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and the Viragga, which are essentially organic squid/tank hybrids with lots of tentacles
Auugggh, OD&D was anime.
__________________ Currently running: Sufficiently Advanced over Maptool. Soon to change. If you'd like to join in a short 3-8 session campaign for various systems, drop by our forums.
I double-dog-dare you to make your game sound super cool without comparing it to other editions. - paraphrased from Umbran.
Another year, another change in publishing schedule. Due to it's considerably greater sales, Dragon is moving up to being published 8 times a year, while Little Wars is relegated to quarterly. How long before it reaches the full monthly schedule most of us remember? How long can Little Wars hang on? Do you already know? Will you find out yourself, or wait and discover it with me. They also ask for more articles on other new RPG's out there, particularly the science fiction ones, as they try and expand. Which reminds me, its almost time for the cultural phenomenon that was Star Wars. The plot thickens.
Anyway. In this issue:
An article on witches. Mentioned in a previous issue, this was sent in without a name or return address, and attempts to establish who it was by failed. Despite this they must have liked it quite a lot, (or been short of decent submissions) as they decided to publish it anyway. It pushes the envelope of the current spell system, but in doing so also shows just how much only having one magic system to work from limits the imagination.
More articles on Metamorphosis alpha. Setting and equipment stuff that was left out of the book due to editing snafus. We'll be seeing more of this in the future as well. Before you had the internet for eratta, you had to go to the magazines, and if you missed the issue, well, hard luck to you.
Ankhegs! Whosa classic little digestive acid spitting worm thing. Yes you are, yesu yesu R! :tickles chin: Ahem. Sorry about that Like the bullette, this is one creature that never fails to provide a fun fight. Strike from below and let them quail in terror.
The letters page is particularly entertaining today. We have a hopelessly ambitious GM seeking 55 sub GM's, each to control 20 players, to run his epic campaign world idea. Yeah, that one's never going to work out. The pedantry about converting tolkien elves to D&D continues, and I suspect, would do so forever if the editors let it.
Dirt is atrociously scanned to the point of being illegible this issue. This is no good at all.
Appearance table for metamorphosis alpha. If you want your characters to look weird in a random fashion, this will do the job, although it doesn't give any mechanical modifiers for these changes.
Beyond the Wizard Fog by Gardner F Fox. The adventures of Niall the barbarian and his mighty thews continue. And he slips further into the power of the demon goddess he interacted with in the last issue. I'm definitely interested in seeing how this develops further
Wizard research rules: These are the sort which make researching a single 9th level spell the kind of thing that would bankrupt a kingdom. I suspect we'll be seeing level advancement training rules which are similarly economically unfeasible sometime soon. Its the kind of thing they liked to invent (and then be ignored by most people) back then. Still it includes rules for making The One Ring, so its not a complete wash.
Gandalf was only a 5th level magic-user. Ah, yes, I know of this one by reputation. Still seems somewhat specious, and relies on the argument that the magical effects that don't have D&D equivilants would translate into low level spells just because they don't seem that powerful. It concludes that D&D is not actually that well suited to emulating Tolkien's world, so its not as if we're dealing with a mad one true wayer here.
The Gnome Cache continues. It is increasingly starting to feel like an actual D&D adventure turned into a story, given the way the plot progresses from one point to another.
They seem to be chugging along nicely here. How quickly will the schedule change to monthly, and the page count bloat to the hundred plus issues that were standard in the 90's? How long before I'm forced to slow down posting due to the bulk of stuff I've got to get through each issue? Will I be able to find decent copies of all the issues I'm missing in time? Lets press onwards, deeper into the adventure.
We learn this issue that they have quadrupled their circulation in the past year. Which doesn't surprise me, but it's nice to see concrete figures. Its pretty much business as usual for the magazine. The usual mix of fiction, articles and adverts. No letters pages this time, and more significantly, No more Dirt. I suppose there's only so long you can keep two pairs of eyes talking to each other interesting. What will replace it? That would be telling.
In this issue:
An alternate character background for metamorphosis alpha. Instead of being wild decendants of the people on the ship, the characters are clones imprinted with memories, grown to repair the ship as an emergency procedure. As you would expect, it is heavily dependent on luck what abilities you get, which range from food service technician (go red dwarf!) to immortal.
Sea trade in D&D campaigns: Creates a nice little greater risk/greater profit gambling game for managing your high level characters trade in the background. It doesn't have any real element of skill, and so it a little dated, but seems like it would do the job quickly for players who have reached high level and want to own companies while still going out adventuring. Also interesting because it references a particular players campaign, which is always revealing, as it is more evidence that people were trying things beyond the scope of the rules and playing in styles not spelled out by the designers.
Legions of the petal throne painting guide: More of the tremendous attention to detail and inventive creatures we've come to expect from professor Barker.
Fiction: The forest of flame by Morno. A wizards apprentice learns about hubris and not trying spells beyond your power the hard way. Or does he?
An advert for dragonewt figures. I've seen nothing on runequest in the magazine so far, but this means that glorantha is already out there, developing. Was there a boardgame set in it before the RPG? Why, I do believe there was. More on this when it becomes significant.
More extra rules and errata for Metamorphosis alpha. They really didn't make it as self-contained as they should. I suppose when you're dealing with characters that diverse, its hard to be comprehensive in the little booklets they used then.
From the Fantasy Forge reviews a load more monster figurines.
Another interesting advert. Monsters! Monsters!, the game of gribleys from the dungeon wreaking havoc on villages of innocent humans. Turnaround is fair play, I suppose.
The Gnome Cache continues.
Ral partha. Another familiar face starts advertising in Dragon.
Optional expansions for psionic abilities and morale.
Angels of Death. You know the drill, relentless and virtually impossible to get rid of permanently, they seek out those who's time has come and take them away. The Bastards.
As you may have noticed, the number of adverts by recognisable companies is increasing rapidly at this point. The magazine's been around long enough, and achieved enough of a reputation that we're seeing other significant companies spring up and follow in their tracks. Still no book reviews though. I wonder how long it'll take before they get round to that?
So its a year since Dragon started. They're pretty happy with what they've achieved, but still have bigger ambitions. Already they can look back at their old issues and cringe at the quality. But as we know, there are still substantial improvements coming ahead. Still, lets see what the present contains.
In this issue:
How to vote for the third annual strategists club awards. Gives me a pretty good idea of what was released and did well this year, as well as what authors are currently popular.
What to do when the dog eats your dice: Pretty self explanatory. shows how to use other common methods of generating random numbers to substitute for dice rolling. Most notable for including mexican jumping beans as one of the options, among other joke options.
Gary talks about the origins of TSR and D&D. Most of this is pretty familiar, particularly as its only a short article. But as their fanbase is expanding so quickly, I guess he gets asked it a lot. Rest assured, you have many long years of answering that question ahead of you.
Mapping the dungeon now includes entries for australia and germany.
Mystery hill - Americas stonehenge: Manages to cover several different ancient conspiracy theories in a couple of pages. Lots of stuff thats transplantable to virtually any setting here.
Fiction: The journey most alone, by morno. This continues the journey of the wizard from the forest of flame. It's a bit late, but I can't help thinking that this story makes an excellent example of a seeking for mage: the ascencion.
Military Formation stuff for tekumel. Making battles look like advanced geometry lessons with florid titles from above since 1977. This is really more aimed at the wargamers among the audience, and I found it pretty dull.
More Finieous Fingers
Monster: The prowler. Another worse than death inflicting creature who can makes life a nightmare for dumb or unlucky PC's. More nice errol otus artwork depicting it.
The gnome cache continues, with the situation going from bad to worse for our protagonist, with the ready promise of getting worse still. Will there ever be a happy ending to this story? No, because this is the last installment before it simply gets dropped unceremoniously. So much for that then.
Pretty dull issue really. Doesn't seem to be anything historically significant or hugely entertaining or thought-provoking in this one.
Oohh. Several very cool things here. We get fiction from the co-creator of Lankhmar, harry fischer, plus the first proper map of the planar cosmology. We also get lots of hints on upcoming games. It seems that they are planning something big in the near future, putting a whole game into issue 11. We'll see how that one pans out. We also get a case of the disappearing freelancer, as the creator of finieous fingers goes AWOL. Again, I look forward to seeing how that turns out.
But enough of the future/distant past (we have got to invent better time travel tenses) In this issue:
The great wheel cosmology that has defined D&D all the way through 1st and 2nd edition, and still got plenty of coverage in 3rd, with various variations and additions; gets its first outing. It's still the same basic setup: 6 inner planes representing building blocks of reality in a sphere, 16 outer planes representing moral positions in a big ring, ethereal and astral planes to connect them to the prime material. There's still a few differences to the final model, the upper planes are in a different order, and there's no Outlands or demi/quasiplanes. What upheaval could move them to the classic form most of us are familiar with? As a longtime planescape fan, any further developments on this front will be reported with great enthusiasm.
The development of towns in D&D. Looks like we're starting to get thoughts on realism and worldbuilding. Guess sharing a magazine with professor barker all this time is starting to rub off. Includes a whole bunch of implicit suggestions about the average level of characters and distribution of alignments that you may want to take or leave, but thats implicit setting stuff in general for you. You have to watch out for it and know how to change it for your own game.
The Finzer Family - A tale of modern magic, by Harry. O. Fischer, the co-creator of lankhmar (Who's books are all out of print, it seems while fritz lieber continues to sell nicely. Quite shocking. ) This is a long story, taking up a full third of the issue, and ends on a too be continued. I won't spoil you on this one.
Gamma World! Coming soon, they give us a sneak preview. Seems a bit odd to release two gonzo sci-fi games within a few months of each other. And I can't say I'm overly inspired by the teaser either. I guess I've just seen these tropes done too many times, often better.
A set of tables for those of you who want more detailed gems and jewelry, measured in carats, and their respective value in GP. Pretty dull stuff, only for hose of you crave detail in everything.
So, you want realism in D&D. A joke article on how to translate youself into D&D ability scores. Most notable for its wisdom entry. Calculate the average number of hours in a week you spend playing D&D and working on your D&D campaign, and subtract it from 20 Which also becomes a subtle dig at how often the writer actually gets to play, thanks to being a tsr staffer. Ahh, turning your hobby into your job. Destroying the joy you take in life since the age of 18.
From the Fantasy Forge continues to point out miniatures for us. Not much reviewing this time though, just straight out pimping, which isn't briliant.
Name that monster! They give us a picture and then ask readers give a name and stats for it. Best entry gets published plus other prizes. I'll report how this one turns out.
Yet more stuff on Metamorphosis alpha by jim ward. He really is plugging this for all he's worth. I suppose it is his creation and all, so he has a strong stake in its success.
An odd little comic on the creation of the world.
This ones a mixed bag, going from the very interesting ( the planes and the fiction) to very dull with little in between. It's nice to see their imaginations are expanding along with their ambitions, but there's still something missing as far as consistency goes. Once again, due to their limited page count, they've bumped their "regular" features out the way to make space for the special stuff. Since they've only been going a few issues, that stops them from feeling regular, and letting people get a feel for their format. Which is a bit annoying. Still, I know they got there in the end. I just have to keep following the path to find out when.
Once again the fiction eats up a huge portion of this issue, possibly even more than in issue 2. We also see the start of a proper comics section, instead of putting them throughout the magazine. Most significantly, Wormy! Yes, many peoples favourite flat-capped dragon and his demonic pal with a brooklyn accent get their debut here. Now I know.
Also in this issue:
Mixing alignments in D&D. Gary reminds us that even in D&D, everyone doesn't automatically know each others alignment and try to kill each other because of it. It is often more profitable to tolerate people different from you, and take advantage of those different outlooks. Particularly among humans, who span a range of alignments, this is simply not viable, and you have to think politically to survive and achieve your ambitions. Which is important to reminds people. This may be a fantasy, but it's not totally unrealistic (and will continue to get less so, in many ways.)
The finzer family story takes a sharp right angle, and turns into a "time travelers who go to observe an event wind up making it happen" story. Only without the horrible ending in something like Behold the Man. But then, this is a family friendly magazine.
Seal of the imperium: A Q&A column by MAR Barker about tekumel. Lots of boring little rules niggles that I shan't go into, but we do get one very valuable bit of advice. The tekumel that exists in the game is not the same as the one in the books. If every event and item was incorporated, then any semblence of realism and sanity would soon go out the window. Advice which was never heeded by D&D settings like athas and krynn later. Oh well. Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it. And we're certainly learning quite a lot of history here.
The fastest guns who never lived part 2: More boot hill stats for fictional cowboys, including luminaries such as Tom mix and Lee van cleef. Still not familiar enough with the shows or the rules to comment on how good they are, but there certainly seems to be a good selection of genre emulating abilities there.
Tombs and crypts: Another set of random tables for determination of monsters, should players decide to do a little unplanned graverobbing. Like PC's do.
An Elric boardgame being advertised. I guess this means Moorcock already knows about D&D now, and a RPG will be along soon. Iiinteresting
The comics section. We get Floating in timeless space, Wormy and Finieous fingers. All seem to involve ongoing storylines.
The first issue of White dwarf magazine is released around this time, and they put an advert here. I was going to ask if someone wanted to take that job on, but since they already have, I don't need too. Which is nice.
More building up of detail here, but nothing else stands out. Still, surely wormy is enough for you. If they crammed all new stuff into every issue it'd be a nightmare to keep track of.
Going up to 36 pages long, this includes a full boardgame with it, as they hinted at earlier. We'll see several more of those over the years. Such a shame I'm reading in .pdf and can't make proper use of it. Oh well. We also see another development. In an attempt to stem the cries of canonwankers, they're going to clearly mark which new articles are "official" and which are optional variants. Will, it work? It wasn't around by the time I started reading, so it can't have lasted too long. I'll let you know when it stops.
Also in this issue:
Orgies, inc: Changing the rules to make the game more S&Sish, characters using this variant gain experience by blowing their money instead of earning it. Wait a minute. Didn't I see this rule in Iron Heroes recently, where it was hailed a a rather good idea. And do we not also know that mike mearls is still partial to a little OD&D. Not that I'm implying anything, oh no. There are fewer truly original ideas than you would think. Includes some rather NSFW artwork by Dave Trampier. Someones certainly willing to push the family friendly line most of this stuff sticks too.
Designing for unique wilderness encounters: More random tables full of stuff to let you build areas quickly when out of ideas. System free, and so still useful today. It'd be cool to design a world using only the tables in these issues.
Random Monsters: Another set of tables, literally allowing you to build a monter by rolling on them to determine its appearance and stats. Handy (as they say) when dealing with players who already know all the monsters in the books, and have strategies for how to best fight them all worked out. Dontcha just hate that.
Let there be a method to your madness: The worldbuilding continues with this essay on how to create logical dungeons by working from principles such as who built it, why, and what resources they had. This is madness! It'll never catch on!
Snit Smashing! A fun little game of hunting and reproducing, leading on from the floating in timeless space comic.
An article on why males should be stronger than females in D&D, because of things like weight, height and differences in build, along with "realistic" tables for the determination of these factors. As I don't want to annoy the PC among you, I shall say no more apart from to mention that this is another thing which would spawn an analogue much later on, with the height influencing weight multiplication method used in 3rd edition.
Gaining a new experience level: This starts off as a serious article about making gaining a level an ordeal in itself (as people were wont to do back then with training house rules), and then turns into a joke, as the requirements grow ever more ludicrous and arbitrary, ending up with the great pink elephants granting the character his new level while he lies in a drunken stupor. Read as satire, this is a great article, and amongst the jokes are some sound mechanical suggestions, such as allowing magic-users to forget spells that are no longer useful so they can learn new lower lever ones that do have use at higher level, and make the most of their spells known limit. Which as we know, became an invaluable ability for sorcerers in 3.5.
The tactics of diplomacy in Stellar Conquest: Advice on how to play a game where you can't communicate directly and indicate lack of hostility, as well as general tactical advice for the game such as exploration and supply lines. Pretty standard stuff, really.
Wormy and fineous fingers continue.
This has quite a fun issue. There have been several cool new developments, with a higher than usual level of ideas that will be reused in the future, and a proper sense of history is starting to grow.
38 pages. The board game fun continues in this issue, with snit smashing getting a sequel. Even more importantly, we get the first rumblings about AD&D, with the monster manual coming soon, and lots of resulting promotion for it. (odd that the monster book should be released before the players and DM's books. Still, I guess all the monsters were compatible with OD&D rules. ) On top of that, we have the first official D&D novel coming soon, by Andre Norton! (excuse me while I have a fanboy moment here) of all people. On top of that, they have new staff, and thanks to that, and their still increasing sales, dragon will be going monthly very shortly. That was quick. Just 3 years to go from quarterly to the monthly schedule most of us remember. Now the only way up is in the page count.
In this issue:
View from the telescope: Gary blasts people trying to copy their work, or produce material compatible with D&D without permission. (a bit rich when you consider the hassle they had with hobbits and cthulhu) Quality control must be maintained! We do not produce shoddy rushed work just to make a quick buck! (yeah, I know. How long was the publishing gap between the 3 AD&D corebooks? ) AD&D will be a massive improvement over the previous edition of the game! I think most of you are familiar with the flow of high Gygaxese by now, so I'll stop here before we die laughing. On the other side of the page an advert for Judges Guild Officially Approved D&D compatible licenced products. See, we're not monsters. You can do business with us.
Brawling! As ever they make it far more complicated than armed combat, for far less benefit unless you are specifically intending not to kill. Which I guess is important sometimes, particularly when low level characters are so fragile. Given the way the D&D hit point system worked at that time, capturing and imprisoning people would be virtually impossible unless you used magic, or they surrendered. And some people want more options.
Defending against the OGRE: Tactical advice for the boardgame of the same name. Can't really comment on this one.
The Play's the thing: A little article encouraging people to think up backgrounds and personalities for their characters. Along with the worldbuilding stuff in the last issue, it seems that D&D is starting to seriously move beyond its wargaming roots and involve actually viewing characters as roles rather than just pieces to explore, fight, level up and die with. Betcha we'll be seeing a roleplayers vs rollplayers quip within a few issues.
Seal of the Imperium: More Tekumel Q&A by Professor Barker. Mostly setting stuff this time round, clearing things up and expanding on stuff in the books, rather than rules niggles.
From the sorcerers scroll: More teasers on the upcoming AD&D products. The monster manual, and a big outdoor map by Brian Blume. Also notable is an offhand comment about Chivalry and Sorcery, as D&D's closest rival yet. So we know thats out now. Ends by asking the readers to rate what they want more of in order of importance.
Sea magic: More Fafhrd stuff by fritz lieber. Our barbarian learns to shoot bows around corners, despite having recently lost a hand. Truly he is pretty badass. Meanwhile the Grey mouser has acquired a whole ship full of followers. Definitely has the feel of a high level later story, and makes me wish I had the intervening stories. Which is a good thing from the writers perspective, isn't it.
Quarterstaff fighting rules: Another completely disconnected fighting subsystem is introduced. And promptly ignored. Also featuring incredibly twinked out stats for robin hood and his men, who all have all physical attributes at 15 or above. Yeah, not very impressed with this one.
More Wormy and Fineous Fingers.
A review of the Rankin-Bass cartoon of The Hobbit. A very scathing one. Good to see that people realised just how crap those cartoons were even back then. Shame that didn't stop them from producing crap cartoons all through the 80's and making huge amounts of money doing so. Oh well.At least we have a pretty good movie version of LotR now, hopefully with the hobbit to come.
Snits Revenge! A second boardgame continues the story of the timeless space setting. A whole new game, plus errata for the first one.
All in all, this has been a pretty good issue. A few duff articles, but the combination of good ones, and the extensive amount of teasers for the future has made it feel pretty significant in general. This is the first time most of the players at the time would have heard of AD&D, and we know how well that one worked out. Which is nice.
Ah yes, Quag Keep. The only Andre Norton book I've only read once! I was really expecting great things from this, so the disappointment was even greater when it turned out so... wonky.
__________________ Scrag 'em all and let the gods sort 'em out!
Another year, another reason for celebration, as Dragon finally gets 2nd class mailing approval. Another step away from being a hobby towards becoming a smoothly running industrial machine (well, as close as you get where artists are involved ) This also gives us a chance to see the proper figures due to the business requirements. Still nowhere near the numbers that they would attain in its heyday, but still more than equal to most RPG supplements these days. Oh well. Times be hard for poor game designer. Old man row 'cross the river each day. The same number that seemed good on the way up can feel oh so small on the way down. Or something.
Also in this issue:
They shoot hirelings, don't they: A tale of player's cruelty to the NPC's under their control, and general evil imaginations. The kind of thing that would spawn an epic thread these days, because loads of people can tell a story like this. And people always want to hear drama and gossip. So fun all round.
A new look at illusionists: Yet more buffs and rules clarifications for this class. I can see why specialist wizards of so many stripes were introduced in later editions, the magic user always got loads of attention and cool toys.
The Persian Mythos and the lovecraft mythos (oh yes, you know how this story ends) get writeups, (including stats for the gods, so you can kill them, as we are, after all, kickin it old skool style. ) Fairly short entries, (tiny by modern standards) that remind us how rules light D&D was back then.
Some thoughts on the speed of a lightning bolt: Another bait and switch, as this actually has to do with the optional action speed and round segment rules, and how much of an advantage they give wizards, due to their lack of armor to slow them down. As a result, if you use them wizards are even more likely to be able to waste their enemies before they can react. As if they needed any more advantages after the first couple of levels.
Ship's Cargo: Does exactly what it says on the tin. If you have players of a piratical disposition, you'll need to determine randomly what treasure the ships they raid contain. This helps you do that.
The druids: Druids weren't bloody sacrificers of men, that was merely a vile roman slander. They were doctors, philosophers and teachers. Ahh, the joys of neopaganism. Really, given the scarcity and bias of records from that time, can we ever know for sure what they were really like. Most of it's just literary invention and deeply tiresome.
An excerpt from the first ever D&D novel, Quag Keep by Andre Norton. Hews surprisingly closely to the spirit of the game (particularly that of the actual plays by Gary and co that I've read. Andre has definitely done her research and tried to emulate the feel of those games), unlike many later D&D novels. Of course, that spirit is somewhat whimsical and has strong character as playing piece metagameing elements, but that doesn't detract from the entertainment. I wonder how hard it would be to get a copy of this book now. It's probably long out of print.
Wormy and fineous fingers continue to develop their respective plots.
The fantasy trip!: The ancestor of what would become GURPS starts here. Also, their back page is no longer filled with a placeholder saying this space for sale, or ads from TSR themselves. That is a definite step up in terms of looking professional.
Another mixed bag of good and bad, important and inconsequential here. They're still trying lots of new things, to see what works. And quite a bit of it is. Which is nice for us.
(odd that the monster book should be released before the players and DM's books. Still, I guess all the monsters were compatible with OD&D rules. )
Not really, no. Almost everything gets a HD upgrade across the board, for starters. We spent a long time pouring over that book trying to figure out what was going to change. What, fighters get d10 now? Whoah. What the hell is [this spell]?
It was a real bitch getting the books a year apart, especially since once you got the PHB lots of stuff it references (like the necessary saving throw and 'to hit' tables', which is a big chunk of the core of the game) don't come out until the DMG does.
I wonder how hard it would be to get a copy of [Quag Keep] now. It's probably long out of print.
You can get it from Amazon right now; I don't think any of her stuff ever goes out of print. And there was 'Return to Quag Keep' at the beginning of the year (though how much of it was by Andre Norton and how much by collaborator Jean Rabe is up in the air; I think in that situation, Rabe does the vast majority of the work). I tried reading it but man, it turns dark and savage pretty quickly.
The announcement of monthly printing has finally caught up with them. From here on in, the years will seem to go by a lot slower, especially as the page count ramps up as well. This is also the first proper april fools issue, starting up the tradition of filking that would become a regular feature of these. In addition to the increase in publishing rate, they are also moving to bigger offices, as the company in general expands. So its still a meteoric rise then. Which is nice.
In this issue:
How heavy is my Giant: This is pretty self explanatory, as they do lots of maths to determine how heavy a giant of a particular size should be, and how much they should be able to lift. Relys on the laws of physics not being the same as here, as people of over 10 foot or so would need some serious structural redesign and reinforcement to stand upright without breaking their backs with the strain. Includes lots of weights for various materials, for those of you inclined to build a creature out of gold or something (as wizards will)
Tolkien in D&D: Yeah, D&D is heavily influenced by tolkien. No, that is not it's only influence, we like other stuff as well. Yes, we know some things are different from their source, it is a game after all. Now please stop sending us tedious knit-picking (sic) letters. Please?! Anyone listening? Bueller? Yeah. internet forums haven't changed people at all, they've just given them a new avenue to express themselves.
The bionic supplement: Yeah. Thiiss iiiss the seventiiiiieees! More toys for metamorphosis alpha. Has both advantages and problems, obviously.
Demon generation: Another treat for those DM's who's players have memorised the entire monster manual already. Can create some obscenely powerful creatures, particularly if you take the safety checks off. Still, you need them that powerful to challenge the players.
The japanese mythos: Another pantheon detailed for you to worship or kill, as your players choose. As japan has a larger selection of kami who operate on a near human scale, there are a greater number of gods here that are on a reasonably defeatable scale than average. Nothing too surprising here.
The filks page: Lets not go there, shall we. I may have filked before, I may do so again. But it still makes me squirm to see popular songs so abused
Errata for Warlord: Another game I don't remember, I'm afraid.
The winner of the stat that monster competition from issue 8, plus a new competition. This time you need to work from a description, rather than a picture.
Fiction: The stolen sacrifice. A third Niall story from Gardner F Fox, and we go increasingly epic in it. At the end of it, he manages to overthrow a kingdom and become a general. Is this a happy ending, or will the story continue? We shall see.
Fineous fingers and wormy continue.
Notes from a semi-sucessfull D&D player: A whole range of tricks for players, such as the now ubiquitous continual light on an object so you can carry it one, and the enormous usefulness of polymorph, plant growth and permanency spells. Tactical solutions are generally more effective than straight attacks, and this is particularly true back then before they nerfed most of the buff and utility spells. Lets face it, when the GM is against you, you need to use every trick you have to survive.
An ok issue, not as interesting as the last couple, but not bad. I guess it is significant because it starts the monthly circulation and the april fools thing, but it still feels like business as usual. Which I suppose is testament to the hard work of the writers and editors.
Thanks for writing these, I'm finding them very interesting!
Me too!
__________________ [A]ny good dungeon will have undiscovered treasures in areas that have been explored by the players, simply because it is impossible to expect that they will find every one of them.
RCFG - My free mostly-OGC OGL game! RCFG is intended to be a fusion between OS & NS playstyles, giving the advantages of SRD-based gaming coupled with quick character and adventure generation and an Old School feel.
36 pages. Quite a bit of sci-fi stuff in this one, both in articles and in adverts. If anything, it seems like Sci-fi held a bigger market share in gaming then than it does now. (on the other hand, modern setting games were virtually nonexistant, so I guess they had to push something out the way) We also get to see the start of one of the classic bits of gaming lingo. Keep reading to find out what I'm on about.
In this issue:
We get to see the actual stats from the winners of the Name that monster competition. This is of course interesting because people have inferred quite different stats and backstories from the same picture. The amount of setting stuff in the entries is rather higher than that of official D&D monsters at the time. Really folks, you're being shown up by amateurs. You need to step up your game.
Space Marines commentary and Errata by the designer. Rather a lot of it. Another case where I don't feel qualified to comment, other than to say that this looks like one rules heavy game.
Nomad gods: The second boardgame set in Glorantha is now out. (this is still pre Runequest, remember) The themes and characters that would become important in Heroquest, much later, are still evident here. Greg is already showing plenty of ability as a game designer. This is another thread of history I will comment upon with interest.
A review of the boardgame Cosmic encounter. A pretty favourable one. But then, self selection means most of the reviews here will be fairly positive. The frequency with which they talk about boardgames at this time reminds you just how much computer games have edged out boardgames and other more bulky forms of entertainment now. Tempus fugit, and all that.
Robots as players in Metamorphosis Alpha: Another article that does exactly what is says on the tin, opening up a new player type, and corresponding playstyle, due to their different abilities. Uses one of the earliest point buy systems to create their stats, rather than the random generation more common in this era, which is nice. I don't think this is the very first instance of point buy character creation, but it'd be funny if it was.
Fiction: An interview with a rust monster. A tale of adventurers being rather stupid, as is not uncommon. You don't mess with the rust monster, even if that rust monster is a polymorphed adventurer.
Gary Gygax explaining what the difference and relationship between the new (john holmes edition) basic set and AD&D is, and how they relate to OD&D, as well as why they chose to do it this way. He says that he intends to keep the original version in print as well. (yeah, how long is that going to last) At this point, it's pretty obvious that after getting through the 3 levels in the basic set, you need to go on to AD&D. The days when BECMI would make BD&D become its own branch of the game with slightly different advancement styles and tropes are still in the future.
Monty HAUL!: That old chessnut of the joke campaign where the characters are obscenely overpowered and the DM is incredibly generous with rewards gets its slang name here. This is the ultimate wargame of ultimate destiny, featuring the norse gods, a battalion of platinum dragons, T-rex's and martians. Much fun was had by all, and many game rules were broken.
Hastur is the KING OF AIR!! Another entertainingly pedantic letter by a viewer who thinks that something in a previous issue was innacurate, in this case the lovecraft mythos stuff from a couple of issues ago. The great old ones should be more powerfull, so powerfull no mortal can touch them! Yeah, whatever you say mate. Now calm down, put the pen down and walk away. Its only a game.
Yet another expansion for metamorphosis alpha. Was it really that popular back then, or was jim ward just a one-man creative pimp-house arsenal for his game?
Wormy and Fineous Fingers continue.
Lycanthropy, the progress of the disease: How infected characters manage to gain control of themselves after the change, what abilities they lose (mostly spellcasting ability), and how PC's advance. Also includes stuff on the social ramifications of becoming a werecreature. As this is long before Ravenloft, horror is not on the agenda. Lycanthropes in standard D&D at this time seem to be fairly easy to identify, even in human form, and quite family oriented. How things have changed. Still quite an entertaining article, and it makes more sense of early mystara stuff.
Quite a good issue, overall. We've seen both a decent amount of new things that would be used again later, and generally amusing stuff.
36 pages. Dragons 2nd birthday. We start with another burst of bitching at the post office. As ever their reliability is seriously random. Always the case, and probably always will be the case. What are you to do. This also starts the period in which their page count starts expanding consistently, as opposed to just for the occasional special issue. I'll keep track of this, and as soon as I have reliable data for the whole run I intend to do a graph, so we can get a proper visual image of the rise and fall of the magazine.
In this issue:
The start of another tradition, although I don't think they know it yet, that of having Dragon related articles on every birthday issue. This time, its a set of new spells for dragons, to supplement their spell lists and increase their versatility. Surprisingly few of them would go into general use, and get converted to later editions, and so these still feel fresh and idiosyncratic. Which means they're ideal for screwing your players over with.
Pits! You never know what you might find at the bottom of them. And if the DM doesn't know either, he can roll on this random table. Just leave the loan sharks IN the pit please.
Random events table for settlements: Something that would become important later on, in the domain management system in the Companion set. Like PC's, settlements need to face adversity on a regular basis to keep things from getting dull. Unfortunately, they didn't think ahead enough to include mechanical ramifications for these disasters, but the domain management stuff was a bit vague and heavily fiated anyway. We can do so much better nowadays.
Monty haul and the German high command: The tales of insane twinkery and crossover madness continue. Epic lulz are had by all, and the legendary meme continues to spread through the gaming populace.
More stuff on wandering monsters, how to decide on them, and how they should react to the players.
Notes from another barely successful D&D player. This one has a lot of elements of using mundane techniques to simulate magical abilities, and other such trickery. A good reminder that often the best way to win in those days was to avoid rolling the dice at all costs. And creative thinking is more interesting than straight-up fights in any game. So this is still valuable advice for anyone who's GM will accept solutions based upon real world physics.
The gospel of benwa: A joke story of the creation of the world, how it came to be, and how it was divided into law and chaos. Feels veeery dated, I'm afraid.
D&D ground and spell scale area: Some stuff from Gary on why they used different scales of movement for indoor and outdoor stuff, how to reconcile them with miniatures, and spell effects, and the proper size of miniatures to mesh with the inches scale used. Rather dry stuff, with a distinct air of high gygaxese to it, but informative in revealing some implicit assumptions about the game. Particularly interesting is the fact that despite being adapted from a miniatures game, they used them very little in the first two years of the original group, before it was published. So though miniatures and their sale were intimately connected with the first few years of D&D as a published game, and would be so again, there had already been a certain amount of ebb and flow in that area.
Weather in the wilderness: More random tables full of stuff that can be ported to any game with earthlike weather. If you can't be bothered to think up weather to suit the plot, and your players care, just roll here.
Examining movement tactics in Stellar Conquest. Mobility, proper exploration, outmaneuvering your opponent in combat. All the usual things that should be common sense in any wargame. Another unremarkable article.
Fiction: The green magician by L. Sprague deCamp. Another proper author who was a big influence on the game gets a story published in Dragon. A fairly entertaining time-travel story, this time involving interfering in the legend of Cuchulainn. Too be continued.
Fineous fingers is illegible this issue, while wormy is just filler art. This isn't very good.
More random encounters, this time for boot hill.
Another fairly average issue, with good articles, bad articles and dull articles. As it's an anniversary issue, it feels like they've tried to get some big guns in, but the overall effect is just more business as usual. I'm starting to get a bit fed up with all these random tables. Still, quite a bit of that stuff is still usable now, this issue is still useful as a resource, and I've got another hint into D&D's early history, so it's not exactly a waste.
Like the bullette, this is one creature that never fails to provide a fun fight. Strike from below and let them quail in terror. 
) AD&D will be a massive improvement over the previous edition of the game! I think most of you are familiar with the flow of high Gygaxese by now, so I'll stop here before we die laughing. On the other side of the page an advert for Judges Guild Officially Approved D&D compatible licenced products. See, we're not monsters. You can do business with us. 
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