Just got the CD with issues 1-250; What is best, IYNSHO?

[sckeener]

Has anyone tried the software with Microsoft's Vista? I've managed to get it to work under 98, NT, 2000, and XP, but I am a bit worried about Vista.

 

[DM-Rocco]

I see a wealth of articles but don't know where to begin.

What are the issues/articles/etc. from the first 250 issues of Dragon Magazine (and the 7 "The Strategic Review" issues) would you recommend as the best to look at?

I am in a 3rd ed. game now (and love it, by the way), but have hopes of running a Castles and Crusades game in the future.

I always enjoyed issue #51, working your way up to 1st level. A great article concerning 0th level characters. I always start new groups out at 0th level, great fun, even in 3.0.

There is also a thread somewhere that reviews each issue 0-whatever. I'll see if I can find it.

 

[Zaukrie]

Besides the obvious, the aka article is great. Gives all kinds of alternative names for creatures - I mean, what commoner accurately names a monster. A great way to have your people prepare for a dragaon and face a wyvern instead (well, in the good old days when a wyvern looked like a wyevern) for example.

Anything by Kerr is well thought out and well written. Andy Collins is another favorite author, especially his castles article(s). Greenwood's early articles are great, especially if you want a different feel to your FR, or to build your own cosmology, or have a great view of the Hells or Portals or monsters!

Alternate paladins (which are really champions of different alignments) - nice article. The magic pathways article.

 

[DungeonmasterCal]

I can't even begin to narrow down what would be "the best" articles. I love my CD Dragon collection so bad..

 

[ephemeron]

There's a saying that the Golden Age of science fiction is 12 -- I suspect (and have said before) that Dragon works similarly, in that most people seem to think the best issues are the ones that came out around the time they first discovered the magazine.

With that said:

I second the recommendation for Paths of Magic. I never got to try it out, but it looks like a great way to add flavor to wizards.

There's a great series of articles by Tom Moldvay in #126, #138, #162, and #198 that goes through the literary and folkloric inspirations for a bunch of kinds of undead (and stats up some variations on the major themes).

Like Illithids? Issue #150 has "The Sunset World" -- a snippet of a setting ruled by mind flayers -- and the "Dragon's Bestiary" in which the Illithidae (3.5'ed up in Lords of Madness) made their debut.

#170's "From Hatchling to Immortal Guardian" has an interesting take on the draconic life cycle. It was originally written for BECM D&D, but the ideas are eminently stealable.

Allen Varney's article Turkey's Underground Cities is available online, but the illustrated version is in Dragon #201.

Also, you should know about the DragonDex subject index. It's a very handy way to find Dragon articles on whatever you happen to be interested in at the moment.

 

[ephemeron]

Has anyone tried the software with Microsoft's Vista? I've managed to get it to work under 98, NT, 2000, and XP, but I am a bit worried about Vista.

Even if the software isn't Vista-compatible, the magazines in the archive are standard PDF files, so you'll still be able to access them.

 

[Mark CMG]

I see a wealth of articles but don't know where to begin.

That might be the biggest treasure you have ever uncovered!

 

[Alzrius]

Snarfquest would be my second favourite comic series behind Knights of the Dinner Table. It's a pity it ended when it did. There was still a lot of things they could do with it.

SnarfQuest actually isn't over. It continues to appear in the bi-monthly magazine Games Unplugged, drawn in color now.

It also had several other iterations not seen in Dragon. The first compilation included not only the first half of the comics in Dragon (the story of Snarf out to become king) but also had a few full-color single page comics, and an all-new story (in full-color, I think) about Snarf and the game versus a werewolf. It also had AD&D 2E and Basic D&D stats for Snarf and the gang.

The second compilation (currently in print, I think) has all of the Dragon strips, though I'm not sure if it has the werewolf story from the first (or the single-page prints).

Finally, there's a d20 SnarfQuest book, which annotates the comics somewhat as it discusses how to make a humorous campaign. It also has 3.5 stats for the characters and other things from the comics (though in some places the mechanics seem a bit shaky).

 

[Henry]

MY ALL-TIME FAVORITE: Lew Pulsipher's "Be Aware, take care" article. Issue #80, I think? it was somewhere in the 70 to 90 range. The suggestions are dated now, written for AD&D, but the wisdom is there for how to prepare for a game of D&D with a more... tactical... mindset. Something that used to be called "good play" back in the Gygax days, but now is probably referred to as "gamist" play. It's still got some good pointers to reduce the number of times new players wind up getting their characters killed by doing really careless acts.

 

[Thurbane]

What are the Worry comics? I assume that you mean Wormy?

Err, yep, Wormy...LOL