The Dragon Issue 14 was published in May 1978. It is 36 pages long, with a cover price of $1.50. In this issue, Gary Gygax explains Basic vs. Advanced D&D, we have an interview with a rust monster, and we meet the famous Monty Haul for the first time!
It is another triumphant editorial, with Tim Kask declaring:
He goes on to note how much the magazine has improved in the areas of fiction, art, organization, and article quality. He also promises readers a token of appreciation in the next issue. Now, what could it be?
There is a certain science fiction bent in this issue, foreshadowed by a nice spaceship cover which proclaims "TD in Orbit." The artist, Steve Oliff, went on to win some acclaim in the comic book industry as a colorist. Between the covers, we find two articles for Metamorphosis Alpha, one describing how to play as a robot, and another containing a set of background generation charts for characters. The science fiction content is rounded out with a review of the much-acclaimed Cosmic Encounter boardgame, as well as some design notes from the creator of the Space Marines wargame.
There is an interesting article called "Lycanthropy — The Progress of the Disease" which takes a few lines from the core rulebooks and adds lots of color text and rules clarifications (e.g., what happens to your lycanthrope form when you level up). Articles of this sort would become a real staple of Dragon over the coming years.
There is a fun little article called "Interview with a Rust Monster" which provides very little information about rust monsters, but quite a bit of guidance about how not to explore a dungeon. It is pretty well written and was later included in the "Best of Dragon," but I can't help but feel it was a missed opportunity to do something along the lines of the "Ecology of a..." series that came along some years later.
A more influential article is "Monty Haul and his Friends at Play" by Jim Ward. It's a satirical article about the staff of TSR playing a war game together. What's interesting is that it introduced the term "Monty Haul" to the wider gaming community. It's a pun on the name Monty Hall, the host of a famous giveaway game show. A "Monty Haul campaign" is one where players acquire copious amounts of levels and loot with little risk. The term soon became a favorite amongst gamers--who grew rather too quick, in my view, to use the label.
The Sorcerer's Scroll is back - but Rob Kuntz is not! Gary Gygax has taken the column over, and it became his favorite forum to share information, discuss game design, or merely have a rant. This comment is subtitled "D&D Relationships, the parts and the whole." It is a significant column that explains the relationship between the original Dungeons & Dragons game, Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, and the newly released Basic Dungeons & Dragons.
To understand the article, you need to understand D&D's publishing history. The original Dungeons & Dragons set was published in 1974 as a boxed set with three books: "Volume 1: Men & Magic", "Volume 2: Monsters & Treasure", and "Volume 3: The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures". It was followed by four supplements containing additional rules and source material: "Supplement I: Greyhawk," "Supplement 2: Blackmoor", "Supplement III: Eldritch Wizardry," and "Supplement IV: Gods, Demi-Gods & Heroes." Altogether, these seven books are referred to as Original Dungeons & Dragons (OD&D).
Gygax states that OD&D suffers from "too many gray areas... too many different books, too many varying approaches offered." Early on he realized that "some major steps would have to be taken to unify and clarify the D&D game system" and soon decided that "a whole new game was in order." The new game was Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D), which was then still in draft, and intended as "a better, cleaner system aimed at improving the understanding of the role playing game system."
How does this "new" game affect OD&D? The plan is to keep OD&D in print as, "Whether from a nostalgia standpoint, from a desire to collect anything pertaining to D&D, or because of the content which will be excluded from the concept of the new game, we at TSR are certain that Original D&D will always be in demand." But Gygax's preference for AD&D is pretty clear in the article.
So how does this third entity, Basic D&D, fit into the picture? TSR had long recognized that a "beginner’s set of D&D" was needed to help people learn the game. Thus Basic D&D was born, extracted from OD&D. Gygax claims that it "does not differ greatly from the Original except that it is far better structured — thus far more understandable for an individual previously not acquainted with the concept of fantasy role-playing." Because Basic D&D only takes players to the third level, the intention is that "it can lead to either the Original game or to the new, as yet unfinished, ADVANCED D&D."
And so you have three versions of D&D - Original, Basic, and Advanced. Eventually, TSR dropped the Original edition and gave the Basic edition a bunch of supplements of its own. It was a very complex brand strategy and one that caught me out a few times when I first started playing in the early 80s. I ended up playing both Basic and Advanced D&D and enjoyed both, but there was always a stigma attached to Basic players. And Basic often felt like the "poor cousin" when it came to supplemental support.
Next issue, Gygax talks spell area effects, we get a whole bunch of random tables, and Monty Haul returns!
This article was contributed by M.T. Black as part of EN World's Columnist (ENWC) program. M.T. Black is a game designer and DMs Guild Adept. Please follow him on Twitter @mtblack2567 and sign up to his mailing list. We are always on the lookout for freelance columnists! If you have a pitch, please contact us!
It is another triumphant editorial, with Tim Kask declaring:
"This issue represents yet another milestone: it closes out the second publishing year. TD has come a long way in the past eight issues, and promises to go even farther in the coming year."
He goes on to note how much the magazine has improved in the areas of fiction, art, organization, and article quality. He also promises readers a token of appreciation in the next issue. Now, what could it be?
There is a certain science fiction bent in this issue, foreshadowed by a nice spaceship cover which proclaims "TD in Orbit." The artist, Steve Oliff, went on to win some acclaim in the comic book industry as a colorist. Between the covers, we find two articles for Metamorphosis Alpha, one describing how to play as a robot, and another containing a set of background generation charts for characters. The science fiction content is rounded out with a review of the much-acclaimed Cosmic Encounter boardgame, as well as some design notes from the creator of the Space Marines wargame.
There is an interesting article called "Lycanthropy — The Progress of the Disease" which takes a few lines from the core rulebooks and adds lots of color text and rules clarifications (e.g., what happens to your lycanthrope form when you level up). Articles of this sort would become a real staple of Dragon over the coming years.
There is a fun little article called "Interview with a Rust Monster" which provides very little information about rust monsters, but quite a bit of guidance about how not to explore a dungeon. It is pretty well written and was later included in the "Best of Dragon," but I can't help but feel it was a missed opportunity to do something along the lines of the "Ecology of a..." series that came along some years later.
A more influential article is "Monty Haul and his Friends at Play" by Jim Ward. It's a satirical article about the staff of TSR playing a war game together. What's interesting is that it introduced the term "Monty Haul" to the wider gaming community. It's a pun on the name Monty Hall, the host of a famous giveaway game show. A "Monty Haul campaign" is one where players acquire copious amounts of levels and loot with little risk. The term soon became a favorite amongst gamers--who grew rather too quick, in my view, to use the label.
The Sorcerer's Scroll is back - but Rob Kuntz is not! Gary Gygax has taken the column over, and it became his favorite forum to share information, discuss game design, or merely have a rant. This comment is subtitled "D&D Relationships, the parts and the whole." It is a significant column that explains the relationship between the original Dungeons & Dragons game, Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, and the newly released Basic Dungeons & Dragons.
To understand the article, you need to understand D&D's publishing history. The original Dungeons & Dragons set was published in 1974 as a boxed set with three books: "Volume 1: Men & Magic", "Volume 2: Monsters & Treasure", and "Volume 3: The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures". It was followed by four supplements containing additional rules and source material: "Supplement I: Greyhawk," "Supplement 2: Blackmoor", "Supplement III: Eldritch Wizardry," and "Supplement IV: Gods, Demi-Gods & Heroes." Altogether, these seven books are referred to as Original Dungeons & Dragons (OD&D).
Gygax states that OD&D suffers from "too many gray areas... too many different books, too many varying approaches offered." Early on he realized that "some major steps would have to be taken to unify and clarify the D&D game system" and soon decided that "a whole new game was in order." The new game was Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D), which was then still in draft, and intended as "a better, cleaner system aimed at improving the understanding of the role playing game system."
How does this "new" game affect OD&D? The plan is to keep OD&D in print as, "Whether from a nostalgia standpoint, from a desire to collect anything pertaining to D&D, or because of the content which will be excluded from the concept of the new game, we at TSR are certain that Original D&D will always be in demand." But Gygax's preference for AD&D is pretty clear in the article.
So how does this third entity, Basic D&D, fit into the picture? TSR had long recognized that a "beginner’s set of D&D" was needed to help people learn the game. Thus Basic D&D was born, extracted from OD&D. Gygax claims that it "does not differ greatly from the Original except that it is far better structured — thus far more understandable for an individual previously not acquainted with the concept of fantasy role-playing." Because Basic D&D only takes players to the third level, the intention is that "it can lead to either the Original game or to the new, as yet unfinished, ADVANCED D&D."
And so you have three versions of D&D - Original, Basic, and Advanced. Eventually, TSR dropped the Original edition and gave the Basic edition a bunch of supplements of its own. It was a very complex brand strategy and one that caught me out a few times when I first started playing in the early 80s. I ended up playing both Basic and Advanced D&D and enjoyed both, but there was always a stigma attached to Basic players. And Basic often felt like the "poor cousin" when it came to supplemental support.
Next issue, Gygax talks spell area effects, we get a whole bunch of random tables, and Monty Haul returns!
This article was contributed by M.T. Black as part of EN World's Columnist (ENWC) program. M.T. Black is a game designer and DMs Guild Adept. Please follow him on Twitter @mtblack2567 and sign up to his mailing list. We are always on the lookout for freelance columnists! If you have a pitch, please contact us!
I don't think it's in any shape to be published without far more time than I have to get it ready. And I've never considered doing so. Nor do I have a website. I've spent well over 40 years running it, expanding it, reworking it, updating it to new editions, and so on. There are parts of it that are still OD&D and parts that are updated to 5E and everything in between. Plus a lot of home brew stuff. A lot of what is updated depends on my players. What they want to do, and where they choose to go. It's a sandbox with adventures inserted into the larger framework. I am looking forward to more time to work on my game (and play) when I pull the plug and retire in a couple of years. Right now I have a city map to re-do (graph paper, a 42" wide roll of it). My current map is starting to fall apart. That alone is a time sink. And when I retire... assuming the wife doesn't have other plans for my suddenly expanded spare time... I have a lot to do to the rest of the game world.
