Old Appearances in Dragon's Forum!

[Enkhidu]

So I was reading through some old Dragon issues, and ran across a letter in the Forum from our own JoeGKushner. It occurred to me that Dragon's Forum was the only outlet back then for the kinds of discussions we have here today.

So who else from the board participated in the debates of yesteryear, and what did you get out of them?

 

[howandwhy99]

Well, I read them, but I'd love to hear who did get in.

 

[Enkhidu]

The only reason I brought it up in the first place was because the Joe's Forum letter was written in the same style as his posts .

 

[Sammael]

Merric also had a letter published in Dragon, IIRC.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

I had one published once - about the d6 Star Wars game. I started on local dialup BBS, then Usenet, hung out on TSR's area on AOL back when AOL was still a thing, but finally gave all that up for the glory of teh intrenets.

You could never really have any kind of discussion or debate through the Dragon Forum. It was just one person spouting something they decided to publish, and like as not it wasn't all that insightful, useful or even intersting. MAYBE a meaningful response or two in the following edition. Topics were extraordinarily limited and chosen by them, usually to compliment the current content if possible. You'd get one or two exchanges at most on any given subject.

Nope, it wasn't until the internet that proper exchange of ideas about D&D on any kind of useful scale was possible.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Ye gods I remember the old Scud vs Alycia flamewar and read it with great amusement. Funny stuff. Never felt compelled to actually write in.

Anybody remember Waldorf?

 

[Hussar]

I <3 Waldorf.

 

[David Howery]

I was in there regularly back in the day; usually responded to other people's letters, didn't start too many topics on my own... kinda like here...

 

[Plane Sailing]

So I was reading through some old Dragon issues, and ran across a letter in the Forum from our own JoeGKushner. It occurred to me that Dragon's Forum was the only outlet back then for the kinds of discussions we have here today.

So who else from the board participated in the debates of yesteryear, and what did you get out of them?

Good idea for a thread topic, but I have to argue that dragons forum was one of the least outlets for the kind of discussion we have today!

There were other magazines too (White Dwarf used to be excellent for the first 50 issues or so) but the main thing was all the amateur publications - especially the APAs like the Wild Hunt, Trollcrusher and especially Alarums and Excursions. There were like giant, slow-motion forums, were a month would go past between peoples arguments and counter arguments. They were great (even if they don't have the immediacy of these days!)

(speaking as a contributor to the UK Trollcrusher APA)

Cheers

 

[M.L. Martin]

I try to forget my contribution to Forum. (#193, May 1993). I was 13, working out some issues with my local gaming group, and not entirely fair or accurate in doing so.

I prefer to look back on my published articles.