Let's admire this cover for a bit. I don't care, I love Elmore's art. Though I have to admit I thought Aveeare was silver and not gold.
So this is an April Fools issue, but the content is limited really. The first entry has the infamous "Chainsword" in Bazaar of the Bizarre by Stewart Wieck.
Role-playing Reviews which is ©1988 by Jim Bambra. We cover some now-classic games; Paranoia, Ghostbusters, and Teenagers from Outer Space.
Up next is the first big article of the issue is Beyond the Gate of Dreams by John Nephew. This deals with the "semiclass" of the Dreamer. Now there is a lot of REALLY cool things for this class. I don't think the class actually works as written, to be honest. I like the idea really and there are a lot interesting spell ideas. There is the option to play this as a single class or as part of a dual class.
Resourceful Sorcery which is also ©1988 by Michael DeWolfe and it covers some helpful hints for RuneQuest game sorcerers. It's a cool article really, makes me want to get a RuneQuest game going sometime.
With All the Trappings by Gregg Sharp deals with trap construction and using some psychology to draw victims in. I'll be honest, I never had the trap fetish that so many gamers seem to have. Sure they can be fun occasionally, but all the time? I got my fill in the early 80s to last me a lifetime.
Skip Williams and Sage Advice cover a variety of topics.
Page 37 gives us an ad for New Infinities' Cyborg Commando! The fate of the world is in metal handsTM. I should not give Gygax shit for this. We now know his world was crumbling down and the new heads of TSR were being colossal dicks to him. Anyone play Cyborg Commando at all?
Scott David Gray is up with Let the Good Dice Roll. This is a collection of individual and cumulative frequency tables for the various methods of rolling a given ability score in AD&D.
A nice brief article that is informative, but also a relic of its age. While the numbers are still good and even still apply to any version of *D&D, these can be generated on the fly with the tools we all have at our disposal now. Not just with Excel, but with Google Sheets which is free and nearly as powerful.
Out of Hand by Nina Kiriki Hoffman is the fiction piece of this issue.
Mark Feil gives us a rare non-Ed Greenwood (at least for the last few issues) Ecology Of article. The Ecology of the Aurumvorax covers the MMII monster also known as the "Golden Gorger". Not a lot of information, but I did learn do not eat one of these things if you kill it. It gives you metal poisoning!
The big feature of this issue is +Bruce Heard's Orcwars game. Set in the Known World you get to play in the Great Orc Wars. It looks like it would be fun for a rainy afternoon. Set it in your own world. Each player (2-4) gets to play one of the tribal coalitions of orcs. I like it to be honest. It is not exactly taking D&D back to it's wargame roots, but it is honoring those roots. Given the campaign I am currently running I could see using this as part of a flashback to an ancient battle. Something to add more depth and color to the history of my game world. Much like Traveller always did with their RPG and tie-in board games set in the Imperium.
Arcane Lore is up after all of that with some spells based on traits of animals. Like Oxen Strength and Lion's Courage. Naturally (ugh) for druids. There are some goods here too.
Keith Polster has a bit on Gen Con and what to expect in 88 with The King of Conventions. I certainly get the feeling here that Gen Con was growing more at this point. This article covers the combined Gen Con/Origins Game Fair. Robert M. Bigelow follows up on the next page with how miniatures events will be run at the combine con. Now an aside. I consider myself knowledgeable about the history of our hobby, but I also fully admit I am far from knowing everything. I had no idea this happened! And I have some vivid memories of reading this issue. How long did Origins and Gen Con stay together? When did they split up again? Checking the internet I see this was done in 1988 and 1992. And yes Gen Con was seeing a lot of growth during this time.
Cash & Carry, Gamma Style covers the economic structure of Gamma World or least a small part of it.
Some small ads.
TSR Previews gives us a look ahead at some new releases. This includes two of the biggest disappointments, for me at least, in adventures. First is WG7 Castle Greyhawk. While I do appreciate the humor in some of the levels and I respect how deadly this module actually is, it does not make up for the fact that it is also not very good. It was also not the Castle Greyhawk we have heard about for years and years. I ran Castle Greyhawk once. Not likely to run it again. Next is OP1 Tales of the Outer Planes. If Castle Greyhawk was bad, this one was just lackluster. The Outer Planes would get a huge boost in a few years with the advent of Planescape.
Jon Slobins is next with variable hero creation for the DC Heroes game. This produces heroes a little less super. Ah yes, we are moving to the 90s and the age of the gritty "street-level" hero.
Mike Lane has new ships for Star Frontiers.
And in a move that would surprise new readers of today, Jeff Grub gives us a Marvel-Phile of "joke" (or no joke depending on your read) hero; Rocket Raccoon.
The Role of Computers has expanded to 6 pages now including a huge review of Beyond Zork.
We have a couple of pages of Dragonmirth. Some ads. 5 pages of the Con Calendar.
We end with SnarfQuest on his prospecting mission. About this time I began to loose interest in Snarf. I think a lot of people did. If had completed its big arc and now seemed to be a little lost. OR what is more likely I could not keep up with it like I used to because I was not buying Dragons regularly anymore.
Wormy is also here. About this time Tramp would disappear. Little did I know at the time he moved to the same town I was living in. I could have passed him in the grocery store and never knew.
Really a pretty solid issue. AD&D 1 was showing its age at this point and the world outside was changing. Soon word would come down that AD&D 2 was on the way and the 90s would start. But until that time there was plenty to do. The Dragon was more and more focused on TSR-only games, but still, a few others snuck in every so often. They were more inclusive than say White Dwarf was at this time. In fact, April 1988's White Dwarf #100 would be the last White Dwarf I ever owned.
We are certainly on the verge of something in this issue. That might be my retrospective on it, but some big changes had already happened here and more are coming.
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ReplyDeleteI had once owned Cyborg Commando. Interesting game world, but a hot mess of a rules system.
ReplyDeleteOrcwars! was a fun game. Played it several times.
Snarf Quest was falling off at this point.
I never was much a fan of the April Fool's issues. I wanted usable content, and these always felt like a waste.
I too am trap-averse. A few is ok but if the players become paranoid they slow down and that's not fun for anyone. It feels like an F-U.
ReplyDeleteTrapped chests and doors mostly are what I use.
I also once owned Cyborg Commando. I think after a read through the rules, I put it on a shelf for a very long time and then I think I gave it away to someone for free. As Jon said it was a hot mess of a rules system. I think I remember the dice rolls being 2d10 that you multiplied together to get under a percentage value????
ReplyDelete