The number one song on the radio is "Opposites Attract," a duo by Paula Abdul and an animated cat. The number one film was "Driving Miss Daisy" with Morgan Freeman and Jessica Tandy. On the shelves and tables is Issue #154 of this old Dragon.
I am getting to the bottom of this giant box of Dragons. Many of them don't even smell musty anymore. As usual, this one is missing a cover. This one features a "war dragon" with an undead rider by Bob Eggleton.
The Letters section is a bit thin this month. Sage Advice covers some spells from AD&D 2nd Edition.
James Ward is up with The Game Wizards: Angry Mothers from Heck. Basically Ward talks about the removal of Demons and Devils from AD&D 2nd ed as an appeal to the "Angry Mother Syndrome" which he sees as a good, but somewhat limiting policy. He does conclude that appealing more to heroic motives rather than just wanton killing of hack-and-slash is a noble endeavor. I don't disagree, but I also like fighting demons and devils.
The Forum covers clerics, the relative merits of the D&D vs AD&D 1st ed vs AD&D 2nd games. I *get* the discussion, but I have admitted here before we so readily mixed the rules that seems like a non-issue to me.
We get to the featured section of this issue, The Art of Making War.
Our first article is from Eileen Lucas, with Warrior Kings and Empire Builders, where she borrows from history, and you should as well, to define your warrior leaders. She uses Julius Ceaser and Charlemagne as her examples.
Eric Oppen is next with The Making of a Paladin. A fun article about the purpose of playing a paladin. Oppen makes the claim that paladin is one of the most popular class. I can see that. I love playing paladins. Even today paladin is one of the classes most used in Baldur's Gate III.
Heraldry, politics, and feudalism in fantasy campaigns is next in Thomas M. Kane's All in the Family. Covers details on how heraldry originated and how they are designed. It is a fairly detailed article to be honest.
For King and Country from Dan Salas gives a new campaign model where the PCs are called to duty by their king. Well new at the time. This sort of game was well covered by Pendragon, Chivalry & Sorcerery, and AD&D's own Birthright.
Thomas M. Kane is back with another long article with How to Win Wars and Influence People. This one grabs details from AD&D 1st ed, 2nd ed and even battle system. There is a lot here, and I am wondering if this would have helped in the massive war I had run about 2-3 years before this article. It is a great article that I am not 100% sure I get all of. I mean I like massive battles, every so often, but I don't run enough of them to have a lot of experience here.
A bunch ads and we are done with the special feature. While my issue has no cover, it does still have the GURPS poster intact.
Ken Rolston is up with Role-Playing Reviews with three Sci-Fantasy games, and all three are favorites of mine; Shadowrun, Spelljammer, and Space: 1889.
He loved Space: 1889, calling it "pure pleasure" and "comes with my unreserved recommendation." I concur. It might have been this review that made me want to check out this game. He felt Shadowrun was "adorable and surprising" and "impressive, exciting, and entertaining." Again, I concur. I remember driving back to University one night from my home town and talking with my old highschool DM who was getting ready to transfer there. We talked about his Shadowrun campaign the whole 2.5 hour dirve down. I now have his old Shadowrun book. He also loved Spelljammer but felt that the AD&D 2nd ed rules was it's weakest point.
I have to admit this article is what I remember the best of this whole issue. I was thinking how cool it would be to mix magic and sci-fi. An alchemy I have been trying to perfect for a while. You see in my Star Wars posts and certainly my BlackStar idea.
Our fiction section is from all stars. Raistlin and the Knight of Solamnia from none other than Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, with illustrations from Larry Elmore.
The Lessers, Hartley, Patricia, and Kirk are up with The Role of Computers. This month cover the Mines of Titan, M1 Tank Platoon, Star Fleet II, Ghostbusters II, and David Wolf: Secret Agent. I do note that most of the games are now PC-DOS games for the IBM compatible machines. I do miss seeing the Apple, Mac, and even Amiga games.
Convention Calendar is next with the hottest cons of the winter and spring of 1990. I swear there were more cons then than now. Cons now are bigger for sure, but there doesn't seem to be as many.
Novel Ideas comes to us from Will Larson and covers the novels coming out of TSR in the next months. They are "Dark Horse" by Mary Herbert, "Warsprite" by Jefferson Swycaffer, and "Nightwatch" a Greyhawk Adventures novel from Robin Bailey. I will freely admit, none of these sound familiar to me.
Ah, now something I DO recognize, The Voyages of the Princess Ark, Part 2 from Bruce Heard. One day I will collect all of these. For the moment though I'll keep this one to the side.
Dragonmirth gives us some comics. I recognize Yamara of course. But nothing in color. There is a jab at the "Trump Game" which I am pretty happy to see.
TSR Previews lets us know what is coming up in the next couple of months. More Spelljammer, more Monstrous Compendiums, and even a Buck Rogers novel.
Marcus L. Rowland is stuck at the end of the issue with "Who Was That Masked Android?" overtly for Marvel super Heroes, but can be adapted to other supers games.
We end with the small ads of Gamers Guide. There is a sub-section here dedicated to Play by Mail games. These were about to head to the same category as Ham Radio; still loved but by an ever decreasing fandom.
All in all, not a bad issue, but not one that kept my attention then or even today, to be honest.
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