"Classic" Dragon Articles

[Endur]

My favorite articles are in the original "Best of Dragon". How heavy is your giant. The Secret Witch. The Ninja. etc.

Dragon #50.

For me, my favorite issues are #1 to #50.

 

[johnsemlak]

I also think that thinking they were more useful is an exercise in nostalgia. I mean, back then, we were suckier gamers! Over the years as your experience, tastes, and homebrews all grow, of course you'll find less to use in the magazine.

Perhaps, but I think the fact that 'back in the day' the very early Dragon and the Strategic Review was aimed at a smaller audience and perhaps was thus better able to please it.

 

[Silveras]

Ironically, my favorite old SR, TD, and Dragon articles were system independent: they provided DMs with thoughtful advice, background information, historical information, and new ideas for use in your games. That's not to say that the various NPC classes, new spells and monsters, etc. also weren't cool: I miss the old eclecticism and advice for already-savvy DMs.

I have to agree. New Feats, Spells, and Prestige Classes are always of use to someone, but I really appreciated (and miss) the articles that were informative for people who do not have the time to do massive research.

 

[PaulKemp]

1. "The Politics of Hell." Definitely.

2. "For King and Country," an article (author escapes me) that attempted to reconceptualize the AD&D alignment system and did so rather nicely.

3. The article with the revised unarmed combat system for AD&D -- can't remember the name of the article but it had a picture of a bunch of halflings wrestling an orc, with one angry halfling going off the top rope. Unnecessary in the era of 3.5, of course, but indispensable to me as a DM of AD&D.

4. The original appearance of the Cavalier and Barbarian classes, before the release of Unearthed Arcana.

5. Not an article, but those great chess-piece themed covers. Who was the artist?

 

[BOZ]

OK, I’m sure some of these have been mentioned already, but I’m not going to go back and look to make sure.

As you might expect, here are some of the best monster or monster-related articles that I’m nominating:

35: Angels

65: The Missing Dragons

75: The Nine Hells Part 1

76: The Nine Hells Part 2

89: Creature Catalog

90: Bats That Do More Than Bite

91: Nine Hells Revisited

94: Creature Catalog II

101: Creature Catalog III

119: Dragon’s Bestiary: A Walk Through the Woods
119: Uldra (heheh, I have an affection for the lil’ gnomes)

131: The Ecology of the Aboleth

134: Lords & Legends (Dragotha)
134: The Dragon’s Bestiary (new dragons)

138: The Ungrateful Dead

139&140: The Dragon’s Bestiary (Forgotten Realms creatures)

141: Dragon’s Bestiary: Nonhuman Creatures – With Human Form

150: The Dragon’s Bestiary (illithid-creatures) & The Sunset World

158: Also Known As… the Orc
158: That’s Not In the Monstrous Compendium! (pearl, jade, jacinth dragons)

170: The Dragon’s Bestiary (ferrous dragons)

182&183: The Viking’s Dragons

206: The Dragon’s Bestiary: The good, the bad, and the clumsy

210: Too Evil To Die

214: Dragon’s Bestiary (kercpa)

221: The Dragon’s Bestiary (Lords of Chaos)

243: Destriers of the Planes

and many and various other “Ecology Of” articles.

 

[BOZ]

• The creature catalogs. It chapped my hide that the third one got left out of the dragon CD archive... I had to go dig up my hardcopy.

god, i know what you mean. i had to get a friend to scan the article to PDF for me, but it's not OCR'd.

 

[Greg K]

My favorite articles:

1) David Howery's revised 1e Barbarian in which he tones down the 1e Barbarian. I still consider this is the best version of the Barbarian to see print for any edition of DND.

2) David Howery's revised 1e Cavalier in which he tones down the 1e Cavalier.
Just as I consider Mr. Howery's version of the Barbarian to be the best version of the Barbarian created for DND, I consider this to be the best version of the Cavalier to be the best.

3) Katherine Kerr's The Real Barbarians

4) David Howery's the Dark Continent

5) David Howery's article on creating characters and campaigns inspired by Native American cultures

6) The Nine Hells articles that have already been mentioned

7) From the Sorceror's Scroll

8) Ray Winninger's column on World building

9) Roger Moore's articles on the various Nonhuman races

10) Roger Moore's article on Druid's of different enviroments.

11) any Dark Sun Articles

12 ) An article on Non Violent Magic Items. I think Lewis Pulsipher (sp?) was the author and the issue was around issue 73. The article had a random list of magic items (e.g. wind chimes that sounded when anyone approached)


Non DND Articles
1) Any of the Top Secret S.I. material
2) The Ultimate Power Addendum articles by David Martin for the Marvel game.
3) Revised Benchmarks for the Marvel Game by Steven Schend

 

[grodog]

So Erik, what are you doing with all of this research/info? Planning to bring Len Lakofka back to write some LGJ articles, or what?

 

[WizarDru]

Well, given how well Erik's last 'secret project' turned out, anything we can do to encourage it is GOOD.

All of Dragon Annual #1, in particular the Tesseract articles. To this day, I still think of those as classics that have great value.

The Politics of Hell.
A Plethora of Paladins
Fedifensor
Was the Castle Avignon article in Dragon? It's been so long, I don't recall...but I loved that article.

I really miss the old covers, too. The "chess" covers, to be sure, but so many others. I hate to keep harping on this one, Erik, but I just want some sort of story or action on the cover, instead of the same old character studies. Dungeon has been getting better covers, as of late, so I hope Dragon can follow suit. I'd love to see more pcitures of adventurers...well, adventuring.

Thanks much!

 

[Henry]

I have to agree. New Feats, Spells, and Prestige Classes are always of use to someone, but I really appreciated (and miss) the articles that were informative for people who do not have the time to do massive research.

Actually, it seems that the most popular mentions here are either rules-light or rules-independent - and the same kind of content that has appeared in the ENWorld Players Journal. The majority of gamers may enjoy new prestige classes, feats, items, etc. But quite a few dedicated players and DM's have been loaded to the gills with these things, and instead desire a change of pace.