PixlBit

While reading the second half of Dragon Magazine #106, February 1986, I thought about that date and remembered that the movie Quicksilver, staring Kevin Bacon, came out.  I don’t remember much about it except that Kevin Bacon rode some cool bikes, but the music I was very interested in because it featured Tony Banks, keyboardist for my favorite band at the time, Genesis. There was also a song with Fish, lead singer of Marillion, another band I followed back then. But enough reminiscing, on with Dragon 106.

Carl Sargent’s article, Money isn’t everything drew me in. It states that the D&D system is pretty stingy at giving characters good starting money; they hardly have enough to get basic equipment. He suggests some solutions such as borrowing money and insurance policies to help pay for needed Cleric spells like the expensive Cure Disease or Remove Curse. He also suggests solutions to the high cost of training and states that the cost of entertainment between quests needs to be changed in the current system.

I don’t know, but using the words “insurance” and “moneylending” would tend to make me not want to play a game. I like to get away from real life, and money matters are the last things I want to think about. Just change the rules to give starting players a little more cash so they can have a good sword and armor and adequate spell materials for magic users. Done.

I think there are different strategies in video games. Some give you lots of cash, like Diablo III, so you never really get too hung up on buying things; and some, like Dragon Quest, are so stingy, you wonder how you are going to survive the next venture out of town.

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Ed Greenwood’s article Open them, if you dare lists a bunch of magic doors you can use in a D&D setting. Type #11 has a beast-head knocker and, when tampered with, emits monsters. This sounds just like “the monster closet” in video games.

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In Deborah Christian’s article The ranger redefined, she elaborates on all the skills a ranger brings to a party like: knowledge of the environment, wilderness survival, woodcrafts, hunting, tracking, animal and plant lore, transportation, scouting, spying, infiltration, disguise, first aid, trail marking, physical abilities (like climbing, running and swimming), knot tying, and signaling. She then goes on to show tables that determine the chances a NPC ranger might know these skills and what temperate zone they are from. I like all these skills. I think I’ll choose Ranger in my next RPG, be it video or table top gaming.

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In Michael Dobson’s article Bad idea, good game he mentions a Steve Jackson published game called Toon. It’s a cartoon role-playing game designed by Greg Costikyan and, can you believe it, Warren Spector, the man behind Deus Ex and Epic Mickey. In Toon, I think I just found out the game I want to play instead of D&D. There’s no death in the game. When you “die”, you fall over and then get revived with full HP some time later. As long as what you want to do is funny, the “animator” (like a DM) can agree to it. You’re encouraged to break the rules and “act before you think”, the object being to just have fun. The characters in the game are very similar to famous Disney characters but different enough to avoid copyright infringement. Sign me up! Next time someone asks me to play D&D, I’m going to say, NO! Let’s play Toon instead! 

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Finally, the Wormy cartoon at the end was really great. It’s just a humorous slice-of-life piece with a troll, a dragon and a goblin barkeeper. I love that: no real story, or plot, or anything; just some funny stuff about a super strong goblin drink, Old Brimstone.

And that’s it for February issues of Dragon Magazine. On to March!