Dragon 127 (november 1987).pdf

CONTENTS

Magazine

Issue #127

Vol. XII, No. 6

November 1987

SPECIAL ATTRACTIONS

15 Cal1 to Arms:

The fighters world, from berserkers to battlefields.

16 Lords & Legends Kyle Gray

Four famous warriors from European myth and legend.

Publisher

22 No Quarter! Arn Ashleigh Parker

Creative combat for fighters with style.

Mike Cook

Editor

Roger E. Moore

26 Bazaar of the Bizarre The readers

A magical treasury of bows and bolts for arcane archers.

32 Two Hands Are Better Than One Donald D. Miller

When a two-handed sword becomes a three-handed sword, and other handy facts.

Assistant editor

Robin Jenkins

Fiction editor

Patrick L. Price

36 In Defense of the Shield Tim Merrett

A good shield might be the best friend youll ever have.

Editorial assistants

Eileen Lucas

Barbara G. Young

38 Fighting for Keeps Roy G. Schelper

Your new castle is full of orcs? Its BATTLESYSTEM supplement time!

Debbie Poutsch

Georgia Moore

Art director

Roger Raupp

46 In the Heat of the Fight Sean Holland

Berserkers, ambushes, fanatics, tribal champions all in a days work.

Marilyn Favaro

Production Staff

Gloria Habriga

Colleen OMalley

48 A Menagerie of Martial Arts Len Carpenter

Twenty all-new martial-arts styles for

Oriental Adventures.

OTHER FEATURES

8 Role-playing Reviews Ken Rolston

Game designers rush in where deities fear to tread.

Subscriptions

Pat Schulz

Advertising

Mary Parkinson

Ed Greenwood

Creative editors

Jeff Grubb

56 The Ecology of the Yeti Thomas Kiefer

A particularly chilling encounter on the high glaciers.

62 Arcane Lore Arthur Collins

Selections from a lost tome on lifes little illusions.

68 The Dragons Bestiary Thomas M. Kane and Scott Bennie

A slimy pair of surprises: Xadors fluid and quagmire.

70 The Role of Books John C. Bunnell

From the Realms to Romulan space: books for gamers everywhere.

74 The Role of Computers Hartly and Patricia Lesser

The computerized TSR/SSI AD&D® game: the latest word.

82 The Marvel®-Phil Warren Spector

A guest column about all sorts of Things.

DEPARTMENTS

Letters

Index to Advertisers

Convention Calendar

World Gamers Guide

Gamers Guide

SnarfQuest

Forum

Dragonmirth

102

Wormy

Sage Advice

COVER

The last three survivors of an orcish army, their standard still aloft, challenge

their elven opponenta to one last fight. Jim Holloway's cover painting for this

month has no title but if you have a suggestion for a possible title, write it down

and send it to us. We might print the more interesting ones in a later issue.

2 November 1987

LETTERS

Tuckers

kobolds

This months editorial is about

Tuckers kobolds. We get letters on

occasion asking for advice on creat-

ing high-level AD&D® game adven-

tures, and Tuckers kobolds seem to

fit the bill.

Many high-level characters have

little to do because theyre not chal-

lenged. They yawn at tarrasques

and must be forcibly kept awake

when a lich appears. The DMs

involved dont know what to do, so

they stop dealing with the problem

and the characters go into Character

Limbo. Getting to high level is hard,

but doing anything once you get

there is worse.

One of the key problems in adven-

ture design lies in creating oppo-

nents who can challenge powerful

characters. Singular monsters like

tarrasques and liches are easy to

gang up on; the party can concen-

trate its firepower on the target

until the target falls down dead and

wiggles its little feet in the air.

Designing monsters more powerful

than a tarrasque is self-defeating; if

the group kills your super-monster,

what will you do next send in its

mother? That didnt work on

Beowulf, and it probably wont work

here.

Worse yet, singular super-

monsters rarely have to think. They

just use their trusty, predictable

claw/claw/bite. This shouldnt be the

measure of a campaign. These

games fall apart because theres no

challenge to them, no mental stimu-

lation no danger.

In all the games that Ive seen, the

worst, most horrible, most awful-

beyond-comparison opponents ever

seen were often weaker than the

characters who fought them. They

were simply well-armed and intelli-

gent beings who were played by the

DM to be utterly ruthless and clever.

Tuckers kobolds were like that.

Tucker ran an incredibly danger-

ous dungeon in the days I was sta-

tioned at Ft. Bragg, N.C. This

dungeon had corridors that changed

all of your donkeys into huge flam-

ing demons or dropped the whole

party into acid baths, but the

demons were wienies compared to

the kobolds on Level One. These

kobolds were just regular kobolds,

with 1-4 hp and all that, but they

were mean. When I say they were

mean, I mean they were bad, Jim.

(continued on page 88)

World saving

on special items like these would be very inter-

esting and could also spice up even the dullest

dungeon adventure.

Dear Dragon:

Christopher DeGraffenreid made a good point

in the Letters column in issue #123. He

inquired about what was going to happen to his

favorite worlds, Oerth and Krynn, now that the

new campaign setting is the FORGOTTEN

REALMS setting.

We all know now that the DRAGONLANCE®

and WORLD OF GREYHAWK fantasy adven-

ture settings will be continued, but the primary

emphasis will be on the Forgotten Realms. Will

any of the existing Greyhawk adventures be

compatible with the Realms? Will future adven-

tures be made so? And what about all Realms

modules to be: Will they be interchangeable

with Greyhawk? I think these are questions we

all want answered.

Most importantly, the letter in issue #123 left

out an entire fantasy setting. What about

Nehwon, home of Lankhmar? Will it be contin-

ued or de-emphasized? I am the DM for some

friends in this very realistic and fun world, and

I wouldnt trade it for any realm. Why dont you

all open up and tell us all what is happening in

these many and varied worlds?

Chad Hanneman

Solon IA

We have considered collecting all of the magi-

cal items ever described in DRAGON® Magazine

and putting them together in a Best of collec-

tion, with some additional material as well.

Weve also considered doing this for all of the

monsters that have appeared in The Dragons

Bestiary and Creature Catalog features.

TSR BBS Q&A

Dear Dragon:

Have you ever thought of starting your own

bulletin board system like the Steve Jackson

Games Illuminati BBS (its number is (512) 447-

4449, 300/1200 baud)? If you did this, it would

give the readers a direct link with you, and we

could just send you our comments via modem.

The board would also allow you to put up

previews and notices of upcoming games and

products from TSR. You could even put up a

classifieds section, which is usually the main use

of a bulletin board.

Steven Wardell

Ridgefield CT

Ben Franco

Long Beach CA

Most adventures designed for one world or

another might be converted to fit another game

world, with a lot of luck and lots of work by the

DM. No adventures are planned which will be

usable with several worlds, however Modules

which are designed for one world alone were

created to carry the flavor of that world and its

inhabitants, and this flavor doesnt carry well

from world to world.

Warren Spector informs me that a 128-page

Castle Greyhawk module is due out in January

1988, and a hardcover Greyhawk sourcebook is

being prepared, much like the recently released

DRAGONLANCE® Adventures volume.

Many of the adventures from DUNGEON

Adventures were designed to be used in any

campaign world, and a few are specific to one

world (such as Oerth or Krynn). Fill out the

subscription card in this issue and check it out.

The world of Nehwon is on hold for the time

being but watch for further developments.

We are still collecting letters from gamers who

would like a BBS for TSR, Inc. The idea does

seem to have some merit, though we have also

found that running such a system would be a

very challenging job (to put it mildly).

Swords & spice

Dear Dragon:

As an AD&D® game player and Dungeon

Master, the game becomes a lot more fun and

exciting when unique items come into play. I

mean, its not often that you find a talking

sword that has the ability to take over the mind

of its wielder and give him several special

powers. Have you ever thought of releasing a

magazine section, or even a hardback, on

unique magical items of gods or heroes, telling

how they were made, who made them, who

were their previous owners, etc.? Backgrounds

D RAGON 3

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