"Classic" Dragon Articles

[Shade]

• The Nine Hells articles
• The Dragon's Bestiary
• Creature Catalog I, II, and III
• The master indices to multiple books
• Wyrms of the North

 

[talinthas]

god, how did i forget Dungeoncraft? That series of articles was instrumental in making me a better DM. i still reference them today.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

There was an excellent feature on ships in one of the older issues (probably between #90-150)- unfortunately there have been other, less well-done ship articles.

"The Day of the Dwarf" short story.

The Nine Hells deserve another mention.

The very first Forgotten Realms article, written as an example of how to build a world. Before it became a TSR property.

 

[diaglo]

"The Ecology of ..."

"Wizards Three"

Gary's original "From the Sorcerer's Scroll"...

the above and Wormy

 

[Erik Mona]

Keep these responses coming, folks. They're very, very helpful.

Thanks!

--Erik Mona
Who's Planning Big Things

 

[WayneLigon]

"The Day of the Dwarf" short story.

Good lord, I cannot beleive I forgot this story. That was amazing. 'Battlecloud Galactica' indeed.. There was also the 'My Husband is the DM' short. One of my favorites involved (I think) Len Lakofka detailing what happened to their characters in G2 (The phrase about someone's druid hitting a monster 'with the force of a forest' has stuck in my mind for years), and in the early Metamorphasis Alpha game. Mmm, black ray pistols and androids.

OK, tonight I'm just going to sit down with the Magazine Archives and make notes on what I liked, and why. I have a lot of fond Dragon memories.

 

[Sir Whiskers]

The "Monty Haul" articles from the early days (they were like Knight of the Dinner Table, just without art).

Sturmgeshutz and Sorcery, or How Effective is a Panzerfaust against a Troll (from The Strategic Review)

Birth Tables for DnD - archaic now, it was used extensively by my first couple gaming groups.

Let There be a Method to your Madness. An early article that had great advice on realistic dungeon design.

A relatively early issue carried the winner of the dungeon design contest - I still remember the cursed npc who could never leave the dungeon. Wish I could remember the issue number...

Ray Winninger's Dungeoncraft - probably the best series run in the Dragon (IMO)

Wyrms of the North

Regular columns:
Ecology of...
Bestiary
Bazaar of the Bizarre
Leomund's Tiny Hut
Fineous Fingers

And lots more from the early years that I can't remember off-hand (the memory's the first thing to go... )

 

[Cthulhu's Librarian]

There was an article on intelligent swords somewhere between issues 90-120 (or maybe it was in the old White Dwarf magazine?) that saw a good bit of use when I was in high school. And the "Treasure Troves" articles (I think that's what they were called).

 

[MrFilthyIke]

The Voyage of the Princess Ark series

I'll put my vote in for Princess Ark as well, I loved that series.

 

[Joshua Randall]

Some of my favorites:

* An article on runes, including a runic alphabet. (Dethek?) As a bonus, had some runic riddles which were campaign seeds in their own right. ("I guard beneath / Rubies three, sapphires three / And crown of gold." - Who doesn't want to find that location?)

* "Be aware, take care: principles of adventuring success" - or something like that. Advice to the players about how to keep their PCs alive. Somewhat dated now, in that D&D has evolved beyond its DM-vs-players paradigm. But a new series for the players (rather than endless templates and upgrades for monsters = the DM) would be welcome.

* The aforementioned story about the girl playing what we would now call a Multi-User Dungeon (MUD) or MMORPG was outstanding. I still have the battered, dogeared copy of that magazine somewhere. (It has an illustration of a black dragon being soothed by a bard on the cover.)

* An article describing the six ability scores. Was very good on differentiating Intelligence from Wisdom and Strength from Constitution. An update for the modern era would be especially helpful to new players.

* "Of rogue-stones and gem-jumping", one of Ed Greenwood's Realms articles. Some of this material made its way into the FRCS, but not the evocative backstories. (Again - campaign seeds!)