Accessory - Dragon Magazine #142.pdf - Dragon Magazine - Surenae

Issue #142

vol. XIII, No. 9

February 1989

S PECIAL ATTRACTION

Publisher

Insert ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS®

Mike Cook

2nd Edition Preview:

A 32-page look at the shape of games to come.

Editor

Roger E. Moore

Associate editor

Fiction editor

O THER FEATURES

Robin Jenkins

Barbara G. Young

Editorial assistant

Kimberly J. Walter

12 This Means War! Dan Kretzer

If 327 badders fought 294 androids and a mutant squirrel in a tank, who

would win?

Art director

Lori Svikel

The Well-Educated Spy John C. Bunnell

Do you really know how to role-play a spy? This book tells all.

Production staff

Paul Hanchette

Betty Elmore

26 The Ecology of the Kech Tony Jones

The most beautiful forest often conceals the most malign dangers.

Kim Janke

Carolyn Vanderbilt

Subscriptions

U.S. Advertising

30 Role-playing Reviews Ken Rolston

Warfare in miniature: two games made for everyones tabletop armies.

Pat Schulz

Sheila Gailloreto

U.K. correspondent

Lyn Hutchin

The Role of Computers Hartley, Patricia, and Kirk Lesser

Breath-taking adventure is just a keystroke away with these MS-DOS

games.

U.K. advertising

Dawn Carter

Kris Starr

56 Made-To-Order Clerical Orders Michael Harrison

Temples and congregations, built from the ground up.

62 Arcane Lore The readers

Fifteen more reasons why few monsters want to annoy druids.

D EPARTMENTS

3 Letters

40 TSR Previews

72 Dragonmirth

4 Forum

52 Gamers Guide

76 SnarfQuest

10 Sage Advice

66 Convention Calendar

COVER

What you dont know can hurt you (if it doesnt simply eat you), as cover artist Fred

Fields reveals this month. His painting also reveals the dangers of adventuring alone

especially in a swamp when you have great confidence in yourself but little else.

2 FEBRUARY 1989

2nd Ed KOs TOC!

What did you think of this issue? Do you have

a question about an article or have an idea for a

new feature youd like to see? In the United

States and Canada, write to: Letters, DRAGON®

Magazine, P.O. Box 111, Lake Geneva WI 53147,

U.S.A. In Europe, write to: Letters, DRAGON

Magazine, TSR Ltd., 120 Church End, Cherry

Hinton, Cambridge CB1 3LD, United Kingdom.

The “Damage/Attack” for gelloudes should be

l-6/1-6/l-8/l-8. The “Damage/Attack” for the

spirit-ghoul should be 1-3/1-3/1-6, as per the

ghoul.

Translated, the headline above

reads: The inclusion of the AD&D®

2nd Edition game preview in this

issue of DRAGON® Magazine

knocked out our original ideas on

what to put into the table of con-

tents. We had planned to devote

this issue to the AD&D Oriental

Adventures lands, with part two of

David E. Martins The Marvel®-

Phile as well, but well run them

both later (our apologies to all con-

cerned). What we are presenting

now is far more important.

Included in this issue of DRAGON

Magazine is an in-depth preview of

the coming revision of the AD&D

game system. Youll find information

on why the revision was done, what

it will look like, and what it includes

(and what it doesnt include). The

designers and editors will tell you

exactly what to expect. (It is obvious

that you should only expect the

best.)

The AD&D 2nd Edition game will

change very little that we are

already doing in DRAGON Magazine.

The original and revised editions are

still the same game, though the

AD&D 2nd Edition game is more

carefully edited, better organized,

offers more options, and has

improved game mechanics. (By the

way, the revised Player’s Handbook

will be out in March of this year,

and the Dungeon Master’s Guide will

be available in May, with the mon-

ster selections following quickly

thereafter.) As David Zeb Cook

himself noted in DRAGON issue

#l2l (page 13), anything you liked

in First Edition is legal in Second

Edition. Thus, nearly all of

DRAGON Magazines AD&D game

articles can be used with either

edition, so all players will benefit.

Take the time to see where your

favorite game is going. And while

youre at it, enjoy the rest of this

issue, too.

Dear Dragon:

I really enjoyed The Ungrateful Dead article

from issue #138, and I plan to use those mon-

sters in my campaign. What are the experience

point values of these undead?

Hits & misses

Eric Robertson

McMinnville OR

Dear Dragon:

Would you repeat Good Hits & Bad Misses

from one of the previous magazines? One of my

friends had it and was showing it to me. I

thought that it was a good thing.

The experience-point values for the monsters

were not part of the original article. Because

calculating experience-point values is very time-

consuming, we did not include them.

Robert Collins

Mollala OR

Carl Parlagreco’s “Good Hits & Bad Misses”

(issue #39) was, if memory serves, the only

critical-hits article that this magazine has ever

run. It has also been requested a number of

times by readers, and if we ever do another

Best of DRAGON Magazine Anthology, we will

keep it in mind. As a general rule, we do not

approve of critical-hit or critical-fumble systems,

as they annihilate opponents of the PCs too

easily (and often annihilate the PCs as well).

Many critical-hit systems are also in question-

able taste, being too graphic to be enjoyable.

Snarfed!

Dear Dragon:

In issue #139, SnarfQuest was on [episode]

#62. In issue #138, it was on [episode] #60. What

happened to SnarfQuest #61? Please respond!

Scott Shepard

Cottoes NY

No episodes of “SnarfQuest” are missing. The

numbering system was fine through issue #138

(episode #62). Issue #139’s episode was labeled

#60, and issue #140’s episode was labeled #62

again; the numbering system continues from

that point. The numbering system has been

corrected in this issue’s episode (#66).

Grateful readers

Dear Dragon:

I was pleased to note the citation of several

older works of literature in the article The

Ungrateful Dead by Tom Moldvay (issue #138).

However, his reference to Samuel Johnsons

17th-century dictionary is mis-stated. In fact,

Dr. Johnsons A Dictionary of the English Lan-

guage was first published in 1755, which places

it well into the eighteenth century. A minor

error, of course, but we in the profession of

English have to have something to do. Now,

does Jerry Garcia know about that title?

James Campbell

Notre Dame IN

The three best

Dear Dragon:

I felt compelled to compliment the following

articles, which appeared in DRAGON issues

#135 and 136: When Game Masters Go Bad, by

Sherri Gilbert; The Mix-&-Match Module, by

Marcus L. Rowland; and especially Fifty Ways

to Foil Your Players, by Jape Trostle. Although

all are fine articles, the last is probably the best

Ive seen in any gaming magazine.

Ideas such as foils move us away from psycho-

pathic, greedy, and often moronic adventurers

who feel out of place above ground or out of

the fray. This article is a shining example of how

to turn a campaign into interactive fantasy

rather than wholesale slaughter.

These articles are also excellent due to their

compatibility with all FRPGs. Not all of your

readers use AD&D® game material. These

articles make the magazine more universal.

Mark Horsford

APO NY

Dear Dragon:

I especially enjoyed the article by Tom Mold-

vay in DRAGON issue #138, The Ungrateful

Dead. There was obviously many hours of

research put into it. It was also well written.

There were two errors in the final copy. I

hope you will make corrections:

The stats on the gelloudes (page 30) list

Damage/Attack as l-4/1-4/1-6/1-6. In the text,

claw damage is stated as

hp each, and talon

damage is l-8 hp each. Which is correct?

The stats on the spirit-ghoul (page 31) list

Damage/Attack as 3. Shouldnt this be a range?

Phred Cain

Princeton IN

We enjoy running articles that are applicable

to a wide range of role-playing games. Many

“generic game” articles are too vague to be of

use, but we’ll look for those that have lots of

specific and useful information.

DRAGON 3

1-6

Accessory - Dragon Magazine #142.pdf

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