightningcloak is a little more inventive and a lot more versatile, serving as both offence and defence for it's wearer. There is a compromise in that the protection ends when you discharge all the energy, but that's no biggie as you're unlikely to run out of other spells to blast in the interim at this level.

Death Shroud taps into negative energy for a similar, but even more powerful bit of garb that has a pretty decent chance of killing anyone who touches you. It does have rather expensive and hard to find material components though. Not one for casual use.  


The whistling skeleton: Now this really shows how much they're pushing the boat out. We get our first adventure in here in over 5 years. It's only a 3 pager, admittedly, but it's still refreshing. It's another Ed contribution, full of delightful whimsy and very clever use of magic indeed. It could be just a flavour encounter, or it could lead into a whole set of additional ones, with the characters within becoming recurring villains. It's certainly designed to lead on to another plot with a much bigger bad, and has surprisingly well developed characters given the amount of descriptive space they get. I suppose that's one of the secrets to his success. He leaves loose ends, but in such a fashion that you really want to investigate them, maybe to find a solution somewhere else in the many realms books out there, maybe to just make it up yourself. Either way, it makes for fun games, and just as crucially, lots more money for TSR, which is a pretty effective combination. Unlike certain other would be supplement mills, the Realms never seemed inherently scary, bound by a single author's vision, or set above you, which is probably a big part of why it lasted. So anyway, this isn't going to fill a whole session unless you expand upon it, but it's likeable, well done, and has a new spell in it too. Another real winner that makes this issue extra special to me.


Santa's little helpers: Another crossword. Not a huge one, but with lots of little words to figure out, it'll take quite a bit of work. One for those long post-christmas days where you're lying around, trying out all your new stuff and getting bored of the computer games already.

Another thing your posts jar my memory about is just how pervasive Ed Greenwood's presence was in this era and onward. Or, at least, how pervasive his presence seemed. I had - and have, to be honest - such an aversion to his stuff that it was definitely a factor in how much attention I paid to any given article or issue. I would get an issue, leaf through it, and any article with his name made my eyes glaze over. That hadn't always been so; his stuff earlier in Dragon's run wasn't bad. I recall also liking the articles about spellbooks and swords in spite of who wrote them. Once the Forgotten Realms and its flagship character, Elminster, took off, though, it seemed like the articles became more and more grating.

Dragon Magazine Issue 200: December 1993


part 5/10


The known world grimoire comes to an end as they prepare to migrate to AD&D. But Bruce is doing his part to ensure this issue really goes off with a bang. What is on the arm of the immortals? It's been a mystery for years. What can top cat people, dog people, turtle people, scorpion people, australian chameleon people and secret spiders? Flying elves and minotaurs? Actually, that's pretty good. And the geographic reasons why they would be there, but not have much to do with the rest of the Known World are better than usual as well. As we've come to expect from Bruce, these new races are available as PC's, although their advancement is somewhat slow compared to ordinary classes to make up for their powers, and their flight requires them to remain fairly lightly encumbered to avoid painful crashes. They might be a bit overpowered at 1st level, but things'll soon balance themselves out. This is indeed a pretty cool sendoff, although I again find myself wondering how it would have gone down if it had been Haldemar & co discovering them. Probably make some embarrassing faux-pas, get captured, and have to get away again. It also serves as a reminder that there are still big chunks of setting still lacking info, presenting hints at what is even further west (which of course, is wrapping round to the far east on the main global map. ) A nation of Ogre-blooded humans? There's some interesting unexpanded history there. So this is a goodbye, but certainly not a tying up of loose ends. Have fun figuring out what to do with the thousands of miles of territory still free to you.


Libram X: Another comic series starts here. And whadya know, it's another cosmic romance. Someone must be really eating them up. That or they really want to get more girls into roleplaying. With Twilight Empire obviously reaching it's conclusion at this point, this overlap'll hopefully help prevent them from losing more readers. It starts off in media res, with our narrator, Ace Bloodrunner, ( I bet that's not his real name) being pursued by something large and undeadish, for committing crimes as yet unknown. The girl is of course dragged into this, and I suspect she'll actually wind up being the primary audience identification character, as the normal person dragged into a universe stranger than they ever imagined. Man, it's a lot easier to see the formulas this time around.


Making the most of a module: Guess we're not completely devoid of filler, even here. Advice that you need to tailor existing modules to your players, and read them through properly so you're prepared, knowing what things are in there, how they relate to each other, and what tactics they will employ against the players? Issues 190, 157, and lots of other tangentially related articles say hi. This isn't a new topic at all. And with the use of modules as integral parts of people's campaigns fading somewhat, it does feel somewhat old skool in general, trying to lure people back into using and reusing the old stuff. This does not spark my interest at all, and feels like a bit of a letdown compared to the onslaught of special features we started off with. Oh well. We had to put up with things like V&V charisma in issue 100. We can breeze casually over this as well. Waiter! Serve up the next course!


Eye of the monitor: Last issue we saw Sandy give us his position on sex and gore in video games. This time, it's piracy's turn on the soapbox. Unsurprisingly, as someone who makes their living from the computer game business, he's against it. And to discourage us from it, he tells the story of the demise of the Atari ST, one of the most pirated systems of all time. With games so easy to crack, people had no hesitation in doing so, and eventually companies lost interest in making games when they could get more profit elsewhere. This reminds us of several things.

1: People will usually pay for things if you make doing so more convenient than stealing them, and those who don't probably wouldn't have become customers anyway.

2: What is and isn't considered acceptable behaviour is far more dependent upon social pressure from the people around you than what some rules and regulations say. (This probably contributes a lot to the general lawlessness of the early internet, as a lot of the time, it's hard to think of people you only meet on the net as real people. )

3: The asymmetry of production costs to reproduction costs is one of the great dilemmas of the information age, that we still have yet to come to a satisfying conclusion upon. The markups on things like computer games, CD's, movies, etc, compared to the cost of making the physical object are quite horrendous. Compare this to food, where they're often selling things for less than double the cost of production and getting to market, and some things, such as bread, are even loss leaders, and you can see another strong reason to consider the markups for easily copied luxuries somewhat unfair. And this is only going to get worse as more things become pure data, while the costs for gigabytes of storage space drop exponentially. This is hitting the music industry hardest, (probably because they were one of the slowest to react to the new distribution media ) but everything that can be turned into pure data has to deal with it. And when we really get the hang of 3D printers, even that distinction will get pretty blurry. Raw materials will always have a market, but capitalism will have real problems when most finished products can be copied in your own home for negligible costs. I seriously hope we can get there without vested interests suppressing advancement for their own profit, and find a way of organising society so the average person can live free of soul destroying drudgery yet still have something constructive to contribute to society. Normally I would have cut a soapbox piece like this off long ago, but hey, it is a special issue. If ever there was a time to indulge a bit of transhumanist utopianism, this is it.

Lands of Lore: The Throne of Chaos see Westwood strike out on their own with a rather good fantasy adventure. The usual class suspects, albeit without the cleric, must foil an evil witch via violence, magic, and puzzle-solving. Sandy isn't too keen on the amount of searching required, and you can do some sequence-breaking if you're cunning, but overall it's quite satisfying work.

Dangerous Dave is almost shockingly primitive for the era, and so gets poor marks. Get with the programming, man. You can't make a profit if the graphics don't grab casual shop browsers.

Monster Bashes 1-3 get a very short batch review. More so-so platformers, with sometimes fiddly controls. This is one genre consoles do a good deal better than PC's.

Soul Blazer seems to be somewhere between Zelda and Gauntlet in it's proportion of roleplaying to action. You play an angel saving the souls of people from monsters. As you do, the world outside the dungeons gradually fills up, which is a pretty neat way to go about it. It's not without it's flaws, but they seem forgivable this time. Make sure you save regularly and do a bit of grinding to level up.

Quote from: ColonelHardisson;409037Another thing your posts jar my memory about is just how pervasive Ed Greenwood's presence was in this era and onward. Or, at least, how pervasive his presence seemed. I had - and have, to be honest - such an aversion to his stuff that it was definitely a factor in how much attention I paid to any given article or issue. I would get an issue, leaf through it, and any article with his name made my eyes glaze over. That hadn't always been so; his stuff earlier in Dragon's run wasn't bad. I recall also liking the articles about spellbooks and swords in spite of who wrote them. Once the Forgotten Realms and its flagship character, Elminster, took off, though, it seemed like the articles became more and more grating.

It is interesting. His presence in the magazine did drop quite a bit when they first made the Realms into a full campaign world. But then it crept up again, until by the late 90's he had at least one article in every issue. I don't think he was writing quite as many full sourcebooks, but he always had a ton of little ideas that didn't have a place in full books. Plus, by that time, they knew they had a market for them, so he wouldn't have got so much editing of his worse excesses of tweeness.

Dragon Magazine Issue 200: December 1993


part 6/10


The centrefold of this issue is a big flowchart of the books you want to get to run a particular type of game. Splatbooks aplenty. Give us all yer money. This is then followed by similar charts for the various AD&D worlds. It's certainly not impossible for them to keep track of all the books they've released, even if you might find it so on the receiving end. Greyhawk and Dragonlance are notable by their absence though. Dragonlance is now pretty much novel only, while Greyhawk is falling into disrepair post-war.

Planescape! This makes this issue extra special. Our first hint that they're planning on really fleshing out the AD&D cosmology. And they already have the covers of 7 products to show us. (some of which are not the same as the final product.) The supplement mill is going to hit hard and fast with this one. People must have been sending them a lot of letters asking for more planar stuff.


The even more complete psionicist: A second set of kits to fill out obscure character options. The overall themes of the year are still being served quite nicely. Add these to the 4 from issue 191 and the 2 from 197, and we have 13, nearly as many as an actual complete handbook. If they add a few more sometime next year, they'll almost be caught up with the regular classes in terms of options. In any case, we probably have more options now than any one person will wind up playing, which is the important thing. Happy comparison shopping.

Mountebanks pretend to be wizards or clerics for profit and not being lynched by idiosyncratic inquisitions. Their kit has no mechanical benefits or penalties though, even on the proficiency level, making it pretty pointless to take though. Anyone'll have to fake it occasionally, no point specialising in it unless you really are in an oppressive regime full time.

Crystallites foreshadow next edition's psionic quirks. They bond with their crystal, giving them minor general boosts to their powers, at the price of having a focus object that can be stolen or broken, which results in penalties a lot more severe than the plusses. Whether this is a net benefit depends on how often you have intelligent opponents who do research and try tactics other than straight violence.

Dowsers get extra divination powers with their little rod, but suck at psychoportation and metabolism. As before, this will only be a net benefit if you're careful, and your DM doesn't put you in situations where you wish you had stuff from the interdicted disciplines.

Empaths get emotion sensing powers, but are sensitive to people's pain, and far more vulnerable to mindfucking in general. If you're playing in a psionics heavy campaign, this is another one that may well be more penalty than benefit. Plus you'll probably have to deal with Deanna Troi jokes on a regular basis, which is the kind of thing which gets tiresome fast.

Manipulators are larcenously inclined psychics who get boosted ability to mess with the composition of objects, including psychic lockpicking. They aren't so great at the mental manipulation stuff though, but hopefully someone else in the team'll be covering that. Another one that's pretty well balanced, only becoming a net benefit if you play to their strengths.

Psychic Surgeons, on the other hand, get a massive boost in using said power, and no particular penalties apart from having their focus tightened. Since part of their bonuses is increasing the odds of others getting wild talents, this is one that'll be very popular amongst adventuring parties as a support guy.

Spiritualists contact the dead by ouija boards and the like. This gives them some decent extra powers, but very unpopular anywhere necromancy is regarded as weird and dangerous. They may have to do a little disguising of their nature as well.

A very tightly balanced set on the whole, with the bonuses neatly cancelling out the penalties. Only one real free ride here, the rest, you'll have to actually work to reap the benefits of selecting. So I have few objections on both the twinkery front, and the underpowered one. Well done for treading that tightrope with only a few minor wobbles.

Dragon Magazine Issue 200: December 1993


part 7/10


Sage advice changes their header again, to a more blocky italicized shape. Skip likes to remodel every now and then. Keep the punters keen. Guess we had some extra budget for him to splurge as part of the special.

How long will it take to escape from the astral plane. Can you survive there. (Time works very slow there. Food will not be a problem. But there are soooo many other things that might be. Muahahahaha! )

What happens to a dual classed character who's original level is artificially boosted above their second one ( Complicated stuff. Don't worry your head over it. It's astronomically unlikely to happen in actual play. )

Can you film your adventures with a mirror of retention. Can filmed sunlight hurt undead ( No, you've gotta keep it in the diary room. No blogging on location with this device.)

What happens if you cast mirror image where there's not enough room for the duplicates (They overlap. Doesn't stop them from working.)

How many spells do dragons know. (Only what they can cast, apart from gold dragons. This is why they get associated with sorcerers next edition.)

What happens if you have two items which give you magic resistance (Take the best. On a 100% scale, the whole thing would break if they stacked.)

What's the chance a fireball has to hit (if you're in the area. It hits automatically. Wizards kick much ass. )

How do you make holy water. (recycled question. Kinda like the holy water Watch the colour. )

Do you lose a point of con if you die while regenerating (No, because you never died, just got hacked up for a while. Regeneration is nifty stuff. )

Do clerics automatically know all their spells (More recycling? Haven't had that in a while. Funny time to reintroduce it. Yes, they do. )

How long do powers from the wand of conjuration last (An hour. Level dependencies strike again! )

What can stop a wall of fire (Any solid barrier that won't be burned away. )

Can you cast a flaming sphere in the air (yes indeed. Useful little piece of kit.)

You're messing up words in your greyhawk products ( Well, isn't that the shame. Skip does apologize for the incompetence of our writers. It's been hard maintaining a consistent vision for greyhawk, with Gary gone. But we try. Yes sirree, we give it our best shot. :doffs hat: To make it up to you, here's the extra spheres for both the chinese and celtic pantheons. )


Minion matters: Some advice on how to run large battles using minis? It's hardly on the scale of the experimental reaching out in issue 100, where we saw both a whole new boardgame, and an article about LARPing. it is, however, handy in showing us how you can organise your army statistics better. Instead of one centralised bit of paper, little chits placed under the minis can be a lot quicker and easier, especially if you aren't operating a system using large numbers for hit points  and the like. Which I seem to recall being one of the primary rules quirks of Savage Worlds that makes it the Fast, Furious and Fun game it is. It's particularly good for large quantities of mooks, where you may well have to put out many identical minis that move semi-independently. Grab all those goblins from your Heroquest set, it's time to make those high level characters work for their supper! How often do name level fighters actually get to use their ability to mow down ≥ 1hd creatures to it's full potential in actual play? I guess it's another good reason to use Dragon Mountain. (not that they'll have an easy time getting to do that kind of head-on fight in there. ) So I think this is actually a surprisingly influential little article, moving on gaming design a little further. We have plenty of kudos to spread around this time, you can have your fair share.


Novel ideas is a second column that ceases to be a regular going concern this issue. Not sure why, since if anything, the proportion of books they're publishing is still increasing. But despite not explicitly stating that, this still feels like a farewell of sorts, as it looks back over the early years of the book department. In it we discover exactly why our first two D&D books by messrs Norton and Holmes have been airbrushed from the company history. As they were released before the proper department was founded, quite possibly in conjunction with some other company, they aren't on the records in the same way. And we already know that their record-keeping in the early years of the company was a bit spotty. Its funny how the average gamer in the 90's, even those at the company itself, actually knew less about their 70's output than we do now. Anyway, it seems that their primary output in the early days wasn't novels, but interactive game books such as the Endless Quest line and all it's gimmicky spinoffs. Books aimed at younger readers, books aimed at girls, books aimed at transformers fans, they spent a lot of effort trying to diversify the market. But they only really started having bestsellers when they tied things in with AD&D, the Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms settings in particular. Curiously, they devote little time to that era, assuming we already know about it. (and we do know rather more, since that was after they started running previews in the magazine on a regular basis. ) This is actually rather interesting, showing there was plenty of stuff TSR got up too in the early days that never even got mentioned in the magazine, due to choice or department co-ordination issues. Just the thing to make obsessive collectors gnash their teeth and have more things to hunt down. Still, it's not all nostalgia. Endless Quest is coming back! A whole new generation get to pick a path. Course, now they have to compete with computer games a lot more. Good luck capturing kid's imaginations the way they did at first.