The Dragon Issue 15 was published in June 1978. It is 36 pages long, with a cover price of $1.50. In this issue we get a whole bunch of random tables, Monty Haul returns, and a legendary RPG designer makes his debut!
Editor Tim Kask celebrates another milestone while decrying some poor service:
As a kind of reverse birthday gift, the issue includes a Dave Trampier illustrated backgammon board. It is a gorgeous image and very hard to get hold of these days - there is not even a good scan on the internet.
Kask is very pleased to include a reprint of an old fantasy story:
This story is the last one in the original "Harold Shea" sequence, an influential set of fantasy tales published in the 1940s and 1950s. This is more evidence of Kask's commitment to making The Dragon a publisher of important fantasy literature by important authors.
Jim Ward brings us another Monty Haul column, detailing a recent TSR gaming night. In this session, Jim and his friends are controlling a group of WWII German Tanks tasked with taking an old fortress. When they get there, they discover it is defended by orcs, manticores, trolls, mummies, ghouls, and various other fantastic monsters. Jim and his friends were defeated in the end "by a magical barrage that would have turned the tide for the Germans on D-day." But he enjoyed a few moral victories along the way!
Gygax gives us another Sorcerers Scroll, talking about some confusion that arose in original D&D between the notation used for feet and yards. What's interesting is a passing comment he makes about why this has suddenly become an issue:
I find this fascinating as common perception is that early D&D carried its wargaming legacy pretty firmly about with it. But it seems that "Theatre of the Mind" is how Gygax ran the original D&D games!
The issue also includes a whole lot of random tables, by various authors. There's a pit generator, a weather table, and random encounter tables for dungeons and also Boot Hill. But of most interest is an article called "Random Events Table for Settlements and/or Settled Areas". The table itself is well executed, but more notable is the author, a 24-year-old graphic artist and electronic technician named N. Robin Crossby. This article was his first RPG-related publication.
A few years after writing this article, Crossby published HârnWorld, a beautifully detailed and sophisticated fantasy setting that included a gorgeous map. Dozens of supplements followed, and Hârn gained a reputation as a sophisticated and mature fantasy world. Whenever I brushed up against Hârn in the 80s, I remember feeling a kind of reverent awe. But it also felt a bit overwhelming and impenetrable, and I never played in the setting.
Crossby died in 2008, the same year that took Gary Gygax, Bob Bledsaw (founder of Judges Guild), and Erick A. Wujcik (co-founder of Palladium). Death was no respecter of talent that year. Such is life.
Next issue, Eric Holmes hits back at critics, we learn why clerics and wizards can't use swords, and Gygax talks about realism in D&D!
This article was contributed by M.T. Black as part of EN World's Columnist (ENWC) program. M.T. Black is a game designer and DMs Guild Adept. Please follow him on Twitter @mtblack2567 and sign up to his mailing list. We are always on the lookout for freelance columnists! If you have a pitch, please contact us!
Editor Tim Kask celebrates another milestone while decrying some poor service:
"Welcome to the third printing year for THE DRAGON. I’m still amazed at how far we’ve come every time I look something up in an old STRATEGIC REVIEW. In the past year, we have met and overcome all obstacles in our path save one: the U.S. Post Offal. No matter how we try to get around their incompetence, they still manage to screw up nearly every single issue."
As a kind of reverse birthday gift, the issue includes a Dave Trampier illustrated backgammon board. It is a gorgeous image and very hard to get hold of these days - there is not even a good scan on the internet.
Kask is very pleased to include a reprint of an old fantasy story:
"Also in this issue, we are trebly pleased to present THE GREEN MAGICIAN, by Fletcher Pratt and L. Sprague deCamp. Before we secured the rights, I had spent almost two years searching for the magazine it appeared in, to no avail. I’m delighted to be publishing it now."
This story is the last one in the original "Harold Shea" sequence, an influential set of fantasy tales published in the 1940s and 1950s. This is more evidence of Kask's commitment to making The Dragon a publisher of important fantasy literature by important authors.
Jim Ward brings us another Monty Haul column, detailing a recent TSR gaming night. In this session, Jim and his friends are controlling a group of WWII German Tanks tasked with taking an old fortress. When they get there, they discover it is defended by orcs, manticores, trolls, mummies, ghouls, and various other fantastic monsters. Jim and his friends were defeated in the end "by a magical barrage that would have turned the tide for the Germans on D-day." But he enjoyed a few moral victories along the way!
Gygax gives us another Sorcerers Scroll, talking about some confusion that arose in original D&D between the notation used for feet and yards. What's interesting is a passing comment he makes about why this has suddenly become an issue:
"For about two years D&D was played without benefit of any visual aids by the majority of enthusiasts. They held literally that it was a paper and pencil game, and if some particular situation arose which demanded more than verbalization, they would draw or place dice as tokens in order to picture the conditions. In 1976 a movement began among D&Ders to portray characters with actual miniature figurines. Miniature figure manufacturers began. to provide more and more models aimed at the D&D market — characters, monsters, weapons, dungeon furnishings, etc. Availability sparked interest, and the obvious benefits of using figures became apparent: Distances could be pinned down, opponents were obvious, and a certain extra excitement was generated by use of painted castings of what players “saw”. Because of the return of miniatures to D&D, the game is tending to come full circle; back to tabletop battles not unlike those which were first fought with D&D’s parent, CHAINMAIL’s “Fantasy Supplement”, now occurring quite regularly."
I find this fascinating as common perception is that early D&D carried its wargaming legacy pretty firmly about with it. But it seems that "Theatre of the Mind" is how Gygax ran the original D&D games!
The issue also includes a whole lot of random tables, by various authors. There's a pit generator, a weather table, and random encounter tables for dungeons and also Boot Hill. But of most interest is an article called "Random Events Table for Settlements and/or Settled Areas". The table itself is well executed, but more notable is the author, a 24-year-old graphic artist and electronic technician named N. Robin Crossby. This article was his first RPG-related publication.
A few years after writing this article, Crossby published HârnWorld, a beautifully detailed and sophisticated fantasy setting that included a gorgeous map. Dozens of supplements followed, and Hârn gained a reputation as a sophisticated and mature fantasy world. Whenever I brushed up against Hârn in the 80s, I remember feeling a kind of reverent awe. But it also felt a bit overwhelming and impenetrable, and I never played in the setting.
Crossby died in 2008, the same year that took Gary Gygax, Bob Bledsaw (founder of Judges Guild), and Erick A. Wujcik (co-founder of Palladium). Death was no respecter of talent that year. Such is life.
Next issue, Eric Holmes hits back at critics, we learn why clerics and wizards can't use swords, and Gygax talks about realism in D&D!
This article was contributed by M.T. Black as part of EN World's Columnist (ENWC) program. M.T. Black is a game designer and DMs Guild Adept. Please follow him on Twitter @mtblack2567 and sign up to his mailing list. We are always on the lookout for freelance columnists! If you have a pitch, please contact us!
