The Dragon Issue 7 was published in June 1977. It is 32 pages long, with a cover price of $1.50. In this issue, Gary Gygax gives a controversial account of the origins of D&D.
Editor Tim Kask is pleased to mark up another milestone, saying:
The comment about the artwork is timely. In my view, issue #7 features the first genuinely good cover in the magazine's short history. Titled "The Dragon's Birthday Party", it is by artist Kenneth Rahman (using the nom de plume Elrohir), who later designed several boardgames for TSR.
There are two pieces of fiction in this issue. Bradley W. Schenck, writing as "Morno", returns with "The Journey Most Alone", a rather heavy-handed story. And Gary Gygax, writing as "Garrison Keller", gives us another chapter of "Search for the Gnome Cache". Thankfully, Gygax abandoned the novel after this instalment. To give him his due, his fiction skills had improved greatly by the time he published "Saga of Old City", eight years later.
Lynn Harphold follows up her issue #2 essay on the Feathered Serpent with another historical piece, called "Mystery Hill - America's Stonehenge?" Such articles might feel a little out of place, but Kask's intention was to provide resources to stimulate gamer imaginations.
Kask himself contributed an article, under the pseudonym of "Omar Kwalish". Titled "What to Do When the Dog Eats Your Dice", it gives alternate methods of generating random numbers. This was a live issue back in the 70s when polyhedral dice were sometimes hard to acquire. M.A.R Barker gives us another detailed article on Tekumel, "Military Formations of the Nations of the Universe". There are also statistics for a new and somewhat uninspiring creature called the "Prowler".
By far the most interesting article, in my view, is "Gary Gygax on Dungeons & Dragons - Origins of the Game". In this short piece, Gygax gives his version of how the D&D game came into existence.
Gygax tells how he and Jeff Perren devised a set of rules for medieval miniature wargaming called "Chainmail". Gygax added a "Fantasy Supplement" to these rules which enabled gamers to include such things as dragons, elves, and wizards in their battle simulations.
Dave Arneson, a fellow wargamer who Gygax knew, took these rules and made several unique modifications. He showed his game (called "Blackmoor") to Gygax, who states:
Arneson's game was no longer about simulating mass battles. Rather, players became an individual character, who persisted between games and who could progress over time.
Gygax was impressed and asked Arneson for the rules and received about twenty pages of handwritten notes. Gygax took these ideas and created the 300-page manuscript of the original Dungeons & Dragons set. Once published, the new game met with instant enthusiasm.
Gygax states that "DUNGEONS & DRAGONS differed considerably from Dave’s ‘Blackmoor’ campaign, just as the latter differed from CHAINMAIL." He also claims that "Although D&D was not Dave’s game system by any form or measure, he was given co-billing as author for his valuable idea kernels."
The question of how much Arneson contributed to D&D has been hotly debated by gamers and game historians ever since and was ultimately scrutinized in several court cases. Even those close to the events disagree. Most modern commentators, though, are happy to see them credited as co-creators.
The next issue of the Dragon would see Gary Gygax greatly expand the Dungeons & Dragons universe with just a few strokes of his pen.
This article was contributed by M.T. Black as part of ENWorld's User-Generated Content (UGC) 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 is pleased to mark up another milestone, saying:
It’s an extraordinary experience to be writing this, on the start of our second year of publication. THE DRAGON has come a long way from Vol. I, No. 1, and-the-less than excellent cover that “adorned” it. (The trouble with that first cover was not the original black and white rendering of our logo, but rather with the wretched lithes cut by our old printer.) The overall average on our artwork has improved dramatically. The increased circulation is elequent testimony to the improvement of the material presented herein. What editor can be displeased by 300% growth in a year’s span? Not yours truly, certainly.
The comment about the artwork is timely. In my view, issue #7 features the first genuinely good cover in the magazine's short history. Titled "The Dragon's Birthday Party", it is by artist Kenneth Rahman (using the nom de plume Elrohir), who later designed several boardgames for TSR.
There are two pieces of fiction in this issue. Bradley W. Schenck, writing as "Morno", returns with "The Journey Most Alone", a rather heavy-handed story. And Gary Gygax, writing as "Garrison Keller", gives us another chapter of "Search for the Gnome Cache". Thankfully, Gygax abandoned the novel after this instalment. To give him his due, his fiction skills had improved greatly by the time he published "Saga of Old City", eight years later.
Lynn Harphold follows up her issue #2 essay on the Feathered Serpent with another historical piece, called "Mystery Hill - America's Stonehenge?" Such articles might feel a little out of place, but Kask's intention was to provide resources to stimulate gamer imaginations.
Kask himself contributed an article, under the pseudonym of "Omar Kwalish". Titled "What to Do When the Dog Eats Your Dice", it gives alternate methods of generating random numbers. This was a live issue back in the 70s when polyhedral dice were sometimes hard to acquire. M.A.R Barker gives us another detailed article on Tekumel, "Military Formations of the Nations of the Universe". There are also statistics for a new and somewhat uninspiring creature called the "Prowler".
By far the most interesting article, in my view, is "Gary Gygax on Dungeons & Dragons - Origins of the Game". In this short piece, Gygax gives his version of how the D&D game came into existence.
Gygax tells how he and Jeff Perren devised a set of rules for medieval miniature wargaming called "Chainmail". Gygax added a "Fantasy Supplement" to these rules which enabled gamers to include such things as dragons, elves, and wizards in their battle simulations.
Dave Arneson, a fellow wargamer who Gygax knew, took these rules and made several unique modifications. He showed his game (called "Blackmoor") to Gygax, who states:
Dave had taken the man-to-man and fantasy rules and modified them for his campaign. Players began as Heroes or Wizards. With sufficient success they could become Superheroes. In a similar fashion, Wizards could become more powerful. Additionally, he had added equipment for players to purchase and expanded the characters descriptions considerably — even adding several new monsters to the rather short CHAINMAIL line-up.
Arneson's game was no longer about simulating mass battles. Rather, players became an individual character, who persisted between games and who could progress over time.
Gygax was impressed and asked Arneson for the rules and received about twenty pages of handwritten notes. Gygax took these ideas and created the 300-page manuscript of the original Dungeons & Dragons set. Once published, the new game met with instant enthusiasm.
Gygax states that "DUNGEONS & DRAGONS differed considerably from Dave’s ‘Blackmoor’ campaign, just as the latter differed from CHAINMAIL." He also claims that "Although D&D was not Dave’s game system by any form or measure, he was given co-billing as author for his valuable idea kernels."
The question of how much Arneson contributed to D&D has been hotly debated by gamers and game historians ever since and was ultimately scrutinized in several court cases. Even those close to the events disagree. Most modern commentators, though, are happy to see them credited as co-creators.
The next issue of the Dragon would see Gary Gygax greatly expand the Dungeons & Dragons universe with just a few strokes of his pen.
This article was contributed by M.T. Black as part of ENWorld's User-Generated Content (UGC) 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!
