Dragon Magazine Issue 213: January 1995


part 6/6


Through the looking glass: Robert runs out of soapboxes, having been going through them quite a lot over the years. Since I've also been finding myself low on enthusiasm lately, I can quite understand that. Let's just do the job, shall we. First we have some buildings. A greek style temple with a removable roof, so you can fight around, inside and on top of it. Some tavern tables, if you want a little more worldly comforts in your adventuring. And some little houses, of late medieval extraction. Fairly mundane settings really. Rather more fantastical are the creatures. Two nasty mechanical mechanical units for the Legion of Steel game. A somewhat insubstantial looking fire elemental. A rather heavily dressed lich, with ambitions of being king of the undead. A very veiny looking beholder. He needs more shut-eye, methinks. A rather short orc standard bearer. Well, they get the job because they're not the best warriors. A barbarian cyclops, with requisite pot belly. He needs a bit of fixing up, I'm afraid. Some similarly sloppy marines by the same company. A tremendously amusing diorama of an apprentice sorcerer accidentally summoning a demon. He's going to have a scary time when he realises what's happening. And a mysterious bearded guy with a lantern. I suspect he may wind up being used as a wizard or druid. Well, someone has to be exposition guy.


TSR Previews: Mystara is our biggest deal this month. Paired Accessories, the players and dungeon masters survival kits give you yet more gimmicky bits and pieces that they hope will make your game run more smoothly and be more fun. Neh. Can't really say I got much use out of these, and unlike the Tavenloft tarroka deck, the cards weren't very tactilely pleasing and tended to get lost.

Planescape has Planes of Law. Contrasting with planes of chaos, each of the 5 planes here get their own mini book. But just as with the last one, this seriously kicks ass, and has both cool descriptions and pretty maps. Just watch out for the metaplot, which intrudes even on the supposedly eternal and infinite universes.

The Forgotten Realms figures out an area it hasn't done a splatbook on. The Moonsea. Extra incentive for you to go kick Zhentarim ass and liberate the miserable people beneath them.  

Dragonlance also finds more little gaps in their history to fill, after much searching. Doug Niles gives us the story of the Kagonesti. They refused to fight. Which means when the war came to them, they were beaten easily and enslaved. See them suffer, muahahahaha!!!

On the generic side, they realize that they've run out of existing classes to create splatbooks for, and do The Complete Barbarian. The start of my dissatisfaction with them, and the first complete book I chose not to buy, this gave me the first inkling that they were just making stuff for their benefit, rather than ours, back in the day. So much for innocence.

Endless quest goes gamma world in American Knights. You get to save the world! Doesn't sound very in theme for the setting.


Lots of cool articles in this issue, even if many of them have been or will be recycled in actual books. So it seems the problem this time is not quality, but quantity of ideas. By relying on a few staff writers too much, and having most of the people present in the same office, there's the constant temptation to reuse material to make deadlines and pad things out. This of course means people buy less in the long term, because they feel gypped and don't want to spend money again on basically the same thing. Just another small factor to fit into their overall issues. The irony there being that you can pay new freelancers less and move onto new ones when they start becoming demanding. Still, they are coming out with at least some great material, so I don't consider this issue a waste of money at all.

Dragon Magazine Issue 214: February 1995


part 1/6


124 pages. Dark elves on the cover, even if their skin is more grey than black. But then, there's both the tedious racism issues that have resulted in alterations in the past, and the fact that grey is better camouflage against cave walls than jet black. Still, this doesn't seem to hurt their popularity, along with that of elves in general. So they're getting another themed issue. Altogether now! boo Yaay! Dwarves'll never catch up at this rate. Oh well. Let's see if they have any particularly unbalanced crunch to offer us.


In this issue:


Letters: We start off the letters page with some particularly blatant pimping by Tim Beach. Red Steel is perfect for high level games! Well, yes, but dis is still vewy vewy tacky. There is a time and place for self-promotion, and the letters and forum pages are not it.

A retirement letter from Ian Reid. He can't keep doing the PbM thing due to life issues. Don't let the games we created die once I'm gone. Not likely they'll be replaced with the internet taking over at the speed it is.

A letter from someone who noticed that the TSR staff have been engaging in self-insertion in their spellfire cards. This is a long cheesy tradition in the company, as Mike Nystul, Don Arndt and Dennis Sustarre have demonstrated. I just hope they wipe the cards off afterwards.

One of our regular cries of help from someone trying to find out of print books. Come on, you have the technology now. Make online downloads available, then we need never worry about this again.

A heartwarming tale of the magazine going above and beyond the call of duty to deliver to a subscriber. Good customer service does help quite a bit to keep buyers loyal. It's the difference between repeated purchases and going elsewhere. Course, some companies manage to suck at it and still keep going, because they advertise enough that there's always a new sucker. Read the feedback before you buy.


Editorial: As with last issue, the editorial suggests that our staff have been made very aware by management that their sales are down, and they'd better start turning things around or face the consequences. But of course making the wrong changes would alienate people and accelerate the decline. So what Dale's asking us to do this time is explain our reasoning behind changing the magazine in one direction or another. Okay, this means that any changes will skew in the direction of the intelligent and erudite readers, which isn't always the path for maximum commercial success, but It's a mistake I'd probably make in their position as well. Better to go out with integrity than to try and produce what a committee says, and probably lose both commercial and critical credibility. So this is one of those no good answer situations. They no longer trust their own vision, and they're following rather than leading. As is often the case, this makes for uncomfortable reading in hindsight.


First Quest: Harold Johnson brings a good deal of self-awareness to the writing of this column. Having noticed that many players were rather annoying when young, he one-ups them all by revealing that it's him who was responsible for the creation of Kender. Hrmmm. <_< >_> BURN HIM!!!! Add to that his was the original idea for A4, a classic instance of player screwage inflicted upon thousands, and I think he has earned his place in the deepest circle of gaming hell, somewhere between Byron Hall and the Blume Brothers. The rest of his article is a whole bunch of firsts. The first time he played, the first time he DM'd, the first time he ran at a convention. It's so hard to choose which was most significant. It's certainly entertaining reading, and highlights that gaming is a collaborative process, with lots of people beyond the actual writers contributing to forming books. I just wonder if the other participants remember things the same way.

Dragon Magazine Issue 214: February 1995


part 2/6


The complete half-elf: Hmm. Since elves can use nearly all the kits that humans or elves can use, they're already pretty spoiled for choice when customising themselves. It's an interesting question how this can meaningfully add to our options. By focussing on multiclass specific kits, which is the area half elves really stand out in compared to other races? That'll do it. Now the trick thing is coming up with archetypes that are both distinctive and emotionally resonant.

Shadowblades are your typical brooding fighter/thief loner, trying to match the popularity of Drizzt and hopefully failing. They're more oriented towards stealth and sudden violence than actual larceny, but that doesn't mean they're trusted.

Military Scouts combine their martial and roguish talents for official purposes. This means they're more trusted than most rogues, but also kept on a shorter leash by their bosses. You'll probably want to make sure the other players are also on good terms with the boss, as this'll make setting up plots a lot easier.

Crusaders are about as close as half-elves get to being paladins, although they're rather more focussed upon converting the ambivalent as well as smiting the unrighteous. Since they aren't strictly restricted to lawful good, you get more leeway to be a jackass in the process. There is something to be said for a good smite.

Wilderness avengers are the Fighter/Druid kit. What's the difference between a Fighter/Druid and a Ranger? Mainly how mean they can be in the process of protecting nature. They're another one that has social penalties for concrete benefits, which will probably push them into the brooding loner role again.

Spellarchers get the rather useful ability to deliver touch ranged spells through their arrows. Better get scouring those sourcebooks for the twinkiest combos to use with this option. Or just ask Elminster. He's sure to have a few ideas.

Aristocrats remind us that even half-breeds can be accepted into high society when they look this damn good. As with the other kits of this ilk, they get more money and social benefits, but have to live extravagantly. If you allow multiclassed characters to take a standard kit from either class, this is pretty pointless.

Rescuers are Cleric/Rangers, some of the nicest folks you'll ever meet. This means like any good medic, they'll heal up friend and foe after the fight, which may be rather a departure for many PC groups. If they come into conflict with even the paladins, they're probably doing it right.

Arcanists are the mage/cleric combo. They get 4 bonus proficiencies, bard legend lore due to their wide magical knowledge, and a social penalty for being bookish. Once again, a pretty good tradeoff, especially as long as they're in a party where someone else can play the face role.

Guild Mages are another one that sees the established order exploit their unique flexibility for nefarious ends. A well-trained half-elf who knows when to keep their mouth shut will always be in demand for a little Knock spell.

Prestidigitators put a rather more flamboyant spin on the Mage/Thief theme, for those who can't quite make it into Bard and the unlimited advancement it offers. Not that you should udderestimate them, or they'll leave you in nothing but your Bart Simpson underpants by the end of the show.

Redeemers our our first triple class kit. Fighter/Mage/Clerics who throw everything into defeating a particular favoured enemy. That doesn't sound very redemptive to me. Genocider just doesn't have quite the same ring though, does it. Still, that impressively Orwellian level of redefinition aside, the idea of getting bonuses against a particular enemy, at the price of an irrational level of hatred for them that'll prevent peaceful solutions is a pretty standard tradeoff.

Dilettantes are Fighter/Mage/Thieves who wound up that way through simple inability to stick to one thing. They won't be keeping up with the rest of the party when it comes to gaining levels, but have tons of tricks that may save your butt in an emergency. The perfect 5th member to a team, in other words.

Diplomats are also Fighter/Mage/Thieves, falling very much into the James Bond mould of ambassador who may have to do shady adventures in the course of following their countries interests. Well, who better to serve as mediator than someone who isn't of any one race? That's a pretty good niche to fill. And a party comprised of multiclass characters like this'll never be short of tricks to pull. Still, there is a moderate amount of uncompensated twinkitude in these kits, so I can't say I entirely approve of them. Elves will be elves, and even half-elves get substantial privileges simply due to the rule of cool.

Dragon Magazine Issue 214: February 1995


part 3/6


Bazaar of the Bizarre: Elven magical items? Now there's a surprise! I never would have guessed! They have so little to do with magic normally! Yeah, even the sarcasm is wearing thin.  

Arrows of Entrapment enweb whatever they hit. Just the thing for when you want to take down that pesky adventuring party intruding into your woods without killing them. And that can be damn handy in a narrative sense.

Enchanter bows make your arrow able to actually hurt things that need plusses to hit. Valuable, but dull.

Ironheart bows can morph into a hand weapon. It's a werebow! Give it intelligence and this might become extra fun. You could have all sorts of variants on this principle.

Bracelets of mental contact let you do the silent communication thing. It has a bunch of quirks and a limited number of charges, but people being unnerved by elves being really good in the woods won't know that.

The Harp of Courage is another no-brainer. It's approximately as good as casting bless on your buds and it's reverse on the enemy. Like magical battle standards though, it only works while up, so expect the player to become a target pronto. Invisibility might be a good idea.

Locks of security are a magical deterrent probably needed in a culture where nearly half the population are spellcasters. There'll always be someone who doesn't obey the social contract, especially in a pretty chaotic race.

The Manual of Nature's Harmony is the level boosting book for rangers. Surprised we don't have one of these already. Goes to show what can be missed out for ages.

Pendants of Augmentation are your basic metamagic effect to make spells bigger, harder, longer. This kind of thinking grows ever more frequent.

Pendants of Azuriel are your basic pair bonding item, seen previously in ring form. What better way for two adventurers to express their love than an item that says "I'm in deep shit! Come rescue me!"

Potions of resistance cure disease. I really don't see what this one has to do with elves at all.

Rings of Cooshee summoning bring the dogs from the valley to aid you. Like, totally day-saving, man. Just don't get all doggystyle with them, as that's just grody.

And Orcslayer swords ARE the ones from the Hobbit. They glow when goblins are near and kick ass. Nuff said. Really should be in the corebook along with rings of invisibility, given their popularity.  


The dragon's bestiary: Kercpa are sentient squirrel people. Don't we already have some of those? Why yes, the Ratatosk from norse mythology (detailed very recently in planes of chaos. ) And in theme with this issue, they do have substantial faeish tendencies, with an array of tricks that exceeds their HD, and all that froofy respect for nature stuff. Can't say I'm very keen on them, particularly when they're trying to fill an already occupied niche. Let's leave this one out, shall we.


For truth and justice: Hello again superheroics. It's been well over a year now since the Marvel-phile ended, and coverage of that genre fell off a cliff. And sadly, it looks like the return is starting again from scratch with basic advice, a pattern we've seen several times before, and not one that endears them to a long term reader. So yeah, here's another of those basic adventure checklists, this time slanted towards superheroics, but really, applicable to any game. Tailor your adventures to the PC's. Give the villains proper personalities, motives and plans. Give your adventure  a beginning, middle and end. Keep track of character positioning and stats in an efficient way. Nope, can't find any new advice in here. Not that it's bad advice at all, it's just not doing anything different or innovative.


Role-playing reviews: Following on from last month, we have two more rather large reviews of games that differ substantially from the norm. As the centre weakens, these spring up, grabbing people's attention, as they consider trying something new, moving on to more interesting grounds. Course, none of them will displace D&D as the biggest game in the hobby, but it's theoretically possible they might have. Far stranger things have become huge hits on TV.

Aria is a gobsmackingly huge game that tries to let you play entire nations, and their developments and conflicts. It also has human level stuff, but that isn't as impressive, and you may well be better off running that in another system and then overlaying this for the global scope. It does have some flaws, and takes a lot of work, but Rick is still highly impressed by the scope of their creativity and the degree the game can be customised.

Castle Falkenstein gets even more effusive praise. Character creation is quick and different, Playing cards are used to resolve actions, magic is full of interesting quirks and potential backfires, and the setting is really rather cool. Mike Pondsmith has managed to come up with another winner, and he hopes it's commercial success will match it's critical reception.

Dragon Magazine Issue 214: February 1995


part 4/6


Rumblings: Where last month had a lot to say about White Wolf, this is closer to home, with a lot of attention on TSR's media properties. Wildspace TV show? I don't remember this at all. Sounds like an attempt to revive Spelljammer. And that's a lot of tie-in stuff planned too. And on top of that, the long on hold D&D movie has a new owner and staff and appears to be moving forward. What went wrong with these two? Development hell strikes again! The only thing I know actually did come out is the Blood Wars CCG, TSR's second shot at grabbing this market in quick succession. Shouldn't they wait so they can learn from the mistakes of the first one? Or are they rushing them to market so this has a rather shorter development lifespan than their regular product cycle. I must confess to quite a bit of curiosity on this issue.

CCG's from other parties are also springing up like mushrooms as companies realise there's big money to make here. Highlander, Star of the Guardians, Doom Trooper. Big names and small, many from RPG's and other industries. Can you say talent drain? We are not amused.


The ecology of the Neogi: Our first proper ecology in ages is also our first spelljammer one ever. And it's quite a neat one, making it clear that these are pretty darn alien creatures, and not very nice at all. With an inherently destructive reproductive process, a society built on enslavement, and equally nasty gods, they are pretty much forced to be evil by their biology. You'd feel sorry for them, if you weren't too busy being scared and grossed out and urgently KILLING THEM WITH FIRE! Curiously though, this is another one that makes them available as PC's, or at least classed NPCs, so you can make them even more challenging to your players. Anyway, I rather like this one, which is pretty decent in both fiction and mechanics, and does quite a bit to build them up as a race. A welcome return here.


Eye of the monitor again changes hands, with Lester Smith taking on this month's review. Once again I get the sense that the level of organisation in the TSR offices is declining, as people struggle to get everything done with declining budgets and workforce. Compounding that is the fact that this isn't very long, is covering a game they've reviewed before, and is completely lacking in screenshots. So this is another look at the Space Hulk computer game. Lester thinks it's a great game, and sets out to repudiate Jay & Dee's review one point at a time. You've got to use military tactics and think ahead, it's not an arcade blaster. There are valid reasons for using both the overhead and personal views. The monsters spawn randomly, so you can't win by simple memorisation anyway. Even their grasp of the basic controls seem shaky. It's as if they weren't even paying proper attention. Perhaps they should have read the manual. So this is a somewhat curious review, that does have traces of snark and condescension in it while remaining civil and avoiding any ad hominem attacks. It's certainly not as interesting as Gary's old rants, but it does stand out against the current tone of the magazine. This is definitely worth noting. Just how haphazard will this column get before they cancel it altogether.


The game wizards: This column is taken up by spellfire stuff again. No-one outside the company is sending articles in it seems, so it's purely company pressure that's putting it in here. As they did with the Buck Rogers boardgame back in issue 157, they show us how to adapt the rules for a solitaire game. Which is very appropriate, given the difficulty of finding people to play these games. The opponent is completely predictable, but gets several substantial advantages over a human player because they're largely an aggressor, and don't need to worry about realm maintenance. They should still be quite tough to defeat, unless you build a deck specifically intended to work poorly for them. And if you're spending that much money on fine-tuning a deck you'll never use for a proper game, I think a little derision is not entirely undeserved. So this is exactly what they ought to be giving the game, and I mean that in the meanest possible way.


Forum: Paul Morgan goes back 19 issues to the multiclass character problem. He's found that while more powerful at first, as time goes on, they become less and less so compared to their single class companions. Long term balance, not per encounter.

Christopher Davis has his own fairly mild solution for multiclassed characters. They're not that much of a problem. Always spreading xp half and half between their classes no matter what they do, on the other hand, isn't such a great idea. They should be able to concentrate on one or the other a bit.

Jarmo Gunn is another writer reaching back well over a year. His characters survive despite having several below average stats due to their ingenuity. Don't just throw yours away because they don't have multiple 18's.

John Morris. Jr is horrified by all the people playing drow all of a sudden. They're mostly ghastly twinks too. Bob Salvadore has a lot to answer for. What are we to do with these pesky dual-wielding bandwagon jumpers! Hee. Another overpopular thing gets it's much deserved backlash here.

Philip Dale reminds us that sometimes problem players are a result of the DM, and it's your responsibility to figure out what the problem is and fix it as it is theirs. But if all else fails, go freeform, then they can't game the system. Or just kick them out. That is an option, you know.

Thomas Martin reminds us that nearly every RPG system has some exploit that'll make characters unfairly powerful. D&D's new bard kits certainly aren't alone in that. You've got to address the problem on the player level as well s the mechanical one, otherwise they'll just find some new trick to exploit.

Andrew McLeish comes to the defence of bard kits. Penalise them when they play them wrong, and don't be overgenerous in handing out magic items and they'll be fine. Ha.

Gray Calhoun makes the tedious statement that you should balance the twinked bard kits by social hindrances. I think that theory is getting a bit frayed around the edges now. It doesn't really work very well, especially with this most social of classes.

Dragon Magazine Issue 214: February 1995


part 5/6


Lost empires: Atlantis! After doing nice big articles on two real world continents, David Howery does a slightly smaller one on a (probably ) imaginary one. This means he has to make things up mostly from wholecloth and a few ancient books. The result does feel a little light compared to the Africa one in particular, but it does have lots of options. You aren't restricted to one culture or era, you could pick any of their stages of development (although you're probably gonna want the hypertech empire, decadent weirdness or mysterious lost continent phases. ) Really, this is sufficiently vague that it's just a reminder that lost continents are a cool plot option to insert into your own game, rather than a ready to go adventure location. I hope it wasn't another victim of excess editorial trimming because they aren't fond of doing epic features any more.


Sage advice: Why do innate abilities have initiative modifiers (Reaction times. Even thought has a speed)

Can you disrupt magic items (often you can. They do have some fiddly requirements at times. )

Where's the info on alignment tongues (We got rid of them Aaaaaaages ago, with the edition change. Don't tell Skip it took you this long to notice. )

Does a thief's backstab get the bonuses for ambush as well (only if it would be logically appropriate)

Does protection from fire work before or after the save for half damage from spells (after)

Do symbols blow their wad after affecting someone or stick around to bug everyone. (Wizards symbols are one-shots. Cleric symbols have real staying power. Huh! )

Can detect magic detect charm spells (Like with invisibility, it only detects that something is up. It's up to you to figure out exactly what.)

How many missiles can you catch with gloves of missile snaring (1 per round per hand free. Once again, beware mariliths. )

What can a rod of cancelation destroy (Quite a lot. They're a real screwage device)

How does a wand of negation work (It's your own personal interruption beam inna stick. Not as good as actual dispelling, but nothing to be sneezed at)

What happened to the +4 bonus to attacking motionless creatures. (we moved it to the DMG. This should not affect your enjoyment of the game in the slightest)

I still don't understand about the mechanics of gnomes wielding bastard swords (Just what kind of game are you playing, anyway? Everyone knows gnomes are illusionists. Any gnome who'd want to wield a bastard sword is seriously out of character )

What does immediately mean ( right away. No time to counter or pack. It takes effect right now. )

Can you alternate champions if a battle lasts 3+rounds (not usually)

Does a card affect previously played cards (Well, they can't affect ones that haven't been played yet, can they)

How do ghost ships work (Ooooooh. They move you around unexpectedly. Oooooh. )

Can you dispel dispel magic. (No. They've already done their job. There's no magic there anymore for you to dispel)


Nasty Tricks: Immediately after the spellfire rules questions comes some more twinkery by the TSR staff. They've figured out ways of exploiting the rules such that they can become almost invulnerable, only very specific methods can counter them. If you don't have those cards, you're screwed. Fortunately, they do point out those solutions with each of the exploits. As we found earlier on in the issue, designer ego does seem to play a big part, with exploits named after the people who first came up with them. Still, at least that means they're actually playing it in the office, which means the rules are getting stress tested, and presumably they're finding the game fun. But that does mean it's taking them away from writing and playing RPG's even more. So once again this is a sign that CCG's are encouraging the designers to be twinky munchkins. Sage advice is all about fixing the game, not exploiting it, and the amount of hard mathematical analysis hasn't been great in recent years. One article could be an exception, but this shows the start of a definite trend. Well, spotting stuff like this is one reason I started this thread. I just wish I felt happier about doing so at this point.

Dragon Magazine Issue 214: February 1995


part 6/6


The ecology of the owlbear: A second ecology in the same issue? Guess they're really making up for lost time here. Does this mean they'll be back as a regular thing? For a second time, in the story, the narrators get in serious trouble, only narrowly escaping by luck and wits. And for a second time, they give us plenty of new crunch. Arctic Owlbears, even bigger and scarier than the regular ones, plus better camouflage in their native territories. And something I'm sure many people have wondered about. Flying owlbears. Oh yes. Sure it stretches realism a bit. But frankly, if dragons can fly, the amount of physics-bending it takes for a bear sized creature to fly is considerably less. Another strong one that both entertains and  answers questions. Very usable, and indeed, I plan to do so.


Fiction: Hunter under the sun by Brent J Giles. Ah yes, the exploration of alien psychology. If you've been reading this regularly, you'll know that's one of my own great loves, if not as much as it used to be. Standards of morality and compassion can vary widely. Could you expect a race that spawned hundreds of children in a go to care about them individually the way humans do? Could you expect one that flies the vastnesses of space to have the same kind of idea about personal property? Even a basic difference like being adapted to a nocturnal lifestyle could change their psychology quite a bit. But when we all live alongside one-another then it can be a very good idea to learn from each other, preferably the good aspects rather than the bad ones. So it goes, as we combine this kind of study with a supernatural murder mystery. I find this rather appealing, as it does work on two levels. The more depth something has, the more you get rewarded by repeat readings.


Libram X has more relationship angst. You were a tagalong in the first place. He tried to get you safely home, and then you refused. You shouldn't be surprised he's more interested in the book than you. Dragonmirth has lots of demihuman fun. Even Snow White can be made grimdark. Yamara and Joe really ought to get off hard fun before the world is all gone.


From the forge: Last time, Ken was all about the accessories. This time, it's landscapes that get the spotlight. Pimpin'. Minis without context are like tea without biscuits. You can live happily without it for years, but adding them just takes the experience to a whole new level. :adjusts monocle:

So, let us take a stroll through these miniature panoramas. Stone mountain miniatures go for both retro and futuristic, with a fireplace, some rather spooky giant stone heads and computer control panels, a weapon array emerging from little domes, and some weird rock outcroppings. Build up the suspense, and then give them the payoff, barrier peaks style. Heartbreaker Hobbies go for something appropriately traditional, a hut and tent inhabited by yer basic orcs. Geo-Hex take on the city blocks and highways, while Terrain Specialities will let you set out the green green hills of home. Tactical Conflict Systems fill an oft-overlooked niche, with modular strips of river that you can assemble into all sorts of shapes, plus a bridge to go over it at any point, and a little cottage that'll look nice nestled into a bend. Finally, Alternative Armies have a wide range of walls for you to shore up your defences with. This seems like a collection that'll get a complete newbie up and running without too much duplication. In addition we have three minis sets, one a holdover from his last column. A spined and heavily armed mecha angel for Legion of Steel. A trio of samurai. And another set of postapocalyptic scavengers. The influence of Mad Max over the cultural landscape lies longer than I remember at the time.


TSR Previews: Planescape releases an adventure that ties in with last month's boxed set. Fires of Dis takes you there, to one of the biggest and hottest cities on the planes. You break the rules, you'd better be ready for trouble.

Dark sun gives us another monstrous compendium. As if this place wasn't harsh enough. More stuff to challenge you right up to epic levels. They also get The darkness before the dawn by Ryan Hughes. A story of gladiators, and their suffering in the arena. Can the protagonist survive and come out tougher. Signs point to positive.

Ravenloft takes us to Sithicus, to face Lord Soth. You know the drill by now. Explore, deal with railroading, probably fail to actually defeat the domain lord.

Lankhmar shows us the Cutthroats of Lankhmar. See the places where you make money, and figure out how to get ever more of it. Muahahaha. The city is not your friend.

The Forgotten realms gets part two of the twilight giants trilogy, The Giants Among Us. As is usual here, things get more complicated than ever, hopefully being set up for the final book to resolve.

The First Quest line gets two novels of it's own. How very odd. Guess it actually sold really well last year. Rogues to Riches by J Robert King and The Unicorn Hunt by Elaine Cunningham show you some more novice adventurers learning essential life lessons the hard way. Lurk Moar. Amateurs.

And finally, we have another non roleplaying, but connected item. The Blood Wars Dueling Decks. Blerg. Trading card games have well and truly arrived. Can you build an optimal deck to beat your enemies?


The ecologies are highly enjoyable in this issue, and a very welcome return indeed as well, but the rest of isn't very good at all. The themed section is twinky froofy crap, the computer section is weird and thoroughly flawed, and there's way too much CCG stuff. Meanwhile the rather good reviews and fiction remind us that there is plenty of of good stuff happening in the wider roleplaying landscape that you might want to check out. It is more than a little frustrating. And makes me want to reread the other books I was buying around that time more than I do this. Bah. Next issue please.

Dragon Magazine Issue 215: March 1995


part 1/6


124 pages. Ahh, what a lovely day for a stroll in the woods. Birds are singing, deer are gambolingITS A TRAP!!!!! Never let your guard down for an instant. You never know what will happen. As this issue has no particular theme, that goes double here. Each article could come out of leftfield, completely throwing your playstyle for a loop. Well, probably not, but the odds aren't completely hopeless. And hope is what keeps us going, isn't it. I don't think we're out of hope just yet, even if it is a struggle at times.  


In this issue:


Letters: A letter from a finnish gamer pointing out that gaming is alive and well there. In fact, scandinavian countries seem to have one of the highest proportion of roleplayers. It's interesting to speculate why that might be the case. I suspect the long depressing winter nights staying in. Same reason they produce so many great bands.

A letter asking if they plan to compile all the monsters from issues of Dragon in a book. Sorta. There's not quite enough to do that regularly, but they will be putting them in the monstrous compendium annuals, along with stuff from other sourcebooks. Now a whole new bunch of DM's can inflict Linnorms and Spell Weavers on their players. :devil:

A change of address report from Goldtree Enterprises. Please don't send letters or orders to the old one. Please continue to buy our products though.

A letter complaining that the original Athas boxed set is seriously out of date now. We need a new one that takes all the supplements into account! You, sir, are in luck. Major revisions off the port bow! What a lovely co-incidence someone wrote in at just the right time!


Editorial: Dragon goes digital! TSR finally dips a toe into the rapidly growing online world, and Dragon magazine is one of the first parts to join in. Subscribe online! Chat with people from all over the world, including many of the actual game writers.  Check out the complete article index. We're giddy with excitement. Shame I can't be nostalgic about that, as it's still a couple of years before I joined the online revolution. But it does seem like genuinely good news for them. I do hope they're not plagued by delays and incompetence. Not every company coped well with the sudden change in how easy it was to communicate and transmit information for negligible cost. Many are still behind even now. And entire industries are suffering as it becomes ridiculously easy to copy their work and give it away for free. Anyway, it looks like this editorial is another pointer of the way things are going in the wider world. We're reaching the point where normal people become aware of the value of the internet and consider signing up. And because of that, everything becomes a lot more accessible. It's really rather neat to finally get this far, after years of jokes about the lack of online access.


First quest: Whatever the game, Bill Slavisek naturally gravitates to being the rules guy. It's a heavy responsibility, and sometimes irritating, but with it comes power and authority. I can quite empathise, since I fall into a pretty similar mould. It's amazing how much you can get by taking on the jobs no-one else wants to do, providing you don't just do it for free and let everyone get accustomed to that. Still, he had fun, starting out with wargaming before moving into RPG's like many a grognard. Maturity and characterisation developed gradually and with many a death, as was often the case back then. And it's mainly because he was a little more driven and knew the rules better that he made a job out of his hobby while the other people in his group went on to normal lives. All matches up with my experiences. I think I'd probably get on with him if I met him.


Putting evil to good use: Yay! This is a cool article! A highly amusing bit of rules lawyering, Jonathan M. Richards shows us how to make lemonade out of lemons and turn cursed magic items to your advantage. Many of them are quite advantageous in certain situations, and even the ones that aren't can often be turned against your enemies rather than you if handled carefully. I remember reading this first time round, and it's a pleasure to reach it again. This is a very definite mind expander, while also having lots of highly specific details you can use without having to think yourself. I can't praise this one enough. Taking problems and turning them into opportunities is exactly what players should be doing in their gaming, and this is full of inspiration on how you can do just that.

Dragon Magazine Issue 215: March 1995


part 2/6


Gaming with style: Ah yes, dividing gamers into various types, and getting all analytical about the type of games they like to play. Not an unfamiliar topic, even if this kind of analysis has yet to reach maturity. (or at least, GNS theory has yet to be developed ) Thomas Kane picks out 5 categorisations. Power-gamer, immersive roleplayer, puzzle solver, rules lawyer, and gaming as Art. Hmm. Pretty broad divisions really, with plenty of room for overlap between them. The biggest distinction drawn is those who see gaming as art, which is a relatively new categorisation most often shown by White Wolf players & designers, that is proving somewhat contentious and considered pretentious by quite a few established players. There's also the big question of just how much control the DM should have over the course of the game, how much the players should have, and how much should be random, left to the dice to decide. Plenty to think about here, as this is the kind of thing that needs a good debating to really hash out. A good forum flamewar would be amusingly appropriate. With it's eventual conclusion that striking a balance between the various extremes is probably the way to go, it's probably not going to get one though. Still, it did make quite an enjoyable read.


The beginners game: I've been complaining quite a bit recently at articles that are obviously aimed way below my experience level. Ironically, this does not fall into that category, as it's designed for experienced DM's who want to get new players in, but may not be entirely sure how to go about it. After all, if you started with one group, and learned along with them, when that one falls apart and you try to put together a new one, there's going to be a big skill gap that can interfere with the chemistry. Both rules and roleplaying can be introduced in a wrong way that winds up putting many people off. The worst traps to avoid are probably being patronising, and treating them with kid gloves, or overloading them with infodumps (particularly contradictory ones with multiple experienced players talking over each other and elaborating in quick succession to one newbie) and throwing them in the deep end. Start small, and gradually turn up the volume, on the other hand, and things can get pretty epic before you even know it. And then hopefully you can figure out how to break them of the more obscene powergaming tendencies that a lot of new players develop. This jives with my personal experiences. First time, you want to explore the limits of the system, get all the way to the top. Subsequent times, you want to see how much replayability the thing has, what alternate routes there are. Or just move on to something completely different, given many people's boredom thresholds. So this has both advice I approve of, and a goal that's very laudable in the current climate. After all, if you want people to play with, growing the hobby should be your first port of call.


The ecology of the Amphisbaena: After several ecologies in which the person imparting the knowledge is captured and escapes, here we have one with a rather more tragic ending, like the cave fisher one. Captured by Kobolds, and only surviving by a stroke of luck making him exceedingly useful to them, he becomes their technical advisor on the proper handling of a double-headed giant snake. Not the kind of thing you anticipate doing when you grow up. This answers quite a few biological questions, but glosses quickly over the all-important one of how they crap (from the middle, apparently) to focus more on breeding, movement methods, and combat capabilities. It does make them seem both more scary, and less silly, which is a definite plus point in my books. Another excellent little read.


Donning a new Masque: Masque of the Red Death has proved to be one of their more popular supplements in recent months. And while it may take nearly a year to produce a follow-up book, the magazine has a rather quicker response time. So here's four more kits, all tradesman ones, to encourage you to play the mundane, well integrated into society roles a bit more. Not something that grabs me hugely at the moment, but I can certainly see it's uses.

Scientists are a blatant geeky stereotype, stuck in the lab all the time. Since most PC's will be forced to do experiments on the fly in decidedly uncontrolled situations, this one seems like more of a liability than a benefit on a mechanical level.

Athletes are a high strung lot, prone to niggling long-term injuries in a manner most aren't under D&D mechanics. But when they're on form, they're one of the closer things to an asskicker you're likely to encounter. Can the players swallow their pride and invite a jock onto the team?

Thespians are one of those roles that seem likely to irritate other players if played badly. They're obviously good at a whole bunch of social skills, but too busy being flamboyant and telegraphed to be great in combat. Can't see them being popular with munchkins, but then the whole of Masque is pretty much powergamer repellent.

Lawyers are of course pontificating twats. But at least they're trained pontificating twats, able to twist words around with great proficiency. You may not like them, but chances are they'll be able to talk you out of more problems than they'll get you into. I'm still rather dubious about whether I'd use them personally though.

Dragon Magazine Issue 215: March 1995


part 3/6


The deities of africa: Another bit of african priestly lore from Michael John Wybo. Issues 191 & 209 covered pretty much the same ground, but it is a big continent, so he can completely avoid repeating himself no trouble. This just means that longterm readers get the reward of lots of choices, which I approve of. Like the many prehistoric eras, I'm sure they could manage a few more of these.

Ananse is a complicated god, and they choose to represent him in a benevolent light here. You're still allowed to use poison, and the alignment restrictions are light enough that you can play a trickster without too many worries. It may not please the paladins, but the rest of the party'll be happy to have a cleric like this along.

Asse Ya is the goddess of the earth, in typical loving gaia fashion. This means that they get a lot in common with druids, only a wider sphere list and less powers and alignment restrictions.

Nyame is the god of the sun and moon, and appears as a three faced beholder. As with most beholder variants, they're not as scary as the regular bog standard version, but don't get complacent. Since this squeezes in a new monster along with the avatar and priest stats, I quite approve. Good use of space and plot points.

Cagn is an obnoxious mantis who commands insects and birds. Since part of his job is promoting plagues and insect infestations, he may technically be neutral, but he's certainly closer to evil than good. As a cleric, you'll have a lot of leeway in who you harm or save.

Gauna is the lord of African vampires, who like beholders, are a little different, but still pretty scary, and capable of spawn cascading with truly alarming speed. His priests get rogue abilities and automatically become undead upon death, making them versatile and persistent as big bads. Don't be too surprised if they turn your whole village into vampires as revenge.

Bumba is the god of law, the celestial order, and also the african giver of fire. This interesting portfolio combo means you're quite entitled to burn anyone who breaks the rules at the stake, and the priests can cast wizardly fire spells and ignore burning attacks themselves. One I can see myself enjoying playing.

Khonvum is the great hunter, and also appears to be quite the hero when it comes to slaying tribe threatening monsters too. His clerics are very rangery, and can speak too and order animals around. Well, would you mess with the guy who's job it is to kill and eat you?

So is a god of thunder and lightning, and one of those humourless vindictive sorts who give paladins a bad name. Still, if you've got undead plaguing the place, who ya gonna call? And his servants do have some quite neat quirks.

Leza is the humorously deaf god of the sky, with a tendency to misinterpret prayers. This means any religious ceremonies to him are VERY LOUD! His clerics get wizard air spells, and at name level, grow wings. Whether said wings are beautiful or not is uncertain. It's just a ridiculous amount of fuel for the parodically minded DM. And indeed, this whole article shows just how little clerics have to resemble the preachy christian stereotype. They tend to be rather powerful magically, but have far more restricted armor and weapons, as has become standard for the african priest & wizard kits. Plenty of options good for both PC's and antagonists here.


Rumblings: Only a few arrivals and departures this month. Jeff Grubb is leaving TSR and jumping on the CCG bandwagon. He didn't need to leave to do that. TSR is having great fun with this. In fact, it seems demand for the Blood Wars game is considerably higher than anticipated, and they've already sold out. Now, will they overprint the second run, and be stuck with a load of stock from that? Hard to say, isn't it. Other departures and arrivals include Ken Whitman as TSR's convention co-ordinator, Carl Sargent & Tom Baxa being recruited by FASA, and Grenadier's lead sculptor being poached by Heartbreaker Miniatures. Seems like we're losing more people than we're gaining at the moment, which makes sense.


Eye of the monitor: Inferno gets a rather mixed review, with our two reviewers trading off between each other well to cover both the good and bad points. It has good visuals, but tricky controls, and plenty of space combat action once you get the hang of it. Only one of them did though, so only pick this one up if you already like the genre.

Wyatt Earp's Old West has both reviewers yawning. This isn't a proper game, it's an educational multimedia point and click program. The game elements are on the same kind of level as Mario is Missing. No challenge at all, save remembering the information you learned earlier in the game.

Spacekids is also more entertaining for the banter between Jay and Dee than for the actual game, as they go on about the dumbness of trying to make toys "educational" all the time. It may make parents buy them, but kids are generally not fooled by crap like that, and will abandon them for games that are actually fun. This is another one where one ends up liking it, and the other doesn't. What does this say about them? Different maturity levels, perceptions or expectations? It's good to have more than one view, in any case.

Dream Web is another fail result, with buggy interface, confusing graphics, little discernable plot, and a serious lack of clues as to what you're supposed to be doing. Cool atmosphere and music does not a good game make. Seems to be a real problem around this era, as graphics improve so rapidly, and far too many designers fall into the trap of style over substance to get sales. Speaking of which, they also preview Wing Commander III, with it's extravagant budget, full video, starring real actors. Oh boy. Now that's a story for another time. I'll stock up on the large hams in anticipation.

Dragon Magazine Issue 215: March 1995


part 4/6


The role of books: The sherwood game by Esther Friesner sets things around a VR robin hood game, and the trials of it's programmer. as first his company tries to shut down development, and then the characters escape into the real world. A theme this ridiculous obviously has a certain degree of comedy, but she still manages to tackle some serious topics and handle them sensitively.  It's all pleasingly versatile.

Arena by William R Forstchen is a Magic: the Gathering novel. As the first one, it has a hard job to do figuring out the setting from the cards. And indeed, it sticks to what they know, by focusing on the duelling wizards and fast paced action with a bit of intrigue. It does have rather poor naming conventions, and the characters are worryingly powerful, but hey, you work with what you've got.

Whispering woods by Clayton Emery manages to show a little more of the ground level setting detail of dominiana, but shows that their editorial control on this line isn't great, with details being inconsistent with the other book, and not particularly well justified. As with RPG fiction, this has the flavour of stuff churned out to make a quick buck, with consistency and continuity not great priorities. Future writers'd better improve on this if they want the line to last.

The hallelujah trail by Bill Gullick isn't a new book, but it's just been reprinted, and John seizes the opportunity to recommend it to another generation of readers. Technically, it's a western, but it certainly doesn't fall into the lone desperado cliches, with a large and complex cast, plenty of politics, and a decent helping of wit to leaven the cake. Even if you're not a fan of westerns in general, you might find something to like here.

Merlin's bones by Fred Saberhagen jumps back and forth in time between merlin's young reincarnation, the present day, and other points in time. Thankfully, the plot is presented in a linear, easily understood manner despite the time shifts, and it manages to take the lore and do some rather different things with it. Exactly where they'll go from here is uncertain, but I think John would rather like to find out.

The diamond age by Neal Stephenson defies easy description by the reviewer, but does get plenty of praise. It's sci-fi, but has retro elements, and lots of interesting structural shifts and setting details. Even the flaws make it more worth talking about rather than really detracting from it, which is one of those tricks most authors never manage. This is one I definitely ought to check out, as I've heard good things about it from other sources too.

Dragon Moon by Chris Claremont & Beth Fleisher gets a fail due to lack of substance backing up the basic idea. It's too short, the politics and personalities don't add up, and the supernatural elements are poorly handled. Off to comics land with you. They have lower standards of what counts as decent continuity and world-building over there.

Elminster: The making of a mage finally reveals the early history of our frequent plane-hopper and 4th wall breaker. In the process he's made even more scary, for he now has low level dual-classing as a fighter & thief retconned in. Typical Ed helpings of cheese aside, the plot flows pretty well, and Elminster distinguishes himself from the average archmage in training handily.


Fiction: Where thingies rush in by J Robert King. April comes early in the fiction department, with a thoroughly ridiculous and punsome little story. Stealing the piked head of an archmage to give your podunk town more prestige? People have come up with dumber plots when drunk, I suppose. With a whole load of footnotes, and some fast paced comical action, this is quite amusing, has a clever ending, and doesn't outstay it's welcome. It's certainly not the deepest story they've ever published, but it's not trying to be, and you don't want that every month anyway. This fish will never be a cat, so let's just fry it up and eat it, not try and stroke it.


Role-playing reviews: This month is a Masterbook special. West End Games are finally trying their hand at a universal system, instead of building all new ones for each game. Unfortunately, the system chosen is TORG and Shatterzone's one, which scales well to all sorts of power levels, and has some very cool quirks in it's drama deck rules, but is also rather clunky and crunch heavy. Rick is rather dubious about it's ability to translate to any genre, despite TORG setting plenty of good examples. In any case, it's not standalone yet, so you have to buy a worldbook anyway. Hmm. Since their original RPG's, particularly Paranoia, are better remembered than this, this might not have been such a great move in hindsight. Too late to worry about now.

The world of Indiana Jones draws upon not just the movies, but also the books, comics, TV series, etc in creating it's setting. This means there is a certain amount of low key supernatural weirdness, but it's mostly about the action. The PC's are souped up a bit, but things are still a lot crunchier than the old TSR books. Overall, it doesn't get particularly praised or slated. I guess it'll do the job.

Raiders of the lost ark sourcebook, on the other hand, does get a 6 pip mark. All the locations, complete with NPC's and ideas for incorporating them into your own story. What more could you want? Well, the other movies as well, but all in good time.

Indiana Jones  and the Rising sun sourcebook takes a sidetrack and shows us 1930's japan, with plenty of info on both the mundane and supernatural, plus an adventure. Again, it's workmanlike rather than brilliant. The farther away you get from the original movie, the less special it all seems. :/

The world of bloodshadows is not a WoD clone as I thought earlier, but a darkly humorous pulp noir meets horror movie mashup. PC's have abilities both subtly superhuman and downright bizarre, and the setting is highly imaginative and very different from mundane earth. If Raymond Chandler had preferred LSD to alcohol, then maybe we'd have more novels like this.

Galitia is a city sourcebook for Bloodshadows. It gets a pretty cursory review, not distinguishing itself that well from the setting in general. Maybe the world part of the setting is a misnomer, and it doesn't really have enough to support more than a monoculture. This is why TSR rolled a whole bunch of setting lines into Toril, for example.

Mean streets is the DM advice book. This gives you lots of bits and pieces to insert into your game, along with the usual GMing advice. As if often the case, this speeds up your adventure building quite a bit, especially if you're not familiar with the genre. Buying stuff like this'll keep the line going.

Dragon Magazine Issue 215: March 1995


part 5/6


Tank girl RPG! Man, Jamie Hewlett has certainly gone on to some pretty spectacular things since then. We've got the cool shoeshine, a'right?


Sage advice: What do you mean by magical creatures and spellcasters (anything that casts spells or uses spell-like abilities. Are you saying our english isn't plain enough for you, punk? You ought to know by now what Skip does to people who disrespect Skip!)

What happens if someone's charmed mid-combat (They get all confusticated cos their friends are all fighting. Oh woes. We must settle this disagreement. )

How do you get even more specialized than normal in a weapon (play BD&D or buy the new PLAYERS OPTION books :teeth ting: )

Why are the rules for clerics losing levels on the planes inconsistent (Because the gods say so. Bodged compromise treaties suck, but they're better than open interplanar war all the time )

Can priests in sigil get spells (sure)

You forgot to mention the astral plane's time weirdness in the new planescape books (So we did. You can still use the old stuff with it if you like )

Do Alu fiends, cambions and manes have gating powers (no. They don't have enough respect in the general fiendish hierarchy )

I don't understand what stops fiendish regeneration (then you're not gonna be able to beat them. Better steer clear of the lower planes if you don't want to die horribly. That's what you get for being dumb)

How do Vecna's bits affect a character sitting with a card in the pool (Skip doesn't want to think about what Vecna would do with his withered lichy bits to some poor defenceless champion in a hot tub. Bad images man, bad images.)

When does a ring of shooting stars buff someone (when you want it to. But only once)

What happens when two monsters are fighting over treasure (it's a draw)
Can calm prevent caravans (no. What a silly question. Caravans prefer calm.)


Forum: Colin Cashman fills near a whole page with his solutions to the multiclassing problem. XP penalties, restricting kits to single class characters, restricting demihumans to their racial kits. Let's bring back human supremacy!

Robert Briggs is another person attesting that multiclassed characters fall behind at higher levels. This is particularly the case with triple class ones, which become seriously fragile compared to single class characters of the same XP. It all balances out.

Jeff Stone reminds us that multiclass characters also have the restrictions of both classes. This is particularly the case with speciality priests, who's gods will expect their demands to take priority over all their other classes. Tear them apart with commitments. But remember, if the player's a twink, they'll just look for another method. You have to address that side too.

Larry Sonders has a player who threw a tantrum and quit when low level characters didn't treat his 11th level mage with the respect he felt he deserved. Essentially the fantasy equivalent of Do you know who I Am. There's no magic badge that says you're whatever level, and even so, fame has to be constantly backed up with actions. Complacency can kill even 36th level characters.

Wilson Miner plays while hiking, and has developed a diceless system to use while on the go. That's a pretty cool idea actually, even if the implementation is a bit flaky. Sounds like it could degenerate into freeform all too easily.

Anne Butler thinks that you shouldn't stop a person from roleplaying just because they haven't read geek staples like star trek or LotR. That means they're less likely to fall into cliches. A fresh view is frequently interesting, and it helps keep roleplaying from ghettoising.

James R. Collier tells us exactly how rare magical items are in his campaign. Enough that you can get statistical with them, but rare enough that only the very rich and powerful will have any. Sounds about right for an average campaign.


The game wizards: Last month we had a whole load of Spellfire advice here. This time, it's the Blood Wars card game that's getting a similar treatment. The number and nature of the cards, rough details of the rules, and a selection of sample decks. A fairly standard promotional article, this sees them try to get in on the CCG market with more than one game in quick succession, and quite possibly split their buyer's market. After all, both draw heavily upon D&D lore to create a game of interplanetary battles. How is one to choose which to spend your money on at the store? And how much coverage will each get in the magazine? Does this mean we'll now be seeing twice as much CCG coverage for the next few years? Are more games already in development?  A little tickle in the back of my head is saying Dragon Dice. I must resist the temptation to read ahead and find out before I actually get there. I may not be very keen on this stuff, but it's still interesting to see it rise and fall.

Dragon Magazine Issue 215: March 1995


part 6/6


Ha. Highlander is getting a card game too. There can be only one, and all that.


Something is very wrong in Libram X. All is not as it seems. Swordplay faces near certain death again. Dragonmirth reuses the wish to be a god, become the GM joke. Yamara is about to have her skull terminally reposessed, unless Ogrek can do something.


Through the looking glass: As Robert's time here draws to a close, he reminisces a little about his most significant contribution to the magazine. It seems the thing people remember most is not his reviews, but his Battletech house rules back in 1990. Well, they both stood out, and were stretched across several issues. As much as they try and avoid multi part epic articles these days, those are the ones we are most likely to remember as classics. Perhaps that's another reason why the magazine isn't doing so well.

As usual though, this is mostly minis reviews. A trio of monks, made for Pendragon, but suitable for nearly anything medieval. A sky cycle from Rifts, which won't be nearly so convertible. An ancient table with some decidedly sinister tomes resting upon it. It is, of course, a trap, my dears. Four Knights, one with an axe and the others choosing the boring old sword attack. An absolutely massive wolf, easily twice the size of a man if it was standing up. Pretty Dire, really, especially if you get a pack of them. Even larger are some giant rats, with ratmen riders. By comparison, the trio of mecha that follow look a bit short and skinny. Different scales, I suppose. And male & female Virtual Adept, in full visor & gloves setup. These days, they could fit that technology into the rim of regular sized shades. Isn't living in the future great.


TSR Previews: More wodges of forgotten realms goodies this month. Ruins of Zhentil keep ties in with the recent moonsea sourcebook. A megadungeon boxed set? Those always lure in the punters. Remember, if you don't want them coming back you have to raze all the buildings, fill all the underground stuff in with concrete, dispel all the contingencies. and kill all the clones. Otherwise the place'll be infested with a pretty similar bunch of nasties in a few years time. Elminster's ecologies have obviously proved pretty popular, because we get two more of those. Two spooky little undead infested places in the midwest. Just the sort of places adventurers are likely to visit. Finally, we get Shadows of Doom by Ed Greenwood. See what Elminster was really up too during the avatar crisis. Making sure he could boff the new goddess of magic, I'll wager.

Dark sun has another splatbook. Thri-kreen of athas. Or four-handed death machines of wherever they choose to go. See that they're not just nomadic raiders, they have a whole bunch of castes and an encroaching empire to the northwest of the explored lands. Be ready to fight.

Mystara gets another expansion & audio CD. Glantri: Kingdom of magic. With Alphatia gone, they're now the biggest collection of wizards around. How have recent years been to them since their first sourcebook back in 1987?

Dragonlance starts a new series, The Warriors Series. Part one is Knights of the Crown by Roland Green. What's the bet the next two will be named after the other two Solamnic orders. On we go.

Ravenloft has another tale of woe and sadistic revenge. Baroness of Blood by Elaine Bergstrom. And so the cycle continues. Who will rid me of this accursed curse? Endless Quest is also in a ravenloft mood, with Night of the Tiger. Facing a rakshasa? That's never an easy one. Good luck and do your best to find the crossbow.

Our generic products are pretty interesting too. The Dancing hut of Baba Yaga sees one of our classic scenarios return for a third time. Lisa Smedman takes us into a expanded version of the extradimensional whimsy we've seen before in the magazine. There's also another attempt to squeeze a few more drops out of the splatbook format. The complete book of necromancers takes a rather different, more DM focussed approach to fleshing out the wizard speciality, with a sample setting down in Al-Qadim and the NPC's to go with it. Full of flavour, even if that flavour may be somewhat maddening.


Mostly pretty good stuff this month, with plenty of articles that are still pleasant to read and useful for me. There's still plenty of treasure to be found amongst the dross of this era, some of which has actually aged quite well. I guess next I shall have to see if they've still kept their sense of humour this year. Toot toot, all aboard.

Dragon Magazine Issue 216: April 1995


part 1/6


124 pages. Things get meta straight away, as the editor's hands intrude on the cover. That little goblin thing may well take a bite out of them if he tries to correct it. If that breaks your suspension of disbelief, I suspect this issue is Not For You. They're trying new forms of wackyness too, with a wacky review and wacky planescape article. Man, there's no shortage of silliness still. Are you filking ready?! I don't think you're ready for Weird Al Yankovic's belly. Hoo Ha!


In this issue:


Letters: Once again, we give it to the floor. Passing up ridiculous letters, enough for evermore. You won't be snoring or finding it boring although their stupidity might be appalling. Their twinky ideas can be quite egregious, you'll place your head in your palm and mutter Jesus. They make assumptions from poor perceptions, and don't realise they'll get a risible reception. And when they try to be nefarious, you can bet we'll find it hilarious. Just don't try to compete with Drizzt, for every fanboy knows he's the shiznit. And I think that's enough horrible near-rhymes for the sake of humour from me for one year.


Editorial covers women in gaming again. This is the 4th or so time. Since the magazine has been around 19 years, you can't exactly call that overkill. And they are definitely making headway. If you look at the staff listing in the contents, slightly more than half of them are female, although the men are still hogging the top positions, so it's a bit of a mixed message. But it's still a massive improvement from 1979, when Jean Wells was the first and only woman on the TSR staff. The same can be said of general media, where there is also a decent amount of women being portrayed at least half-decently in prominent roles. Course, you can't expect them to like exactly the same stuff men do, and this road will eventually lead to them splitting away from the geek's categorisation and creating the currently massive Paranormal Romance genre, to much amusing nerdrage. Just as MMORPGs have substantial tabletop ancestry, but have now eclipsed us commercially by orders of magnitude and become very much their own thing, if you suddenly appeal to a different demographic, they won't play by your rules, but make their own. Which is why a broad definition of what roleplaying is is a good idea, otherwise you're setting yourself up for obsolescence. Learn from others, but find your own voice as well. And don't take crap from anyone. Lessons everyone should learn, regardless of sex, race or creed. And now off the soapbox for me.


First quest: William W. Connors may be a fairly recent arrival to the TSR stable, but he's already done pretty well for himself, with Masque of the Red Death exceeding their commercial expectations by quite a bit. His story begins with a game of Starships & Spacemen that went on for 16 hours, and was fun all the way through. The kind of game that pretty much deserves to be called legendary, more than half the participants have gone on to be game writers. Sounds like seeing the sex pistols in '76 or owning the velvet underground albums in the 60's. Another one that shows that you really can't start off with mature exploration of character if you want to grow the hobby. Little kids are drawn in by strange landscapes and blowing stuff up. It's only later that they wind up writing toned down, atmosphere heavy games which emphasise roleplaying over combat.


Bazaar of the Bizarre is brought to you by Bargle the infamous, former high wizard (read, grand vizier ) to the black eagle baron. He's killed Aleena, screwed over a dominion, and now has his own magic manufacturing line. Course, being in it primarily for the money (and how) his items are a classic example of let the buyer beware. Tee hee. April fool. I love this one.

Invisible rings disappear when you put them on. They might be mildly useful as brass knuckles, but otherwise this is practically the platonic ideal of pointless.

Rings of Destruction gradually turn your body to dust. The trick here is of course to make sure it's your enemy that puts them on, as with all cursed items.

The ring of the eagle lets you turn into a black eagle. As this is one of his oldest items, it's also entirely reliable, because his previous employer would probably apply some violence if he messed up.

Rings of fashion give you a snappy outfit. Well, an outfit in a snap, anyway. Hoo boy. Fashion can be a fickle thing

Rings of ideas are either going to save your ass, or completely ruin the party's day. Either way, they should keep things interesting. Good luck.

Rings of circular cursing inflict the same curse upon you and someone else. This'll force you to get really inventive and customised, thinking up effects that'll be devastating for them but minor for you. Genius.

The ring of gender confusion doubles the comedy by only making you think you've changed gender. This is easier to remove than the girdle, but has the potential for even more comedy.

The ring of impact lets you hit harder. Another one that actually works exactly as it should. It's stuff like this that keep you coming back after all the mishaps.

The Ring of kindness is another one you should put on others. Unless you're already saintly enough it makes no difference, you don't want to realise you've given all your stuff away to whoever asked for it.

The ring of languages is another helpful but risky one. Do you want to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, understandable by everyone? Ironic that such a scumbag should wind up producing items with drawbacks that are least troublesome to good guys.

He also has three self-help books to tell you nothing you can't figure out yourself, and give you new spells with quite serious design defects. Course, you won't realise that until after spending the money, but such is life. Really, killing him and taking his stuff would work far better, presuming you can pull it off. Thousands of adventurers will thank you for it.

Quote from: (un)reason;430060First quest: William W. Connors may be a fairly recent arrival to the TSR stable, but he's already done pretty well for himself, with Masque of the Red Death exceeding their commercial expectations by quite a bit.

I was always impressed with the quality of Masque of the Red Death, but I never knew it did all that well for TSR. I know later supplements for it tanked, or so I heard. The original box handled the concept well, and there is a faint proto-League of Extraordinary Gentlemen vibe to it. The later supplements were, as I recall, far too tepid for my taste, concentrating too much on the era as it was rather than how it could have been, along the lines of the aforementioned LoEG.