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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Flying Toaster" data-source="post: 9856272" data-attributes="member: 7052563">This issue came out around the time I was really getting into D&D, although I only bought it somewhat later as a back issue.  It is interesting to contrast Gygax’s upbeat tone with what we now know about the chaos happening behind the scenes at TSR.  During EGG’s sojourn in Hollywood trying to make the movie happen, the Blume brothers were spending money even faster than TSR was making it.  Gygax would soon lose control of the company, and be ousted altogether the following year.I do not remember AD&D before UA, OA, ToEE, and the Greyhawk novels, although looking back now all of those products have a mixed legacy.  My group used UA mostly for the spells and magic items, while tacitly ignoring the wildly unbalanced new classes and races - which were mostly EGG’s own work.  OA was credited to EGG, but we now know that he had little to do with it.  I wish I had used it more back then.  ToEE loomed large in our minds as the ultimate super-dungeon, with an amazing cover that looked like heavy metal album art, but actual play was disappointing.  Defeat a barrack room of goblins, then a room of hobgoblins, then bugbears, etc.  I don’t think we ever finished it, but then neither did Gygax himself.  Only the Village of Hommlet is completely his own work, as ToEE was a long-delayed project that was left for Frank Mentzer to finish after EGG’s ouster.  The Gord novels paid Gygax’s bills for a while, until he blew up Greyhawk itself in a fit of pique - no, really!Beloved?  Citation needed!  Seriously though, I read the early Dragonlance novels but never got very far into the modules.  I have the dubious distinction of disliking Dragonlance before it was cool, but for the wrong reason.  At the time I had never even heard of “railroad” adventure design, I just thought DL changed too many things about default D&D.  “No clerics” - how were we supposed to survive an AD&D module without a cleric?  “No orcs” - but wut about muh Tolkien?  “Our gnomes are different” - steampunk?  In my D&D?  It’s more likely than you think!  Steel pieces replaced gold pieces, so what about electrum (natural gold-silver alloy)?  This was probably my first hint that I had slightly stodgy tastes in RPGs, although I am trying to get better. <img class="smilie smilie--emoji" alt="😁" src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f601.png" title="Beaming face with smiling eyes    :grin:" data-shortname=":grin:" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" /> If this is the same article I remember, the author provided a detailed example of a hypothetical campaign setting inspired by Arthurian legend and medieval British history.  It featured big conflict between major factions: Celtic druids, Merlin wizards, sylvan beings like elves and pixies, and maybe Scottish dwarves or something facing off against a feudal human society with an organized religion that was basically the medieval English church with the serial numbers filed off.  He explained how the D&D alignment system would not allow Good-aligned beings to fight each other, whereas a “non-aligned” campaign could make all kinds of fascinating (and gut-wrenching) conflicts possible.  I found the article very interesting and provocative, but eliminating alignment completely was a bridge too far for me.  It would have required a major revision of the AD&D rules, since eight out of eleven character classes in the 1E PHB had alignment and behavior restrictions, and UA introduced yet more.  The existence of alignment languages, aligned magic items, and spells for knowing alignment means that at least some people in the fictional D&D universe are aware of the concept, presenting strange and amusing possibilities.  Is alignment conflict obscure and philosophical, or are there caped crusaders of Law openly squaring off against the “Council of Chaos”?</blockquote>

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