"Classic" Dragon Articles

[Bloodstone Press]

and wasn't there an article with a paladin for each alignment?

Yeah, there was. I can't remember which issue it was in now, but I know my group used it a lot in those days.

I'd also vote for:
The anti-paladin article.
The Politics of Hell
The Tesseract

 

[Henry]

OH, GOOD GOD! I JUST REMEMBERED!

I haven't seen it mentioned yet, but from Dragon, somewhere in the #70 to #82 issues, the two "Be Aware, Take Care" articles by Lew Pulsipher. EVERY person that fancies themselves as playing an adventurer NEEDS to read the sneaky tactics and good advice that Pulsipher gives in these articles. I have never seen its like since, and have several times considered doing a 3E version of the advice therein for an ENWorld Player's Journal, or some such.

THESE TWO ARTICLES NEED TO BE REBORN.

 

[Olive]

When I think of old Dragon articles, a lot of truly outrageous stuff comes to mind, like OTT character classes that had 4 or 5 pages worth of class features. Anyone else remember the ninja or the jester? Those authors didn't think for a second that they should be trimmed down to resemble something reasonable. But then again, why should they have? Everyone knew they were strictly for NPC's only...

This is one of the great things about 3e. You don't generally need a billion base classes, because skills, feats and PrCs let you create these options within the basic class structure.

 

[MerricB]

Gygax's "From the Sorceror's Scroll" articles. Even if he can't spell, seeing the game in development was great. (Much the same reason I think the "Behind the Curtain" sidebars in the 3E rules are fascinating). I'd love to see more of that sort of column from the designers of D&D.

That recent article on bloodline feats (Dragon 311 - Arcane Ancestry). I really enjoyed that one, and created a feat based on the Cat Lord bloodline for my game.

Precious little else. I enjoy Dragon, but not much really gets incorporated into my game...

Cheers

 

[cybertalus]

Ed Greenwood's article about treasures which lead to adventures from an issue numbered somewhere in the 160's. It was basically a table of treasure that included adventure hooks, such as a magical scabbard which is really a doppleganger, or a figurine that is really a person who was shrunk and placed in temporal stasis several hundred years ago.

The adventure "The Sword of Justice" by Jon Mattson from the December 1984 issue. My first DM tried to run that adventure two or three times with our original group and for various reasons we never did finish it. It was the the very first article I looked up when I bought the Dragon Archive CDs.

Of the series articles, Wizards Three was definitely my favorite. I also enjoyed the Voyage of the Princess Ark (even though I had zero interest in the campaign world it was set in, the unfolding story got me hooked and kept me reading), Robinson's War, Bazaar of the Bizarre, and those articles Ed Greenwood used to write about spellbooks with unique spells where he spent as much space talking about the history of the spellbooks themselves and the mages who authored them as he did on the game stats of the new spells.

 

[cybertalus]

double post

 

[Tewligan]

Definitely the Deryni article. It was in the first issue of Dragon I ever bought, and reading that is what made me hunt down and read the novels. Oh, jeez, something else I just remembered - the cardboard inserts that let you build a model castle and, in another issue, a model dragon. I didn't get around to making the dragon, but I spent a lot of time putting that castle together. I was quite dismayed to accidentally step on it not long after finishing it. There was an article on enchanting dragon teeth to grow into dragon men - that one really caught my fancy for some reason. Oh, and there was an article on adventuring in Asgard, with an accompanying adventure, that really stands out in my memory. So many good articles over the years... C'mon, Erik, give us a hint as to what this is for, or at least an idea of when we can look for whatever it is!

 

[Cthulhu's Librarian]

the cardboard inserts that let you build a model castle and, in another issue, a model dragon. I didn't get around to making the dragon, but I spent a lot of time putting that castle together. I was quite dismayed to accidentally step on it not long after finishing it.

There was also a cardboard model ship that I assembled and was quite happy with, and it sat on my bookshelf for years. When I went to college it got packed up and smooshed in a box, never to sail again...

 

[Imhotepthewise]

The best, most useful article I ever read was the Seven Sentence NPC. I think it still works well today.

 

[Marius Delphus]

An editorial: all I can remember is it featured a paladin whose +2 dagger was the only weapon that could damage a powerful demon/devil, and they ended up battling in the air... until the demon/devil finally died, at which point the paladin plummeted to earth... and with single-digit hit points left, got up, dusted himself off, and said, "Got 'im." The editorial told the story with much more style and panache....

If you're including humor articles, *please* don't forget:

U2 Kan Ern Big Bux (iss 128)
Front-End Alignments (iss 124)

Cool thread, BTW, brings back some fond memories.