"Classic" Dragon Articles

[BOZ]

hi

any more info yet?

 

[Olive]

hi

any more info yet?

I second this request.

 

[Endur]

My favorites: Any of the articles from "Best of the Dragon vol. 1". Articles like "How Heavy is my Giant", the Secret Witch, the Ninja, etc.

 

[bweibeler]

I'd like to see more Ecology articles, particularly of non-OGL monsters such as the kuo-tao

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

Since I missed this thread the first time through I wanted to give my list of Dragon mag content that I still go back to every now and then. In no particular order...

Tucker's Kobolds.
The Waldorf letters.
Deck of Many Things pull out.
Ed's "Nine Hells" article.
Voyage of the Princess Ark
Known World's Grimoire
Ecology of the Bag of Holding
Skills and Powers articles for specific campaigns (Planescape, Dark Sun, Birthright)
Gygax's "From the Sorcerer's Scroll" dispatches of Greyhawk updates
U2 Kan Urn Big Bux
The Kingdom of the Ghouls article in Dragon and its companion adventure in Dungeon.


Regards,
Eric Anondson

 

[Dire Serpent]

Alignment Made Easy! (or Alignment Made Simple!, I don't remember which) - which I still use
Mihalli - Prof. M.A.R. Barker
All of Tom Moldavy's Undead articles
Skullport
Hedge Wizards
The African, Indian and Native American articles...

 

[Death_Jester]

When you and your friends talk about Dragon Magazine, what articles do you always mention? Which, from any period in the magazine's history, stand out as "classics" to you?

For myself, I'd list Ed Greenwood's overview of the Nine Hells (way back in 1st edition days) and the critical hit article "Good Hits and Bad Misses" as articles I'll remember forever, if not use immediately in my game. Others, like Len Lakofka's "Suel Pantheon" series go on my list because they're of historical interest to Greyhawk fans like myself.

What are your favorites? Your input will really help me for a top secret project I'm working on.

Thanks!

Erik Mona
Editor-in-Chief
Dungeon Magazine

Man, this whole thread takes me waaaayyyy back. I love the language articles for all the original races. That was in the early thirties and forties of the magazine I think. They have done something like that recently too with all the races again so I doubt that they will really do anything with that.

There was a one called Landragons with flightless semi-intelligent dragons that were like a primitive versions of dragons. They were to dragons what apes are to humans. Which I thought was very cool back in the day.


The Ecology Articles were great too it was always great to see the reaction of the players to something that they had never thought about monsters doing. Like tending their young or looking after the dead. I was a great resource.

There used to be a series of articles where they would take people from history like the Bogytrs of Russia and the Jaguar people of Africa and detail them for the game. It was very good for resource material and the like.

All of the Treasure Trove and pages from the mages stuff was good also for background.

The Princess Ark series, because to this very day, Mystara remains one of my favorite game settings.

These are just a few of the ones that really made an impression on me back in the day. What I used Dragon for was background information and to help flesh out my world so it would see less like a two dimensional place and more like a real place and for the most part it was very helpful.

Hope this helps.

 

[Rabelais]

issue 63?

I loved the Duelist NPC class. I played one up to about 8th or 9th level in one of our campaigns.

 

[Thotas]

I liked a lot of what's been mentioned; particularly the various "point of view" articles. What was really nice was it made the kobold-goblin-orc-hobgoblin-gnoll sequence more meaningful than just a progression of slightly more powerful races to fight in large groups (which is what they were in those days). Particularly fond of the detail that gnolls are all male-chauvanist; females have a genetic oddity such that the average female gnoll is much less intelligent than the average male gnoll, and that the male gnolls have a hard time understanding that their race is the exception. As such, gnolls almost always underestimate females of other races.

Also liked Giants in the Earth; c'mon, who doesn't read sword and sorcery novels and at least on some level try to figure out what level the heroes are?

With something close to shame, I also admit to liking the "Bard on the Run" parodies. But my taste in music has diverged from what's popular nowadays to the point where I wouldn't get the joke anyway, I know this from the song parodies I see on sketch comedy shows.

There was an old issue (number 79, I think-- Yes, I am an old gamer. See previous paragraph) that had an article on Saints. I think it qualifies as the very first example of what would now be called a "Template". It was a good one, too.

There were a couple of issues that had material for a setting similar to India, and I think 3.x has ignored that (other than Green Ronin's Mindshadows).

 

[Azazyll]

Add me in for the recent dragon with avolakaia's and such. That, along with the unpronounceable undead maggot skele-machine, have to be two of the best original monsters in a long time. I was glad to see they made their way into the canon with MMII and the FF.

Something I don't think anyone said, but I loved the Machine Cysts from Machine vs. Mage and the follow up article a few issues later. Mostly for the monsters, less for the mages. THe idea that machines had to make biological components in order to use magic, and then that that biological component disrupted their connection to the machine mind and made them independent was truly neat. I also loved pretty much every Alternity article they put out, but that remains the best RPG I've ever seen, and all the improvements of D20 remain a bastardization of the best of Alternity with the nostalgic of D&D. The articles desrcibing each of the core alternity races were great, and the weapons articles were a welcome addition of creative new ideas to an already monumentally creative game in a sci-fi industry that often seems repedetive and reusable (can anyone say star trek and star wars in the past ten years?)