Dragon Reflections #91

Dragon Publishing released Dragon #91 in November 1984. It is 116 pages long and has a cover price of $3.00. This issue features the Nine Hells, realistic character statistics, and a treasure trove of magic items!

The cover is by Dean Morrissey and depicts a strange naval vessel that appears just as capable of sailing the skies as the seas. It feels very steampunk, though that term was yet to be coined. Interior artists include Roger Raupp, Bob Maurus, Jeff Butler, Dave Trampier, Richard Tomasic, Joseph Pillsbury, David Hutton, and Larry Elmore.

This month's special attraction is "Treasure Trove," a collection of new magical items for AD&D from various authors. It follows in the tradition of "Bazaar of the Bizarre" and offers a rich array of enchanted objects to surprise players who think they've seen it all. The selection includes weapons, potions, wondrous items, and even a few cursed surprises. Many of the items are a little prosaic, such as the potion of frost resistance. It is no surprise that the most colourful items come from the pen of Ed Greenwood, including the censer of thaumaturgy, the goblet of glory, and the trumpet of doom. I also want to draw attention to the rod of many things by Andrew Dewar, which is now a staple of the game.

Gary Gygax brings us "The Goristro Revealed," introducing this massive, stupid, but very dangerous demon that was mistakenly omitted from the Monster Manual II. Gygax makes up for it with full stats and a robust description of their role in the Abyss. It's a shame there is no matching illustration.

"Realistic Vital Statistics" by Stephen Inniss presents an alternative system for determining character height and weight based on geometry. It's a well-thought-out mathematical approach, but one wonders whether the realism is worth the additional complexity. Inniss previously published two detailed articles on familiars and would publish another dozen articles with Dragon over the next few years.

Ed Greenwood offers another stellar entry in the "Ecology" series with "The Ecology of the Leucrotta." The article takes a deep dive into this grim and unsettling creature, known for mimicking human voices to lure victims to their doom. It is good to have this series back after an absence of several months.

Greenwood also expands on some earlier work in "Nine Hells Revisited," providing details on outcast devils, hidden treasures in the infernal realms, and diabolical deals. His follow-up article, "Eight Devilish Questions," answers reader queries about the Nine Hells and the role of devils in the game. This compelling look into fiendish lore is imaginative, detailed, readable, and highly gameable. It is Dragon at its best.

"Chronicles: A Novel Idea" previews the upcoming Dragonlance Chronicles series--a significant milestone on TSR's march into the world of fiction. The article showcases the beautiful Larry Elmore cover for "Dragons of Autumn Twilight" and hints at the sweeping scope of the story and its connection to the Dragonlance game modules.

Penny Petticord makes her Dragon debut and provides some Top Secret insight with "Spies' Advice," tackling a score of reader questions about the rules. TSR recently hired Petticord as a "games questions expert," and she went on to edit Polyhedron and administer the RPGA Network. She later married Skip Williams.

"The Rune and the Dragon" by Lawrence Watt-Evans is a short story about three adventurers who, after stumbling upon a mysterious golden rune, find themselves pursued by an enigmatic dragon. The central mystery is engaging, and the resolution is satisfying, but the story suffers from uneven pacing and shallow characters. Watt-Evans published many novels and stories and later became president of the Horror Writers Association.

There are several game reviews in this issue. Shogun by Shipps Ltd is an engaging card game blending elements of five-card stud poker with the popular James Clavell novel. The gameplay is quick to learn but sufficiently complex for repeated play. Paul Smith concludes, "the strategies are delicate enough to intrigue and challenge the most experienced game-player."

Ken Rolston reviews several mystery-themed games. Mercenaries, Spies, & Private Eyes by Flying Buffalo is a simple espionage RPG emphasising speed over realism and offering limited background material. Rolston rates the game merely "adequate," though many now believe it is a minor classic. Death in Dunwich by Theatre of the Mind Enterprises is an engaging Call of Cthulhu scenario that blends mystery, investigation, and horror. Rolston judges it "an excellent adventure and an example of what good role-playing mystery should be." The Vanishing Investigator by TSR is a Gangbusters mystery module with exceptional organisation and detailed presentation. Rolston declares it "a first-class product, both as a model of RPG mystery design and as an effective and exciting adventure."

Rolston also shares several capsule reviews:

• Dragons of Despair by TSR is an unconventional AD&D adventure with a strong plot, thematic depth, and a rich atmosphere.
• Marvel Super Heroes by TSR is an engagingly straightforward superhero RPG that is particularly accessible for younger gamers.
• The Mountain Environment by Gamelords, Ltd. is a highly detailed supplement for wilderness adventures in mountainous terrain.
• Bree and the Barrow Downs by Iron Crown Enterprises is an immersive Middle-earth setting module with meticulously developed cultural and geographic detail.

The ARES section rounds out the issue with 14 pages of sci-fi and superhero content:

• "Does anyone here speak Aslan?" by Joseph Benedetto covers language skills in Traveller.
• "The Day of the Juggernaut" by William Tracy is a Star Frontiers scenario.
• "The Marvel-Phile" by Jeff Grubb provides statistics for the mysterious Cloak and Dagger.
• "Careers in Star Law" by Alex Curylo offers more details on this Star Frontiers organisation.
• "Don't Leave Home Without 'Em!" by Scott Hutcheon describes new equipment for Gamma World.

And that's a wrap! It was a substantial issue, with Greenwood's "Nine Hells Revisited" the obvious standout. There was some discussion in Dragon Reflections #90 as to whether the magazine was in decline by this point. I'd say not yet, but there are warning signs ahead. Gygax's creative contributions will ramp up over the coming months, then cease altogether as he is eased out of the company, with veteran Dragon editor Kim Mohan following soon after. Grognardia identifies this year as the moment D&D moves from its Golden Age to its Silver Age, with the product overly influenced by second-rate epic fantasy and a decadent concern with fantasy realism and dramatic coherence. I'm sure my commentators will have views.

Next month, we have lots on clerics, the ecology of the Ettin, and the return of Pages from the Mages!

 

[fuindordm]

Watt-Evans is one of my favorite authors to this day, and his first major series The Lords of Dūs is a worthy successor to Appendix N swords & sorcery.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

Fair call - I think you've got a lot more experience with the game than I have

Maybe, but almost all my SF play time came after Knight Hawks was out and integrated it into gameplay extensively, so I may be biased. Our initial stab at the basic game hit the Volturnus modules and nearly killed all interest in it for good. As one of my fellow players said, this entire planet is so freaking ridiculous it makes Gamma World look like hard science fiction by comparison. Thankfully, we were all starship combat fans, and when it did come out KH as a game unto itself was good enough to pull everyone back in.

Truth be told, I first read Knight Hawks after I'd already started playing Star Wars D6, and the latter coloured how I thought star ships can/should be run in an RPG.

We came into SF/KH after playing a fair bit of Traveller, and had almost a year of FASA Star Trek under our belts by the time KH came out, so a pretty different basis for our expectations. Traveller was a lot better about not gating starship skills away from starting PCs, and FASA Trek made an elaborate team sub-game out of any starship combat, with every PC having specific duties to perform.

WEG Star Wars came quite a bit later for us, we were all getting out of college (or entering grad school) by then.

I still wish WOTC would update and release a new version of Star Frontiers. I suspect it would sell reasonably well - not D&D numbers, of course.

Considering how active the fan base still is, I imagine it could do pretty well - but "pretty well" by industry standards is nowhere near good enough for Hasbro. There's also the nasty taint of NuTSR's abortive attempt to steal the Star Frontiers name still clinging to it, although I doubt that would have much real impact at this point, it got quashed pretty quickly.

Watt-Evans is one of my favorite authors to this day, and his first major series The Lords of Dūs is a worthy successor to Appendix N swords & sorcery.

Wholeheartedly agreed. Lords of Dus is arguably his magnum opus, but I've never read anything by him (including this issue's short story) that I really didn't like. Still kind of boggling that the (much longer, and still ongoing) Ethshar series doesn't have a much bigger following in the fantasy gaming community. It's some of the best gaming-adjacent fiction out there, and yet many people haven't even heard of it.

Anyone else remember the article in Space Gamer #28 with rules for porting Overmen into The Fantasy Trip?

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I thought DL1 at least gave you a few meaningful choices along the way. DL2, by contrast, has one of the worst railroading sequences I've ever seen. It's my "go to" example of what to avoid.

I recently re-read DL1 and was surprised at the sandbox elements (paired with a handful of timed events). Would that the rest of the series had continued that approach.

 

[Zaukrie]

Watt-Evans is one of my favorite authors to this day, and his first major series The Lords of Dūs is a worthy successor to Appendix N swords & sorcery.

Their books are entertaining for sure

 

[fuindordm]

Wholeheartedly agreed. Lords of Dus is arguably his magnum opus, but I've never read anything by him (including this issue's short story) that I really didn't like. Still kind of boggling that the (much longer, and still ongoing) Ethshar series doesn't have a much bigger following in the fantasy gaming community. It's some of the best gaming-adjacent fiction out there, and yet many people haven't even heard of it.

A friemd of mine at Uni ran a Fantasy HERO campaign in the Eshthar universe. He modeled all seven or eight types of magic pretty easily with those rules.

 

[BWP]

Agreed. It was kinda weird how they just added a war game to Star Frontiers to handle ship combat. It kinda makes sense, but it never really felt like it integrated starship travel into the roleplaying game - not in the way that Traveller did.

Consider that SPI had tried it just a year or two earlier with their Universe SFRPG; the boxed set included the Delta-Vee hex-based spaceship wargame (which was also released separately as a stand-alone game). Unfortunately, this was pretty much a total failure, as DV was OK (but not outstanding), but far too complex to drop into the middle of an RPG session, especially if none of the players had ever played it as a stand-alone (and in my gaming group, not everyone was especially interested in stand-alone starship combat games). If Universe had made any attempt at all to provide some sort of simplified quick-playing alternative it might have been OK, but it didn't, and it wasn't. Overall, the game left the distinct impression that it had been designed by people who had some good SF ideas and knew how to design wargames, but really had no idea at all what an RPG was or should be.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

Universe was faulted by both contemporary critics and fans for its combat systems - both personal and ship battles - being too slow and complicated for an RPG. Rightly so IMO, and despite being better received and much better remembered, I've always felt Dragonquest suffered almost as badly when it came to personal combat slowing down the game to a snail's pace. Didn't get much better as a wargame unto itself either, Arena of Blood was a bore to play. For a game designed as a Traveller killer, Universe largely failed at the task right out of the gate.

Hard to really say where Universe might have gone in the long run, but SPI was gone less than two years after its release and TSR had zero interest in continuing with the game when Star Frontiers was already doing fine. Pretty muchonly sold it until they ran out of the 2nd edition stock they'd gotten from looting SPI's corpse. Dragonquest met a similar fate. The one major expansion for the game was a long article in Ares adding the first alien species to the game, a well thought-out set of natural shapeshifters who weren't just Thing expies and had an interesting and pretty cohesive culture. Not quite up there with the best of the Traveller alien modules but close, and definitely showed promise. There was also a smaller adventure in Ares, although I wasn't as impressed by that.

 

[BWP]

DQ 1st ed. combat was indeed pretty terrible; slow and clunky and worst of all, didn't even work very well.

DQ 2nd ed. combat, on the other hand, was exactly what my players and I were looking for, and ticked pretty nearly every box for us. We didn't find it slow or complicated at all. For many years afterwards, we would happily graft bits and pieces of that combat system into other games where we thought it made sense. Our games always were oriented towards combats rather than non-combat situations; we liked any game that we thought had an interesting combat system that was neither too simplistic nor too difficult. The failure of DQ as a game (aside from being throttled by TSR) was that it never saw the extensive playtesting that it needed for long campaigns to actually work; everything kind of broke apart once the game was stress-tested.

Universe, unfortunately, didn't succeed in ticking any of our boxes ... except for the planet-generating system. That was pretty cool IMO. Unfortunately, as it was only a GM exercise, not of much use in getting anyone to actually want to play the game! No-one we knew cared at all when TSR throttled it, too.

 

[R_Chance]

As always, thanks for the article. Despite this issue having a lot of good material it just didn't register with me as memorable. I have it in hard copy and PDF (courtesy of the Dragon Magazine archive). You have helped me address this oversight and look back to see the good articles in it. A nostalgia fix for something I didn't even remember Thank you.