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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 7952000" data-attributes="member: 27780">12 years ago today, I set out to read and review every single issue of Dragon magazine. An enormous journey that took precisely 6 years of daily posting, and was left open for a sequel. Having finally managed to find every issue of Polyhedron as well, this felt like the right time to set out on another epic journey through the history of roleplaying, and see how it developed month by month from a different perspective. I hope you'll join me again on the trip, and it'll be both entertaining and educational. Without further ado, let's get started.TSR RPGA Volume 1, No. 1: Summer 1981Part 1/416 pages. Here we go again then. Interestingly, they aren't actually called Polyhedron yet, although they already have a d20 as part of their logo. Production values are higher than The Strategic Review, but below that of Dragon even at it's start, with no color, and decidedly sketchy line Illustrations. (Although Darlene does contribute a pretty decent cover.) Evidently the RPGA was running on a shoestring when it started, even though TSR itself had pretty decent revenues by this point. It'll definitely be interesting to see how that changes over the years as conventions expand, and presumably their membership does as well. But first, let's see how they fill this one on their own, before the majority of even their own organisation knew about it and could contribute to it.Letters: Unsurprisingly, there are no letters addressed to them this month, although the other TSR staff have been made aware and are mostly enthusiastic about the idea of the newszine. They decide to be a bit cheeky and swipe one from the Dragon slush pile about characters gaining an AC bonus as they level. They disapprove of the idea, partly because gaining hit points as you level is supposed to represent your increasing ability to avoid damage anyway, not superhuman toughness, and partly because they're running tournament adventures, and so they have to do things strictly by the book for the competition and scoring system to be fair. Ah yes, the whole Official AD&D™ Rules vs basic D&D stuff that Gary made so much noise about back then. I definitely remember that well. Not surprised we'd see more of that in here, since it's right on the frontlines dealing with the most hardcore of fans.Dispel Confusion: Also unsurprisingly, given their insistence on adhering to Official AD&D™ Rules in tournaments, is lots of questions as to exactly what those rules are. So they're starting this column up, which is basically just Sage Advice under a different name, and I have no doubt we'll be seeing plenty of it over the years, as rules quibbles are neverending, and only grow moreso the more supplements you add, with combinations of rules that were never considered by their writers growing geometrically. Let's see what they were concerned about back then.Don't the PHB & DMG contradict each other about how wizards learn spells? (Nonsense!, the two combine into a harmonious whole! )What do AC & Damage for humanoids mean? (Most of them are wearing armor & wielding weapons. We'll be more explicit about this in future editions)Can Paladins become lycanthropes despite being immune to disease? (fraid so. Makes for better angsty drama that way.)How much does magical armor really weigh? (Half for some purposes, none for others. Seems a bit like needless complexity, but there you go. Be honest, are you really tracking this stuff in detail anyway?)</blockquote>

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