Dragon Publishing released The Dragon issue 40 in August 1980. It is 86 pages long and has a cover price of $3.00. In this issue, we have death rites, more Awful Green Things from Outer Space, and Dragon's first Runequest article!
Editor Jake Jaquet reflects on Origins '80, attended by the entire editorial staff (Jake, Kim Mohan, and Bryce Knorr). He damns it with faint praise, calling it a "decent convention" that will likely be "forgotten tomorrow." Jaquet laments the small size of the convention space and suggests it is time for gaming conventions to move into professional convention facilities. He also ruefully congratulates The Journal of the Travellers Aid Society for taking out the "best magazine" award.
There are three special features this month. One of them is a comprehensive index of The Dragon and also The Strategic Review, the house organ that preceded The Dragon. The other two features are expansions to Tom Wham's perennially popular Awful Green Things from Outer Space boardgame. The Dragon published so many of these centerfold games that they eventually released a box set of them. In this instance, the games are complemented by an engaging interview with the designer.
There is a good selection of material in the regular columns. Bryan Breecher gives us two Squad Leader scenarios covering the battle for Warsaw. "Bazaar of the Bizarre" includes some strange magic items, such as the Crossbow of Multiplication and Nidus' Wand of Endless Repetition. In "The Electric Eye," Mark Herro teaches us how to program in the BASIC computer language, with the ultimate goal of using computers to automate some of the housekeeping associated with RPGs.
"Dragon's Bestiary" includes four creatures by various authors, including Ed Greenwood and EN World's own Lewis Pulsipher. Said monsters are the Fire-eye Lizard, the Flitte, the Wingless Wonder, and the Huntsmen. My favorite was the Huntsmen, magical constructs that hunt in groups, with the other members growing stronger each time one of them dies.
"The Dragon's Augury" reviews four products. Annihilator by Metagaming is a science fiction microgame that suffers from a "poorly developed" rationale and mechanics. High Guard by GDW expands the starship construction rules for Traveller and "works well." Swordquest by Task Force Games is a fantasy wargame "drawn heavily from Tolkien" that "seems to trade off personalization" in the name of game balance, leading to a slightly bland experience. The Drawing of the Dark by Tim Powers, a historical fantasy novel, is "by no means a great book, but it is a good one."
There is a typically eclectic mix of other features. "The Dueling Room" by Jeff Swycaffer describes a magically morphing arena for player vs. player D&D combat. There are some neat ideas here, but the utility of such a facility is pretty limited. Swycaffer later wrote a series of science fiction novels that were popular in some corners of the RPG community.
"Believe it or not, Fantasy has reality" is a lengthy and unusual article by Douglas Bachmann. It starts out arguing that the world of Faerie is an objective reality but is really about some new D&D mechanics to implement the "quest pattern" described by Joseph Campbell in The Hero with a Thousand Faces. I'm not quite sure what to make of it as an integrated whole, though I can see how various parts (such as Legends and Dooms) could be adapted to play. Bachmann seems to have disappeared off the RPG scene soon after this effort.
"Funerals and other deathly ideas" by George Laking is a delightful article that looks at how you can apply some historical death practices to your D&D game. One intriguing idea was of a weregild. This is a sum that the party pays to the deceased character's family to compensate them for their loss. I relish little articles like this that bring a fun new angle to a small part of the game. Laking had contributed several articles to The Dragon by this time, including the superb Anti-Paladin.
"Don't drink this cocktail" gives detailed rules for creating Molotov cocktails in D&D. The author, Robert Plamondon, later wrote Through Dungeons Deep: A Fantasy Gamers' Handbook, which is still available on Amazon and is well-regarded.
"The fatal flaws of Crane" by Mark Cummings is an extensive critique of Tribes of Crane, one of the first commercial play-by-mail games. "Giving the undead an even break" by Steve Melancon is an overly-earnest attempt to rebalance the cleric turning tables. "From Spy World to Sprechenhaltestelle" is another article about the creation of Top Secret. This time, Merle Rasmussen describes the game's early playtests and what they learned from each one. Fascinating content, especially for game designers.
"The Other Were? Right here!" by Roger E. Moore proposes several new lycanthropes, including the werelion, the wereram, and the weresloth! It's fun, short, and well written. Moore was a military psychologist on deployment to West Germany, and this was one of his first contributions to The Dragon. He joined TSR in 1983, was the inaugural editor of Dungeon Magazine, and later on the long-running editor-in-chief of Dragon Magazine. Moore's name appears on numerous D&D products in the 90s, and he finally left Wizards of the Coast in 2000. An illustrious game career, and I'm curious about how he has spent the last 20 years.
Finally, we have "Artifacts of Dragon Pass" by Jon Mattson. A few issues back, Jake Jaquet declared that The Dragon had never had a Runequest article submitted. Mattson took up the challenge and here presents us with six new magical artifacts for the game. I can't talk to the items' mechanics, but they are imaginative and seem integrated into Runequest lore. Mattson was a bit of an all-rounder, contributing articles to various magazines for various gaming systems. He eventually wrote a substantial supplement for the Champions game called Champions of the North before sliding out of the RPG industry.
And that's a wrap. It was not as good as some recent issues, but Laking's article on death rites was excellent, and I also enjoyed reading some early Roger E. Moore. Next month we have The Halls of Beoll-Dur, new rules for Melee, and a real-life cleric looks at D&D!
There are three special features this month. One of them is a comprehensive index of The Dragon and also The Strategic Review, the house organ that preceded The Dragon. The other two features are expansions to Tom Wham's perennially popular Awful Green Things from Outer Space boardgame. The Dragon published so many of these centerfold games that they eventually released a box set of them. In this instance, the games are complemented by an engaging interview with the designer.
There is a good selection of material in the regular columns. Bryan Breecher gives us two Squad Leader scenarios covering the battle for Warsaw. "Bazaar of the Bizarre" includes some strange magic items, such as the Crossbow of Multiplication and Nidus' Wand of Endless Repetition. In "The Electric Eye," Mark Herro teaches us how to program in the BASIC computer language, with the ultimate goal of using computers to automate some of the housekeeping associated with RPGs.
"Dragon's Bestiary" includes four creatures by various authors, including Ed Greenwood and EN World's own Lewis Pulsipher. Said monsters are the Fire-eye Lizard, the Flitte, the Wingless Wonder, and the Huntsmen. My favorite was the Huntsmen, magical constructs that hunt in groups, with the other members growing stronger each time one of them dies.
"The Dragon's Augury" reviews four products. Annihilator by Metagaming is a science fiction microgame that suffers from a "poorly developed" rationale and mechanics. High Guard by GDW expands the starship construction rules for Traveller and "works well." Swordquest by Task Force Games is a fantasy wargame "drawn heavily from Tolkien" that "seems to trade off personalization" in the name of game balance, leading to a slightly bland experience. The Drawing of the Dark by Tim Powers, a historical fantasy novel, is "by no means a great book, but it is a good one."
There is a typically eclectic mix of other features. "The Dueling Room" by Jeff Swycaffer describes a magically morphing arena for player vs. player D&D combat. There are some neat ideas here, but the utility of such a facility is pretty limited. Swycaffer later wrote a series of science fiction novels that were popular in some corners of the RPG community.
"Believe it or not, Fantasy has reality" is a lengthy and unusual article by Douglas Bachmann. It starts out arguing that the world of Faerie is an objective reality but is really about some new D&D mechanics to implement the "quest pattern" described by Joseph Campbell in The Hero with a Thousand Faces. I'm not quite sure what to make of it as an integrated whole, though I can see how various parts (such as Legends and Dooms) could be adapted to play. Bachmann seems to have disappeared off the RPG scene soon after this effort.
"Funerals and other deathly ideas" by George Laking is a delightful article that looks at how you can apply some historical death practices to your D&D game. One intriguing idea was of a weregild. This is a sum that the party pays to the deceased character's family to compensate them for their loss. I relish little articles like this that bring a fun new angle to a small part of the game. Laking had contributed several articles to The Dragon by this time, including the superb Anti-Paladin.
"Don't drink this cocktail" gives detailed rules for creating Molotov cocktails in D&D. The author, Robert Plamondon, later wrote Through Dungeons Deep: A Fantasy Gamers' Handbook, which is still available on Amazon and is well-regarded.
"The fatal flaws of Crane" by Mark Cummings is an extensive critique of Tribes of Crane, one of the first commercial play-by-mail games. "Giving the undead an even break" by Steve Melancon is an overly-earnest attempt to rebalance the cleric turning tables. "From Spy World to Sprechenhaltestelle" is another article about the creation of Top Secret. This time, Merle Rasmussen describes the game's early playtests and what they learned from each one. Fascinating content, especially for game designers.
"The Other Were? Right here!" by Roger E. Moore proposes several new lycanthropes, including the werelion, the wereram, and the weresloth! It's fun, short, and well written. Moore was a military psychologist on deployment to West Germany, and this was one of his first contributions to The Dragon. He joined TSR in 1983, was the inaugural editor of Dungeon Magazine, and later on the long-running editor-in-chief of Dragon Magazine. Moore's name appears on numerous D&D products in the 90s, and he finally left Wizards of the Coast in 2000. An illustrious game career, and I'm curious about how he has spent the last 20 years.
Finally, we have "Artifacts of Dragon Pass" by Jon Mattson. A few issues back, Jake Jaquet declared that The Dragon had never had a Runequest article submitted. Mattson took up the challenge and here presents us with six new magical artifacts for the game. I can't talk to the items' mechanics, but they are imaginative and seem integrated into Runequest lore. Mattson was a bit of an all-rounder, contributing articles to various magazines for various gaming systems. He eventually wrote a substantial supplement for the Champions game called Champions of the North before sliding out of the RPG industry.
And that's a wrap. It was not as good as some recent issues, but Laking's article on death rites was excellent, and I also enjoyed reading some early Roger E. Moore. Next month we have The Halls of Beoll-Dur, new rules for Melee, and a real-life cleric looks at D&D!
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