"Classic" Dragon Articles

[Twiggly the Gnome]

The Voyage of the Princess Ark series and the Ares Section are the first things that come to my mind. Though I'm particularly fond of issue #146 (the Thirteenth Aniversery issue), it's probably the only issue of Dragon that I ever read cover to cover.

 

[Piratecat]

The articles on the tesseracts from Best of Dragon 1. I've gotten some amazingly good adventures out of those two articles.

 

[Sir Osis of Liver]

The wizard's three and the ecologies, especially the one featuring the monster hunters guild. Ecology of the flumph is probably one of my all time fovorite articles.

 

[Silveras]

Most of mine have been hit already.
I'd like to second the mentions for Len Lakofka's "Leomund's Tiny Hut" articles -- especially the Cloistered Cleric, and the treatment of pre-1st level training for all character classes.

Next, the psionics articles on the Deryni, also previously mentioned.

The Witch NPC issue.

Other articles that come to mind as being immediately useful were:
"Survival is a group effort", on population growth
"An army travels on its stomach", on what food is produced per hex of land

A more recent "classic" would be Ray Winninger's series on worldbuilding.

 

[Davelozzi]

In general, "Ecology of..." and "Campaign Classics".

Specifically, a lot of the Dark Sun articles that ran back in the day were great. Although I've always enjoyed Dark Sun, it was not my favorite campaign back then, but many of the Dark Sun articles got photocopied, thrown in the boxed set and stuck around to become an indespensible part of the game.

To contrast, Forgotten Realms was my favorite campaign for much of my younger gaming years, yet F.R. articles were rarely of interest, in my opinion. I guess there was just too much of them. It often seemed like "oh great...another dragon, another bunch of magic swords, and other inn laced with wards."

I also really enjoyed the Forum section of the magazine, although with the advent of the internet and great places like this, I can see why it went away.

 

[Sir Osis of Liver]

Specifically, a lot of the Dark Sun articles that ran back in the day were great. Although I've always enjoyed Dark Sun, it was not my favorite campaign back then, but many of the Dark Sun articles got photocopied, thrown in the boxed set and stuck around to become an indespensible part of the game.

I had forgot about the Dark-sun articles. Did the same thing, myself. They were really well done.

 

[Aeolius]

DRAGON #125 "Ecology of the Greenhag" by Nigel Findley

 

[Orius]

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.

Critical hit arcitcle? Was that the infamous crit tale from #39? And wasn't #39 the same on that had the old anti-paladin article?

If so, I'd consider them both classics. I've never even seen that issue (my earliest issue is #217), and yet I've heard of those articles. So take it from there.

 

[DaveStebbins]

I'll add my vote for Roger's demihuman articles and add Best Wishes from (I think) issue #49. I paid to photocopy that one as soon as it came out. (Man, do I feel old!)

-Dave

 

[Orius]

To contrast, Forgotten Realms was my favorite campaign for much of my younger gaming years, yet F.R. articles were rarely of interest, in my opinion. I guess there was just too much of them. It often seemed like "oh great...another dragon, another bunch of magic swords, and other inn laced with wards."

I'm kind of the opposite. I'm not a big Realms player, but I always thought Greenwood's Wyrms of the North series was good. Some of those dragons were very interesting.

I also really enjoyed the Forum section of the magazine, although with the advent of the internet and great places like this, I can see why it went away.

Ehh. Go pick up a back issue of Dragon, read the forum letters and you'll see, more often then not, letters complaining about the same type of things we post here. Some thinings in D&D never change.