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Once again, the editor tries to remind people it's just a game, and their readers shouldn't take roleplaying so seriously. Don't confuse fantasy with reality, don't throw tantrums when your character dies, don't try and assign some deep cosmic meaning to everything we write. All things that you would suppose are common sense. But there's always a few who don't listen, and those are the ones sending poorly written vitriolic letters to the magazine. It's no job for the sensitive, being an artist No wonder they have such a high turnover. Your biggest fans become your worst enemies. In the blink of an eye they're saying you've sold out or lost it, and bitching as if they'd been personally betrayed by you.
In this issue:
More arguments about the cthulhu mythos' stats and fluff, as some people draw upon various authors, while others are lovecraft purists, and the details in stories contradict one-another. Another argument that could go on forever if the editors didn't step in and stop it. And they are noticeably more partisan than most forum moderators in doing so, as they have only limited space, and a personal connection to many of the columnists. Another way in which the internet is a vast improvement, despite its flaws.
The Sumerian pantheon. (ishtar, nergal, etc.) Another deity list. Most notable in that it introduces Tiamat, who would go on to become a D&D regular, and develop into a character quite different from her source mythology; and scorpion men, who would be a staple mystara monster.
Ninjas! Our first new class in well over a year. Some people might have been complaining about class bloat already, but others will always want more, no matter how much they get. This one is very very badly designed indeed. Both overpowered, overcomplicated and stupidly specific in a lot of ways, they specifically say it should be used for NPC's only. (particularly if players are getting overconfident, another case of Gm/player antagonistic assumptions) I think I just won't bother using it at all, thank you very much.
The adventures of the monty haul crew continue: This time Monty gets to GM, and the players have to marshall all their overpowered characters to survive. Also notable because it features the first mention of Drow in dragon magazine, some time before their first iconic adventure and subsequent fame.
Why magic-users and clerics cannot use swords: A typical old skool solution. It's because of a magical curse apprentices have to accept before they can be trained. Which is about as workable as the scribe monopoly on copying magical spells, and its not surprising it never made it into common use.
Realism vs game logic.........: A rather longwinded rant by Gary on a whole number of topics, including spell point systems, people demanding realism in fantasy games, (particularly realistic magic) people trying to coattail on D&D's success by producing unauthorised supplements, critical hits, special weapon expertise powers, spell point systems, people who resent them for making money off their creativity, and people who are incapable of accepting that they are wrong, even when presented with concrete evidence against them. Yeah, thats a lot of vitriol. Public relations were not his speciality. Since a lot of the things that he railed against here made their way into 3rd edition, I can see why he ended up dissatisfied with it. This definitely qualifies as a classic rant.
More metamorphosis alpha expansions and charts, this time focusing on using mutant animals as PC's.
Runequest! King arthurs knights! We're really cooking with classic chaosium products now. Which means BRP, and all the mechanical design advances that come with it. Another important part of RPG history starts here.
The conclusion to the green magician. Once again, the heroes wind up making history happen the way it did. Bit of a lazy way of making a plot, really. Still, I suppose it educates people who can't be bothered to read the originals.
Fineous fingers and wormy are particularly amusing this issue.
Game balance: Jim ward presents a different face to it, reminding us that characters can be obscenely powerful and the game remain fun, as long as they are up against challenges commensurate with their abilities. It is after all, a game, and if you make it too much of a grind, it ceases to be fun. Which is a nice contrast with gygaxian antagonistic GM'ing.
Quite an entertaining issue. We see a lot more of the personalities behind the game, and their interactions and differences than usual. A reminder that this is just a bunch of people who had a cool idea, and were now watching it blow up around them and trying to ride the wave, not always perfectly. They still have quite a lot to learn. And so do we. Maybe some day, I'll wanna settle down. Untill that day, I'll just keep movin' on. (cue banjo solo. )
40 pages. They maintain their increased size despite not being a special issue, which means they have lots of articles in this one. Despite this, they don't feel they are getting enough good ones, and exhort their readers to send more stuff in. After all, to expand, you need more material. The printing presses are a never sated monster. A feeling I'm starting to know all too well.
In this issue:
Vampires in the dungeon: Yeah, vampires have a whole range of cool powers. So play them smart. Make the characters suffer, hitting and running from cracks in the floor, constantly watched and harassed by vermin, never knowing if some of their number are charmed and will turn on the others at a crucial point, etc etc. Now isn't that much more fun than I roll to hit, roll for damage, he rolls for hit and damage, back and forth until someone dies. And if you kill them all, you can make them roll up new characters, and have them face their old ones, now among the ranks of the undead. Isn't that nice.
Jousting in D&D: Another little independent subsystem based upon an attack and defense type matrix. Not too bad a one, and it helps in fighting without killing each other, which would otherwise be very likely in D&D.
Review: Dragonlord. A pretty favourable review of the wargame, with an extensive explanation of how to play it.
Faceless men & clockwork monsters: A an actual play of a D&D/metamorphosis alpha crossover run by Gary. Lengthy and quite gonzo, with a pretty happy ending, as the adventurers find their technological opponents have no defense against their magic, and wind up becoming heroes in short order.
A wizard with a difference: A set of variant specialist wizard types. Not particularly balanced, I'm afraid.
The AD&D players handbook! The second part of the trinity is now with us. Soon the new game will be complete.
Sights and sounds in D&D: More random tables, this time for adding visual flavour to your dungeons. Another sign that they're starting to pay more attention to the setting, even if it's expressed in a different way to modern games.
Another set of joke monsters: unkillable joke annoyance, the munchkin; plus scholars and crs'tchen. My eyes, oh how they are rolling.
The monk and bard in Dungeon!: An expansion for the boardgame. Does exactly what it says on the tin.
Tesseracts: Building hypercubic and other non-euclidian dungeons, making Escher proud, and mapmakers very confused, while maintaining internal consistency in your areas. Yeah, this is cool stuff, particularly to someone mathematically inclined like me. Its a fantasy game. Of course you should make the laws of physics suffer.
Another article full of tactical advice for OGRE: Detailed breakdowns of how to use each unit make this a pretty good one.
Boredom and the average D&D dungeon: Another sign of their growing attention to setting, they advise you to do things like themed dungeons full of monsters and items derived from particular cultures and creature types, to stop it from getting samey. Ok, so its hardly an "ecology of", but it's definitely further advancement in that direction.
A short history of admanite (sic) Yes, its the even more uber than mithril metal, yet to be spelled the way it will in later years. Has a generic backstory of how it was discovered that you can drop into your game. Ahh, power creep, how easy it is to recognise thee in retrospect.
Angels in D&D: Bears little relation to what would become D&D's angel analogues, the devas, apart from having pretty much the spells you would expect from bibilical angels. Encourages you to treat them with the respect they deserve, not just as another monster. Not the most scintillating or original of articles. Still, good to see they're not avoiding christian themes outright. (I look forward to seeing the BADD controversy as reflected through the eyes of the magazine)
Natural armor for monsters in Monsters! Monsters! Another miscellaneous expansion that mostly adds extra power to the creatures involved. Ho hum.
Fineous fingers and Wormy continue their respective plots.
Review: Warp war. Another review that reads more like an advert. They really do need to get hold of some more analytical reviewers. This is definitely an area that needs improvement.
Another issue that among the dross, has quite a bit of really good stuff, and shows definite pointers for the direction that D&D would go in the future, and the setting/rules tropes that would come to define it. Overall, quite a good 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.
Well, they'd probably have to be converted for use in a more modern ruleset (hmm, I wonder if they made it to the Spell Compendiums in 2e?), but Dragon's often a good source of obscure material. I've dipped into the mags a small number of times.
__________________ "Y'know, I think my favorite thing about being a hero of destiny is that it gives you all kinds of narrative justification to just slay any ol' jerk who gets in your way." -- 8-bit Theater
"i did not serve with napolean in his artillery. but i did play wargames with him and his men." -- diaglo
36 pages. Despite being smaller than the previous couple, this is a very full issue, with more articles than any previous issue. This fits in with the general feeling that the roleplaying industry is growing rapidly, with talk about the size of origins and the things that happened there.
In this issue:
Lots of talk about the Origins convention that year, including a list of the awards winners, apologising for the drunken mess the designers caused, and a rundown of the Avalon Hill vs SPI staff softball game. Lots of interesting historical detail here.
Traveller! The strategy of survival: Another classic game gets its first mention in Dragon. As many of you know, in classic traveler you could die in the process of character creation. This article gives you a good run through the generation of a lifepath for a sample character, to whet your appetite for the game. Yeah, this is another big step up for character depth. By making it integral to the chargen process, they make it easy to build characters with depth to their personalities and attachment to the setting around them, and encourage you to do the same with NPC's and the world around.
A review for traveller as well: Between the two, we get a good idea of what the game is like, how the rules work, and the kind of game you play with it. And for a brand new game like this, good publicity in its early months is important to its success.
More reviews: The emerald tablet, Imperium, Pelic Quest (our first computer game review, which I guess is appropriate to the issue.) , and Cosmic Encounter. More sci-fi stuff of various kinds, which are also pretty favourably received by the reviewer.
Insanity! Another weird save based off your ability scores rather than your class & level. As usual, this can be both a real nuisance to players, and an endless source of perverse fun. Unfortunately, the list of insanities isn't that big, and lacks both distinctive quirky insanities, and politically incorrect "insanities" that could make this a classic article. A wasted opportunity.
A load of new spells. Most of these are probably Sllllliiiiightly overpowered, and none of them made it into general use in future books. Most notable for the introduction of metamagic spells, which alter the parameters of other spells cast immediately after them. Not sure if future instances of metamagic draw from this or developed it independently, since they were worded quite differently. But I guess this is still a significant article, since it shows the beginning of people treating spells as combinable and customisable building blocks rather than just discrete effects, which would eventually result in spell construction systems like Mage, instead of endless spell lists.
Magic governed by laws of theory: Once again we see two related articles put next to each other. We see lots of real world magical principles such as sympathy & contagion, and the balance of the universe talked about. More thoughts on how to build an internally consistent world with reasons behind what happens on it working the way it does.
How to design a town in boot hill: More thoughts on building a logical setting for your game. Yep. I guess that world-building has well and truly arrived now, and its just a matter of refining the idea.
The chamber of the godgame: Ahh, the old impossible choice. Sacrifice one of the adventurers lives to solve the puzzle and escape. Maybe they won't really die. Maybe the right choice is find your way around the puzzle. Maybe its on the level, and you're screwed. Yeah, the PC's'll hate you if you use variants on this one repeatedly.
Notes on the design of Gamma world. Yet more thoughts on how to design a map and its inhabitants, as well as their relationships to one-another, resources, and so forth. Another so-so article, but it reinforces that this issue is very much about settings.
Birth tables for boot hill: See above, only for a different topic. Yet more random tables for determining background stuff like social class and job.
Crossover rules for transporting D&D characters to MA, and vice versa. We could have done with this last issue, along with the actual play. You'll still have to wing it quite a bit though, as there are now far too many fiddly bits in both games for a 1 page article to cover.
Monk weapons & monk vs monk combat: Yes, its another badly integrated subsystem.
Effective use of poison: We see the first use of alphabetical identification of poison types with various effects. Which of course is a lot more preferable than save or instant death. Another thing that would be expanded upon and go on to be a staple of 2nd ed AD&D.
Wormy and Fineous fingers continue. A little cartoon takes the piss out of the D&D level titles.
The childhood and youth of the grey mouser: Yet another significant article by a prroper author, this gives a good idea of the not exactly kid-friendly childhood of lankhmars famous rogue.
Random tables for determining the ego and greed of NPC's in D&D, and the effect this has upon their cost and reliability. Another tool for the GM in a hurry.
The super snit revue: A load of entertaining looking new pieces for the snit games. Nice to see them continuing support for this, given its controversial reception.
After reading this issue, I feel a little overloaded. So many significant articles, overlapping and supporting one-another. I'll definitely be rereading this one. Catering to a wide set of games, while maintaining a consistent theme for the issue, this is what a good Dragon issue should be like.
36 pages. The price goes up to $2.00. Which is vaguely sucky, but thats economics for you. Convention season continues, with Gen Con. Gen con turned out to be less impressive than origins this year. Still, it also expanded quite a bit, and also had to face up to the logistical problems in feeding and accommodating that many people. I suppose that's another drawback of being an expanding hobby. It's interesting to note that the term "hack and slash gaming" hasn't been invented yet, with the editor using "hack and chop" instead. The stereotypes of gamer play might be pretty similar to modern day, but the vocabulary and in jokes to describe them still haven't built up properly yet.
In this issue:
The battle for Snurre's hall: Mentioned last issue, this is the actual play for the Origins tournament that would be developed into the GDQ adventures. As has been hinted, this relied heavily on tactical thinking for survival, as giants are rather powerful, while maintaining the kill everything ethos.
An advert for the previously mentioned Giant modules. Were these the first TSR module adventures ever? It's certainly an epic way to start off the concept, even if the individual modules are only 16 pages long. Oh well, like everything else good, there would be plenty of mediocre imitations to follow.
How many ettins is a fire giant worth: Yet another perspective on the epic module series, this time focussing on the scoring aspect of competitive tournament gaming. So much for there's no winners and losers as long as everyone has fun. We also see the beginning of the regulations to ensure consistent GM'ing in tournament play that would go on to stifle the RPGA in future years. Still, at this point, its obvious they are needed, as con games are quite a different experience to regular campaigns.
Player personalities: After that burst of new epic articles, we go back to the old trope of what kind of players have you got? Not a very good one, as it tries to distill everything down to 8 archtypes, without the nuance to make this model properly all-inclusive.
"Treasures" for gamma world: Another random roll table, largely comprised of modern stuff that would seem rare, valuable and strange in a postapocalyptic setting. A good reminder that a big chunk of modern electronic commodities such as CD's, mobile phones, laptops, etc hadn't been invented back then. Ahh, retro-futurism. How strange you can seem.
More of the history of gamma world, both in and out of game. Another article that does about what you'd expect.
The lowdown on wishes: You give PC's ultimate power, they will abuse it, or at least use it in a way that the GM considers detrimental to the overall fun of the game. So having put wishes into the game, people immediately set out to put limitations and risks on them. You really ought to think these things over before you put them in the game, so you don't have to nerf them later.
Planning creative treasurers: More common sense setting development, such as giving creatures treasures that they can actually use, and are appropriate to their nature. It seems elementary today, yet you'd be surprised how often this advice isn't used.
The mythos of Australia: Yet another expansion for GG&H. I suppose its one of those things that are easy to do, and is always in demand, so they'll keep making them until they run out of real world mythologies to cover. Since they haven't invented splatbooks yet, so they need something else to fill the pages.
Systematic Magic: A second attempt to divide spells up according to theme and effects. Not the same set that specialist wizards would later be divided into, although since it's working from first principles, there are some similarities, and they make the same mistake that 3.0 psionics would later, by assigning different prime requisites to different fields. Overall, this particular article is a failed experiment, since it was never taken up, and is notable largely as a curiosity of history and parallel evolution in the way that trilobites are.
The fastest guns that never lived part III: More TV gunslingers for boot hill. As with anything of this type, the law of diminishing returns sets in, and these guys are considerably less famous than the ones in the first article. Keep this up, and you'll be scraping the bottom of the barrel in no time.
A review of gamma world: Most notable for digressing into an extensive rant against the kind of people who think that magic and technology should remain separate in literature, citing Arthur C Clarke, and lots of other examples to show that the line between advanced technology and magic in books is a very tenuous one, particularly in terms of their position in the plot. He does like the game, by the way, and intends to incorporate its ideas extensively into other RPG's. An all the more entertaining review for its slightly unprofessional tone.
Spell determination for hostile magic-users: Spellcasters shouldn't just unleash their highest level damaging spells one after another in a fight. They ought to mix high and low level ones, and damaging and utility ones intelligently. After all, if they blow their wad straight away, they might be caught with their pants down in a later encounter that day. (its pleasing that the idea of the 15 minute workday then rest doesn't seem to have occurred to anyone yet) It makes things much more fun if each enemy uses different tactics. And if you have to resort to randomising this every once in a while, so be it.
Determining the location of treasure: Another random table for when you don't want another boring treasure chest in the middle of the room, and are out of ideas.
Fiction: Footsteps in the sky. A supernatural coming of age story in which everyone in the protagonists family has better special powers than him, and his attempts to prove himself regardless. You've probably read something like it before, and its pretty meh.
Fineous fingers and Wormy are both particularly climactic this issue.
A fairly good issue. Going to the recent conventions and getting a visceral sense of how the hobby is expanding, and how many fans they have seems to have infused the writing staff with a greater level of excitement than usual. This really carries through: despite a few duff articles, their confidence has once again increased, as they produce work that would be remembered well 30 years later. How long before that turns into arrogance and hubris, which is somewhat less likeable to read about? We shall have to see.
36 pages. The aftermath of con season continues to cast a shadow over this issue, with talk of awards, corrections, and other stuff filling up the issue. They also apologise for having to raise prices again. Other than that, they have the usual selection of stuff on D&D and other games.
In this issue:
Imperium: A profile of the winning game of the strategists club outstanding game award by marc miller. Lots of cool stuff on his design process, including a few things that he would do differently in hindsight.
Errata for the last issue of dragon They had left out pieces of both the editorials, and as they were covering the same topic, people got confused. Nice to see them admitting to and fixing their errors quickly, unlike certain other companies.
A job advert, hiring a new editor to work for TSR. Seems amusingly appropriate given the preceding article.
Another random table, reorganising the frequency of magical eyes and amulets in tekumel to a level more to the liking of this particular GM. Yawn.
Star trek miniatures! Another important IP makes its first expedition into the gaming world. Not exactly where no-one has gone before, but ..... Wait a minute, what exactly was the first licenced RPG of a previously famous property? (cthulhu doesn't count, as it was largely derived from open works anyway) Another question I'll hopefully be able to answer sometime soon.
Polynesian mythos stats for GG&H: Scrape out the barrel, Scrape out the barrel. We will not stop, until its cleaned of every single drop. And when its clean, we'll make our own to fill it up again. So endlessly we can pour and scrape the barrel once more. Not impressed? Yeah, same here.
Witches as PC's: Somewhat more acessable than the previous article on this subject, this new character class is admittedly slightly overpowered, but with its very high xp advancement probably isn't too broken. One of the first examples of the "give them something cool at every level" philosophy that only now is becoming the standard in class design, and so is prophetic in some small way.
Demonology made easy: The first mention in Dragon of Orcus, Asmodeus, demogorgon, jubilex, and lots of the other fiendish personalities that would be a staple of adventures throughout the rest of D&D's life. Lots of fun rules stuff that unfortunately, most players will never get to use. Because doing so is eeeeeevil, despite the fact that most adventurers are mass murderers for fun and profit anyway .:rolleyes:
A centerfold spread of photos from Gen con. No, not that sort you perv. Lots and lots of seventies hair on display. No, not chest hair. Honestly, can't I take you people anywhere?
A review (and rewrite) of Source of the Nile by Gary. Surprisingly I think that with these alterations the game would wind up less lethal than by the RAW. I suspect the way this game worked would be in inspiration to the way the Isle of Dread adventure worked later. Like the one of gamma world last issue, this is all the more entertaining for not technically being primarily a review, and is still pretty informative as it deconstructs the game.
The asimov cluster: Stats for the worlds in the Foundation series for Traveller. They admit that they had to make big chunks of this stuff up, because the books don't have enough detail. Pretty dry stuff, really.
A preview of the LotR animated film, along with lots of talk of the hassle they went through filming it, and the techniques they used. How well will it be recieved. I look forward to seeing how they react to it in an issue or two's time.
Death statistics: In 4 years of play, one particular gaming group has racked up a body count of over a thousand deaths (counting hirelings, of course). Thats something like an average of 5 deaths a week. (is this the most lethal campaign EVAR!) For the past 2-3 years, they have been compiling statistics of how, and they present them here. Unsurprisingly, other humans come in top, with more than 20% when all types of them are added up, with goblinoids coming in a distant second, and dragons third. Absolutely classic, and an excellent example of how you can take antagonistic GM'ing to the X-treme, and still have a long running and enjoyable campaign. Take note, all those of you who's games have fewer deaths in a year than these guys had in a week, and feel that even a slight risk of unexpected mortality spoils your fun.
A variant rule for War of the Ring, making the pieces truly hidden, battleship stylee. Not a bad idea, even if it does add some complexity.
Fineous fingers and wormy continue.
Demonic posession in the dungeon: A second demonic article in the same issue. this time slanted towards the GM making life a nightmare for the players. Ahh, the excorcist. You have much to answer for.
The space gamer: An advert for a sci-fi gaming magazine. I don't remember this one. Anyone have any info on it?
A less exceptional issue than the last couple. While they hint at upcoming changes, this issue is pretty much business as usual. Another step on down the road that leads to the present.
(although this is not the last time they make that mistake, as the cthulhu stuff in deities and demigods showed. )
This is incorrect. Permission to use the "cthulhu stuff", IOW "The Cthulhu Mythos" and "Melnibonean Mythos" from DEITIES & DEMIGODS was asked and given by Chaosium, Inc.
The reason those two sections of the book were removed was because the Blume Brothers threw a tantrum over advertising another game company in a TSR product. There were no copyright issues.
Parenthetically, photostat copies of the manuscript rules were made, and when the commercial game was published, fans not willing or financially unable to expend the princely sum of $10 for the product did likewise, copying the material on school (mainly college/university) machines. We were well aware of this, and many gamers who had spent their hard-earned money to buy the game were more irate than we were. In all, though, the 'pirate' material was more helpful that not. Many new fans were made by DMs who were using such copies to run their games. - Gary Gygax
This is incorrect. Permission to use the "cthulhu stuff", IOW "The Cthulhu Mythos" and "Melnibonean Mythos" from DEITIES & DEMIGODS was asked and given by Chaosium, Inc.
The reason those two sections of the book were removed was because the Blume Brothers threw a tantrum over advertising another game company in a TSR product. There were no copyright issues.
Source please? Wikipedia is annoyingly vague and has details that both support and contradict your claim. Not that it would surprise me, given the stories I've heard about the Blume brothers.
The Dragon Issue 20: November 1978
The space gamer: An advert for a sci-fi gaming magazine. I don't remember this one. Anyone have any info on it?
I used to have a bunch of them. No more, alas. It was a thin mag of general RPG/gaming interest. It later split into Space Gamer and Fantasy Gamer, then died out. I want to say that it was a house organ for the Micro Games people, but won't without any to actually look at.
__________________ Scrag 'em all and let the gods sort 'em out!
Source please? Wikipedia is annoyingly vague and has details that both support and contradict your claim. Not that it would surprise me, given the stories I've heard about the Blume brothers.
Parenthetically, photostat copies of the manuscript rules were made, and when the commercial game was published, fans not willing or financially unable to expend the princely sum of $10 for the product did likewise, copying the material on school (mainly college/university) machines. We were well aware of this, and many gamers who had spent their hard-earned money to buy the game were more irate than we were. In all, though, the 'pirate' material was more helpful that not. Many new fans were made by DMs who were using such copies to run their games. - Gary Gygax
Y'Know, I love reading this old stuff. I had always heard that it was Chaosium suing TSR that got the Mythos stuff removed. Took a gander at the Acaeum site and it certainly supports what you guys are saying. Cool beans.
__________________ 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.
Y'Know, I love reading this old stuff. I had always heard that it was Chaosium suing TSR that got the Mythos stuff removed. Took a gander at the Acaeum site and it certainly supports what you guys are saying. Cool beans.
Thanks for the citation. That clears up the inconsistencies. All these resources come in handy.
30 pages. Dragon is rushed to the printers this month, and consequently, is cut down in size slightly. The amount of articles is still about the same, just of shorter average length than the last few issues. With paper prices up, they hint that they may have to raise prices again soon. All in all, it puts a bit of a damper on what should have been a christmas special.
|n this issue:
Garys review of Search for the Nile gets a prompt reply from the creator. This is pretty dull, and has the danger of turning into an academic love-fest. Another example of things that would never make it in now, as it would be handled via the intarweb.
The Tomb of horrors! Another classic module gets its release now. Prepare to die horribly, again, and again, and again.
You don't kill too many characters, do you: A textbook example of a GM being a complete arbitrary bastard, changing things on a whim to amused themself and keep the players from ever winning. Another case of things that were laughed off then, but would cause massive amounts of complaining these days. Have we all gone soft, or it this a sign of improvement? Who can really say?
What do you call a 25th level wizard? Eventually, the level tables run out of titles for class levels. Which means you're badass enough to make your own title. The longer and more floridly descriptive, the better. Another tremendously amusing article that seems very dated now.
Review: The Dragonlords. Another review that is mostly description.
Cure for the same old monster blues: A reminder that real animals, particularly insects and deep sea creatures have more than enough incredibly weird stuff to match the stuff from fiction. Just do a little research and stat it up if you're short of ideas.
Inflation in D&D: Another thing that has always been a problem, particularly as these are before the days of treasure guidelines for level. If players come to expect a certain amount, it becomes increasingly difficult to take it away. So be carefull. Nothing unusual, really.
Prophet Proofing: Another problem that has always been the case, and probably always will be. That of divination spells spoiling the surprise. This article is once again written from a very antagonistic viewpoint, where it is assumed that the players and GM will be using every resource to beat each other.
Sensible sorcery. Another article on the same theme as the last 2, encouraging the GM to be carefull what they allow with spell research. Spells should always be equal or weaker than published spells of the same level, otherwise balance goes out the window. They really are pushing the player disempowerment this issue.
More random encounters for boot hill.
Encounters with personality: Finally, a wandering monsters table with individual characters with distinct personalities. Many of them are joke characters, so this may not be suitable for some campaigns. Still, its another sign of the penetration of roleplaying into RPG's.
Review: Olympica. Another wargame, involving the elimination of a martian hivemind. Mostly a description, it does give me a pretty good idea what the game is like.
The hall of mystery: A mini adventure (well, dungeon is still 8 years away, so I won't be surprised if we see more stuff like this for a while.) full of puzzles. Another thing that can be dropped into an existing game easily. Plus bad poetry.
An extensive article for Rail Baron by Gary. Very heavy on the statistics, which makes it pretty impenetrable for those of us who don't know the rules of the game.
Review: King arthurs knights! ( quite a while after its release, but hey, this was probably before comp copies became common,plus they had a several month lead-in time.) The direct boardgame ancestor of Greg Staffords pendragon. (another bit of history I am looking forward to eagerly) Another review that is mostly just a description, but still gives you an idea of the tactical setup of the game.
Our first reprint (sigh, already.) The new character classes for Dungeon! get a recap, due to being used in the gen con tournament. I suppose they have increase circulation quite a lot in the past 2 years, so at the time most people wouldn't have them. Still feels odd for me to be seeing reprints only 3 weeks in. Does include some new material as well.
Review: The Muthain SILMARILLION! bitch!! Let me rephrase that. In the beginning, Tolkien, the one, made middle earth of his thought, and so inspired an army of imitators. I'd forgotten that this was only published after Tolkiens death. Funny to think he died just around the time D&D was first published. If he had been around a decade or two more to see this and correspond with its creators, how different would the game, and middle earth be now? Not too surprisingly they complain its a bit dense, which you really should expect from a bible analogue. Really, there's no way I can give this one an objective review, so I'm not even going to try.
Monty strikes back: The GM overpowers the ridiculously twinked characters, and sends them on a metamorphosis alpha crossover. Yeah. No matter how powerful your characters, if the GM really wants to they can just kill or ruin them without a roll. (unless you play something like burning wheel, or god help you, synibarr, that explicitly forbids GM fiat and has rules backing that up.) Bitter? Moi? Nah, I won't tell that story, because I know members of that group are registered here, and I have no desire to cause a flamewar by airing that bit of dirty laundry.
Fineous fingers continues, but no wormy. I guess something else had to be cut to make pagecount, and that was it. Or Trampier was otherwise occupied that month.
Not an exceptionally good issue, but a distinctive one, nonetheless. With big names, tons of reviews, a proper dungeon area and loads of stuff going on, they are certainly trying, but it isn't quite working for me. Maybe next year.
56 Pages. Due to Tim the editor requiring surgery, and being incapacitated for quite a while after, the schedule is thrown into disarray, and we miss january's issue. (this is the last time that they would miss a month up till the collapse of TSR and takeover of WotC, as soon after this their staff expanded and they became less dependent on any single person.) As a result, they've thrown together Dragon and Little wars this issue. Which results in a considerably larger page count than any previous issue. If they get a positive response they intend to merge the two for good, and cover both RPG's and wargames in a single magazine again. I know that doesn't stick, but it should make the next few months pretty interesting. Lets see what the response is.
In this issue:
The first assassins: Go go arabian adventures. A load of real world history stuff, well presented and condensed. Shame we have yet to see any adventures covering that style. And curious that assassins don't get the same kind of flak as monks for not being drawn from medieval european archetypes. Oh well, the first problem will be rectified in time. The second, who can say.
Gary goes back to his roots, and writes an article on the rise and fall of the swiss confederation. Another historical essay, this time more slanted towards wargaming. Cavalry has its problems when faced with rugged terrain and people with pikes. But pikes don't really work against heavy artillery. And if you don't adapt, you lose. Another pretty interesting and well thought out article, which incidentally reveals that gygax actually means seesaw in macedonian. Just in case you were wondering.
Armies of the renaissance: A third historical article in a row. This one is neither as good or long as the previous two, being very vague, and trying to cover too much in a page. It does have a good sized bibliography though, so if you want more info, you have better places to go.
Reviews: Up scope! a submarine boardgame, The face in the frost, a book. Panzerkrieg, another wargame. And two magazines, Apprentice and pheonix, get very scathing reviews from Gary. He does so love blasting the competition. I suppose when you are the creator of the best selling game and magazine in your field, you can justify saying that you are better than them. But it would show more grace to not be so crass about it.
Mapping the dungeons gets by far its most comprehensive listing yet, 9 full pages long. Of course, it's still a small percentage of the people that have actually bought the game, which the editor complains about. Maybe some people just don't want a bunch of strangers inviting themselves to their D&D game.
What is D&D, and where is it going? Gary goes into an explanation of where D&D is coming from, and where he sees it going. Most interesting is that he doesn't see D&D changing that much after the DMG is published, apart from minor errata and revisions, because it is good enough as it is. Like chess or monopoly, it doesn't need more stuff to retain a decent market position. Constant barrages of supplements would only deter casual gamers. Man, he really got the direction wrong. But as D&D sold more copies under that policy than its current several splatbooks a month schedule, I'm not so sure he was philosophically wrong. But that's something we could debate forever.
4th dimension: A new boardgame from TSR, intended to rival chess or something like that. So much for that plan. I wonder how long it lasted?
An extensive preview of the AD&D DMG, including lots of tables that really are needed to play the game properly. This is the problem with staggering your releases of corebooks. It stops people from playing the game properly for a while. We see that the Great Wheel has now been organised into the order that it would retain for the forseable future, but there is still no outlands. Lots of other classic magical items also make appearances.
SPI on D&D: Gary attacks a reviewer from another magazine who dared to be unimpressed with AD&D. Comes very close to descending into personal attacks. I know people get attached to their creations, but really, this is a bit much.
Stalemate at kassala: Another wargaming actual play, and a pretty fun one, making little attempt at historical accuracy, while still giving plenty of tactical variation.
Fineous fingers takes the piss out of gollum this issue.
Gary reiterates his love for polearms again, in even greater detail. Just when you thought that topic was finished, he trots it out again for all the new readers that have come along in the last couple of years.
In search of the unknown! Another classic adventure out now. Any month now, people are going to start complaining about the glut of modules.
A hell of a lot of controversial stuff this issue, mostly coming from Gary. Agree or disagree with him, his opinions are always entertaining to read, and you can see how he managed to get people to follow him. Having a strong identity makes you more interesting to be around than the average person. Which is something we can all aspire too. Now, how do you do it and not have a big proportion of people consider you annoying? Not by snarking about the hero and founder of the hobby you're playing, I'll wager
The page count returns to 32 pages briefly, for the last time. From next month on, Dragon's expansion of size really starts in earnest. I guess they managed to solve their paper shortage. This issue starts with a blast at the running of origins, calling it inherently faulty and self-serving, only concerned with the profits of the manufacturers. An accusation which would be leveled at T$R as well, but there you go. There's always going to be organizational and financial problems, and people are always going to complain about them.
In this issue:
En garde in solitare: Does what it says on the tin, providing a system by which you can run opponents for yourself without scripting, which wouldn't work in solitare. A short but sweet article, which looks like it would work quite well.
Gary lists the gaming companies that were present at the Hobby industry Convention that year, and talks about how much of an improvement that is over 10 years ago. Another sign of the wave that they were riding, but also of how many of the big players of the 80's and 90's hadn't even been founded yet. We're still a long way from the present.
Fiction: The thing from the tomb, by Gardner F Fox. Niall returns for a fourth time. Increasingly, it seems like he's never in any real danger, thanks to his demonic patroness. Which does detract from the tension somewhat. Plus, for the same reasons, he grows decreasingly tactically intelligent and proactive. Yeah, I'm not enjoying this as much as I used too. If it continues like this, he'll be an unstoppable gary-stu in a few episodes time.
Mind wrestling: An alternate system for psionic combat, trying to make it model the visuals of psychic fights in movies better. Not sure how well this would work, as I never read the 1st ed psionic rules, but it does substantially change the tactical considerations of the game. It certainly looks like another fun little system I wouldn't mind trying out.
Water adventures for Metamorphosis alpha: Lots of new monsters, plus a little bit of game advice. Typically weird mutations make this a pretty entertaining read, as well as driving home how huge the starship warden is. If only red dwarf had though of doing a flooded level episode at some point during their run.
It weighs What?!!!: Armor and weapons were designed for effectively fighting in and with. Any game designer or GM (yes, you SPI) saying otherwise and trying to stop you from doing basic things like stand up from lying down or getting on and off a horse on grounds of "realism" is being silly. I suspect that they'll have to debunk this persistent myth again, since it showed up here recently as well. When will people learn.
Random generation of creatures from the lower planes: No, not a reprint. Gary liked the idea so much that he decided to do his own take on it (plus, that means he doesn't have to pay the original writer royalties). This would be incorporated into the DMG, and later on become the basis for the hordlings. Lovely stuff, although not quite as overpowered or gonzo as the original. Includes some sample illustrations, which really help you visualize how to take these ed up combinations of random rolls, and turn them into creatures.
Fineous fingers is on vacation. Wormy is also still absent. Dear oh dear.
Damage Permanency: Ahh, attempts to introduce realism into D&D. How we laugh at ye. Involves lots of tables that are not always entirely sensical, such as losing levels in spellcasting ability because your arm was damaged. I think we'll avoid using this one. Long experience has shown that people react to their character getting random crippling injuries even worse than they do to their being killed. When the rules governing it aren't that good, (FYI, the only crippling injury rules that I've seen that I actually like are the ones from Savage Worlds) its even less desirable.
Imprisoning Characters: Another badly thought out article based on the principles of antagonistic GMing and players with multiple characters being common. Doing stuff like this may be fun for the GM, but having your character put out of play, but not killed for extended periods of time can quite justifiably induce frustration. Or are we just too soft these days?
A very advert heavy issue this time, which combined with its page count, makes this issue feel a little light on content. The article quality is about average, but the overall product feels a little subpar, with the artwork below standard as well. Guess they were gearing up for the big changes coming shortly, and not putting quite as much effort into this issue.
As this is the point where both the page count and the amount of detail in my reviews starts seriously expanding, this seems as good a time as any to start breaking up the issues into smaller pieces. After all, posts that are too long get skimmed over, plus I don't want to rush through the early years too quick, and not give people a chance to comment on them.
Anyway, onward we go.
The Dragon Issue 24: April 1979
Part 1/2
48 pages. Well, they didn't exactly solve the paper shortage, merely shift their supplies around a bit, and put them where they sold most. So long Little Wars, we barely knew thee. However, having got rid of the division between RPG'ing and wargaming again, they feel more free to address other forms of gaming as well, as we will see later. There are other changes in format as well. which I'll cover as we get to them. Plus, what would an april be without joke articles. Yeah, there's all the stuff you would expect, plus quite a bit that you wouldn't.
Anyway, in this issue:
Lost civilizations in Source of the nile: A big add-on to the game, increasing its pulpy feel, and carrying with it a whole new set of risks and rewards for the players. Seems pretty well done, although I can't be sure how well balanced it is with other challenges in the game. It certainly seems to support outcomes where everyone but the main explorer dies. (bah, they're only natives. :waves hand
Keeping the magic-user in his place: A whole bunch of suggested nerfs for those of you that are finding that magic-users dominate the game. Includes several ideas that would become much more frequent in later editions, such as concentration disruption, and reducing the general duration of spells. I have never been a fan of nerfing, so I shall merely sigh and move on.
Chinese Dragons: Its hard to get a build a consistent mythology of a place when the stories from it are inconsistent and contradictory. (real life, unlike fiction, is under no obligation to make sense) So here's another interpretation of chinese dragons for D&D. Another article that feels like filler material. Still at least we are seeing a bit more on the personality and ecology of monsters here.
Another look at lycanthropy: A more comprehensive article than the previous one, covering the full gamut of willing/unwilling/physical/mental changes found in literature. Which is even better than Ravenloft managed to do later. A well thought out article, that seems to be quite mechanically sound. I approve all around.
Roman military organisation in Classic Warfare: Gary talks about some minutinae of this topic for his old game. Like the stuff on polearms, you'll either love it or be baffled by it, and I'm afraid I fall into the latter camp.
Fineous fingers is still on vacation, the lazy bugger. Honestly, they're monthly strips. How hard is it to get a decent buffer up? Many comics of similar size manage daily or several times weekly schedules for years with no trouble. Ok, we have copypasta techniques now that they didn't then, but really, this isn't good enough. Still, its better than Wormy, who hasn't even made an excuse for his absence.
A viking campaign in the caspian sea: Now this is a fun war story. Vikings vs Arabs! What a culture clash. Based on real 10th century hisorical accounts, this shows that it wasn't just the european costal towns that got raped and pillaged. Includes Classic warfare stats for the scenario. A pretty good article.
The Melee in D&D: Gary defends the level of abstraction in the D&D combat system, that even though you may only be rolling to hit once per minute (ahh, AD&D, why, why why? BD&D got it closer to right with 10 second rounds, and yet you still stuck with it for 20 years in the face of many complaints.) this represents an entire exchange of lots of individual actions. (And yet you could still only move 40' in that time. )Plus, in a game with magic and dragons, what's realism anyway. And my system is still more realistic than any other out there at the moment, so ner. You can change it if you want, but keep in mind that then you won't be playing proper D&D, and anyway, you'll probably find its not as fun, because you've thrown off my carefully considered game balance. I don't think I need to comment any more on this one.
Jean Wells and Lawrence Shick join the TSR staff. Go them. Cue typical comment about needing to bring a female perspective to the magazine.
Out on a limb returns after a lengthy absence, due to lack of decent letters. Demanding that letters be typewritten isn't helping this (ahh, once again, how times change.) We get one calling them out on Gary being allowed to make personal attacks, while anyone else writing in isn't. (which pleases me because it shows that there were people who felt that he was turning into a bit of a dick at the time as well. Becoming a star does horrible things to even the nicest of people.) A person complaining about the merger of dragon and LW, and two people complaining about their religion being satireised in a recent article (the Crs'Tchen) So despite the absence, it's pretty much business as usual here.
Keeping the magic-user in his place: A whole bunch of suggested nerfs for those of you that are finding that magic-users dominate the game. Includes several ideas that would become much more frequent in later editions, such as concentration disruption, and reducing the general duration of spells. I have never been a fan of nerfing, so I shall merely sigh and move on.
Yeah, that's a frequent subject for Dragon alright. They were still publishing articles like that a good 15 or so years later, you know cut back on the M-U/mage/wizard's power, limit magic items, give out magic items that are useless for combat, catastrophic magic mixing etc. I think some of it at least was because some DMs just weren't up to snuff.
__________________ "Y'know, I think my favorite thing about being a hero of destiny is that it gives you all kinds of narrative justification to just slay any ol' jerk who gets in your way." -- 8-bit Theater
"i did not serve with napolean in his artillery. but i did play wargames with him and his men." -- diaglo
Armies of the Renaissance - the Swiss: This is pretty similar to the article a couple of issues back, only a little more general and condensed. Entirely fluff, and not hugely interesting.
Narcicistics: Ahh, joke monsters. We never tire of reading of thee. (and then never use you in our games either, I hope, as the stats do not work under the rules) This time, the popular crowd gets to be the butt of the joke.
Psionics revisited: A set of modifications for the psionics rules in EW. These make little sense to me, but I gather that those rules weren't the most well constructed anyway, so its all good/bad.
Disease: A set of random tables for determining the symptoms and lethality of a random disease. As is often the case for this period, the mechanical ramification of certain symptoms goes unexplained. Still, it is pretty amusing, and hardly useless.
Bergenhone '77: Modern war training. The american army gets its ass kicked at tank gun target practice by the canadians. We'll be ready for this years competition, and beat them into the ground. Now that's real life wargaming.
The return of Conan Maol: A little more distant history, here, as we get a story of another ancient irish hero to use as we see fit. Another so-so article.
The ramifications of alignment: Another attempt to make the moral/ethical conflict in D&D make a little more sense. This one works by separating out what the author considers the 6 main manifestations of each alignment (examples: seeker of knowledge or military discipline for law, the balance must be preserved or personal ambition over principles for neutrality, fertility or destruction of everything for Chaos, and allowing you to focus on one. Something like this would have made the irreconcilability of alignment debates caused by people being unable to agree on what actions actually are lawfull/chaotic/good/evil considerably less of a problem. A good article, (apart from the very bad deity names, which seem to have been spewed from a generic fantasy random syllable generator) and one I wish had been picked up and run with by the game.
Speaking of random syllable generators, we get one for naming things in tekumel.
The results of the second featured creature competition. It seems that there aren't that many decent artists among dragon's readership, as only the number 1 entry shows any real signs of professionalism. They do recognize that art is the area that they need to improve on the most, and We know they do improve on that front. But how soon? How much longer will scrappy black and white line art be a regular feature of the magazine?
Monty haul and the best of Freddie: More silliness, including what would later become serious artifacts the ring of Gax, and the Rod of 7 parts. These are the stories that would later be adapted into Greyhawks epic lejends and characters. Kinda takes the aura of wonder away, doesn't it.
The Society for creative anachromism: Now here we see another great advantage of the remerging of the magazines. They cover topics that would previously have been unsuitable for either. Tabletop roleplaying, meet LARPing. (god, 4 years, and this is the first time they've mentioned it here.) I hope you'll be the best of friends, and not look down on each other and go around taking the piss. We're all just gamers, trying to have some fun. Futile hope? Oh well. Hopefully we'll see more on this topic before the magazine turns inward and becomes a D&D house organ again.
All in all, its a very full issue, the biggest change in format since the move from SR to dragon. They've definitely put a lot of effort into this one, and I'm pleased to see that they want to expand their scope. If they increase their standards and production values I can see how they can soon reach the golden years that so many people have spoken of nostalgically. The rollercoaster is definitely going up at the moment.
An expansion for illusionists by Peter Aronson, bringing them up to 14th level and 7th level spells. Introduces those lovely annoyances color spray, phantasmal killer and dispel exhaustion, among others. Now you know who to blame.
...
Hey, what can I say -- I was only 17 at the time!
__________________ If that's pure logic I'll take vanilla.
No wonder they have such a high turnover. Your biggest fans become your worst enemies. In the blink of an eye they're saying you've sold out or lost it, and bitching as if they'd been personally betrayed by you. 
G&H. I suppose its one of those things that are easy to do, and is always in demand, so they'll keep making them until they run out of real world mythologies to cover. Since they haven't invented splatbooks yet, so they need something else to fill the pages. 
Linear Mode
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